of English commodities exported to fo- | is, in nearly every case, invested at reigners. It is alleged that the consump- home. It is the same thing whether tion of an English resident in a foreign the absentee improves his own estate by state, out of a capital derived from Eng- the accumulation, or lends the amount land, produces, in principle, the same of the capital so saved to other encouindirect effects upon English industry, ragers of industry at home. Nor could as his partial or entire consumption of the political economists ever have inforeign goods in England. His con- tended, in maintaining, as a mere quessumption of foreign goods abroad is equi- tion of wealth, that it was a matter of valent to an importation of foreign goods indifference where an income was spent, into England; and that consumption, it to put out of view the moral advantages is said, produces a correspondent expor- which arise out of a rational course of tation of English goods to the foreigner. individual expenditure. If England sends out a thousand pounds' worth of her exports in consequence of the absentee's residence abroad, it is maintained that it cannot be said that she gets nothing in return. She would have had to pay a thousand pounds to the landlord wherever he resided; and the only question is, whether she pays the amount less advantageously for the national welfare to the absentee, than to the resident at home. The political economists, whose opinions we have endeavoured to exhibit, maintain that she does not. It is probable that a good deal of the difficulty which this question presents has arisen from the circumstance that the subtraction of a particular amount of expenditure from a particular district is felt in the immediate locality as an evil, while the benefit which still remains to the whole country is not perceived, because it is universally diffused.

But it would be a widely different question if the absentee landlord, who had been accustomed to expend a certain portion of his income in the improvement of his estate in England, were to suspend those improvements, and invest his surplus capital in undertakings in a foreign country. This the political economists, who have been most consistent in their opinions as to the effects of absentee consumption, never maintained: if they had, they would have confounded the great distinction between accumulation and consumption, upon which the very foundations of their science rest. In many cases the smaller consumption of an absentee, in a country where the necessaries of life are cheap, enables him to accumulate with greater ease than he could at home; and this accumulation

(M'Culloch's Evidence before the Select Committee on the State of Ireland, 1825, Fourth Report, pp. 813-815; also his Evidence before the Select Committee on the State of the Poor in Ireland, 1830, p. 592, &c.-Leslie Foster's Essay upon Commercial Exchange, 1804, quoted in the last-mentioned Report, p. 597; Say, Cours Complet d'Economie Politique, tom. v. chap. 6; Chalmers on Political Economy, p. 200, 1832; Quarterly Review, vol. xxxiii. p. 459, for a hostile examination of Mr. M'Culloch's opinions.)

So far we have given the arguments of those economists who have contended that absenteeism is no injury to the country from which the rent of the absentee is derived. It must be admitted that the evil is not so serious as many people suppose, and if we take everything into the account, it may be that the evil is inconsiderable. So complicated are the relations of modern society, that any restraint upon the mode in which a man spends his income would probably do much more mischief, even to the country from which an absentee derives his income, than the absenteeism itself does, whatever that amount of mischief may be.

Still, as a mere scientific question, the opinion of those who maintain that absenteeism is no loss to the country of the absentee, requires some limitation. It is easy to show that its direct effect is to diminish accumulation in the country of the absentee, and it is not easy to show that this direct effect is counteracted to its full amount in any indirect way.

It cannot be proved, as it has been stated above, that the absentee's consumption of foreign goods abroad is equivalent to an importation of foreign goods into

England, and that such consumption pro- | a portion of the spender's money, part of duces a correspondent exportation of which portion is the profit of the supplier. English goods to the foreigner. The If this income is spent in France or in absentee is enabled to receive his rent Belgium, persons in France or in Belabroad because a foreign trade already gium derive a profit from supplying the exists; and it is not necessary, in order absentee, and this profit enables them to that he shall be able to receive his rent in accumulate. What is thus spent in France money abroad, that a trade should exist or in Belgium produces a profit to a between his native country and the coun- Frenchman or a Belgian, and enables try of his residence. There must be a him to accumulate, and this profit is foreign trade somewhere, in order that he something taken from the profits of those may receive his rent abroad in money, who would supply the demands of the but a man may live in a part of Europe consumer in England. If all the persons which has no trade with Great Britain, who come to settle in London, and reand he will receive his money by an quire commodious houses, servants, fruits, indirect route, and by means of the trade vegetables, and so forth, were to settle at of England with some other foreign Brussels, the houses which are now built country. But it does not follow that the in London, and the grounds which are foreign trade of Great Britain is increased employed as kitchen-gardens round the by the consumption of an absentee abroad metropolis, would not exist, and the profit so as to produce an exportation of English derived from this employment of capital goods to the amount of his foreign con- would not exist. It would be transferred sumption. And if we admit that the to Brussels and to Belgian capitalists. absentee's consumption of foreign goods This would be the immediate effect of abroad produces all the effect that has the wealthy residents in London removbeen attributed to it, this will not remove ing to Brussels. The removal of these the whole difficulty. Many of the things residents to Brussels would be the withwhich he consumes abroad are not the drawal of one of the means of profitably peculiar products of the foreign country employing capital, and would so far be which he would or might consume, whe- a loss to the national wealth. Nor can ther he was in England or a foreign it be shown that the capital which is country. He consumes and uses many now employed in and about London in things abroad which he would consume building houses and cultivating gardenor use in England, and which must be ground could be employed with equal furnished by the country in which he is profit in some other way; for to assert residing. this would be equivalent to asserting that it is always possible to employ capital under all circumstances in a manner equally profitable. It may be rejoined, that if the wealthy residents of London removed to Brussels, English capital would be required in order to accommodate them with houses, and to provide other ordinary necessaries. This may be admitted, and yet it does not remove all the difficulty, for if the residents were to remove to various towns of Italy, the employment of English capital would not be required to the same degree as if they were all to remove to Brussels.

Accumulation, or the increase of wealth in a country, can only arise from savings or from profits. All persons who supply the demands of others obtain a profit by the transaction; at least the obtaining of a profit is the object with which a demand is supplied, and the actual obtaining of a profit is the condition without which a demand cannot be permanently supplied. All persons who have an income to spend may in one sense consume it unproductively, as it is termed, that is, the income may be spent merely for the purpose of enjoyment, and not for the purpose of profitable production. But no income which is received in money can be spent without indirectly causing profitable production, for every person who supplies the wants of the spender of the income receives

|

the first appointment in 1726. The salary | accumulate the income thereof, either

is 9001. a year, and 600l. a year as Master's salary, with some other emoluments.

The total sum standing in the name of the Accountant-General on the 30th of April, 1841, was 40,957,8391., of which above 39,000,000l. was invested in stock, and 1,759,6291. was in cash. (App. to Report on Courts of Law and Equity, No. 476, Sess. 1842.) The act 5 Vict. c. 5, § 63, directs the Accountant-General to cause to be laid before Parliament every year an account showing the state of the Suitors' Fund and the Suitors' Fee Fund, which stand in his name. The Suitors' Fund consists of money and stock unclaimed, but which are open to claim at any time. On the 1st of October, 1842, this fund amounted to 26,299l. cash, and 2,869,2131. stock. The Fee Fund accrues from fees formerly payable to the different officers of the court for their own advantage. These fees amounted to 62,8081. in the year ending Nov. 1842. The salaries of the lord chancellor, the vice-chancellors, and other officers of the Court of Chancery are paid out of these two funds.

wholly or partially, "for any longer term than the life or lives of any such grantor or grantors, settlor or settlors, or the term of twenty-one years from the death of any such grantor, settlor, devisor, or testator, or during the minority or respective minorities of any person or persons who shall be living or in ventre sa mere at the time of the death of such grantor, devisor, or testator, or during the minority or respective minorities only of any person or persons who, under the uses or trusts of the deed, surrender, will, or other assurances directing such accumulations, would for the time being, if of full age, be entitled to the rents, issues, and profits, or the interest, dividends, and annual produce so directed to be accumulated. And in every case where accumulation shall be directed otherwise than as aforesaid, such direction shall be null and void, and the rents, issues, profits, and produce of such property so directed to be accumulated shall, so long as the same shall be directed to be accumulated contrary to the provisions of this act, go to and be received by such person or persons as would have been entitled thereto, if such accumulation had not been directed." Sect. 2 provides, "that nothing in this act contained shall extend to any provision for payment of debts of any grantor, settlor, or devisor, or other person or persons, or to any provision for raising portions for any child or children of any person taking any interest under any such conveyance, settlement, or devise, or to any direction touching the produce of timber or wood upon any lands or tenements; but that all such provisions shall be made and ACCUMULATION. [CAPITAL.] given as if this act had not passed." Sect. ACCUMULATION. An act of Par-3 provides that the act shall not extend liament (39 & 40 Geo. III. c. 98), after to dispositions of heritable property in declaring in the preamble that "it is ex- Scotland. pedient that all dispositions of real or This act was passed in consequence of personal estates, whereby the profits and the will of Peter Thellusson, a Ĝenevese produce thereof are directed to be accu- by birth, but settled in London, who died mulated or the enjoyment thereof post- in 1797, leaving a landed estate worth poned, should be made subject to the about 4000l. a year, and personal prorestrictions thereinafter contained," pro- perty to the amount of 600.000l. He ceeds to enact to the following effect. devised and bequeathed this large proNo person can settle or dispose of pro-perty to trustees upon trust to accumulate perty by deed, will, or otherwise, so as to the annual proceeds of his property and

Before the passing of the act 5 Vict. c. 5, for suppressing the equity jurisdiction of the Court of Exchequer, there was an Accountant-General of that court; and in April, 1841, a sum of 2,730,8627. was standing in his name in the Bank of England. The account is now transferred to the Accountant-General of the Court of Chancery. The duties of the Accountant-General and Masters of the Exchequer are now performed by the Queen's Remembrancer.

There is an Accountant-General of the Irish Court of Chancery.