outset, that the condition or well-being of the labouring classes cannot in any case be correctly measured by, or inferred from, the wages they receive. It depends to a great extent on the conduct and habits of the labourers, more especially on the description and cost of the articles used by them, and on their frugality and forethought. The same amount of wages that would suffice to maintain a workman who lived principally on corn and butcher's-meat, would probably maintain two or more if they lived principally on potatoes. And, whatever may be the articles of subsistence used by a people, they will, it is obvious, be powerfully affected by variations in their supply and price,' by the skill with which they are applied to their respective purposes, and the economy with which they are used or saved for future occasions. The expenditure even of the poorest individuals is spread, in a country like this, over a great variety of articles, some of which conduce but little, while others are not unfrequently adverse, to their comfort and respectability. And hence, though the rate of wages, whether estimated in money or in commodities, depends wholly on the proportion between capital and labour, the condition of the labourers is not determined by that rate only, but partly by it, and partly also, and perhaps principally, by the mode in which they expend their wages, that is, by their peculiar tastes and habits in regard to necessaries, conveniences, and amusements. Every one, indeed, is aware that work-people with 18s., 20s., and 24s. a-week, are frequently much better off than others with 28s., 30s., and 36s., per do., though the families of the former be quite as large as those of the latter.

The wages and the habits of the labouring classes are intimately connected with, and powerfully influence, each other. Generally speaking, a rise of wages, however occasioned, tends, as will afterwards be fully shown, to improve the habits of the population; and improved habits tend

A rise in their price being in most cases nearly equivalent to a corresponding fall of wages, and a fall in their price to a corresponding rise of wages.

equally to raise wages; whereas a fall of wages, and the deterioration of habits which it occasions, have precisely opposite effects.

Without further insisting at present on considerations which will hereafter be resumed, it is plain that the rate of wages in any given country, at any specified period, depends on the ratio between the portion of its capital appropriated to the payment of wages, and the number of its labourers. The next object, in the natural order of inquiry, is to discover whether capital and population usually increase or diminish in the same or in different proportions. This is obviously a very important inquiry. If capital have a tendency to advance faster than population, then it is plain that wages must have an equal tendency to increase, and the condition of the labouring classes must, speaking generally, become more and more prosperous. But, on the other hand, if population have a tendency to increase faster than capital, it is equally plain, unless this tendency be checked by the prudence and forethought of the labourers, that wages will have a constant tendency to fall; and that consequently, the condition of the lower classes may be expected to become gradually more and more wretched, until their wages are reduced to the smallest pittance that will suffice for their support. It is indispensable that principles, pregnant with such important results, should be carefully investigated.

CHAPTER II.

Comparative Increase of Capital and Population.

It is not possible to obtain any accurate estimates of the quantities of capital in countries at different periods; but the capacity of that capital to feed and employ labourers, and the rate of its increase, may, notwithstanding, be learned with

sufficient accuracy for our purpose, by referring to the progress of population, and the habits of the bulk of the people. It is plain, from the statements already made, that the inhabitants of a country, supposing them to have the same, or about the same, continuous command over necessaries and conveniences, cannot increase without a corresponding increase of capital. Whenever, therefore, we find the people of a country increasing, without any, or with but little variation taking place in their condition, we may conclude that the capital of the country is increasing in the same, or nearly the same, proportion. Now, it has been established beyond all question, that the population of several of the States of North America has, after making due allowance for immigrants, continued to double, for a century past, in so short a period as twenty or at most five-and-twenty years. And as neither the kinds nor the supply of necessaries and conveniences falling to the share of the inhabitants of the United States is supposed to have been materially affected during the last century, the increase of population shows that the capital of the country has advanced in a nearly corresponding ratio. But in old-settled countries, the increase of capital, and consequently of population, is much slower. The population of Scotland, for example, is supposed to have amounted to 1,265,000 in 1755; and as it amounted to 2,870,784 in 1851, it would follow, on the principle already stated, that the capital of the country had required nearly 76 years to double.1 In like manner, the population of England and Wales amounted to 6,039,000 in 1750, and to 17,905,831 in 1851, showing that the population, and therefore the capital, of that country, applicable to the support of man, or the supply of food, clothes, and other articles necessary for the support of human life, had about trebled in a century.

The cause of this discrepancy in the rates at which capital and population advance in different countries, is to be found in the circumstance of industry being more productive in

1 It has more than doubled; for the condition of all classes has been greatly improved.

some than in others. Capital consists of the accumulated produce of industry; and wherever, therefore, industry is most productive, there will also, it may be presumed, be the greatest power to increase capital. This presumption may no doubt be, and frequently is, defeated by the greater weight of the public burdens in the more productive country, by defective institutions, a feeling of insecurity, or some such modifying principle. But where these do not occur, or where their influence is not sufficient to countervail the superior productiveness of industry, the means of accumulation will be comparatively extensive. It is obvious, too, that the increase of that portion of capital, which consists of the food and other raw products required for the subsistence and accommodation of the labourer, will especially depend on the productiveness of the soils that are under tillage. Were agriculture in the same state of advancement in any two countries, and the soils under cultivation twice as fertile in the one as in the other, it is evident that the power of adding to its stock of food and other raw materials would also be twice as great in the more fertile country as in the other. It is on this principle partly, but more on the facility of getting land, that we are able to account for the extraordinarily rapid increase of capital and population in the United States, and generally in all colonies planted in fertile and thinly-peopled countries. America possesses a vast extent of fertile and unoccupied territory, which is sold in convenient portions at very low prices. It is not good land, but labour, that is there the desideratum; and the larger a man's family, that is, the greater the amount of labour at his command, the more prosperous does he become. Hence, in America, while farming is low, profits are high. But in Great Britain, and other long-settled and densely-peopled countries, the state of society is widely different. Here farming is high and profits low. All our land has been appropriated for ages; large sums have been expended upon its improvement; and it cannot be obtained except at a high price. Additional supplies of food are in consequence

raised with much greater difficulty in old than in newly settled countries. And, cæteris paribus, their advance in wealth and population is comparatively slow. The rate of wages in such countries may not, all things taken into account, differ very materially. But the situation of the labourers in new countries will, notwithstanding, be generally preferable, inasmuch as they afford greater facilities to industrious individuals of acquiring land, and raising themselves to a superior station.

It was stated by various witnesses before a committee of the House of Commons on the state of agriculture, in 1822, that the produce obtained from the best lands under wheat in England and Wales varied from thirty-six to forty bushels an acre;1 while that obtained from the inferior lands did not exceed eight or ten bushels. But in past times, when the population was scanty, and tillage was confined to the superior lands, agriculture was at a very low ebb; and it may be doubted whether the lands that now yield from forty to fifty bushels an acre did then yield more than from a fourth to a third part of that quantity. The power to increase supplies of food is not, therefore, dependent only on the quality of the soils in cultivation, but partly on that and partly also on the state of agriculture. In this country, improvements in the latter have more than countervailed for a lengthened period the decreasing fertility of the soils to which we have had to resort for additional supplies of food. This has been most strikingly verified, as every one knows, in the interval that has elapsed since the conclusion of the American, and more especially of the late French, war. We now raise much larger supplies of corn, beef, &c., than we did at the lastmentioned period, notwithstanding prices have fallen heavily in the interval.

In England and the United States, whose inhabitants speak the same language, and have a very extensive intercourse with each other, the arts and sciences cultivated in them both may

1 From forty to fifty bushels an acre would now be nearer the mark.