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14 merchandise from one place to another, are productive labourers, for they confer upon commodities the utility of being in the place where they are required. The labour of policemen and others who are engaged in protecting industry is productive, because they confer upon commodities the important utility of security. But even the labour of productive labourers is not unfrequently unproductive. Public works have been commenced and abandoned; the labour which was bestowed upon these is of course wasted. A railway was constructed from Chesterford to Newmarket; it was closed almost from the first; there is now no chance of its being reopened, for the company has commenced reselling the land to its original proprietors; and thus the labour of even the most useful workmen may be unproductive.

There is also labour which is eminently useful, but does not, however, directly contribute to the production of wealth. As an example of this, it may be mentioned that, not many years since, the uneducated labourer was considered as efficient as the educated labourer, and employers were heard to regret those days when there were no schools to corrupt the industrial virtues of the workmen. When such opinions were current the labour of the schoolmaster must have been considered entirely unproductive, because it would have been supposed that, even if he did not impede, he certainly did not promote, the efficiency of the labourers, regarded as mere machines for the production of wealth. But now facts are every day coming to light which must impress us with the conviction that the schoolmaster occupies a most important position in the material economy of the nation.