one of the latest wanderers in this trackless region, is forced to exclaim that "he will discontinue the use of the word altogether." Many may feel disposed to think that Political Economy has come to a pretty pass when Professor Perry flings away the word wealth, and Professor Jevons the word value, both unquestionably able and eminent economists, as hopeless. What is the vaunted science to speak about?

It is now desirable to review the principal explanations which have been given of the word value.

Of Adam Smith it may be affirmed that he has not said, in precise terms, what value is. A dictum which he uttered about it has obtained world-wide celebrity. Every writer feels the duty of drawing the student's attention to it. There is, he affirms, a value in use and a value in exchange. But this formula does not explain what value is. It is often assumed that he declares that there are two kinds of value radically differing in nature, but this interpretation is not necessary to give sense to the expression, and, I am persuaded, misdescribes his meaning. It is troublesome enough to have one word to expound, but to search for two different meanings for the same word would be indeed a hopeless task. What Adam Smith did really affirm is that value is attached to two different objects-to things which are used only, and secondly to things which are exchanged. There are valuable things which are saleable, and there are other valuable things which are not. That is the distinction drawn, and it is perfectly sound. Value is one, but the things it is applied to are two. The dictum

ay supply us, we hope, with a hint which will give us

help to discover this oft-attempted, but as yet unreached North Pole.

Bastiat assures us that exchange gives existence to value. He thus charges Adam Smith with error, for he plainly speaks of a value which exists but which is not connected with exchange. This value Bastiat annihilates. No acuter mind ever applied itself to Political Economy than Bastiat's, but here he ignored the fact that the every-day language of mankind calls many things valuable for which not a single farthing could be had in exchange. Nothing can be more certain than that a definition of value, which either practically stigmatises as senseless the use in ordinary life of so thoroughly natural an expression as valuable attached to an object for which there is no sale, or invents a new sense for it to be specially appropriated to Political Economy, in direct contradiction to popular feeling, amounts to a total failure in solving the problem of its meaning. An economical idea of value which leaves. out an ever-recurring sense of the word in common life is little short of an absurdity.

Mr Macculloch lays down, "By value I shall signify exchangeable worth, value in exchange." This definition first explains a word by itself, for value and worth are the same thought under different words; and secondly, by confining himself to value in exchange, he neither explains what value is—this value in exchange—and like Bastiat he gives up Adam Smith's and the common world's value in use as having no place in Political Economy. But Mr Macculloch advances yet further. He declares that spontaneous productions have no value, except for the labour of appropriation. This

confusion and error. The palpable absurdity of the assertion is no match, strange to say, against the fascination which it exercises on many minds. In currency and banking it produces the greatest disorder. Bank notes, cheques, bills, and similar documents are pieces of paper with writing on them. These writings record debts due, and debts are claims to wealth, and by the magical action of the principle that a claim to wealth is itself wealth, these pieces of paper are converted into real, literal wealth. Why does not every man in every nation take to borrowing of his neighbour upon acknowledgments in writing? The wealth of mankind. would be instantly doubled. This doctrine, so indigestible to common sense, is even proclaimed as the unravelling of a mighty secret, as the brilliant illuminator of the benighted region of currency. Mr Macleod has generalised Mr Mill's formula,-not wealth for the nation, but wealth for an individual-into an ultimate principle which explains all paper currency and all banking. "Incorporeal property is wealth!" The man who has taken in that truth knows what bank notes and deposits recorded in banking ledgers are; they are wealth. Mr Macleod borrows the phrase "incorporeal property" from legal writers, and he justifies its use by appeal to the authority of great jurists of the past and the present. The expression is awkward and artificial, but it is not nonsense. It means property without the corpus or substance; it expresses a right to a thing without the actual possession of the corpus or thing itself. Such a right clearly is a property, a valuable possession, capable of being recognised in a Court of Law, and saleable for money. There is no difficulty in

selling a reversion to an estate, or a chattel of which the possession can be obtained only at a deferred date. Such sales occur every day. A twelve months' bill is a piece of incorporeal property, a right to obtain coin, which cannot be got into the owner's hands before the lapse of a year. The words written on the bill are good at law, and will at the proper time, if necessary, be enforced by decree of Court. Such written words are very saleable, because complete reliance is placed on their fulfilment at the specified time. The bill is a title-deed, as is a bank note or a cheque; it is incorporeal property in the sense of the lawyers. But here the lawyers stop; Mr Mill and Mr Macleod go forward. That incorporeal property they call wealth; this the lawyers do not say. The two Economists invent the principle that a claim to wealth is wealth; and the bill fulfils the condition. The piece of paper has a claim for £1000 written upon it; it is actually a thousand pounds. Equally are they bound to preach that spoken words are wealth also, for words can give a claim to a thousand pounds, equally good at law as a written deed. These words, on the principle claimed, must be wealth, must be a thousand pounds. "Beware," remarks Mr Donisthorpe, " of confounding these rights and wealth. A promissory note is merely a promise to pay, and the paper on which such promise is recorded is no more entitled to be called wealth than the sound of an honest man's voice making the same promise. So disappear from the scene, it is hoped for ever, Mr Macleod's second and third species of wealth."

The plain minds of ordinary men are naturally slow to take in the truth of such a wonderful conclusion; so

4

fought up to complete the ored up from common weath, for it represents

seths igure of speech the waled. Does not a trades

TERAP, set down his shop debts senting so much money?

y not the same as money? are constantly described as reThe incorporeal property s triumphantly, and waive all 3ery science must have terms of is the scientific economical needed to prove the doctrine? er may be inclined to think that he & second phrase wonderfully like the poreal property is wealth." A reprehe thing represented; a counter or ticket Yuk or a sovereign is the sovereign itself. der who represents a county is the county we feel surprised that writings on Political are increasing in discredit, that they wield ed authority over that practical world for whose one Political Economy exists?

e is another widely-spread fallacy which has forth from the same nest. Credit is wealth

claims a multitude of speakers and writers.

Nothing be more untrue. Wealth is a substance. Even iustly regarded as wealth, is conceived a substance, as a part of a working in that labours. But credit is not a 1. It is an abstract term, denoting a