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Show ON THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES unproductive labour. If some such traces ho,;y .. ever are to be found, they will be found in exact conforn1ity to the theory here laid dovvn; they will be found during a period, when, fro1r1 particular circun1stances, the value of the national produce was not maintained, and there was in consequence a great diminution of the power of expenditure, and a great check to the production of vvealth. Perhaps it will be said, that to lay so n1uch stress on distribution, and to n1easure demand by the exchangeable value of the vvhole produce, is to exalt the gross revenue at the expense of the neat revenue of a country, and to favour that systen1 of cultivation and manufacturing which en1ploys on · each object the greatest number of hands. But I have ah·eady she\vn that the savino· of labour and b ' the increase of skill, both in agriculture and 1nanu ... facturing industry, by enabling a country to nush its cu1tivation over poorer lands, 'vithout din~inu-· tion of profits, and to extend far and ,vide the n1arkets for its n1anufactures, must tend to increase the excha11geable value of the whole· and there cannot be a doubt that in this country' they n1ust hav.e ~een _the main sources of that rapid and as .. ton1sh1ng Increase in the value of the national wealth, which has taken p1ace durin<r the last 1 . b t 11 rty or forty years. · rro dwell therefore l11ainly on the gross revenue of a country rather than on its neat revenue is in no r~spect to under-rate the prodio-ious advantao·e de-nve d. f ro1n s1 ( 1'1 1 and n1achincry,o but n1erely too give that unportance to the value of the 'vV hole produce SEC. VI.] O:F THE PROGRESS OF WEALTH. 423 to which it is so justly entitled. No description of national 'v-calth, 'vhich refers only to neat re- . venue, can ever be in any degree satisfactory. The Economists destroyed the practical utility of their works by referring exclusively to the neat produce of the land. And the writers who make wealth con- sist of rents and profits, to the ex' clusion of ':vages, cotumit an error exactly of the same kind though less in degree. Tho~e who live upon the ,v-ages of labour, unproductive as well as productive, receive and expend much the greatest part of the annual produce, pay a very considerable sum in taxes for the maintenance of the government, and form by far the largest portion of its physical force. Under the prevalence of habits of pru-dence, thew hole of this vast tnass tnight be nearly as happy as the individuals of the other t\VO classes, and probably a greater nun1ber of them, though not a greater proportion of them, happier. In every point of view therefore, both in reference to the part of the annual produce which falls to their share, and the tneans of health and happiness which it may be presutned to cotntnunicate, those who live on the 'vacres of labour n1ust be con- .d b s~ ered as the n1ost in1portant portion of the so- ~Iety; and any definition of wealth which should Involve such a din1inution of their nutnbers, as to require for the supply of the whole population a smaller annual produce, n1ust necessarily be erroneous. In the First Chapter of this Work, having defined wealth to be "the material objects 'vhich are ne- E E4 • |
