this century is any greater now than it was in 1800, though the population of all England meanwhile has doubled.

In the United States, the want of local attachments and the restless and migratory character of the population have drawn attention to the fact, that Rents begin, or the land acquires value, as fast as the vicinity is peopled. The favorite form of speculation here, the easiest and most common mode of money-getting, is the acquisition of a tract of land in some neighborhood where the circumstances indicate that a new town or city must soon spring up. A fortune is thus easily acquired, as the land acquires value before any labor is expended upon it, and long before the necessities of an increasing population would require it to be inhabited, or even cultivated. In England, the more stationary habits of the population have concealed this fact; and as the land slowly rose in value with the advancement of opulence and the gradual increase in the number of the whole people, Ricardo's theory of Rent seemed plausible enough. Yet even in England there has been a regular movement of the population, a steady drain from the agricultural counties, and a filling up of the manufacturing districts.

The rise of Rents, as thus explained, is no hardship for those who are not landholders, and does not tend to depress the laboring part of the population. Those who pay these higher Rents, or the higher prices of corn which produce them, are compensated by the advantages they obtain through their vicinity to a market. In fact, the enhancement of price for the burghers or citizens is merely nominal; they obtain more, and have a readier sale, for the manufactured goods which they produce, and pay more for the corn which they consume, the one result counterbalancing the other. What matters it to the laborer if he pays more Rent for his dwelling, and a higher price for his corn and potatoes, provided that the additional wages which he receives are more than enough to meet these additional expenses? The positive gain to the community consists in the saving of transportation both ways. If the population were not concentrated, it would be necessary to transport the agricultural produce a long distance to the town where it is consumed, and to carry the manufactured goods an equal distance to the farmers who need them. Even the English Economists admit that a great saving is effected in this respect through

canals, railways, and other contrivances which lessen the cost of transportation. Is it not still a greater saving to do away with the necessity of these improved means of transport, and with the cost of constructing them, by bringing the agriculturists and the manufacturers nearer to each other?

cent.

It is as much for the interest, then, of the farmers of the Mississippi Valley, as of the manufacturers themselves, that the American system of protection should be continued. At present, the value of the lands at the West is kept down by the distance of their produce from a market. The cost of transporting a barrel of flour from Cincinnati to New York amounts, at ordinary prices, to at least thirty per cent of its value at the former place; the cost of its further transportation to Liverpool, including insurance and other necessary expenses, raises this proportion to about forty per Create a manufacturing population in Ohio like that which exists in English Lancashire, and the price of flour at Cincinnati would be made equal to its price at Liverpool. Free trade between England and Ohio, then, means simply that Ohio produce should be admitted into the English ports under what we may call a "transportation duty" of forty per cent; while, owing to the great value in a small bulk, of the finer manufactures, English produce is to be admitted into Cincinnati at a duty of only fifteen per cent. In other words, the opponents of protection would persuade the Ohio farmer that it is better for him to buy English broadcloth at $1.70 a yard, and sell his flour at $5.00, than to buy American broadcloth of the same quality at $2.00, and sell his flour at $7.00. The depression in the value of Ohio produce, which took place between 1847 and 1852, is clearly attributable to the fact, that the crowds of laborers discharged from our unprosperous manufacturing establishments, and the 300,000 immigrants annually landed on our shores, had been driven into agriculture, and had so increased the annual product of Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin, as to undersell the Ohio farmer at his own door. The protection of our manufactures would enlarge the home market for him, through the very means which are now swelling the number of his competitors.

CHAPTER X.

THE CAUSES WHICH AFFECT THE RATE OF WAGES: WHY WAGES ARE NOT EQUAL IN DIFFERENT EMPLOYMENTS.

THE doctrine of the English Economists respecting Wages may be easily inferrred from their two theories, already considered, respecting Population and Rent. Putting aside the consideration of Wages reckoned in money, as these are subject to merely nominal variations, according as the value of money rises or falls, they say that Wages rated in commodities, or the quantity of produce apportioned to each laborer, is determined by the ratio which the capital of the country bears to its laboring population, or to the number of those who work for hire. By capital, however, they here mean "only Circulating capital, and not even the whole of that, but only the part of it which is expended directly in the purchase of labor. To this, however, must be added all funds which, without forming a part of capital, are paid in exchange for labor; such as the wages of soldiers, domestic servants, and all other unproductive laborers." The aggregate of capital or wealth devoted to this purpose, to the payment of productive or unproductive labor, may be termed the Wages-fund of a country; and the share of it which each laborer receives will evidently be determined by its amount, divided by the whole number of persons seeking employment.

Thus explained, the doctrine is a mere truism. We obtain no insight into the causes which regulate the rate of Wages, when we are merely told that this rate depends upon the whole sum annually expended for Wages, divided by the number of persons who share this sum among them. But as it is intended to be understood, the doctrine is merely a covert statement of the theory of Malthus. Assuming it to be impossible, by any measure of legislation or government policy, to increase the aggregate funds employed in hiring laborers, it is affirmed that a "diminution in the number of competitors for hire" is the sole means of raising Wages, and that the power and responsibility are thus placed in the hands of the laborers themselves. If they will refrain from overstocking the labor-market, their condition as a class may be

bettered; but "every scheme for their benefit, which does not proceed on this as its foundation, is, for all permanent purposes, a delusion." "It is impossible," continues Mr. Mill, "that Population should increase at its utmost rate without lowering Wages. Nor will the fall be stopped at any point short of that which, either by its physical or its moral operation, checks the increase of Population."

Here is the great mistake of confounding the undue relative number of a class, with a general excess of the whole Population. The former evil might be corrected by portioning out society anew, through the gradual influence of altered laws, so that the divisions, or castes, which are too thin in number, might be recruited from those which are in excess, and the proper balance be thus restored without the necessity of adopting any measures which would affect the bulk of the people. The latter evil, if it ever really existed, could be removed only by war, pestilence, famine, or a general adoption of the doctrine of Malthus. If it were as easy in England as it is in this country for a common laborer to become a master-mechanic, or a small tradesman, or to buy a farm; or if, as in most countries on the Continent, the bulk of the laboring community possessed either peasant properties, or a kind of prescriptive right to farm the land of another "on shares,” as métayers, there would be no need of preaching abstinence from marriage to them; they would not compete with each other in the labormarket, if the rate of Wages were not high enough to tempt them to forsake their independent occupations. The number of persons in Great Britain who are entirely dependent on the Wages of hired labor is unquestionably much too great; the proportion of this class to the whole people is probably five times as large as in any country in Continental Europe. Diminish their number, then, by all means. But how? The Malthusian Economists assume that the only mode of effecting this end is to check the natural growth of the whole population, to lessen the yearly average of marriages and births. But would it not be equally effectual, and more practicable, to recruit from them the classes which are strikingly deficient in numbers, and thus restore the proper balance of society? It is certainly an anomaly and an evil, that more than half of the people of Great Britain should be hired laborers, who have neither capital nor land; but it is equally anomalous and inju

rious to the welfare of the whole nation, that only about 50,000 persons should own nearly all the land, and less than 250,000 possess four fifths of the whole property, both real and personal. If the greater part of the hired laborers in England could be converted into peasant proprietors, we should hear no more complaints about the lowness of Wages, or the over-populousness of the country. The true mode of raising the rate of Wages is to alter the relative number of employers and employed, not to diminish the absolute amount of the Population.

According to the English theory, however, there are certain limits below which Wages cannot be reduced. "The cost of producing labor," says McCulloch, "like that of everything else, must be paid by the purchasers. The race of laborers would become extinct, were they not supplied with the food and other articles sufficient, at least, for their support and that of their families. This is the lowest limit to which the rate of Wages can be permanently reduced; and for this reason, it has been called the natural or necessary rate of Wages. The market, or actual, rate of Wages may sink to the level of this rate, but it is impossible it should continue below it. It is not on the quantity of money received by the laborer, but on the quantity of food and other articles which that money will buy, that his ability to maintain himself, and rear children, must depend. Hence the natural or necessary rate of Wages is determined by the cost of the food, clothes, fuel, etc. required for the use and accommodation of laborers. However high the price of these articles, the laborers must always receive a supply of them adequate for their suppport; if they did not obtain thus much, they would be destitute; and disease and death would continue to thin the population, until the reduced numbers bore such a proportion to the national capital as enabled them to obtain the means of subsistence."

The standard of natural Wages, however, does not always mean the smallest amount of food and other necessaries that is absolutely requisite to preserve life. As we have seen, what are accounted necessaries in one country may be esteemed, in another, the decencies, and, in a third, the luxuries, of life. In England, the custom of the country requires that the laborer should have beer; his family, tea; and all must have daily provision of bread, and occasionally taste meat. Only in Ireland, before the recent