Significance of the Small Industries. 355 
pecuniosity does not of necessity also imply misery or un- 
happiness in the case of the fortunate or unfortunate indi- 
vidual involved. 
If wealth be one of the most potent factors concerned 
with happiness, we shall find it necessary, in a search for 
the causes of discontent amongst the labouring classes and 
for measures for the removal of the same, first to consider 
briefly the elements necessary for the production of wealth. 
The three great factors which political economists find to 
be requisite for this purposeare: Land, Capital and Labour. 
It will be found, on closer examination, that land and 
capital are agents of very much the same nature. The lat- 
ter is defined as that part of wealth which is accumulated 
to assist future production. Agricultural labourers, for in- 
stance, must be supported by wealth previously accumu- 
lated; as it is obvious they cannot live on that which they 
are engaged in producing. I[t is important to note that 
capital plays a very subordinate part in the matter, since 1% 
is only essential during one single cycle of operations. For 
if the labourer can exist at all on the fruits of his labour, it 
is obvious that he only requires assistance during the first 
production period. 
Land, or, to use a broader term, Matter, is evidently an 
indispensable agent in the production of wealth. In the 
mere statement that wealth is anything which has an ex- 
change value, it is obvious that the objects included are 
mostly material and have been derived from land; the ex- 
ceptions being mostly qualities of mind, which, though not 
material, yet have a value. The importance of land as an 
agent of production is so great that at one time political 
economists in France asserted it to be the sole source of 
wealth. It has since, however, been shown that labour 
also is indispensable to the production of wealth. 
The exact service which labour renders in the production 
of wealth is defined by Mill to be “putting things into fit 
places” or “ moving one thing from or to another.” This 
simple definition is so comprehensive as to include all the 
