A question seems naturally to arise here whether the exchangeable value of the annual produce of the land and labour be the proper definition of the wealth of a country, or whether the gross produce of the land, according to the French economists, may not be a more accurate definition.  Certain it is that every increase of wealth, according to the definition of the economists, will be an increase of the funds for the maintenance of labour, and consequently will always tend to ameliorate the condition of the labouring poor, though an increase of wealth, according to Dr Adam Smith’s definition, will by no means invariably have the same tendency.  And yet it may not follow from this consideration that Dr Adam Smith’s definition is not just.  It seems in many respects improper to exclude the clothing and lodging of a whole people from any part of their revenue.  Much of it may, indeed, be of very trivial and unimportant value in comparison with the food of the country, yet still it may be fairly considered as a part of its revenue; and, therefore, the only point in which I should differ from Dr Adam Smith is where he seems to consider every increase of the revenue or stock of a society as an increase of the funds for the maintenance of labour, and consequently as tending always to ameliorate the condition of the poor.

The fine silks and cottons, the laces, and other ornamental luxuries of a rich country, may contribute very considerably to augment the exchangeable value of its annual produce; yet they contribute but in a very small degree to augment the mass of happiness in the society, and it appears to me that it is with some view to the real utility of the produce that we ought to estimate the productiveness or unproductiveness of different sorts of labour.  The French economists consider all labour employed in manufactures as unproductive.  Comparing it with the labour employed upon land, I should be perfectly disposed to agree with them, but not exactly for the reasons which they give.  They say that labour employed upon land is productive because the produce, over and above completely paying the labourer and the farmer, affords a clear rent to the landlord, and that the labour employed upon a piece of lace is unproductive because it merely replaces the provisions that the workman had consumed, and the stock of his employer, without affording any clear rent whatever.  But supposing the value of the wrought lace to be such as that, besides paying in the most complete manner the workman and his employer, it could afford a clear rent to a third person, it appears to me that, in comparison with the labour employed upon land, it would be still as unproductive as ever.  Though, according to the reasoning used by the French economists, the man employed in the manufacture of lace would, in this case, seem to be a productive labourer.  Yet according to their definition of the wealth of a state, he ought not to be considered in that light.  He will have added nothing to