ed in the other. All of them, as is likewise remarked by the same great moralist, deserve their rewards, or wages, as well as the productive class; provided always, I should add, that they be not unnecessarily multiplied, so as not to have real duties to perform equivalent to those rewards which they receive as recompense. That this will not be the case with regard to one distinct sort of the unproductive labourers there is always a sufficient security, as we have already shown, arising from the private interest of those who employ that sort; and the same motives of private interest can be easily rendered available for the like purpose of security against any undue increase of the other sort of unproductive labourers, or those who are employed in a public capacity, by the simple expedient of extending the right of suffrage or control over their appointments to those who bear the charges of their support and maintenance, this principle of regulation, or check, founded on the feeling of private interest, being the natural and obvious, as it is the only effectual ground of security and reliance against abuse or injustice in all affairs between man and man which fall to be regulated by political constitutions or codes of law.

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All those, then, who are employed in the necessary business of the society we call labourers, whether they be engaged in the productive or unproductive departments of useful labour; and both classes have been shown to be equally useful and equally necessary. The necessity of the one class

• It will be obvious to the reader that both productive and unproductive labourers belong to "the industrious classes ;" and, according to our notions, a minister of state, a judge or lawyer, accountant, &c. may be as industrious as well as useful as any productive labourer whatever. I shall add here, that the general interest of all labourers, productive and unproductive, is the same in regard to preventing any great or undue increase of that portion of the unproductive class

arises from the scanty and inadequate provision, or means of subsistence and enjoyment, which the earth unassisted affords, or what may be reckoned the imperfection of external nature; the necessity of the other arises from the imperfection of human nature itself,-from the violence of passion, which provokes to injustice, and the cloudiness of reason, which but feebly and inadequately supplies a remedy.

which is employed in the administration of government, because, as that portion is increased, the productive class must be diminished to the same extent, and must consequently work longer or harder than before; and so likewise must the unproductive class, by the principle of competition, in all those departments where that principle is allowed to operate.

Sir Walter Scott, in an introductory discourse to one of his novels, has the following shrewd observations on the subject of productive and unproductive labour :

"I do say it," says Sir Walter, "in spite of Adam Smith and his followers, that a successful author is a productive labourer, and that his works constitute as effectual a part of the public wealth as that which is created by any other manufacture. If a new commodity, having an actually intrinsic and commercial value, be the result of the operation, why are the author's bales of books to be esteemed a less profitable part of the public stock than the goods of any other manufacturer?"-Fortunes of Nigel, Introductory Epistle, pp. 33, 34.

Now this doctrine of Sir Walter Scott agrees entirely, it is plain, with that which is advanced in this inquiry, namely, that all are productive labourers who are engaged directly in the production of wealth or vendible commodities, and an author, consequently, who produces a book that will sell, (to the booksellers or others) is necessarily, according to our notions, a productive labourer. Nor are the doctrines of Smith, when carefully examined into, really different. It is true indeed, that in one place Dr Smith says, that in the class of unproductive labourers "must be ranked men of letters of all kinds;" but he had just before stated as the criterion by which an unproductive labourer is distin guished, that his labour "does not fix and realize itself in any permanent subject or vendible commodity ;" and it is to be recollected that in Dr Smith's time, literary labours were but rarely or very in

CHAPTER V.

OF THE CLASS OF NON-LABOURERS; OR OF THOSE PERSONS WHO DO NOT LABOUR AT ALL, OR NEED TO LABOur.

SECTION I.

THAT THE ONLY PERSONS ENTITLED TO EXEMPTION FROM LABOUR ARE THE PROPRIETORS OF LAND AND THE PROPRIETORS OF CAPITAL.*

BUT, besides the two classes of labourers described in the preceding chapter, and distinguished according to their different sorts of industry, there is a third class of persons to be found in every civilized community who do not labour at all, or need to labour, but are at liberty to pursue (solely if they please,) their own private pleasure and amusement. This class consists of those persons who derive their revenue from their land or capital, and who may be considered as

adequately rewarded. But here, in the case supposed by Sir Walter Scott, the labour of "the man of letters" fixes and realizes itself in the form of a book or manuscript, which proves to be vendible, and consequently brings the author, according to Dr Smith's own rule, within the description and denomination of a productive labourer.

• Land, it will be said, is capital; and so indeed it is in every country where wealth and population have increased to that degree that it has become vendible property; but then it is capital of so distinct and peculiar a kind, and the revenue or rent arising from it is regulated or influenced in regard to its increase and decrease by circumstances so very different and even opposite from those which regulate and influence the increase and decrease of the revenue, or profit, arising from other sorts of capital, that it becomes absolutely necessary to distinguish them in order to their being treated of, and always to give the land its appropriate name almost as often as we speak of it.

having been emancipated or exempted from all obligation or necessity to labour by their own or their father's industry and parsimony, or good fortune, which enabled them to amass, or to produce that capital or store of wealth, which continues, if preserved from dissipation, in all future time, to be a source of revenue without requiring the performance any labour on the part of its possessors, save that which is necessary to preserve it, or to invest and secure it in the

of

best manner.

This class must be carefully distinguished from the labourers, productive and unproductive. It is composed entirely of land-holders and capitalists; and perhaps the latter appellation might be used singly (as frequently it is used) to designate both. But it will be necessary to distinguish this class still farther, when occasion requires, by the name of non-labourers. Not that the individuals of this class are precluded or debarred by their social condition and just, privileges from the exertion of their industry in any way that they think fit; nor is it intended to say that they are morally exempted from the general obligation incumbent upon all men to employ their time, their labour, and their talents, in the best manner they are able, with a view to the production of the greatest sum of good, or of human happiness, although it be left entirely to their own choice and discretion to determine what they should do, or in what manner they should contribute towards this end; neither is it meant to be insinuated that this order of men are more remiss in their duties or less strenuous in their labours and endeavours to contribute to the public happiness or prosperity than any other class of men whatsoever. All that is intended by the term non-labourers, as applied to designate this class, is merely to recognise their right and privilege, and to distinguish them from those who must necessarily labour; for the only persons entitled to the privilege implied by this term are the proprietors of land and the pro

prietors of capital. All others must labour; or, if they do not, and live, they must either be supported by the free bounty of others, or maintain themselves by robbery, or by fraud or artifice of some sort or other.

It is very far indeed from my intention to deny that the individuals of this class labour frequently as assiduously and as diligently as any other members of the community, though not always, it must be confessed, in the walks of profitable or self-interested industry. They oftener work for nothing than any other class; and that this should be the case might very naturally be expected, because they are better able to do so than the others, and many of them have no other object in the pursuit of which they choose to occupy themselves, or in which they so much delight, as in seeking how they may best promote the good of their neighbours or of their country. Still, however, whether they labour or not, they are entitled to consume wealth to the extent of their income derived from land or capital; or, even if they please, the whole amount and value of their land and capital itself. And by so much as they consume above what they produce by their labour, by so much are they non-labourers. Their capital stands in the place of the labour of their hands, and may be conceived as labouring for them, as it assists the labourer in the work of production, and thereby creates a fund to which no labourer or borrower of capital has any right, but which falls due to the proprietors of the capital as the proper inducement or reward for its preservation and increase.

Probably there is not and never was in the world, any individual who was absolutely and altogether a non-labourer, in the full sense of the word, during his whole life; or who never, upon any occasion, or in any manner of way, by accident or design, performed one single act of useful labour. Every person, it is probable, has done some things which must have furthered the business of mankind in some way