THE pleasant and much-frequented hamlet of Tunbridge Wells, may be considered as an object not unworthy of notice from several of its prominent features. Nature has eminently favoured it, by the salubrity of its air, the potency of its mineral springs, and the adjacent appendages of a gay, romantic, and pleasing scenery, which art has not presumed to spoil by attempts at refinement unsuited to its character. This combination of favourable circumstances has rendered it, for a long period, the resort of the fashion able, the refuge of the invalid, and the never-failing resource of the inexhaustible tribe of listless wanderers, who seek a refuge from the ennui of a mere country retirement, when the gaieties of the metropolis have ceased.

Tunbridge Wells, with the exception of Bath, is the most ancient watering-place

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in the kingdom, and may be considered the parent of that numerous race. here the customs, the habits, the arrangement of society, which are now so precisely modified, and so widely diffused, as to have become in some measure a national characteristic, were originally formed and nurtured; and although the parent place has materially varied from its origin, yet it still retains many traces of its pristine character.

The buildings which constitute the hamlet, are dispersed partly through a valley, and in part over the adjacent hills, of a wild, forest aspect, with rocks of considerable magnitude. The chalybeate water, which has for a long period formed the principal attraction, was probably known and esteemed in the neighbourhood long before it excited general attention. Dudley, lord North, a young

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nobleman of lively parts, but dissolute manners, in the court of James I., who retired to the neighbourhood for the purpose of renovating a constitution impaired by too much indulgence, was the first who drew attention to the place.

In what may be termed the zenith of its prosperity, the mixture of fashionable society was considerable, and the practice of every vice reigned with uninterrupted sway. At present it seems to preserve a character for good and select company. Its small distance from the metropolis, and its limited extent, has encouraged a degree of circumspection on the part of its regular frequenters, which tends to maintain this distinction; while, from the same caution, the profligate and degraded have little opportunity of gaining an introduction. Moreover, as the more dissipated habits of the metropolis have increased, the fashionable part of the company who frequent the Wells, seek rather the pleasures of retirement, and the comforts of moderate society, than dissipation.

As the social habits have varied, so the general character of the place has changed in other particulars. Little more than half a century ago, the season was limited to the short period between Midsummer and Michaelmas. After that time the trades-people themselves migrated, the taverns were closed, the chapel service was discontinued, and the place remained a desert till the following spring. As late as thirty years back, it was very unusual for a family to continue beyond November. Now the case is very different. Many houses, formerly let as lodgings, are permanently tenanted; the inhabitants have repaired and embellished them, and winter residents have remunerated their speculations. The population of the place has accordingly become stationary and from a migrating colony, Tunbridge Wells has become a place of considerable wealth, consequence, and respectability.

MR. McCULLOCH'S LECTURES.

LECTURE XXIII.

CONSUMPTION OF WEALTH.

Definition-Smith's Productive and Unproductive Consumption-Menial Servants, Lawyers, Physicians and Magistrates-Error of Montesquieu.

THE third and last division of the science refers to the consumption of

wealth, to which the remaining four lectures, which conclude the present course, will be devoted.

Mr. M'Culloch explained, that consumption, in the language of economists, is synonymous with use. Commodities are not annihilated by consumption; those quali ties only are destroyed from which they derive their value or utility. Besides fire and other accidents, various natural agents are constantly at work in destroying the products of industry. The action of the atmosphere levels the proudest fabrics, and the silent corrosive power of water destroys the hardest metals.

Although all commodities are produced to be consumed, yet all consumption is not equally beneficial. Consumption is said to be unproductive, when it does not tend to reproduce commodities equal in value to those consumed. It is on this balance of consumption, not the balance of trade, that the wealth and prosperity of nations depend.

It was long an opinion, that the labour employed in the production of luxuries is lost. It is impossible to say where necessaries end and luxuries begin. Every thing that excites to exertion, that rouses man from lethargy, is beneficial: without a taste for the luxuries and elegancies of life, no nation ever made any great advances in power and civilisation. What can apparently be more superfluous than the produce of the lace and silk manufactures? Yet these are necessary in the exchanges of society. The produce of the earth is more than sufficient to maintain the cultivators, but how is a share of the surplus to be obtained by other classes of the community without something to give the cultivators in exchange?

Dr. Smith divided society into two classes: namely, the productive and unproductive consumers; farmers and artisans, whose labour is realized in the production of commodities, were said to belong to the first class; while menials, lawyers, soldiers, physicians, and magistrates, were said to form the second class,

Mr. McCulloch showed, that this distinction is without foundation, and that the industry of the unproductive class is often as valuable as that of the manufacturer, or agriculturist. To make a fire, it is as necessary to bring the coals to the grate, as to dig them out of the mine, or fetch them from Newcastle. According to Smith, the labour of a physician is unproductive, because it is not realized in some vendible commodity; the case, however, Mr. M. remarked, was different in Jamaica, where by medical skill the health and strength of a negro is improved, and, of course, his saleable value augmented!

The labour of government is in like manner valuable, as that employed in the production of commodities. By protecting the fruits of industry it adds to their value. If the labour of the hedger and ditcher has any value, so has that of the magistrate, which equally protects property from ag gression.

Though consumption is valuable, we must not fall into the opposite extreme, and think that it can never be too great: such an error would be not less fatal than that of the pseudo-patriot, who threw the glasses out of the window to encourage the British manufacture. Montesquieu has erroneously said, that if the rich do not spend, the poor must die of hunger! We ought never to forget, that what is annually saved is annually spent, and that the demand for labour can never be in creased without an increase of national capital.

Mr. M'Culloch concluded with showing the distinction between the consumption of individuals and the consumption of government: the former never consume without an equivalent, but such is not the case of the latter, who spend the labour of others, not their own.

LECTURE XXIV.

PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION.

Taxes defined-Paid either out of Revenue or Capital Alcavala in Spain Smith's Maxims on Taxation.

MR. M'CULLOCH began with defining a tax to be a proportion of the produce of the community, abstracted for the use of the state.

In the feudal ages, taxes used to be levied upon the persons and goods of travellers, when they passed through certain manors, when they went over certain bridges, when they carried about them goods from place to place in a fair, when they erected in it a booth, or stall, to sell them in. These different taxes were known in England by the names of passage, pontage, lastage, and stallage.

As civilisation and improvement extend, the ability to support taxation augments: for whatever facilitates production, gives increased power to support the public burdens; so that government has the same interest as the people in new discoveries and inventions for abridging and economizing labour.

All taxes must be paid either out of revenue or capital. Taxes imposed on revenue are the least hurtful, since they are usually met with increased economy

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and exertion on the part of the people to support them. But taxes on capital can. not be replaced; they destroy the power of production in its elements; and it was on this ground the late Mr. Ricardo strenuously opposed the duties on wills and probates.

Some writers on finance have contended that every new tax, by the stimulus it gives to industry, creates a new ability to defray it. Nothing can be more erro neous. The effect of exorbitant taxes is to destroy industry, and a stimulus of this nature operates in the same way as the lash applied to the back of the slave. The alcavala in Spain is a striking example, and it was to the exemption of Valentia and Catalonia from this oppressive impost, that their prosperity above the other provinces has been ascribed. Holland and England, it is true, are both heavily taxed, and both rich; but it is not in consequence of heavy taxes, but in spite of them that they have flourished. Men are not rich from spending largely, but they spend largely because they are rich.

Mr. M'Culloch next happily refuted Burke's luminous notion, that taxes have the same stimulating effect on productive industry, that fertilizing showers have on the labours of the agriculturist; and concluded this part of the subject, with stating Dr. Smith's maxims with respect to taxation:

1. The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.

2. The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the mauner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor, and to every person.

3. Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner in which it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it.

4. Every tax ought to be so contrived, as both to take out and keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the treasury of the state.

Mr. McCulloch said, every system of taxation is good or bad, in proportion as it approached to, or receded from, these maxims of Smith. In France, previous to the Revolution, the first of these maxims was clearly violated. The clergy and nobility, whose possessions were the greatest, contributed the least to the public revenue,