thought that, as
matters stand at present, we have more painters than we ought to have,
having so many bad ones, and that all youths who had true painters'
genius forced their way out of obscurity.

[Note 17: It will be observed that, in the lecture, it is _assumed_
that works of art are national treasures; and that it is desirable to
withdraw all the hands capable of painting or carving from other
employments, in order that they may produce this kind of wealth. I do
not, in assuming this, mean that works of art add to the monetary
resources of a nation, or form part of its wealth, in the vulgar sense.
The result of the sale of a picture in the country itself is merely that
a certain sum of money is transferred from the hands of B, the
purchaser, to those of A, the producer; the sum ultimately to be
distributed remaining the same, only A ultimately spending it instead of
B, while the labour of A has been in the meantime withdrawn from
productive channels; he has painted a picture which nobody can live
upon, or live in, when he might have grown corn or built houses: when
the sale therefore is effected in the country itself, it does not add
to, but diminishes, the monetary resources of the country, except only
so far as it may appear probable, on other grounds, that A is likely to
spend the sum he receives for his picture more rationally and usefully
than B would have spent it. If, indeed, the picture, or other work of
art, be sold in foreign countries, either the money or the useful
products of the foreign country being imported in exchange for it, such
sale adds to the monetary resources of the selling, and diminishes those
of the purchasing nation. But sound political economy, strange as it may
at first appear to say so, has nothing whatever to do with separations
between national interests. Political economy means the management of
the affairs of _citizens_; and it either regards exclusively the
administration of the affairs of one nation, or the administration of
the affairs of the world considered as one nation. So when a transaction
between individuals which enriches A impoverishes B in precisely the
same degree, the sound economist considers it an unproductive
transaction between the individuals; and if a trade between two nations
which enriches one, impoverishes the other in the same degree, the sound
economist considers it an unproductive trade between the nations. It is
not a general question of political econ