THREE SPECIES OF WEALTH.

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may be bought and sold, such as Copyrights, Patents, the Goodwill of a business, an Advowson, etc. All these are mere abstract Rights, quite separate and distinct from any particular money, and yet they are all valuable Property-they may all be bought and sold-and, therefore, they all satisfy Aristotle's definition of Wealth.

We have therefore found three distinct orders, or species, of Quantities which satisfy Aristotle's definition of Wealth; and reflection will show that there is nothing whatever which may be bought and sold which does not fall under one of these three orders of Quantities: either it is material: or it is some kind of Labour: or it is an abstract Right. Hence there are three orders of quantities, and only three, which satisfy Aristotle's definition of Wealth, which may be symbolised by the words MONEY, LABOUR, and CREDIT-MONEY being taken as the type of all material and corporeal things; LABOUR as the type of services of all sorts; and CREDIT as the type of Rights of all sorts; and all exchanges, that is all commerce, consist of the exchanges of these three orders of Quantities.

That all material things which can be bought and sold are now admitted to be Wealth is so well known that we need not waste time in proving it.

All modern Economists since Adam Smith admit that the abilities, skill, energy, capacity, character, and personal qualities of the people of a country are Wealth-because they can buy and sell their use, and make an income by their exertion.

Smith enumerates as part of the Wealth or fixed Capital of a country, "the acquired and useful abilities of all the inhabitants or members of the society. The acquisition of such talents, by the maintenance of the acquirer during his education, study, or apprenticeship, always costs a real expense, which is a Capital. fixed and realised, as it were, in his person. These talents, as they make a part of his fortune, so do they likewise of that of the society to which he belongs."

So also Say says:-" He who has acquired a talent at the price of an annual sacrifice, enjoys an accumulated Capital, and this Wealth, though immaterial, is nevertheless so little fictitious, that he daily exchanges the exercise of his art for gold and

silver."—"Since it has been proved that immaterial property such as talents and acquired personal abilities, form an integral part of social Wealth."

Senior also says: "If the question whether personal qualities are articles of Wealth had been proposed in classical times it I would have been too clear for discussion. .. They perish indeed by his death, and may be impaired or destroyed by disease, or rendered valueless by any changes in the custom of the country which shall destroy the demand for his services; but subject to these contingencies, they are Wealth, and Wealth of the most valuable kind. The amount of revenue derived from their exercise in England far exceeds the rental of all the lands in Great Britain."

So also:- -"Even in our present state of civilisation, which high as it appears by comparison, is far short of what may be easily conceived, or even of what may be confidently expected, the INTELLECTUAL and MORAL CAPITAL of Great Britain far exceeds all the Material Capital, not only in importance, but in productiveness. The families that receive mere wages probably do not form a fourth of the community; and the comparatively larger amount of the wages even of these is principally owing to the capital and skill with which their efforts are assisted and directed by the more educated members of the society. Those who receive mere rent, even using that word in its largest sense, are still fewer; and the amount of rent, like that of wages, principally depends on the knowledge by which the gifts of nature are directed and employed. The bulk of the national revenue is profit, and cf that profit the portion which is merely interest on Material Capital, probably does not amount to onethird. The rest is the result of PERSONAL CAPITAL, or, in other words, of education." So Mill says:"The skill and the energy, and the perseverance of the artisans of a country are reckoned part of its Wealth no less than their tools and machinery." And why not the skill and energy and the perseverance of other classes as well as artisans? He also says:- Acquired capacities which exist only as a means, and have been called into existence by labour, fall exactly as it seems to me within that designation."

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RIGHTS ARE WEALTII.

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Now the skill, energy, character, and abilities of the people of a country may be used as Wealth in two ways, as we shall show at greater length hereafter the one by their direct exercise in rendering some service which is termed Labour; and secondly, by purchasing commodities, with the view of selling them again with a profit, by means of a PROMISE TO PAY out of the future profits, which is termed CREDIT. It is with the latter method of utilising personal qualities that we are chiefly concerned in this work.

We now come to the third species of Economic Quantities— namely, RIGHTS.

It is laid down as a fundamental definition in Roman law"Under the name of Wealth (Pecunia) not only ready money, but everything both immovable and movable, both corporeal and RIGHTS (Jura), are included."

And there are several other passages expressly declaring that Rights are included under the term 'Res' and 'Bona,' or goods and chattels; we may quote one from Ulpian :—

"We are accustomed to buy and sell DEBTS payable on a certain day or at a certain event. For that is WEALTH which may be bought and sold."

So Sir Patrick Colquhoun, in his "Summary of the Roman Civil Law,” says "The first requisite of the consensual contract of emptio et venditio is a MERX or object to be transferred by the seller to the buyer, and the first great requirement is that it should be in commercio, that is, capable of being freely bought and sold. Supposing such to be the case, it matters not whether it be an immovable or a movable, corporeal or incorporeal, existent or non-existent, certain or uncertain, the property of the vendor or another: thus a horse, a RIGHT OF ACTION, servitude, or thing to be acquired, or the acquisition whereof depends on chance.

"A purchaser may buy of a farmer the future crop of a certain field. Wine which may grow the next year in a certain vineyard may be bought at so much a pipe, or a certain price may be paid irrespective of quantity or quality, and the price would be due though nothing grew, or for whatever did grow. In the second case the bargain is termed emptio spei, and in the

first and last emptio rei sperata, which all such bargains are presumed to be in cases of doubt.

"The cession of a RIGHT OF ACTION being legal in the Roman law, the RIGHT of A to receive a debt due by B may be sold to C."

Thus we see that a RIGHT OF ACTION-which is, as we shall show hereafter, what is termed a CREDIT or a DEBT in Law, Commerce, and Economics-is expressly included under the title Wealth, Goods, and Merchandise, in Roman Law.

It is exactly the same in every system of Law. It is one of the elementary principles of law that a RIGHT OF ACTION is a species of Property. Thus Mr. Williams says:-" Choses-inaction having now become assignable, became an important kind of personal Property."-"A legal chose-in-action constitutes a valuable personal Property." So also Mr. Justice Byles, in speaking of Bills and Notes, which are Rights of action recorded on paper, says:— "This species of PROPERTY is now in aggregate value inferior only to the land or Funded Debt of the kingdom.” This sentence was written more than forty years ago, and we may safely assert that the mass of CREDIT in circulation at the present time greatly exceeds the Funded Debt. So also a RIGHT OF ACTION is included under the term "goods and chattels" "effects" in an Act of Parliament.

or

We have said enough now to show that a RIGHT OF ACTION, or a Credit, or a Debt, is included under the title of Wealth, Goods and Chattels, Property, or Merchandise, because it may be bought and sold, in every system of law. As we shall have to explain the nature of this species of property at greater length hereafter, we shall say no more about it here, so as not to say the same things twice over. All that we want to impress upon the reader at present is, that RIGHTS of all sorts are a distinct order of Wealth or Exchangeable Quantities.

4. Hence there are three distinct orders of Exchangeable Quantities, or Wealth, as it is technically termed, which may be typified by the terms MONEY, LABOUR, and CREDIT: and all Exchanges, that is, all Commerce, consist in the exchanges of these three orders of Economic Quantities. Hence it is easily seen that there are Six different kinds of Exchange or Commerce

MEANING OF PROPERTY.

1. The exchange of a material product for a material product: such as so much money for so much corn, timber, books, furniture, etc.

2. The exchange of a material product for a service or labour: as when a person's labour is paid for in money or any other material product.

3. The exchange of one kind of service or labour for another kind of service or labour.

4. The exchange of so much labour or service for a Right of action, or a Credit: as when labour is paid for in Bank Notes, Cheques, etc.

5. The exchange of a material product for a right of action, or credit: as when money or merchandise is exchanged for a bank note, cheque, or any form of credit.

6. The exchange of one Right for another Right: such as when a banker buys one Right of action, such as a Bill of Exchange, by creating another Right of action, either in the form of his own Notes or by means of a Credit in his books.

These Six species of exchange comprehend all commerce in its widest extent, and in all forms and varieties; and they constitute the great Science of Economics, or the Science which treats of the exchanges of property.

Out of all these Six species of exchange in their different varieties, the business of Banking consists in two only, which are included under the two last species above enumerated. It consists in the exchange of

1. Money for RIGHTS of ACTION, or CREDIT, or DEBTS.

2. One RIGHT of ACTION for another RIGHT of ACTION, or of one kind of CREDIT, or DEBT, for another kind of CREDIT, or DEBT. And it is this department of the complete science of Economics which is the subject matter of this work.

On the Meaning of the Word PROPERTY.

5. Having thus found that there are three distinct species of Exchangeable or Economic Quantities, typified by MONEY, LABOUR, and CREDIT, our next object is to find a general term which will