Page:Principlesofpoli00malt.djvu/96

34 nearly all the objects which usually enter into our conceptions when we speak of wealth or riches—an advantage of considerable importance, as long as we retain these terms both in common use, and in the vocabulary of political economy.

A country will therefore be rich or poor, according to the abundance or scarcity with which these material objects are supplied, compared with the extent of territory; and the people will be rich or poor, according to the abundance or scarcity with which they are supplied, compared with the population.

The question of productive labour is closely connected with the definition of wealth. Both the Economists and Adam Smith have uniformly applied the term productive to that species of labour, which directly produces what they call wealth, according to their several views of its nature and origin. The Economists therefore, who confine wealth to the products of the soil, mean by productive labour, that labour alone which is employed upon the land. Adam Smith, who considers all the material objects which are useful to man as wealth, means by productive labour, that labour which realizes itself either in the production or increased value of such material objects.

This mode of applying the term productive labour to that labour which is directly productive of wealth,