d as an addition to
national wealth; and it is on this ground that all nations, under the
guidance of the _Chrematists_, are making such strenuous efforts to
increase their agricultural and manufactured produce. Such an
augmentation, however, says Sismondi, is not only by no means in every
case an addition to national wealth, but it is often a useless and
pernicious addition to national suffering. If the supply of any article
exceeds what can be consumed in the early and simple ages of society, or
disposed of to advantage in the later, it is not only no advantage, but a
positive loss. What avails it that the yards of cotton cloth manufactured,
or the quarters of wheat raised, are increased in a country from
50,000,000 to 100,000,000, if, in consequence of the increased supply, the
price is lowered one-half? The producers get their trouble for their
pains--they gain nothing--the consumers get more than they require--great
part of the superfluity is wasted or sent abroad at a ruinous loss.
Augmentation of production, therefore, is not in every case a sign of
increased national wealth; it is the _maintenance of a due proportion
between production and consumption_ which is the real desideratum, and
forms the only real basis of lasting national opulence.

According to the _Chrematists_, the wealth of a nation, as of an
individual producer, is to be measured by the excess of the value of
production over its cost. This, says Sismondi, is the most fatal of all
errors, and the grand source of the misery of the working classes, and
instability of society, in all the manufacturing states of Europe. It is
true, the wealth of a master-manufacturer is to be measured by the excess
of the price he obtains for his produce over the cost of its production;
but a master-manufacturer is not a nation. A nation consists not only of
masters but of workmen; not only of consumers but producers. The latter
class is by far the most numerous, the most important, the most likely to
increase. If they are reduced to misery in consequence of the reduction of
their wages by the introduction of machinery, the employment of juvenile
or female labour, the immigration of foreign labourers, or any other
cause, it is a poor compensation to say, that the profits of their
employers have been greatly augmented at their expense. If the excess of
the value of production above its cost, were either the measure, or even
an important element in national wealth, Irelan