of what is meant by wealth. It somewhat surprises us to hear this. For many centuries nations have been quite unable to agree as to what wealth is; and many bloody wars have been waged because of quarrels which rose directly out of a mistaken conception of its meaning; vast quantities of mischievous legislation have been enacted as the result of erroneous theories as to its nature and origin; and at the present moment the widest differences of opinion prevail among Economists as to what should be included under the term.

One of Mill's definitions is as follows: 'Everything forms part of wealth which has power of purchasing.' This exactly agrees with the definition adopted 1,300 years ago by the ancients, and includes everything which can be bought and sold, or exchanged, whatever its nature or form may be; and evidently comprehends all the three orders of economic quantities.

Now, let us see how far Mill is consistent with himself. After giving this wide and general definition he shortly afterwards attempts a second, and identifies the 'production of wealth, the extraction of the instruments of human subsistence and enjoyment from the materials of the globe.' Mill admits that industrial qualities are wealth. Now, how are industrial qualities extracted from the materials of the globe? Mill admits that personal credit is wealth. How is a merchant's or banker's credit extracted from the materials of the globe? Mill admits that a credit given by a solvent banker or merchant is of the same value as gold, and therefore wealth. How is a credit-a mere abstract right of action-extracted from the materials of the globe? Elsewhere Mill speaks of wealth as being the product of land, labour and capital; but how are personal qualities and abstract rights the product of land, labour and capital? We might point out several other self-contradictions of Mill on the nature of wealth; but that would be too wearisome for our readers. Mill says that every one has a sufficiently correct knowledge of the meaning of wealth; and now it is seen that he has no consistent ideas on the subject himself.

The fact is that Say and Mill have brought the science to a complete impasse. The expression 'production, distribution and consumption of wealth' was expressly restricted to the commerce, or exchanges, of material products only; and when we introduce personal qualities and abstract rights into the science, as Adam Smith, Say and Mill have rightly done, it throws the whole subject into irremediable confusion. There is no possibility of erecting the 'production, distribution and consumption of wealth' into any sort of scientific system; if we are to attain that end we must revert to the concept of Economics as the science of exchanges, or of commerce, as the most advanced Economists are now doing: and then we have a body of phenomena as capable of being erected into an exact and definite science as astronomy, optics, or any other.

We shall now see the bearings of the doctrines of the Economists and Adam Smith on free trade.

The Economists established it as one of the fundamental rights of mankind that they should be allowed to exchange their products and services freely with one another. Now, it is evident that when men agree to exchange their products and services, the arrangement of the price, or value, of the reciprocal products and services exchanged should be left entirely to the mutual agreement of the parties, the buyer and the seller. Who can tell so well as they what is the real value of the product or service to them? Now, when the price of the product or service is agreed upon and settled between the sole parties who are interested in it, suppose that some artificial force is suddenly directed against one of them, beyond what arises from their natural position, to oblige him to yield up more of his property to the other than he would do if the arrangement were left perfectly free-such a force suddenly put at the disposal of either party, whatever its nature be, whether moral or material, would clearly be unjust in its very nature, and would be nothing more than a license enabling one party to rob the other.

It may be asserted in the broadest possible terms that

it is the natural right of every man to employ his industry and the talents which Providence has given him in the manner which he considers to be most for his own advantage, so long as it is not to the injury of his neighbour. He has the natural right to exchange the products of his industry with those of any other person who will agree to such exchange, to buy from whom he will, and to sell to whom he can. A law which seeks to check the course of this free exchange is inherently wrong, and, because inherently wrong, inherently mischievous. And, though it may be permitted to take something from him for the necessities of the State, which is the guardian of the interests of all, a law which deprives one class of the community of a part of their property in order to bestow it upon another class is an intolerable violation of natural justice. If a person forcibly takes away a part of his property from another person without any equivalent it is simply robbery. In the same way if a man wishes to sell any article and can by any means force the buyer to pay a higher price for it than he otherwise would, it is simply despoiling him of part of his property, and appropriating it to himself.

Let us put this in a familiar way. Suppose that Richard Stubble lives in the country and grows corn, and that his friend John Smith carries on his business in town. Having some corn to sell, Richard proposes to have a transaction with his friend John. The free marketable value of the corn is 408. per quarter. But suppose that Richard has about a hundred times more influence over the legislature than John has, and he gets them to pass a law by which he can compel John to pay him 50s. for what he could buy elsewhere for 408. In that case he deprives John of 108., representing so much of his industry, for which he gives him no equivalent, and takes it to himself. In the mediaeval ages great lords and barons used to keep armed retainers whom they employed to plunder any unfortunate travellers who came within their power. In the nineteenth century the governing classes passed laws by which they forced traders to surrender to them a considerable portion of their property against their

will. Where is the moral difference between the two cases? When one man forcibly and unjustly deprives another man of his property, the precise method he may adopt for his purpose does not materially affect the moral aspect of the thing.

It is no argument to say that till comparatively recent times the protective system was established in this country, that it is still in force in foreign countries, and that it was supported and adopted by men of unblemished character and integrity. It is absolutely necessary that we should not suffer our estimation of the moral character of men to influence our view as to the soundness of their opinions. There never prevailed a pernicious error in the world which was not supported by the authority of men of eminent personal virtue. It is, unfortunately, through the very excellence of the men who adopted them, that most of the erroneous principles which have done so much mischief in the world derived their fatal influence. The real question is, not whether the men who hold certain opinions are estimable, but whether the opinions themselves are right or wrong. The fact is that questions are examined with greater care and more searching criticism nowadays than ever they were before; and by this more comprehensive investigation new considerations and relations are discovered. Arguments drawn from equity, sometimes well founded, sometimes the reverse, are every day obtaining greater influence in legislation; and many of the most beneficial reforms of the present day have been to abolish and set aside the partial and unjust laws which encumbered the statute-book. It is not so very long ago that public opinion in this country tolerated the slave trade, and men of eminent piety saw no harm in stealing men from their homes and transporting them to foreign countries to labour for the benefit of their masters. But public opinion became convinced of its abomination, and not only put it down but declared it to be a great crime. What was considered to be legitimate traffic at the beginning of the century is now declared by law to be piracy, and Englishmen who engage in it are liable to be dealt with as pirates. Little more than one hundred years ago, if

a gale came on, it used to be the custom to pitch the negroes overboard like cattle, and this was related in a court of law without eliciting the slightest comment. Now, at bottom there is not much difference in the idea involved in protection and the slave trade. They both seek to effect the same object by somewhat different methods. They are both for the purpose of enabling one set of men to appropriate to themselves the fruits of their neighbours' industry-the one by the coarse method of force, the other by the somewhat more refined method of fraudulent taxation.

To these

Lord Macaulay remarks that the two greatest and most salutary social revolutions which have taken place in England were those which, in the thirteenth century, put an end to the tyranny of nation over nation; and which, a few generations later, put an end to the property of man in man. we may venture to add a third, not less great and not less salutary than the other two-that great revolution in the ideas of the age which, in the nineteenth century, abolished for ever the property of one set of men in the industry of another.

The protective system is, therefore, nothing more than a method by which producers endeavour to force consumers to pay a higher price than they otherwise would do for their commodities. Now, let us consider a different case.

Suppose that the legislature, being entirely composed of consumers, should pass a law forbidding the farmers to sell their produce above a certain price, or to export it to foreign countries, where they might find a better market for it: or suppose that laws were made to prevent workmen demanding above a certain rate of wages or compelling producers to bring their products to market and accept a price for them much below what they would fetch if there were no such law. This would be a case on the part of consumers precisely analogous to what protection is on the part of producers.

This form of injustice did formerly prevail to a certain extent in this country; but it never acquired a distinctive name in our language as it did in France. During the height of the horrors of the French Revolution in 1793, when the