principle bearing on the condition of the industrious classes, is keeping population in the rear of the funds for its employment. If the market of labour be overstocked, wages will be lowered by compe tition for work, and an inferior standard of comfort and enjoyment forced upon them: and, should habit reconcile them to an inferior style of living, a long farewell may be bid to their future improvement.

Labour, like gold and silver, can be made valu able by its scarcity only, and no other contrivance. All the acts of legislation, all the combinations and devices among workmen themselves, must fail in raising to a high price, that which is redundant, which every where abounds, and which may be indefinitely, and by any one, produced: we might as well seek to give a value to water, or the atmosphere that surrounds us. A scarcity of the employed, and abundance of employers; a population that follows, and not precedes, the augmentation of national wealth, is the great secret of popular amelioration Without this, the advantages of increasing opulence, civilization, and commerce, can never be participated in by the working classes; social improvements, in every shape, may advance over the land, but it will never touch the low and stagnant pool in which they are immersed.

As the high price of labour produced by scarcity of workmen, is the fortress that protects all their comforts and conveniences, they ought never to yield an inch of the vantage ground,' without dire necessity. The remarks of Mr. M'Culloch on this

point, are dictated by sense and humanity, and well worthy of attention. "The example," says he, "of such individuals, or bodies of individuals, as submit quietly to have their wages reduced, and who are content if they get only the mere necessaries of life, ought never to be held up for public imitation. On the contrary, every thing should be done to make such apathy esteemed disgraceful. The best interests of society require, that the rate of wages should be elevated as high as possible-that a taste for the comforts, luxuries, and enjoyments of human life, should be widely diffused, and, if possible, interwoven with national habits and prejudices. Very low wages, by rendering it impossible for any increased exertions to obtain any considerable increase of comforts and enjoyments, effectually hinders them from being made, and is, of all others, the most powerful cause of that idleness and apathy, that contents itself with what can barely continue animal existence."-Principles of Political Economy, second edition, p. 394.

The father of economical science had inculcated the same philanthropic doctrine. "Is this improvement," asks Smith," in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people to be regarded as an advantage, or as an inconveniency to society? The answer seems at first abundantly plain. Servants, labourers, and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part, can never be regarded as any inconveniency to the whole.

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour, as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged."-Wealth of Nations, b. i. ch. 8.

Government is interested not less than the people, in the diffusion of such sentiments. It can never be the pride of authority to rule over an ignorant, ill-fed, and degraded population. The diffusion of political power has assimilated society to the nature of a jointstock association, in which the rulers and ruled have a common interest. Government cannot be rich, while the body of the community is indigent; it cannot be safe, while that on which it mainly rests, cannot be depended on for support. It is not the opulent who demand legislative attention; they are exempt from want, and as they assume to be educated, they ought to be exempt from crime; they form that part of the social waste, which has been reclaimed and cultivated: but the poor, if not still in the wilderness, are only on its verge, and require to be brought forward by the application of those practical truths I have endeavoured to explain and enforce.

CHAP. IX.

FLUCTUATIONS IN EMPLOYMENTS.

Variations in Rural Labour-Fluctuations in Manufacturing Employments-the Commercial Cycle-Changes of Fashion and the Site of Manufactories-Effects of Machinery-Not lessened aggregate Employment of Society, but displaced particular Branches of Industry-Shearmen, Flax-dressers, and Hand-loom Weavers-Enormous Increase of the Manufacturing, compared with the Agricultural Population-Specific Advantages of Machinery stated-Suggestions for Mitigating the Effects of Fluctuations of EmploymentTailors, Brushmakers, and Carpet-manufacturers-Methods adopted by Masters to meet temporary Stagnation of Trade -Novelty and Importance of the Subject to Statesmen and Economical Writers.

THE quantity of employment is not uniform in any branch of industry. It may be affected by changes of seasons, the alterations of fashion, or the vicissitudes of commerce. The demand for manufac tured products is different at different periods of the year. In agriculture the demand for labour is greater during spring and harvest, than in winter. These are periodic variations in rural industry, which may be foreseen and provided for; but others are of a more irregular and inappreciable character. Agriculture, like other pursuits, may either be in a progressive or declining state; it may be extending from the natural causes, arising from the increase of capital or of population, or from artificial encouragement, which excludes foreign

competition in the home market. The absence of any of these stimulants, will render agriculture stationary, if not retrograde; in the latter case there will be a permanent and increasing redundancy of labour, entailing calamities of a more serious description, than those resulting from revolutions of the seasons.

Although rural employment is not exempt from fluctuation, it is less liable thereto than commercial and manufacturing industry. In the latter is a greater expensive power than the former, it is capable of more sudden development or contraction. A fortunate discovery in mechanics may at once quadruple the productive power of machinery; or a manufacturer, when he finds it expedient from slackness of trade, may at once dismiss his workmen, and stop the working of his mills and factories. A farmer has not equal power in husbandry. New lands cannot be suddenly reclaimed nor abandoned ; neither can capital laid out in the improved culture of old lands, be hastily withdrawn. It follows the demand for labour increases or diminishes more gradually in agriculture than in manufactures. Add to which, the products of the former chiefly belong to the class of necessaries, of the latter to luxuries, the consumption of which may be dispensed with, or varies with the changing circumstances of the buyer, or the fluctuations of taste and fashion.

More powerful machinery, an increase of the hours of working, or the number of workpeople, always enables the manufacturer to proportion the