sion of the actual production will increase the fund for the maintenance of labour; forasmuch ` as more would be allotted, under the name of profits, to the productive class, a less, under the name of revenue, to the unproductive class.

Agriculturists, like all other manufacturers, and particularly in a commercial country, are subject to a reaction which, in an opposite direction, succeeds to the action of strong stimulus. Thus, when war interrupts the importation of corn, its consequent high price attracts capital to the land, from the large profits which such an employment of it affords; this will, probably, cause more capital to be employed, and more raw produce to be brought to market, than the demands of the country require. In such case, the price of corn will fall from the effects of a glut, and much loss will be sustained by the farmers, till the average supply is brought to a level with the average demand, as in other manufactures. Free importation is therefore, consonant to true policy; for, during peace, our poor and waste lands will lay uncultivated, but when war commences, and it appears that corn will not be imported as before, those lands may and will be immediately cultivated; when, agricultural returns being annual, we can, the very first year, render ourselves independent of the nation which may have made war on us.

CHAPTER VIII.

ON WAGES.

WE have shewn that labour is the sole means whereby the wants of mankind can be, and are, provided for; or, in other words, it is that whereby all commodities are produced; but we have already observed, that there are two sorts of labour which concur in the work of production, viz. immediate labour, and the produce of former labour fixed in something, or other, which can be made conducive to production. These two sorts of labour are generally the property of different individuals, and therefore the production of their joint labour is divisible between them; but a single capitalist, or proprietor of fixed labour, does generally employ several immediate labourers, or engage a single labourer in the production of some article or other, wanted for the use of the capitalist himself. It would be very inconvenient in most cases, and impracticable in others, to divide the income or production, in the commodity itself, between the proprietors of the labour, by which it was produced; and, therefore, it became

necessary that it should be valued by that commodity which forms the most universal medium of exchange and as the capitalist generally has both the wish and the power to purchase the share of the labourer, it only remains to find a rule by which the value of that share may be estimated; and that is found by the mutual consent of the capitalist to employ the labourer, and to pay him such a value for his share of their collective labour as may be agreed on, which is what is understood by the term wages; its meaning being simply the amount of value, wherewith the capitalist can purchase the share of the labourer, and which, like all other marketable subjects, varies temporarily, according to the state of the markets, with respect to demand and supply. If labour be plentiful and capital scarce, the competition of the labourers for employment will enable the capitalist to make advantageous bargains with them, or pay them the least possible share of the value produced, for their labour; if, on the contrary, capital be plentiful and labourers scarce, the competition of the capitalists will enable the labourers to make similar advantageous bargains for themselves. In both cases, capital and labour will rapidly approach their due proportions to each other, if suffered to proceed in their natural order. In the first case, capital will increase more rapidly

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than labour; in the second, labour will increase faster than capital; so that in a natural state of things they cannot long remain disproportionable to each other. The commodity produced must, in all cases, suffice to replace the capital employed in its production, and afford an increase to be divided between the capitalists and labourers, under the names of profits and wages, sufficient for their subsistence. Labour, like all subjects of exchange or purchase, has its natural and market price; the market price of labour can never be (for any great length of time) lower than is absolutely requisite for enabling the labourers to subsist themselves and the families necessary to perpetuate their race.

Nor can the returns of capital, under the name of profits, ever continue long below what is necessary both for the subsistence of the capitalists and that of their families, and also to afford sufficient surplus to replace their capital when worn out or expended, &c.

If capital and population proceed in their due order, without any officious interference therewith on the part of the government, the natural and market price of labour will coincide; the returns to capital will be sufficiently ample to allow of the labourer's wages being so large as to enable him (in all the temperate regions of the earth at least) to acquire a por

tion of the necessaries and enjoyments adapted to his station in life, sufficient for what he may deem the comfortable existence of himself, and a family of an average number. The profits of capital will also be large enough to allow the same to the capitalists, and also so much more as to afford an adequate motive for the acquisition and accumulation of capital; which motive, indeed, can only be extinguished in the human heart by the extreme of civil and religious oppression.

In the progress of society, the natural price of labour would rise, in consequence of the increased difficulty of producing food for an increasing population, were that difficulty not to be obviated by improvements in agriculture; discovery of new markets, in which food and raw produce are cheap; improvements in machinery, by which all manufactured necessaries are reduced in value, and increased in quantity; better division and distribution of labour; and by the increasing skill both in science and arts, acquired and communicated by the ingenious part of the community, whereby the very disproportion between the prices of raw produce and manufactured productions, the one rising, and the other falling, as above mention

* We mean only, that experience shews this to have been the case hitherto; and, therefore, think it will continue to be the case for at least a very long time to come.