THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

625

this racked rent, but from paying the reasonable rent whichhe might otherwise have got for his land. The rent whichproperly belongs to the landlord is no more than the neatproduce which remains after paying in the eompletest mannerall the necessary expenses which must be previously laid outin order to raise the gross, or the whole produce. It is be-cause the labour of the cultivators, over and above payingcompletely all those necessary expenses, affords a neat pro-duce of this kind, that this class of people are in this systempeculiarly distinguished by the honourable appellation of theproductive class. Their original and annual expenses are forthe same reason called, in this system, productive expenses,because, over and above replacing their own value, they oc-casion the annual reproduction of this neat produce.

The ground expenses, as they are called, or what the land-lord lays out upon the improvement of his land, are in thissystem too honoured with the appellation of productive ex-penses. Till the whole of those expenses, together with theordinary profits of stock, have been completely repaid to himby the advanced rent which lie gets from his land, that ad-vanced rent ought to be regarded as sacred and inviolable,both by the church and by the king; ought to be subjectneither to tithe nor to taxation. If it is otherwise, by dis-couraging the improvement of land, the church discouragesthe future increase of her own tithes, and the king the futureincrease of his own taxes. As in a well-ordered state of things,therefore, those ground expenses, over and above reproducingin the eompletest manner their own value, occasion likewiseafter a certain time a reproduction of a neat produce, theyare in this system considered as productive expenses.

The ground expenses of the landlord, however, togetherwith the original and the annual expenses of the farmer, arethe only three sorts of expenses which in this system are con-sidered as productive. All other expenses and all otherorders of people, even those who in the common apprehen-sions of men are regarded as the most productive, are in thisaccount of things, represented as altogether barren and un-productive.

Artificers and manufacturers, in particular, whose industry,lu the common apprehensions of men, increases so much thev ulue of the rude produce of land, are in this system re-presented as a class of people altogether barren and unpro-ductive. Their labour, it is said, replaces only the stock