In dealing with the census of 1841, and compiling his tables with a view to show the relative occupations of the people, Mr Porter has adopted the ingenious plan of massing commerce, trade, and manufactures together, and exhibiting the aggregate of these in contradistinction to the purely agricultural interest! At page 55 of the last edition of his Progress of the Nation we find this statement—"The following more elaborate table of the occupations of the population of Great Britain, as ascertained in 1841, his been compiled from the Reports of the Census Commissioners. It affords the best abstract that has hitherto been attainable upon this important branch of political arithmetic."

We turn to the table indicated in this modest passage, and we find the following results for Great Britain alone:—

Persons engaged in commerce, trade, and manufacture,3,092,787
Agriculture,1,490,785
Labour not agricultural,758,495

This, of course, is exclusive of the army, navy, learned professions, domestic servants, and various other employments, besides women and children. In another table, Mr Porter, estimating the male population of Great Britain, (excluding Ireland,) who were then upwards of twenty years of age, at 4,761,091, divides them thus:—

Agriculture,1,198,156
Trade, manufactures, &c.,2,125,496
Other classes,1,437,439
4,761,091

If, as Mr Spackman most properly observes in his excellent work, the Analysis of the Occupations of the People, one of the principal objects of taking the census is to trace the relative degree of dependence of one class upon another, how can this be done if all the trade and commerce of the country is to be mixed up with manufactures? "Mr Porter would have us to consider trade and commerce, and manufactures as synonymous terms, and that together they only form one class; and he seems to be so thoroughly haunted with the numerical weakness of the manufacturing interest, that his fear of its being discovered peeps out in every paragraph; and, by mixing them up in every table in which they are mentioned in his book, with those engaged in trade and commerce, he has effectually succeeded in his object."

As we propose to lay before our readers the results of Mr Spackman, it may be proper shortly to state the principles which have guided him in his classification of the official returns. He recognises but two great classes of the community engaged in the production of wealth, and upon these he justly considers the whole of the remainder to be dependent. The following extract from his preface will sufficiently explain his view:—

"Of the number of persons actually employed by the agriculturists and manufacturers, no difference of opinion can exist, as we have adopted the Government classification in every instance, and copied the figures given in the returns. We believe this classification to be correct in principle, and but slightly erroneous in details.

"Political economists may exercise their ingenuity by calling in question this classification, but we believe it is the only one that accurately traces the dependence of an individual on the one or the other interest; and, as this is the primary object of all such matters, if it attains this end, it is sufficient for all purposes. By the landed interest we mean not only the proprietors of the soil, but all that are engaged in its cultivation, and all the interests that are dependent on and supported by both landlord and tenant. An agriculturist is one who grows the raw material. The manufacturer changes the fabric from cotton into calico, flax into linen, wool into cloth, raw into manufactured silk, mineral ores into various combinations of metals, and the skin of an animal into leather.

"All besides the agriculturists and the manufacturers are auxiliaries, not principals. Thus the handicraftsman alters the form, but not the substance, and adapts the article to the use of the consumer,—so the miller, baker, and butcher; the tailor, milliner, and shoemaker.

"There is also a very numerous class, who neither produce, manufacture, nor alter the shape or substance of an article, and these are called merchants, if they buy and sell in a wholesale manner, or shopkeepers and retail dealers if they sell by retail. The business of these is to distribute all articles imported from abroad or produced at home, through every city, town, and village, in the United Kingdom; and the Government definition of all these auxiliaries is 'engaged in trade and commerce.'

"The dependence of any particular class engaged in trade and commerce, or in handicraft, is not upon the party who produces, alters, or supplies the article, but on the individual who consumes it; and if there is any tax whatever on the raw material, or on anything used in its manufacture, adaptation, or distribution, it is on him that all and every item of such tax, together with all profits and charges, must ultimately fall.

"Inasmuch, however, as there is no wealth in this country of any amount, but what has been derived either from agriculture or manufactures, nor any of which the value is not determined by the success of these, so again this consumer, whatever his rank or position in society may be, is mainly dependent on them. The rental of land, the income from houses, or investments in the public funds, are merely the representatives of so much labour; and the means necessary to pay them are principally drawn from either agriculture or manufactures.

"Our annual creation of wealth may be thus stated:—

Agriculture,£250,000,000
Manufactures, deducting the value of the raw material,127,000,000
Money interest,37,000,000
Colonial interest,18,000,000
Foreign commerce, (including shipping interest,) 10 per cent on amount of exports and imports,15,000,000
Fisheries,3,000,000
£450,000,000"

And from one or other of these does every individual in the land derive his income or means of support. The Peer of the realm, the landed proprietor, the Government annuitant, the clergyman, the medical and the legal adviser, with the banker, merchant, dealer, and handicraftsman of every class and kind,—derive what is necessary to support their state and condition, and their daily sustenance, from these spring-heads of national wealth. This is the substance of the nation, and what we call money consists merely of the counters we use to denote and measure the value of this substance as it passes from one to another.