10 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. 
perhaps, in buying food for himself. The community is not benefited 
by the transaction more than in the case of the actor. In that case the 
customer acquires a seat at the theatre, giving to the actor a similar piece 
of metal, with which he, like the tailor, buys food. Here, also, the com- 
munity is not benefited; in both cases the customer alone gets the benefit; 
he acquires and applies to his own use the product of other people’s labour. 
A coat is not worn out by one use, and will last some months or years ; 
but if the customer had, instead of a coat, taken a beef-steak and a bottle of 
wine, there would have been “no article of wealth left for his indemnifica- 
tion," precisely as would be the case if he went to the theatre. 
It is stated in Book I., chap. iii., sec. 8, that ‘it is essential to the idea 
of wealth to be susceptible of accumulation; things which cannot, after 
being produced, be kept for some time before being used, are never, I think, 
regarded as wealth, since, however much of them be produced and enjoyed, 
the person benefited by them is no richer, is nowise improved in circum- 
stances.” This limitation of the meaning of wealth would exclude most of 
the articles used as food. Grain, vegetables, live stock, are not focd; they 
are only the materials of which food is made. As soon as they are cooked 
and served for use they become food, but are no longer susceptible of 
accumulation. 
To test the value of this definition we may take some examples: A 
painter is a producer of wealth, as he, with the help of the canvas-maker, 
produces commodities susceptible of accumulation. A poet, unless his 
works are printed, is an unproductive labourer; so is a musician. It 
will, I think, be readily conceded, that any classification is faulty which 
separates works so allied in generai character as the productions of poets, 
painters, aud musicians. An actor is emphatically an unproductive work- 
man, and is always quoted as the example of the class; the dramatic author 
is also a non-producer ; the theatre-builder is, however, a producer, because 
his work “can be kept for some time before being used.” These three are, 
however, fellow-labourers, the finished product of their combined labour 
being an acted play: why should they be differently classed? If the actor 
does not produce wealth, the mason and carpenter who build the workshop 
in which his work is carried on must be also employed in producing some- 
thing which is not wealth. The physician is a non-producer; but his 
fellow-labourers, the druggist, instrument maker, hospital builders, etc., 
are all producers; the labour of all is necessary to the work which they 
perform in common, and, in any classification, they should all go together. 
The public singer is at present a non-productive labourer, but if, as seems 
likely, the phonograph is ever so perfected that sounds may be stored up 
