exchangeability, as the sole essence of wealth; and now he introduces the necessity of accumulation!

He then says "But in applying the term wealth to the industrial capacities of human beings, there seems always in popular apprehension to be a tacit reference to material products. .

"While, therefore, I should prefer, were I constructing a new technical language, to make the distinction turn upon the permanence rather than upon the materiality of the product."

Now here is new confusion added to the idea of Wealth; because many products of labour, such as trade secrets, the sciences, &c., are permanent without being material, and are not extracted from the materials of the globe. This doctrine of "permanence is also a manifest violation of the Law of Continuity. Things are of all degrees of permanence from those which last for ever down to those which perish in the using; that is, from those which may be exchanged an infinite number of times to those which can be exchanged only once. Now, if permanence be the criterion of wealth, what degree of permanence is necessary to constitute a thing wealth? Mill gives no notion of this. But the Law of Continuity says-That which is true up to the Limit is true at the Limit. Hence, if permanence or capability of being exchanged, be the criterion of wealth, that is Wealth which has the lowest degree of permanence, and is capable of the least number of exchanges-that is one-and which perishes while being used-like Labour. Hence Mill's distinction is utterly unphilosophical, and must be rejected.

He then says " I shall, therefore, in this treatise, when speaking of wealth, understand by it only what is called material wealth, and by productive labour, only those kinds of exertion which produce utilities embodied in material objects," and yet in the column side by side with this he says "The skill and the energy and perseverance of the artisans of a country are reckoned part of its wealth no less than their tools and machinery." And in a note to this passage he says "The human being himself I do not class as wealth. He is the purpose for which wealth exists. But his acquired capacities, which exists only as means, and have been called into existence by labour, fall rightly as it seems to me within that designation."

1 P. 30 People's Edition.

Now, the contradiction of these passages, which stand side by side, is flagrant. Mill first says that anything which has purchasing power is wealth. Then he says that only material things are wealth; then that the "production of wealth" is extraction from the "materials of the globe." Then he admits that "skill,” "energy," and "abilities" are wealth. Now, are skill, energy, and acquired abilities material products, and are they extracted from the materials of the globe?

Hence we reject in toto all this confusion and contradiction. Abilities, skill, knowledge of all sorts, are wealth simply because their use and employment may be bought and sold, and that exercise is termed LABOUR.

Freed, therefore, and disembarrassed from all these contradictions, Labour is simply a commodity, which is the subject of sale or exchange, like any other commodity. There is the Demand for, and the Supply of, Labour, just as there is of anything else, as is admitted repeatedly by these writers. Ricardo, who has not given any definition of wealth, sees this" Labour which like all other things which are purchased and sold "—" The natural price of all commodities, excepting raw produce and labour" ; thereby admitting that it is a commodity-res-which may be bought and sold.

So Lord Cardwell, on one occasion addressing his constituents, speaking of the working classes, said "their labour is their Capital," meaning, of course, the commodity they have to offer for sale to make a profit by.

The first thing, then, we establish is that LABOUR is itself a commodity; as Dr. Stirling says very truly2" Trade regards labour itself simply as a subject of traffic and exchange, a thing to be bought and sold in the market, a commodity-one, indeed, of primary importance, compared with which all others dwindle into insignificance; but still a commodity which varies in quantity and fluctuates in price, and the value of which, consequently, is governed by the very same laws which regulate the value of those commodities which are the products of labour. A day's or a year's labour has its price just as an ounce of silver or a bushel of corn has its price.

"Labour, it cannot be too often repeated, is nothing but a 1 Principles of Political Economy, ch. 3.

2 Philosophy of Trade, B. II., ch. 1.

subject of sale and merchandise, a commodity, liable to variations of quantity and consequent fluctuation of price."

Labour, therefore, being simply a commodity, there is a market for it like for any thing else. There is a labour market just as there is a corn market, or a meat market, or a poultry market, or a vegetable market, or a fish market.

7. It is extremely difficult to form any estimate of the quantity of money paid in exchange for Labour or services of all sorts. Professor Levi has made a calculation of the sums paid to those who, in common parlance, are erroneously termed the "working classes." He considers that in 1867 it amounted to about £418,000,000. But it takes no account of the sums paid for professional labour of all sorts, medical, legal, artistic, authorial, dramatic, clerical, and multitudes of other services too numerous to be specified individually, and consequently it gives but a very imperfect view of the whole question.

8. We are, however, unfortunately far from having disembarrassed the subject of all the confusion it has been thrown into by the unscientific language of Smith and Ricardo.

Labour being a generic name for the exertion of thought or abilities of any sort, there are, of course, as many different kinds of labour as there are different species of thought, and these are quite incommensurable with each other, and can by no possibility be compared with each other.

How can the labour of a ploughman, a carpenter, or a bricklayer be compared with the labour of a Newton, a Raphael, or a Shakespeare? How we can compare the "quantity of labour" in the Principia with the "quantity of labour" in the San Sisto, Macbeth, or the Messiah? How are we to compare the "quantity of labour" in the Comedy of Dante with the "quantity of labour" in one of Giotto's frescoes, or Ghiberti's doors of the Baptistery of Florence? And even in Labour of apparently the same nature there are innumerable varieties which are equally incommensurable with each other. In Poetry, in Painting, in Music, in Science,, there are numberless varieties which are incommensurable. How are we to compare the "quantity of labour" in the Paradise Lost with that in Othello? The "quantity of labour" in Tartuffe with that in Athalie? How are we to compare the "quantity of

labour" in the Transfiguration with that in Israel in Egypt, or Norma? How are we to compare the "quantity of labour" in a Bethel conducting a great Law case with that in a surgical operation by a Paget or a Fergusson? And similar examples might be multiplied to infinity.

Hence, like many other words of a generic nature, such as wine, the word labour comprehends an immense variety of species which can in no way whatever be compared with one another.

Mr. J. H. Burton has made the same observation1"It was an early doctrine of the Political Economists that labour is the measure of value. Abstractly this may be true; but practically labour is a thing too varied, and the distinctions between its different aspects are of too subtle a character, to admit of its being made an actual measure of value. Speaking of the labour that seems to be merely mechanical, shall we measure by the locksmith, the machine maker, and the chaser of the precious metals, or shall we measure by the ploughman, the handloom weaver, and the net maker? The former class make sums varying from 3s. to 15s. a day, and even more: the latter keep pretty close to the level of 1s. When we come to the field of intellectual labour, we find still wider differences; and soon see that it is impossible to establish labour as a practical measure. To speak of a thing being worth a day's labour generally, is, adopting the vulgar but discarded pecuniary measure of value, to speak of it as of some value between 1s. and 15s. Nor shall we be more successful if we take the produce of the labour. Who can compare the relative worth of the ploughing of a field, the weaving of a web, and the making of a watch, otherwise than by the sums they will respectively bring? Thus, practically, before it can itself serve as a measure, labour must be meted out by that other measure of value which is considered so uncertain-money."

9. Smith, from overlooking this very obvious consideration, has involved himself in immense confusion by making labour the measure of value, without the slightest indication of what kind of labour he means.

The Physiocrates made the earth the source of all Wealth, and greatly overlooked the importance of labour. Smith, as a reaction against this, begins his work by saying that the annual labour of Political and Social Economy. p. 22.

every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes! And, after describing the effects of the division of labour, he says that a man is rich or poor according to the quantity of that labour which he can command, or which he can afford to purchase. The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities. "The exchangeable value of everything must always be precisely equal to the extent of this power which it conveys to its owner."

Then, by a most extraordinary confusion of ideas, after defining Value to mean the quantity of labour which anything can purchase or command, Smith changes his idea of Value into the quantity of labour expended in obtaining a product. Thus confounding Cost with Value.

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Equal quantities of labour at all times and places may be said to be equal value to the labourer (!!)

"The price which he pays must always be the same whatever may be the quantity of goods which he may receive in return for it.

"Labour alone, therefore, never varying in its own value, is alone the ultimate and real standard by which the value of all commodities can at all times and places be estimated and compared.

"Labour, therefore, it appears evidently is the only universal, as well as the only accurate measure of value, or the only standard by which we can compare the values of different commodities at all times and places."

10. The absurdity of these doctrines is glaring and astounding. Smith says that equal quantities of labour are always of equal value to the labourer. That is to say, that whether a man receives £10 or £100 in exchange for his labour, it is of exactly the same value to him!!

But when Smith says that Labour is the only universal measure of value, we ask at once-What kind of labour? Is it the labour of the agriculturist, the carpenter, the poet, the mathematician, or