to month. But in many places the money price of labour remains uniformly the same sometimes for half a century together. The high price of provisions during these ten years past (1766-1776) has not in many parts of the kingdom been accompanied with any sensible rise in the money price of labour.

"As the price of provisions varies more from year to year than the wages of labour, so, on the other hand, the wages of labour vary more from place to place. The prices of bread and butcher's meat are generally the same, or very nearly the same, through the greater part of the United Kingdom. These and most other things which are sold by retail, the way in which the labouring poor buy all things, are generally full as cheap or cheaper in great towns than in the remoter parts of the country, for reasons which I shall have to explain hereafter. But the wages of labour in a great town and its neighbourhood are frequently a fourth or a fifth part, twenty or twenty-five per cent., higher than at a few miles distance. Eighteen pence a day may be reckoned the common price of labour in London and its neighbourhood. At a few miles distance it falls to fourteen and fifteen pence. Tenpence may be reckoned its price in Edinburgh and its neighbourhood. At a few miles distance it falls to eightpence, the usual price of common labour through the greater part of the low country of Scotland, where it varies a good deal less than in England.

"The variations in the price of labour not only do not correspond either in place or time with those in the price of provisions, but they are frequently quite opposite!!

"Grain, the food of the common people, is dearer in Scotland than in England, whence Scotland receives almost every year very large supplies. But English corn must be sold dearer in Scotland, the country to which it is brought, than in England, the country from which it comes; and in proportion to its quality it cannot be sold dearer in Scotland than the Scotch corn that comes to the same market in competition with it. The quality of grain depends chiefly upon the quality of flour or meal which it yields at the mill, and in this respect English grain is so much superior to the Scotch, that though often dearer in appearance, or in proportion to the measure of its bulk, it is generally cheaper in reality, or in proportion to its quality, or even to the measure of its weight. The price of labour, on the contrary, is dearer in

England than in Scotland. If the labouring poor, therefore, can maintain their families in the one part of the United Kingdom, they must be in affluence in the other. Oatmeal, indeed, supplies the common people of Scotland with the greatest and the best part of their food, which is in general much inferior to that of their neighbours of the same rank in England. This difference however in the mode of their subsistence is not the cause but the effect of the difference in their wages; though, by a strange misapprehension, I have frequently heard it represented as the cause. It is not because one man keeps a coach while his neighbour walks a-foot, that the one is rich and the other poor; but because the one is rich he keeps a coach, and because the other is poor he walks a-foot."

[Now, who has more clearly exhibited this misapprehension than Smith himself, as we have shewn in the preceding extracts?] "During the course of the last century, taking one year with another, grain was dearer in both parts of the United Kingdom than during that of the present. But though it is

certain that in both parts of the United Kingdom grain was somewhat dearer in the last century than in the present, it is equally certain that labour was much cheaper, &c."

Now is it possible to have a more flagrant contradiction than Smith's doctrine in these different parts of his work? And as we have shewn that a similar contradiction pervades the whole of his work on almost every point in Economics, we can only leave the reader to judge of the worth of such a book as a scientific authority.

26. Ricardo follows in exactly the same strain1—" Labour, like all things which are purchased and sold, and which may be increased or diminished in quantity, has its natural and its market price. The natural price of labour is that price which is necessary to enable the labourers one with another to subsist and perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution." "The natural price of labour depends on the price of food, necessaries, and conveniences required for the support of the labourer and his family. With a rise in the price of food and necessaries, the natural price of labour will rise; with a fall in their price the natural price of labour will fall."-" The 1 Principles of Political Economy, p. 86, 3rd Edit.

market price of labour is the price which is really paid for it, from the natural operation of the proportion of the supply to the demand; labour is dear when it is scarce, and cheap when it is plentiful. However much the market price of labour may deviate from its natural standard, it has, like commodities, a tendency to conform to it." A little examination will shew how vague and inaccurate the ideas in these sentences are. What are the natural food, necessaries, and conveniences of a labourer? The standard varies in every country. Are we to take the wheaten standard of England, the oaten standard of Scotland, or the potatoe standard of Ireland? or the black rye bread standard of Poland? Which of these is the natural standard? Wages in the West Riding of Yorkshire used to be 14s., in Dorsetshire 78. a week-which of these was the natural standard? A little reflection will shew that the idea of a natural standard is a mere chimera. The same principle determines the rate of wages in each of these cases; it is the proportion existing between capital, employment, and labourers in each locality. What made wages so low in Ireland and Dorsetshire? The abundance of labourers and the scarcity of capital and employment. What made wages so high in Yorkshire? The abundance of capital and employment and the scarcity of labourers. If any cause produces a change in the relative proportion of these three elements, a change in the rate of wages necessarily results. Since the famine and emigration have relieved Ireland of the superabundance of labourers, wages have risen greatly. Emigration has produced the same effects in Dorsetshire, and if the same proportions as now exist between these three elements be preserved, the ordinary rate of wages will continue as at present. We see, then, the extreme inaccuracy of speaking of the natural price of labour. What Ricardo means by the natural price is nothing more than the usual market price, which has been produced by a longcontinued steadiness in the proportions between the elements of wages, but if any causes change that proportion, the ordinary market price changes with it. Hence, we see that the relation of supply and demand is the sole rule that governs wages.

27. It will be seen that Ricardo's views on the subject of labour are influenced by exactly the same error, which is the fundamental defect of his doctrine of Value, namely, an inversion

of cause and effect. It is perfectly manifest that it is not the price of food which regulates wages, but the wages received which indicate the most expensive food which the labourer can afford to buy. Wages in England have not risen because the labourers eat wheaten bread instead of rye bread as formerly, but they eat wheaten bread because their wages enable them to do so. The wages in Ireland were not so low because the people eat potatoes, but the miserable peasantry were driven to feed upon potatoes because their wages were so low; because there were so many labourers and so little employment. So the people in Scotland eat oatmeal porridge and oatcakes because their wages were not sufficient to allow them to eat wheaten bread. Just for the same reason in the northern districts they used to wear kilts because they were too poor to wear better clothes. But since they have become better off they dress like their southern brethren, and they eat wheaten bread to a very much greater extent than formerly. And so it is on the continent of Europe. The people in a great many of the continental countries live so badly because their wages are so low. There are so many people, and there is, comparatively speaking, so little employment. Nothing can shew more clearly the error of the idea that the price of food regulates wages than, on the one hand, the case of the United States of America and Canada, where food is extremely cheap and wages extremely high. What is the reason of this? It is that food is very abundant and labour very scarce. It is nothing but the supply and demand of each article. On the other hand, we may take as a reverse case, the example of the unfortunate needlewomen of London and other cities of western Europe. Garnier remarks1 exactly the same thing of the needlewomen of Paris. "A Paris, par exemple, tout le travaille d'aiguille est tombé à un taux insuffisant pour fair vivre celles qui n'ont pas d'autre ressource.' And Dr. Mayer says that at Lille, the workwomen who make the lace gain from 1d. to 1d. a day, working 16 hours. And population has increased so much compared to employment, that those who could gain two or three francs a day 30 years ago, in 1845 could gain only one franc, and those the most favoured. At the other extremity of the world, we may take China as an example of the same truth. Travellers give us accounts of the disgusting garbage which the poorer Chinese will eat: now,

1 Elemens d'Economic Politique, p. 401.

the

rate of wages there does not depend upon what they eat, but they are driven to eat that abomination because the remuneration for labour is low. And this is on account of the prodigious numbers of the people.

28. The law of supply and demand, then, holds universally with regard to wages. An excessive increase of the people forces down wages by an inevitable law of nature, and as their numbers increase faster than employment, their wages must progressively diminish, and their comfort and scale of living become rapidly deteriorated. Nothing could save the scale of living of the poorer classes of this country from descending to the level of the Irish, or the Chinese, if their numbers went on increasing without a corresponding increase of employment. It is not unusual to hear persons of benevolence, who see the shocking misery which even now prevails among so many in this country, exclaim that employers ought to pay higher wages. But all such ideas are visionary. There is only one effectual mode of relief, and that is to diminish their numbers, by providing outlets for the superabundant hands, until the diminution of their numbers may again raise their wages, so that they can find constant employment, at wages which will enable them to live in comfort.

29. It is no mere speculative opinion that a general and longcontinued low price of corn is not only not necessarily accompanied by a low rate of wages, but most probably by the very reverse. The most remarkable continuance of generally fine seasons and abundance of corn ever known occurred in the last century. For the extraordinary period of sixty-five years, from 1701 to 1765, there was, with a few exceptions, a continued series of plentiful harvests. The average price of corn for that period was 16 per cent. less than the average price for the preceding century; but, notwithstanding that, the price of labour rose greatly during the same period, and, what was least to be expected, agricultural labour rose 16 per cent. Tooke says "The fact, indeed, of a rise of money wages in this country, coincidently with a fall in the price of corn during the long interval in question, rests on unquestionable authorities;" and, says Smith-"In Great Britain the real recompense of labour, it has already been shewn, the real History of Prices, Vol. I., p. 55.