Answer.--Generally speaking, productive labour means labour which produces useful or agreeable results. Probably no paid labour is absolutely unproductive; for instance, the feats of the acrobat and the fireworks amuse the spectators. Capitalists in general desire to employ men in labours and manufactures which produce gain to the capitalists themselves. The amount of the gain depends on the relation between the demand for the product and the cost of production; and the demand for the product depends principally upon the extent to which it is useful or agreeable--that is, upon the extent to which the labour is productive or unproductive. In this indirect way capitalists are generally desirous to employ men in productive labours and manufactures, and in them only. Question.--"6. Considering the unemployed and purchasing public as a great capitalist, employing the workmen and their masters both, what results happen finally to this purchasing public if it employs all its manufactures in productive labour? and what if it employs them all in unproductive labour?" Answer.--This is not the light in which we should consider the "unemployed and purchasing public." But if they are all to be considered in that light, it is obvious that the result of employing all manufacturers in doing what is useless or disagreeable would be general misery, and vice versâ. Question.--"7. If there are thirty workmen, ready to do a day's work, and there is only a day's work for one of them to do, what is the effect of the natural laws of wages on the other twenty-nine?" Answer.--The twenty-nine must go without work and wages; but the phrase "natural law" is not ours. Question.--"8. (a) Is it a natural law that for the same quantity or piece of work, wages should be sometimes high, sometimes low? (b) With what standard do we properly or scientifically compare them, in calling them high or low? (c) And what is the limit of their possible lowness under natural laws?" Answer.--(a) It is an inevitable result from the circumstances in which mankind are placed, if you call that a natural law. (b) High wages are wages greater than those which have been usually paid at a given time and place in a given trade; low wages are the reverse. There is no absolute standard of wages. (c) The limit of the possible lowness of wages is the starvation of the workman. Question.--"9. In what manner do natural laws affect the wages of officers under Government in various countries?" Answer.--In endless ways, too long to enumerate. Question.--"10. 'If any man will not work, neither should he eat.' Does this law apply to all classes of society?" Answer.--No; it does not. It is not a law at all, but merely a striking way of saying that idleness produces want. FORS CLAVIGERA. LETTER XXIX.