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tion, to a further demand for raw produce, and to an increased cultivation."*

After this ample concession, it is extraordinary indeed that Mr Ricardo, who has in general, as Mr Malthus observes,† kept his eye so steadily fixed on ultimate and permanent, not immediate or temporary consequences, should yet maintain that the interest of the landlords is opposed to that of the other classes of the community.

Mr Ricardo indeed adds, that "it is only, however, after the increase of the population, that rent would be as high as before; that is to say, after No 3 (referring to quality of soil, and to that quality, namely, which is two degrees inferior to the first quality,) was taken into cultivation. A considerable period would have elapsed, attended with a positive diminution of rent."

Now, admitting this to be the case, still it is but a temporary, not a permanent interest which the land-proprietors can have in the exclusion of foreign corn, even according to Mr Ricardo's own showing.§ But it is by no means certain, or probable, that even a temporary diminution of rent would take place in consequence of the temporary fall in the price of corn, which might probably follow upon the re

+ Ibid. chap. ii.

* Principles of Political Economy, chap. ii. + Ibid. chap. iii. sect. 10. p. 230. § No persons ever raised so loud an outcry against restrictions on importation, and yet none perhaps ever contributed so much to prevent their removal, as Mr Ricardo and his disciples. This extraordinary circumstance has arisen from their constantly maintaining, in the broadest and most unqualified manner, that a free trade in corn would be directly adverse to the interests of the land-proprietors, which doctrine, after the above ample concession, is exceedingly remarkable. The unsoundness of this doctrine is, however, now beginning to be seen and acknowledged more generally than formerly, and even some of the most thorough-going partizans of Mr Ricardo are beginning to fall away from it.

U

moval of restrictions on importation, even in a country where the home price was considerably above the foreign; because the fall which would probably occur for a short while at first, would in process of time increase the consumption not of corn only, but of cattle, and consequently the quantity of land applied to the purpose of rearing and feeding them, and in this manner counteract the effects of importation on price, and sustain rent before it had time to fall; for it is to be borne in mind, that rent does not vibrate with every vibration in the price of corn, or fall immediately upon the reduction of price, or from a temporary reduction at all.

In the case of a country already wealthy and populous, but which had for a long period excluded foreign corn from its markets, it may be thought that, if surrounded with countries rich in land, though in nothing else, and admitting the importation of corn all at once, the demand and population of such country could not keep pace with the supplies of corn. This, however, is by no means certain; but it is certain that in the surrounding poorer countries the art of farming, as well as the means of farming well, would be wanting, or inferior, and it is probable that the price would not, after a very short period, be considerably different in the one and the other; for countries, however rich in land, cannot increase their supplies immediately at will beyond a certain small measure. No supplies indeed are or ever can be acquired so rapidly as to reduce rent in an extensive and populous country, and, in point of fact, no case can be shown where rent has been permanently reduced but from a decrease of population or of wealth, or both.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE WAGES OF LABOUR.

SECTION I.

OF THE RIGHT TO WAGES-LIMITS OF THAT RIGHT DEFINED WAGES DEFINED.

WAGES consist of those things which are given or received for labour or personal exertion, either of body or mind, as the recompense or reward of that labour. "The produce of labour," as Dr Smith very justly observes, "constitutes the natural recompense or wages of labour."* But it is only in the very earliest and rudest state of human society that the immediate actual produce of the labourer can constitute his wages. In the advanced state, and in every period after the first establishment of the division of labour, the immediate produce of the labourer, or rather his labour itself, must in general be exchanged for money, which must again be exchanged for a variety of other things, which things it is that really constitute the wages of the labourer.

For in every period of society after that in which the division of labour is introduced, any single individual commonly performs but one particular operation, or set of operations, in the process of production, and but rarely brings to perfection, by his own separate and independent industry, even one single article or commodity. And even if it should happen that he does, his wants are not confined to a single article, but are, on the contrary, innumerable and infinitely

• Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 8.

various. Besides, it is to be remembered, that, in the great majority of instances, the labour of each individual is commonly bestowed upon some subject-matter, or commodity, which is the property of another; which has been the fruit of other men's labour and saving, and from which the immediate effects or actual produce of the present contributor cannot be separated.

One man tills the ground and gathers the harvest, another grinds the corn, and a third bakes the flour into bread, before a perfect article is produced. Now it is manifest that not one of these labourers can distinctly abstract and carry away his actual produce. For, besides that none of them do the whole of the work, the subject-matter, that is, the corn, belongs not, perhaps, to any one of them, but to a fourth party or individual, to whom consequently a certain share of the finished article must be also assigned. Not one of these persons therefore can abstract or appropriate his particular produce, nor can any one take the whole, without taking what belongs in part to others as well as to himself. The proper share of each therefore, it is evident, can only be practically or fairly settled (as in point of fact universally it is settled) by treaty and agreement amongst the parties, and by determining beforehand, either that an actual division and distribution of the commodity itself shall be made, or (as is the more usual way) that each individual concerned shall receive his share-the equivalent or reward for his contribution, whether of labour or commodities-in some other article, as money, reciprocally agreed upon and stipulated previously to the commencement of their joint undertakings.

And this which has been just stated is a comparatively simple case. In other manufactures there is a still greater variety of parts to be performed by the different labourers employed in production; not one of whom can abstract, or receive, or appropriate his actual produce; not to mention

the provinces of unproductive labour, in which, there being no`production at all,—that is, no production of wealth or property, the labourer in that sort could but rarely be rewarded by the actual or immediate effects of his labour. In the very earliest and rudest state of society, the actual produce of the chase may reward the hunter, the skin he dresses may reward the dresser of skins, and the hut he erects may reward the hut-maker. But in the advanced state, we plainly see that even the productive labourers can but rarely be rewarded by the immediate produce of their labour, because they can but rarely carry away or appropriate that produce; and in the provinces of unproductive labour, how should the physician, the lawyer, or the divine, be rewarded by the immediate effects of their peculiar species of labour, except in those few instances only, wherein they might happen themselves to require "a cast" of their own respective offices, viz. medicine, legal advice, and spiritual consolation ?

It is not therefore the actual or immediate produce of the labourer which can, in general, in the advanced stages of society, constitute his wages, but those other things rather which he receives for his labour or for its produce in exchange.

Wages are in general paid in money; but neither is it the money itself which the labourer receives that really constitutes his wages, but those things rather which that money can enable him to purchase and appropriate to his use. It is the quantity and quality of the other sorts of wealth, comprising the actual produce and contributions of many different persons, which the money-wages he receives can enable him to purchase, that properly constitute the real reward or wages of the labourer; which real wages are good or bad, large or small, and high or low, not in proportion to the number or weight merely of the metal pieces he receives, but in proportion always to the quantity and quality of those various other articles, or various descriptions of wealth, as

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