n, and does not conduce to the
ends for which classification and nomenclature are designed.

In order to get over all difficulties, some political economists seem
disposed to make the terms express a distinction sufficiently definite
indeed, but more completely arbitrary, and having less foundation in
nature, than any of the former. They will not allow to any labour or to
any expenditure the name of productive, unless the produce which it
yields returns into the hands of the very person who made the outlay.
Hedging and ditching they term productive labour, though those
operations conduce to production only indirectly, by protecting the
produce from destruction; but the necessary expenses incurred by a
government for the protection of property are, they insist upon it,
consumed unproductively: though, as has been well pointed out by Mr.
M'Culloch, these expenses, in their relation to the national wealth, are
exactly analogous to the wages of a hedger or a ditcher. The only
difference is, that the farmer, who pays for the hedging and ditching,
is the person to whom the consequent increase of production accrues,
while the government, which is at the expense of police officers and
courts of justice, does not, as a necessary consequence, get back into
its own coffers the increase of the national wealth resulting from the
security of property.

It would be endless to point out the oddities and incongruities which
result from this classification. Whether we take the words wealth and
production in the largest, or in the most restricted sense in which they
have ever yet been employed, nobody will dispute that roads, bridges,
and canals, contribute in an eminent degree, and in a very direct
manner, to the increase of production and wealth. The labour and
pecuniary resources employed in their construction would, according to
the above theory, be considered productive, if every occupier of land
were compelled by law to construct so much of the road, or canal, as
passes through his own farm. If, instead of this, the government makes
the road, and throws it open to the public toll-free, the labour and
expenditure would be, on the above system, clearly unproductive. But if
the government, or an association of individuals, made the road, and
imposed a toll to defray the expense, we do not see how these writers
could refuse to the outlay the title of productive expenditure. It would
follow, that the very same labour and expense, if giv