imaginations of modern readers,

who are scared with such adventures as those of Ulysses in the Cyclops cave. The spot, however, has ever since been famous in the annals of our popular superstitions, and especially became a favourite haunt of the Mermaids, for, according to the old ballad,

"The Mermaid sat on the Carlin Stane,
A-kaiman' her gowden hair,
The May ne'er was in Clydesdale wide
Was ever half sae fair."

I shall most probably transmit by next month the conclusion of this lengthened paper on Wraithly superstition, and, in the meanwhile, I am your obedient servant.

C. T. C. S.

SOME OTHER REMARKS ON THE EF-
FECTS OF WAR AND TAXATION,

BY A DISCIPLE OF THE PRODUC-
TIVE SCHOOL.

MR EDITOR,

WITH respect to war, as a voluntary measure, I should think there can be but one opinion in a civilized nation; and I can assure you, though I differ greatly with your essayist for October, as to the results arising from it, in regard to the production of wealth, I have as strong a dislike to it, as he or any economist in the country. Most cordially do I wish, that nations would learn to live on friendly terms with one another; peace would afford them all employment enough; but I confess, I do not expect they will. Let statisticians think or feel as they may, the great body of men, whatever they may pretend in words, will continue to be what they have ever yet been, too fond of the animating though violent and dangerous employments of war.

Our essayist gives the following definition of what he understands by productive and unproductive labour: That which adds materially to the comforts and necessaries of life, and that which adds nothing to the common stock, or nothing in proportion to what it takes away from it in order to maintain itself."-p. 331.

This corresponds with the opinion of M. Say; and were I to admit, that utility, or the real advantage of society, was the source and measure of exchangeable value, or wealth, I

VOL. III.

should deuce from this principle, that the employment of a soldier was really productive. Let me quote here a passage from Mr Gray's friendly letter to M. Say on this very subject, in which his object is to shew, that utility is neither the sole nor immediate source, nor yet the measure, of productiveness. "It appears clear to me, that the portion in the price of things, consisting of the charge for government, is as essentially connected with what possesses a real utility, as the portions charged for subsistence, clothing, lodging, service, &c. These imposts (taxes) are the medium by which government, as the agent of the public, charges the people for the services performed for them, by soldiers, sailors, diplomatists, and others. Forming in many cases a separate charge, they are looked upon by the multitude as something of a different kind from other charges, and of an odious character; something that is taken from them, not voluntarily given, and for which they receive nothing tangible or visible in return. They do, in fact, however, receive in return something most truly valuable, which is protection from foreign enemies, and from lawless, dishonest, and ferocious men at home. But this article is not tangible, or visible like the bread purchased from the baker, or the clothes from the tailor. What then? Is it not as substantial a good? And does it not tend as really to their happiness?"-All Classes Productive, p. 127. "If the government part of the price of things be unproductive, then it cannot possibly be from its being charged for what does not possess real utility.”—Principles of Population and Production, p. 410.

Our essayist is quite gamesome in his illustration of what he calls unproductive, but what I and most others would style foolish labour. Were I disposed at present, in discussing a most important question, to indulge in the merry pin, I could quote here some drollish examples of productive labour according to Dr Smith, by visiting Birmingham, Coventry, Paisley, Lyons, and a hundred towns beside, that are very productive from being employed more or less in what the surly moralist would call very childish and ridiculous sorts of labour, Our graver folks might

3 s

even be disposed to reckon many of these more trifling and degrading to a rational being, to say nothing of being injurious to health, than this essayist's salubrious but unproductive specimen of running up and down a hill.

Indeed, it would be difficult to set bounds to the prunings or limitations of the grave professors of the utility school; one or other of them, as the gloomy retrenching humour prevailed, would put one article after another, buttons, buckles, laces, gauzes, ribbands, chintzes, frills, tuckers, trinkets, stays, wigs, the numberless ornaments of furniture, &c., as the fripperies of fashion, into the list of the useless contraband, till at length we should be reduced to the bearskin with the rough side in, in winter, and out in summer, without feather and bead, and to the simple wigwam or the mere cave. We should then, according to some Rousseau of this school, have reached the ne plus ultra of utility, and, of course, of solidly productive labour, and genuine wealth.

But not to have recourse to the extravagancies of hypochondriacal sumptuary theorists, there would be a considerable difference of opinion among old and young economists as to what was productive and enriching, according to the standard of utility. A great variety of articles which our belles and dandies would determine to be vastly useful and enriching, the grandfather, and even the father, would think perfectly useless, and tending to impoverish by squandering money for no good purpose. In their economical rage, the latter might style them vile expensive gewgaws, contemptible bawbles, childish knickknackery, only calculated to foment vanity and extravagance, and to lead the female wearers into vicious practices, and the males to bankruptcy. Some of the more economical old moralists might reckon the use of these as dangerous to the young, as dramdrinking to the older, and look on those who spend their time in the productive labour of fabricating such trumpery, as more uselessly and more contemptibly employed, than the Merry-Andrew, tumbler, and juggler, in making faces, performing feats of agility, or exhibiting tricks for the amusement of the multitude.

But though I should never think for a moment of comparing the knickknackery exercises of these productive labourers of Dr Adam Smith's school, in point of utility, with those of the soldier and sailor, who labour in the defence of their country, or of the statesman who labours in maintaining that inestimable blessing, internal tranquillity, I admit them to be as really productive to the amount of the income which they obtain, as those of the latter; not, however, for the reason that the Doctor gives; or because the knicknacks have a kind of permanent, tangible, and visible existence, or are vendible commodities. It is because, according to the arrangements of nature, being, in the language of the productive school, called for by the demand, they possess the quality of chargeability in a profitable degree. Thus they produce income to the makers and sellers, and will necessarily reproduce employment and income to others; just like the exertions of soldiers, sailors, statesmen, ploughmen, and farmers.

Were certain labourers to have nothing but utility to recommend their articles, unless there be a demand, they would find that utility would procure them neither a price nor a dinner, nor enable them to reproduce employment. Their labours would prove unproductive. On the other hand, too often trash articles of a thousand va rious kinds, because a demand exists, will bring a profitable price, and enable the makers and sellers to live comfortably, as well as reproduce employment and income to others.

Our essayist supposes a pleasant case of unproductive labour. "If,” says he, "the Board of Works were to have a canal made from London to the Land's End of England, (as has been proposed) this, for aught we know, would be productive labour, and well paid for out of the public taxes; because the public might, in the end, reap the benefit of the money and labour so employed. But if the government were, by the advice of some fantastical professor of political economy, to order this canal to be lined all the way with gold leaf, which would be washed away as soon as the water came into the canal, this is what we should call unproductive labour."-p. 332.

By the way, I agree with him, this adviser would be a fantastical profes

sor. And I should conjecture he must be procured from some of the schools of economism: perhaps out of the bullion school, as he is so very fond of gold. This flight, however, is at present particularly out of season. Government, like the rest of our feverish nation, is labouring too severely under the epidemical typhus of retrenchment, right or wrong, to think of lining canals with gold leaf. The gilding times are gone by for the present. I should much rather suspect it would act like those economists of the first sapience, those models of retrenchment, the ministers of the affairs of Drury Lane, whose object is not to raise an income-that is a wild ideabut to reduce the expenditure. I question, if government, like them, would not, in order to retrench, prevent the canal from being dug deep enough to carry the vessels intended; in order to economise, stint the labour required to make it water-tight, and, in order to save expence, forbid all gravel for the towing road. This is genuine economism, for the tax would be so much less.

But let us suppose with your essayist, government, in a fit of jolly extravagance, were to line its canal with gold leaf, I should agree with him, that this labour would be perfectly foolish, and perfectly useless, but I should not consider it as unproductive. It would be an additional source of income to the bullion-dealers, goldbeaters, gilders, &c. It would create some additional stimulus. The demand for gold leaf and gilding, from the usual quarters, would be as before, while here was a new market to a certain amount. It would produce income to all employed, an additional capital to some, and thus reproduce employment and income, like any other productive labour, round the circle. Would the dinner, which the lining of this canal would produce to the gold-beaters, and gilders, and their families, be less substantial, because they had gotten it with wages obtained from labouring in a foolish project? Or, would the capital be less available, or yet effective? The stimulus which it would create would operate, to its amount, just as if caused by a wise and useful measure.”

* Our correspondent seems to forget, in this mode of reasoning, the source from which the funds for procuring this gold-leaf lining

Our essayist gives us next an instance of more useful labour than

must be drawn. If it could be got for nothing, without labour, without any sacrifice of capital or income, all his results might be admitted without much difficulty. But must not the money that is paid for this gold leaf come out of the pockets of the people, and thus withdraw a part of their capital or income, their means of giving employment, from useful labourers? It seems, therefore, to be nothing more, in the first instance, than a mere transfer of capital, and a forced one, from useful to useless labour. But, when we proceed a step farther, the matter appears in its true light. This gold leaf project, which, for a time, produced income, and additional capital to some, and thus reproduced employment and income," is gone, like the baseless fabric of a vision, and leaves scarcely a trace behind. It is nothing to the purpose to say, that it has given a substantial dinner to the gold-beaters, and gilders, and their families; for, have not the manufacturer, the merchant, the farmer, and all the other usefully employed classes, from whom the money was drawn, dined so much the worse on that account? The money that has been expended on this notable undertaking would have given a dinner to the ploughman and the weaver; and then we should have had corn and clothes to show for it. These are not merely tangible and vendible commodities, but things for which there is always a demand. We would get back our money for them, and probably with a profit, and this money might go on, reproducing dinners, income, capital, and employment, ad infinitum. But when the gold leaf is washed away, what remains ? The original cost of the material is so much capital lost for ever, as much so, as if it

had been thrown at once into the German sea; and there is nothing left but what may have been saved by the labourers employed out of their wages. But the greater part of these wages, all that was consumed by the labourers while the work was going on, is lost too. For this, as for the cost of the materials, there is nothing to show, nothing to enjoy, nothing to sell and bring back our money. The nation is just so much poorer by these two items of expenditure, and to the extent of the savings of the gold-beaters, &c. it is merely a transfer case. But, had the money been employed on a useful project, the nation might have been not only as rich as it was before, but richer by the profits which it would have realized in agriculture, manufactures, or commerce. In short, if we understand this ingenious writer a-right, a nation may build pyramids and monuments without number, ten times larger than those of Egypt, maintain as many sailors and seamen as it pleases, and pay as many taxes

gilding canals with gold leaf, which, according to his notion, was not productive: "A patriotic nobleman built a brick wall round his estate, to give employment to the poor." The purpose was excellent, and it was for the employer to choose how he would have these people employed. You, Sir, will recollect an instance of a stone wall, I believe, 19 feet high, being built round the home estate of a certain gentleman. He laid out on it, I have heard, L. 22,000, but, at the higher price-rate of labour, and other articles, the consequence of our better style of living, and the addition to our taxes, it would have cost him now, perhaps, L. 60,000. You will remem ber it gave employment and income for many years to several families, and one or two saved some capital from it. Now, why is not this productive employment? Because, according to the notion of our essayist, he would have done better in laying out his money in raising corn, or building cottages, and so forth. This, with respect to the happiness of the employer, depends upon his own ideas. The gentleman I speak of was so fond of this hobby, as we shall style it, that he used to superintend the work with great constancy, not only to enjoy the progress of this creation of his, but to expedite it, in order to complete it ere he died, for his successors might have different notions. For the employed again, the masons and others, were they not productively engaged in their own lines? Did not the L. 22,000 as effectually reproduce employment and income to the amount, by means of these masons, &c. as if the sum had been laid out on ploughmen and linenweavers? But the result might have been more profitable, on the whole, in the latter mode of employing his money. Let even this be supposed-how does it follow because more income may be obtained by weaving silk, or building in hewn stone, than by weaving linen, or building a stone dike, that the latter modes are unproductive? Are they not really productive to the amount of the income they create, though not so productive as the former? By the arrangements of na

as its rulers please, and yet all the people, and every individual. be, in the meanwhile, living better, and accumulating wealth without limit. But where does it all come from ?-EDItor.

ture, the rate of productiveness of the various circulators is very different; but the productiveness of all is real to its amount, for it will reproduce that amount. This wall-builder might even create more stimulus by this unusual mode of employing income, than by raising corn. In the latter case be would interfere with the farmer in his supply, and might have lowered his prices. In the former, he created a new demand, which interfered with no regular supply. “But he might have pulled down the wall after it was built," if he chose. So he might have thrown down the cottages. And what though he had? Would that have aunihilated the income which building this wall had already produced to so many, or the employment and income which it had already reproduced among the various circulators?

But I encroach on your room as well as patience.-The "five hundred millions of war-taxes," says our economist, "have been thrown away in what produces no return-sunk iù the war as much as if they had been sunk in the sea. We have nothing to shew for them. Where are the proceeds?". As a politician, I should say, the glory and safety of Great Britain, and the independence of the other states of Europe, rescued from the insulting and plundering hordes of a villanous military despotism. But I am discussing the question on the five per cent. principle; and, as a statistician, I am called on to shew what has become of the money in the per centage line. Now I say, that those five hundred millions (and much more) have been expended in creating employment and income to many hundred thousands directly, and to all the circulators of Britain indirectly; and that every nook of the island exhibits pleasing wealth-attesting proofs of this, and of the most extraordinary progress in every species of improvement resulting from it. The capital, accumulated by so many "who have made fortunes by the war and taxes," has long operated, is still operating, and will continue to operate, in reproducing employment and income. The interest of that terrible national debt, too, or, as I should call it, national service capital,* created by giving additional employment to

See All Classes Productive, p. 133-149.

so many myriads, is most actively employed in the same way. Nothing to shew for it in the five per cent. line! Let this economist go to the bank, and there he will find, every day, circulators of all ranks receiving the proceeds, in sums of from 10s. up to L. 10,000, and more. During the present quarter, though the amount be smaller than in the subsequent, this capital sends a per centage of from L. 80,000 to L. 90,000 aday into the market, to reproduce employment and income. The affirmation that "it is for the most part laid out in unproductive labour," may have some meaning in economism, but it has none in the statistics of real life. Every workman and every dealer, in getting his work or bills paid, finds it to be most substantially productive. The persons receiving the proceeds directly, lay them out as they please, or as their needs direct. But whether they use them as expenditure, or invest them as capital, they will reproduce employment and income among all classes of circulators in the circle, fully up to their immense daily amount.

But "the money which is paid in taxes is taken from the people." Granted; and the people in return charge for it in their respective prices. A decisive proof that they have been able to do this, is found in the rise of the average prices ; that is, of the income of the people of Great Britain during the war. This amounted to no less than L.160,000,000; while the increase in the taxes (including the tax on income, and the charge for poor's rates) was at the highest, at the close of the war, about L.64,000,000. Thus, the people, after charging 38 per cent. for government, had been able to add 62 per cent. more for themselves. After answering all the demands of government, they had obtained a clear additional income of L. 100,000,000.*

But it is added, "the labour for which the money raised by taxes pays, does not benefit the people.' And whom does it benefit but the people in general? Who but they receive the employment, and the income derived from the employment? According to the law of statistics, or the ar

rangement of nature, all increase of employment in a nation operates to the advantage of all its circulators in the circle.

"The carriage that glitters like a meteor along the streets of the metropolis, often deprives the wretched inmate of the distant cottage of the chair he sits on, the table he eats on, the bed he lies on." This is economism in all its fertility of wild fiction, and brilliancy of sheer but disThe reverse is torted imagination.

true, as far as taxes are concerned, in The emthe statistics of real life. ployment which these luxurious articles create in the metropolis and other large towns, and the increase of income and capital which it effects, enable them more extensively to employ, directly or indirectly, the most distant nooks of the country in their various lines. Scarcely a portion of Great Britain but shares in the supply of the demand of London, and of that created by the employment which has given, or continues to give, exist

ence to the taxes.

"A nation cannot be composed entirely of parish and state paupers." This is a very sapient observation. I shall add, in a similar strain, yet of ploughmen, shawl-weavers, soap-boilers, button-makers, or cartwrights."

Who

All unproductive labour is supported by productive labour;" and so is all productive labour supported by the economist's unproductive. pays the productive labourers? Do they pay themselves? Do they give their labours for nothing, and draw their income from their own pockets? Do not they draw it from the pockets of others? And, among the rest, Do not they dip deeply into the pockets of the unproductive classes of the economist ? productive labourers are found in these unproductive classes. The productive classes of Quesnay draw 70, and of Smith 42 per cent. from the incomes of the unproductive. "It is surely extraordinary enough," says the author of the Happiness of States, (p. 52.)" that unproductive classes should be necessary to render the productive really productive; or be the chief agents in paying them, or in rendering their articles of true value."

The best customers of

In what I have said on the subject