dance of regulations issued by the government of the day to limit its extension. The only effectual barrier is that opposed by natural causes, which it would be very difficult to define with precision, for it consists rather of an aggregate of little inconveniences, than of any grand or positive obstruction. In overgrown cities, the municipal administration is never well attended to; a vast deal of valuable time is lost in going from one quarter to another; the crossing and jostling is immense in the central parts; and the narrow streets and passages, having been calculated for a much smaller population, are unequal to the vast increase of horses, carriages, passengers, and traffic of all sorts. This evil is felt most seriously at Paris, and accidents are growing more frequent every day; yet new streets are now building on the same defective plan, with a certain prospect of a like inconvenience in a very few years hence.

51

BOOK III.

OF THE CONSUMPTION OF WEALTH.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE Different KINDS OF CONSUMPTION.

In the course of my work, I have frequently been obliged to anticipate the explanation of terms and notions which, in the natural order, should have been postponed to a later period of the investigation. Thus, I was obliged in the first book to explain the sense, in which I used the term, consumption, because production can not be effected without consumption.

My reader will have seen from the explanation there given, that, in like manner as by production is meant the creation, not of substance, but of utility, so by consumption is meant the destruction of utility, and not of substance, or matter. When once the utility of a thing is destroyed, there is an end of the source and basis of its value; an extinction of that, which made it an object of desire and of demand. It thenceforward ceases to possess value, and is no longer an item of wealth.

Thus, the terms, to consume, to destroy the utility, to annihilate the value of any thing, are as strictly synonymous as the opposite terms to produce, to communicate utility, to create value, and convey to the mind precisely the same idea. Consumption, then, being the destruction of value, is commensurate, not with the bulk, the weight, or the number of the products consumed, but with their value. Large consumption is the destruction of large value, whatever form that value may happen to have assumed.

Every product is liable to be consumed; because the value, which can be added to, can likewise be subtracted from, any object. If it has been added by human exertion or industry, it may be subtracted by human use, or a variety of accidents.

But it can not be more than once consumed; value once destroyed can not be destroyed a second time. Consumption is sometimes rapid, sometimes gradual. A house, a ship, an implement of iron, are equally consumable as a loaf, a joint of meat, or a coat. Consumption again may be but partial. A horse, an article of furniture, or a house when re-sold by the possessor, has been but partially consumed; there is still a residue of value, for which an equivalent is received in exchange on the re-sale. Sometimes consumption is involuntary, and either accidental, as when a house is burnt, or a vessel shipwrecked, or contrary to the consumer's intention, as when a cargo is thrown overboard, or stores set on fire to prevent their falling into enemies' hands.

Value may be consumed, either long after its production, or at the very moment, and in the very act of production, as in the case of the pleasure afforded by a concert, or theatrical exhibition. Time and labour may be consumed; for labour, applicable to an useful purpose, is an object of value, and, when once consumed, can never be consumed again.

Whatever can not possibly lose its value is not liable to consumption. A landed estate can not be consumed; but its annual productive agency may; for, when once that agency has been exerted, it can not be exerted again. The improvements of an estate may be consumed, although their value may possibly exceed that of the estate itself; for these improvements are the effect of human exertion and industry; but the land itself is inconsumable.*

So likewise it is with any industrious faculty. One may consume a labourer's day's work, but not his faculty of working; which, however, is liable to destruction by the death of the person possessing it.

All products are consumed sooner or later; indeed they are produced solely for the purpose of consumption, and, whenever the consumption of a product is delayed after it has reacned the point of absolute maturity, it is value inert and neutralized for the time. For, as all value may be employed re-productively, and made to yield a profit to the possessor, the withholding a product from consumption is a loss of the possible profit, in other words, of the interest its value would have yielded, if usefully employed.t

Some materials are capable of receiving and discharging the same kind of value many times over; as linen, which will undergo repeated washing. The cleanliness given it by the laundress, is a value wholly consumed on each occasion, along with a part of that of the linen itself.

†The values not consumed sooner or later in a useful way are of little moment; such are provisions spoiled by keeping, products lost accidentally, and those whose use has become obsolete, or which have never been used at all, owing to the failure of the demand for them, wherein value originates. Values buried, or concealed, are commonly withdrawn but for a time from consumption; when found, it is always the interest of the finder to to turn them to account, which he can not do without submitting them to

But, products being universally destined for consumption, and that too in the quickest way, how, it may be asked, can there be ever an accumulation of capital, that is to say, of values produced?

I answer-that value may be accumulated, without being necessarily vested all the while in the same identical product, provided only that it be perpetuated in some product or other. Now, values employed as capital are perpetuated by re-production; the various products of which capital consists, are consumed like all other products; but their value is no sooner destroyed by consumption, than it re-appears in another, or a similar substance. A manufactory can not be kept up, without a consumption of victuals and clothes for the workmen, as well as of the raw material of manufacture; but, while value in those forms is undergoing consumption, new value is communicated to the object of manufacture. The items, that composed the capital so expended, are consumed and gone; but the capital-the accumulated value, still exists, and re-appears under a new form, applicable to a second course of consumption. Whereas, if consumed unproductively, it never re-appears at all.

The annual consumption of an individual is, the aggregate of all the values consumed by that individual within the year. The annual consumption of a nation is, the aggregate of values consumed within the year by all the individuals and communities, whereof the nation consists.

In the estimate of individual or national consumption, must be included every kind of consumption, whatever be its motive or consequence, whether productive of new value or not; in like manner, as the estimate of the annual production of a nation comprises the total value of its products raised within the year. Thus, a soap manufactory is said to consume such or such a quantity or value of alkali in a year, although this value be re-produced from the manufactory in the shape of soap; on the other hand, it is said to produce annually such and such. a quantity or value of soap, although the production may have cost the destruction of a great variety of values, which, if deducted, would vastly reduce the apparent product. By annual

consumption. In this case, the only loss is that of the profit derivable from them during the period of their disappearance, and may be reckoned equivalent to the interest for that time.

The same observation applies to the minute savings, successively laid by until the moment of investment, the aggregate of which is, doubtless, considerable. The loss, resulting from this inertness of capital, may be partially remedied by moderating the duties on transfer, by extending to the utmost the facility of circulation, and by the establishment of banks of deposite, in which capital may be safely vested, and whence it may readily be withdrawn. In times of political confusion, and under an arbitrary government, many will prefer to keep their capital inactive, concealed, and unproductive, either of profit, or gratification, rather than run the risk of its display. This latter evil is never felt under a good government.