Political Economy

DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH, (continued).

Relative Proportions of Rent, Profit, and Wages.

Having given a general outline of the three great classes among whom all that is produced is distributed, and of the general laws which regulate the comparative values of different products, we now proceed to consider the general laws which regulate the proportions in which Landlords, Capitalists, and Labourers share in the general distribution, or, in other words, which regulate the proportions which Rent, Profit, and Wages bear to one another.

Nomenclature.—We have followed the established nomenclature which divides society into Landlords, Capitalists, and Labourers; and revenue into Rent, Wages, and Profit. And we have defined Rent to be the revenue spontaneously offered by nature or accident; Wages, the reward of labour; and Profit, that of abstinence. At a distance these divisions appear clearly marked, but when we look into the details, we find them so intermingled that it is scarcely possible to subject them to a classification which shall not sometimes appear to be inconsistent, and still more frequently to be arbitrary. But it must be remembered that questions of classification relate rather to language than to facts; and that our object will have been effected if we can assist the memory by supplying a precise and consistent nomenclature.

We will begin by recurring to a subject to which we have already alluded, the frequent difficulty of deciding whether a given revenue ought or ought not to be called Rent. When an estate has been for some time leased to a careful tenant, it generally receives permanent ameliorations, which enable the owner, at the expiration of the lease, to obtain a higher rent. A bog worth 2s. annually an acre may be converted into arable or pasture worth annually £2. Is the increase of revenue rent or profit? It arises from an additional fertility, now inseparably attached to the land. It is received by the owner without sacrifice on his part. It is, in fact, undistinguishable from the previous rent. On the other hand, its existence is owing to the abstinence of the farmer, who devoted to a distant object, the amelioration of the land, labour which he might have employed in producing immediate enjoyment for himself. If the owner of the estate had farmed it himself, and had directed labour to be employed on its permanent improvement, the additional produce occasioned by those improvements would clearly have been termed profit. It appears, therefore, most convenient to term it profit when occasioned by the improvements made by a tenant. In fact, these improvements are as consistently to be termed capital as a dock or a cotton-mill. Whose capital are they then? During the lease the capital of the tenant; when it has fallen in, the capital of the landlord, who has purchased them by engaging not to raise the rent during the currency of the lease.

We may be asked, then, whether the improvements which form the greater part of the value of the soil of every well-cultivated district are all, and for ever, to be termed capital? Whether the payments received from his tenants by the present owner of a Lincolnshire estate, reclaimed by the Romans from the sea, are to be termed, not rent but profit on the capital which was expended fifteen centuries ago? The answer is, that, for all useful purposes, the distinction of profit from rent ceases as soon as the capital, from which a given revenue arises, has become, whether by gift or by inheritance, the property of a person to whose abstinence and exertions it did not owe its creation. The revenue arising from a dock, or a wharf, or a canal, is profit in the hands of the original constructor. It is the reward of his abstinence in having employed capital for the purposes of production instead of for those of enjoyment. But in the hands of his heir it has all the attributes of rent. It is to him the gift of fortune, not the result of a sacrifice. It may be said, indeed, that such a revenue is the reward for the owner's abstinence in not selling the dock or the canal and spending its price in enjoyment. But the same remark applies to every species of transferable property. Every estate may be sold, and the purchase money wasted. If the last basis of classification were adopted, the greater part of what every Political Economist has termed rent must be called profit.

Again, there are few employments in which extraordinary powers of body or mind do not receive an extraordinary remuneration. It is the privilege of talent to work not only better but more easily. It will generally be found, therefore, that the commodity or service produced by a first-rate workman, while it sells for more than an average price, has cost less than an average amount of labour. Sir Walter Scott could write a volume with the labour of about three hours a-day for a month, and for so doing received £500 or £1000. An ordinary writer, with equal application, would find it difficult to produce a volume in three months, and still more difficult to sell it for £50.

Is then the extraordinary remuneration of the labourer, which is assisted by extraordinary talents, to be termed Rent or Wages? It originates in the bounty of nature; so far it seems to be rent. It is to be obtained only on the condition of undergoing labour; so far it seems to be wages. It might be termed, with equal correctness, rent, which can be received only by a labourer, or wages, which can be received only by the proprietor of a natural agent. But as it is clearly a surplus, the labour having been previously paid for by average wages, and that surplus the spontaneous gift of nature, we have thought it most convenient to term it rent. And for the same reason we term rent what might, with equal correctness, be termed fortuitous profit. We mean the surplus advantages which are sometimes derived from the employment of capital after making full compensation for all the risk that has been encountered, and all the sacrifices which have been made, by the capitalist. Such are the fortuitous profits of the holders of warlike stores on the breaking out of unexpected hostilities; or of the holders of black cloth on the sudden death of one of the Royal family. Such would be the additional revenue of an Anglesea miner, if, instead of copper, he should come on an equally fertile vein of silver. The silver would, without doubt, be obtained by means of labour and abstinence; but they would have been repaid by an equal amount of copper. The extra value of the silver would be the gift of nature, and therefore rent.

Secondly. It is still more difficult to draw the line between Profit and Wages. There are, perhaps, a few cases in which capital may improve in value, without superintendence or change, simply by being preserved from consumption. Wine and timber, perhaps, afford instances. But even a wine-cellar or a plantation, if totally neglected, would probably deteriorate. And, as a general rule, it may be laid down that capital is an instrument which, to be productive of profit, must be employed, and that the person who directs its employment must labour, that is, must to a certain degree conquer his indolence, sacrifice his favourite pursuits, and often incur other inconveniences from his residence, from the persons to whose contact he is exposed, from confinement, or from exposure to the weather, and must also often submit to some inferiority of rank. If labour be in general necessary to the use of material capital, it is universally necessary to the use of that immaterial capital which consists of appropriate knowledge, and of moral and intellectual habits and reputation,—a capital created and kept up at more expense, and productive of a greater return than that which is material, but which, from the impossibility of actually transferring it, or implanting in one man the ability of another, can never be productive but through the labour of its possessor.

Is then the remuneration of this labour to be termed Wages or Profit? A certain portion of it, that portion which would be sufficient to repay equal exertions and hardships endured by an ordinary labourer, unprovided with capital, must, without doubt, be termed wages. And where extraordinary natural talents or favourable accidents have occasioned the exertions of the capitalist to obtain more than an average remuneration, that excess is, as we have already seen, rent. But the revenue to which our present question applies is the revenue obtained from the employment of capital, after deducting ordinary interest on the capital, as the remuneration for the abstinence of the capitalist, ordinary wages, as the remuneration for his labour, and any extraordinary advantages which may have been the result of accident.

The subject may be made clearer by a few examples; and we have endeavoured to find some in which the remuneration for the capitalist's trouble, instead of being, as is usually the case, mixed up with the gross amount of his returns, appears as a separate item. The trade of bill-broking affords an instance. The business of a bill-broker is to advance, before it becomes due, the money for which bills of exchange are drawn, deducting, under the name of discount, interest at the rate of not more than five per cent. per annum on the sum secured by the bill. In time of peace, and in the ordinary state of the money-market, the rate of discount varies from four to three per cent. per annum. It has been sometimes as low as two and-a-half. It appears at first strange that such a trade should exist, since the money capital employed in it does not return even so high a profit as may often be obtained from the public funds, leaving the additional risk and labour uncompensated. It is, in fact, a trade which no one would carry on if he employed in it his own money.

The commercial inhabitants of a great trading city have from time to time under their control considerable sums of money for short periods. Scarcely a single estate in this Country is mortgaged or sold without the price or the mortgage-money being placed for some days at a banker's or agent's until the "more last words" of the lawyers have been said. These sums cannot in the mean time be employed in any permanent investment; but they can be lent from day to day, or, in some cases, from week to week, and it is better to lend them at the lowest rate of interest than to suffer them to lie perfectly idle. The bill-broker's trade is to borrow these sums from week to week, or even from day to day, at one rate of interest, and to lend them from month to month, or for two or three months, at a higher. To borrow, for instance, at two per cent., and to lend at three.

It is obvious that these operations require much knowledge, industry, and skill. The broker must be well acquainted with the circumstances of almost every eminent commercial man in order to estimate the value of his acceptance or indorsement. He must keep up his knowledge by unremitting observation, and by inferences drawn from very slight hints and appearances. He must also have the skill so to manage his concerns as to have his receipts always falling in to correspond with his engagements. This knowledge, and the moral and intellectual habits which enable him to apply it, form his personal or immaterial capital. But he must also have a material capital, not for the purpose of being employed in his business, for no one would so employ money of his own, but as the means of obtaining confidence. The interest paid by a broker is so trifling, that no one would lend to him if it implied the slightest risk; and the best pledge which he can give is the notoriety of his possessing a large capital, which could at any time make good an unforeseen interruption in his regular receipts. This capital he must not waste, but he may employ it productively, and may consume on himself the annual profit derived from it. The confidence which it enables him to enjoy is a distinct advantage.

We will suppose a bill-broker to possess £100,000, in the Four per Cents.; and to have sufficient knowledge, skill, and character as a man of business and of wealth, to be able, at an average throughout the year, to borrow £400,000 at two per cent., and to lend the same sum at three per cent. Is the £4000 a-year which his business would give him wages or profit?

Again, a capital which in this Country would enable its employer to obtain ten per cent., would often, if he were to employ it in Jamaica or Calcutta, produce fifteen or twenty. If the capitalist with £50,000 encounter the climate and the society of Jamaica, and is rewarded by his annual returns being raised from £5000 to £7500, is his additional income of £2500 a-year wages or profit?

There is no doubt that a sufficient portion of it to purchase the same services from a person unprovided with capital, must be considered as wages: £50 a-year, however, would considerably exceed this sum. The remaining £2000 a-year may be considered, with equal correctness, either wages which can be received only by the possessor of £500,000, or profit which can be received only by a person willing to labour in Jamaica.

Adam Smith considers it as profit. "The profits of stock," he observes,*22 "it may, perhaps, be thought, are only a different name for the wages of a particular sort of labour, the labour of inspection or direction. They are, however, altogether different, are regulated by quite different principles, and bear no proportion to the quantity, the hardship, or the ingenuity of this supposed labour of inspection and direction. They are regulated altogether by the value of the stock employed, and are greater or smaller in proportion to this stock. If we suppose two manufacturers, the one employing a capital of £1000, and the other one of £7300, in a place where the common profits of manufacturing stock are ten per cent., the one will expect a profit of about £100 a-year, while the other will expect about £730. Yet their labour of inspection may be very nearly or altogether the same. In many great works, almost the whole labour of this kind is committed to some principal clerk. His wages properly express the value of this labour of inspection and direction. Though in settling them some regard is commonly had, not only to his labour and skill, but to the trust which is reposed in him, yet they never bear any regular proportion to the capital of which he oversees the management. And the owner of this capital, though he is thus discharged of almost all labour, still expects that his profits should bear a regular proportion to his capital."

After much hesitation, we have resolved to adopt this as the most convenient classification, and to confine the term wages to the remuneration for simple labour; including under the word labour the endurance of all its attendant hardships, but excluding from the word wages the additional revenue which the labourer often receives because he happens to be also a capitalist. We have done so on the grounds which are so ably stated in the passage which we lastly quoted.

To revert to our supposition of a capitalist with £50,000 repaid by an extra revenue of £2500 a-year for living in Jamaica: it is clear that another capitalist taking there £100,000 would, cœteris paribus, obtain an extra revenue of £5000 a-year, and that notwithstanding his labour would not necessarily be greater than that of the first-mentioned capitalist, or notwithstanding it might in fact be much less. Perhaps the best plan might appear to be, to apply the term wages to the remuneration of mere labour, the term interest to the remuneration of mere abstinence, and the term profit to the combination of wages and interest, to the remuneration of abstinence and labour combined. This would make it necessary to subdivide capitalists into two classes, the inactive and the active: the first receiving mere interest, the second obtaining profit.

In this, however, as in many other cases, the inconveniences occasioned by a departure from an established nomenclature and an established classification are so great, that we do not think that they will be compensated by the nearer approach to precision. We shall continue, therefore, to include under the term profit the whole revenue that is obtained from the possession or employment of capital, after deducting those accidental advantages which we have termed rent, and also deducting a sufficient sum to pay to the capitalist, if actively employed, the wages which would purchase an equal amount of labour from a person unpossessed of capital. In one respect, however, we are forced to differ from Adam Smith. Although he considers the useful acquired knowledge and abilities of all the inhabitants of a Country as part of the national fortune, as a capital fixed and realized in the persons of their possessors, yet he generally terms the revenue derived from this capital wages. "The average and ordinary rates of profit in the different employments of stock are," he observes, "more nearly on a level than the wages of the different sorts of labour. The difference between the earnings of a common labourer and those of a well-employed lawyer or physician, is evidently much greater than that between the ordinary profits in any two different branches of trade." Book i. ch. x.

According to our nomenclature (and indeed according to that of Smith, if the produce of capital is to be termed profit) a very small portion of the earnings of the lawyer or of the physician can be called wages. Forty pounds a-year would probably pay all the labour that either of them undergoes, in order to make, we will say, £4000 a-year. Of the remaining £3960, probably £3000 may in each case be considered as rent, as the result of extraordinary talent or good fortune. The rest is profit on their respective capitals; capitals partly consisting of knowledge, and of moral and intellectual habits acquired by much previous expense and labour, and partly of connection and reputation acquired during years of probation while their fees were inadequate to their support.

Under this view of the case, the revenue which consists of profit will in the progress of improvement bear a constantly increasing proportion to that which consists of wages. There appears no reason to doubt that, as civilization advances, every person will receive an education which will materially increase his power of production. Brutes and machinery can effect almost every thing that is to be effected by mere bodily exertion. Whatever requires mind, will be done better in proportion as the mind has received earlier or more judicious cultivation. We have heard it made a subject of complaint, that the uneducated Irish have dispossessed the English of the lowest employments in London and its neighbourhood. We rather rejoice that the English are sufficiently educated to be fit for better things. If they had remained as ignorant as their rivals, many who are now earning 40s. a-week as mechanics, might have been breaking stones and carrying hods at 2s. a-day. Even in our present state of civilization, which, high as it appears by comparison, is far short of what may easily be conceived, or even of what may confidently be expected, the intellectual and moral capital of Great Britain far exceeds all her material capital, not only in importance, but even in productiveness. The families that receive mere wages probably do not form a fourth of the community; and the comparatively large amount of the wages even of these is principally owing to the capital and skill with which their efforts are assisted and directed by the more educated members of the society. Those who receive mere rent, even using that word in its largest sense, are still fewer: and the amount of rent, like that of wages, principally depends on the knowledge by which the gifts of nature are directed and employed. The bulk of the national revenue is profit; and of that profit the portion which is mere interest on material capital probably does not amount to one-third. The rest is the result of personal capital, or, in other words, of education.

It is not on the accidents of soil or climate, or on the existing accumulation of the material instruments of production, but on the quantity and the diffusion of this immaterial capital, that the wealth of a Country depends. The climate, the soil, and the situation of Ireland have been described as superior, and certainly are not much inferior, to our own. Her poverty has been attributed to the want of material capital; but were Ireland now to exchange her native population for seven millions of our English North Countrymen, they would quickly create the capital that is wanted. And were England, North of Trent, to be peopled exclusively by a million of families from the West of Ireland, Lancashire and Yorkshire would still more rapidly resemble Connaught. Ireland is physically poor because she is morally and intellectually poor, because she is morally and intellectually uneducated. And while she continues uneducated, while the ignorance and violence of her population render persons and property insecure, and prevent the accumulation and prohibit the introduction of capital, legislative measures, intended solely and directly to relieve her poverty, may not indeed be ineffectual, for they may aggravate the disease, the symptoms of which they are meant to palliate, but undoubtedly will be productive of no permanent benefit. Knowledge has been called power; it is far more certainly wealth. Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and the Northern coast of Africa, were once among the richest, and are now among the most miserable countries in the world, simply because they have fallen into the hands of a people without a sufficiency of the immaterial sources of wealth to keep up the material ones. "In what way," asks Adam Smith, "has Europe contributed to the grandeur of the colonies of America? In one way, and in one way only, she has contributed a great deal. Magna virum mater. She bred and formed the men who were capable of achieving such great actions, and for laying the foundation of so great an empire; and there is no other quarter of the world of which the policy is capable of forming, or has ever actually and in fact formed such men. The colonies owe to Europe the education and great views of their active and interprising founders, and some of the greatest and most important of them owe to her scarce any thing else."

Causes on which the Proportionate Amount of Rent depends.

We have already defined Rent to be the revenue spontaneously offered by nature or accident, or, in other words, to be the price paid for the assistance of an appropriated natural agent. It might with equal propriety be defined the surplus produce arising from the use of an appropriated natural agent, or the amount by which the price of the produce of an appropriated natural agent exceeds the costs of its production.

The nature and the progress of the Rent of Land have usually been illustrated by supposing lands of different fertility to be successively taken into cultivation. Thus the land No. 1 is supposed to afford, in return for the application of a given amount of labour and capital, one hundred quarters; No. 2, ninety quarters; No. 3, eighty quarters; No. 4, seventy quarters; No. 5, sixty quarters; and so on. While any portion of the most fertile lands is unappropriated, No. 1 only is cultivated, and no rent is paid. Before it has become necessary to cultivate No. 2, No. 1 must have become an appropriated agent, affording a larger return than can be obtained without its assistance. Its owner, or, as he is termed, the landlord, obtains, therefore, the value of that assistance, being ten quarters, or the difference between one hundred quarters and ninety quarters; and receives it himself, in kind, if he himself is the cultivator, or is paid for it the remuneration termed "rent," if he allows another person to be the cultivator. Before it has become necessary to cultivate No. 3, the rent of No. 1 must have risen from ten quarters to twenty, and No. 2, from giving no rent, must have given a rent of ten quarters; and so on until the point is reached at which the labour and capital employed will produce a return only sufficient to give a bare subsistence to the labourer and average profits to the capitalist: the highest extreme to which cultivation can be intentionally pushed, and one indeed beyond which it is seldom carried.

It is obvious, therefore, that the amount of rent depends on two causes: 1. the positive productiveness of the natural agent by which it is afforded; 2. the comparative productiveness of that agent, or the degree in which it exceeds those agents which are universally accessible. If the supply of natural agents were unlimited, or if their power of affording assistance were to cease, in either case rent would be at an end. Rent is the value of their assistance, and that value, like all others, depends partly on their utility, and partly on their limitation of supply. Much error has arisen from attending to only one of these causes.

The French Economists*23 perceived that the produce of fertile land, the most important of all appropriated natural agents, sells for a price exceeding the expense of its cultivation. This excess of price, or produit net, as they termed it, they conceived to be the only source of wealth. All other commodities appeared to them merely to represent the toil employed in their acquisition. They believed, therefore, a community to be rich in proportion to the amount of rent received by the proprietors of its land; and consequently that production enriches only so far as it is subservient to the creation of rent.

It is impossible that they could have maintained this doctrine, if they had perceived that abundance is an element in wealth, and that high rents and the greatest abundance are incompatible; or if they had recollected that, according to their views, a community possessing the highest skill and exerting the utmost diligence, but scattered over a territory of unbounded extent and fertility, as they might be even unacquainted with the existence of such a thing as rent, must be totally without riches, must be poor from the mere prodigality of their resources.

In the following passage Mr. Ricardo seems to have fallen into an opposite error:—

"Nothing is more common than to hear of the advantages which the land possesses over every other source of useful produce, on account of the surplus which it yields in the form of rent. Yet when land is most abundant, when most productive, and most fertile, it yields no rent; and it is only when its powers decay, and less is yielded in return for labour, that a share of the original produce of the more fertile portions is set apart for rent. It is singular that this quality in the land, which should have been noticed as an imperfection, compared with the natural agents by which manufactures are assisted, should have been pointed out as constituting its peculiar pre-eminence. If air, water, the elasticity of steam, and the pressure of the atmosphere, were of various qualities, if they could have been appropriated, and each quality existed only in moderate abundance, they, as well as the land, would afford a rent, as the successive qualities were brought into use. With every worse quality employed, the value of the commodities in the manufacture of which they were used would rise, because equal quantities of labour would be less productive. Man would do more with the sweat of his brow, and nature would perform less; and the land would be no longer pre-eminent for its limited powers.

"If the surplus produce which the land affords in the form of rent be an advantage, it is desirable that every year the machinery newly constructed should be less efficient than the old, as that would undoubtedly give a greater exchangeable value to the goods manufactured, not only by that machinery, but by all other machinery in the Kingdom; and a rent would be paid to all those who possessed the most productive machinery.

"The labour of nature is paid not because she does much, but because she does little. In proportion as she becomes niggardly in her gifts, she exacts a greater price for her work. Where she is munificently beneficent she always works gratis." Principles, p. 63.

Mr. Ricardo seems to have forgotten that the quality which enables land to afford rent, namely, the power of producing the subsistence of more persons than are required for its cultivation, is an advantage without which rent could not have existed. As the population of any given district becomes more dense, the surplus produce of its soil, or, in other words, the amount of its produce which remains after provision has been made for the subsistence of those by whom it is cultivated, has a constant tendency to increase; either because the increase of agricultural skill and capital increases its positive fertility, or because a diminution of its relative fertility, a diminution of its produce relatively to the numbers of its cultivators, forces the poorer classes to be satisfied with a less amount of raw produce; or from both these causes combined. Of these two causes of rent, one is a benefit, the other an evil. That we have in this Country perhaps a million of acres capable of producing, with average labour, forty bushels of corn an acre, is a benefit; that we have not more than a million such acres is an evil. That the average amount of what an agricultural labourer produces much exceeds what is absolutely necessary for the subsistence of an agricultural family is a benefit. That the extent of our fertile land, and the amount of our capital, in proportion to our population, are not sufficient to enable him to consume, directly or indirectly, for his own advantage and that of his family, all that he produces, is an evil. To produce rent, both the benefit and the evil must coexist. The one occasions rent to be demanded; but it is the other which enables it to be paid.

Mr. Ricardo's attention seems to have been confined to the evil. But rent might be enormously increased without the increase of that evil, or even though that evil should be diminished. If the proprietor of a single estate could by a wish triple its produce, he would augment, in a much greater ratio, its rent. Would this increase be owing to the parsimony of nature? It may be said that it would be owing to the comparative unproductiveness of the rest of the Country. It must be admitted that, if we could suddenly triple the productive powers of all the land in this Country, the population remaining the same, the whole amount of rent would fall, and the condition of all classes, except of that comparatively small class which subsists on the rent of land, would be much improved. But if our population were also tripled, rents would be prodigiously increased, the situation of the landlords would be improved and that of no other class deteriorated. In fact, the condition of all other classes would be improved, as the increased division of labour and ease of communication occasioned by a greater density of population would cheapen and improve our manufactures. If the population, instead of being tripled, were only doubled, the situation of the Country would be still better. The rise in rent, though not equal to what it would have been if the population had been tripled, would still be very great, and both raw produce and manufactures would be more abundant than they were previously. Now this is, in fact, what has occurred in England during the last hundred and thirty years. Since the beginning of the 18th century the population of England has about doubled. The produce of the land has certainly tripled, probably quadrupled. Rent has risen in a still greater proportion; but that rise has been accompanied by a rise of wages, estimated in every commodity consumed by the labourers, excepting a few, such as spirituous and fermented liquors, which have been made the subject of special taxation. With the same labour the labourer can obtain more corn, and perhaps five times as much of the most useful manufactures. Can it be fairly said that rents have risen because nature has done little? that the price paid for her assistance has been increased because she has become more niggardly in her gifts? It is true that, if the productiveness of the land, instead of being tripled, had been centupled, rents might not have risen; but it is equally true that they would not have risen, if instead of being tripled, it had remained stationary. The condition essential to the payment of the labour of nature is not, as Mr. Ricardo states it, that her assistance shall be little, but that it shall not be infinite.

As rent arises from the agency not of man, but of nature, its amount does not depend on the will or the exertions of its recipient. The owner of the land, or of the natural agent, whatever it be, for the use of which persons are willing to pay rent, receives the sum which their mutual competition forces them to give. As it is all pure gain, he accepts the largest sum that is offered, however trifling its amount. Nor, on the other hand, does the amount of rent depend on the will or the exertions of those who pay it. Whatever be the value of the services of an appropriated natural agent, that value must be paid by the person who wishes to use them, as both parties to the bargain are aware, that if it is not hired by one applicant it will be by another. The amount, therefore, is subject to no general rule; it has neither a minimum nor a maximum. It depends on the degree in which nature has endowed certain instruments with peculiar productive powers, and the number of those instruments compared with the number and wealth of the persons able and willing to hire them. There is, probably, now land near New York selling for £1000 an acre, which a century ago could have been obtained for a dollar.

Proportionate Amounts of Profit and Wages.

Profits and Wages differ in almost all respects from Rent. They are each subject to a minimum and a maximum. They are subject to a minimum, because each of them is the result of a sacrifice. It may be difficult to say what is the minimum with respect to profit, but it is clear that every capitalist, as a motive to abstain from the immediate and unproductive enjoyment of his capital, must require some remuneration exceeding the lowest that is conceivable. The minimum at which wages can be permanently fixed is of course the sum necessary to enable the existing labouring population to subsist. On the other hand, as the rate of wages depends in a great measure on the number of labourers, and the rate of profit on the amount of capital, both high wages and high profits have a tendency to produce their own diminution. High wages, by stimulating an increase of population, and therefore an increase of the number of labourers, and high profits, by occasioning an increase of capital. It will be seen in a future portion of this Treatise that, if the amount of capital employed in the payment of wages increases, the number of labourers remaining the same, profits will fall; and that if the number of labourers increases, the amount of capital and the productiveness of labour remaining the same, wages will fall; and that, if they both increase in equal proportions, both will have a tendency to fall, in consequence of the larger proportion which they will each bear to the power of the natural agents whose services they each require. And although it may not be easy to fix the maximum of either wages or profits, yet it may be laid down generally, that in no Country have profits continued for any considerable period at the average rate of fifty per cent. per annum, or wages at such a rate as to afford the labourer ten times the amount necessary for the subsistence of a family.

Adam Smith has laid down, that "the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and capital must, in the same neighbourhood, be either perfectly equal, or continually tending to equality. If in the same neighbourhood there was any employment evidently either more or less advantageous than the rest, so many people would crowd into it in the one case, and so many would desert it in the other, that its advantages would soon return to the level of other employments. This at least would be the case in a society where things were left to take their natural course, where there was perfect liberty, and every man was perfectly free both to choose what occupation he thought proper, and to change it as often as he thought proper. Every man's interest would prompt him to seek the advantageous and to shun the disadvantageous employment." Wealth of Nations, Book i. ch. x.

The truth of these remarks of Adam Smith is obvious. It is obvious also that, in the absence of disturbing causes, the desire of obtaining a more advantageous field for the employment of his mental and bodily faculties, which leads a man to move from one part of the same neighbourhood to another, would lead him from village to village and from country to country. For commercial purposes, the whole civilized world is one extended neighbourhood; and the same causes which tend to equalize profits in Liverpool and London, tend to equalize them in London and Calcutta. But when we look into the details, we are struck by the difference in the remuneration of persons apparently undergoing equal toils, and exercising equal abstinence. We find a general exempt from more than half the hardships of a private, and receiving more than a hundred times his pay. We find barristers making £10,000 or £15,000 a-year, while a copying clerk is paid for labour as assiduous and more irksome by only £100. We find the purchaser of an Exchequer-bill willing to pay a large premium for the privilege of advancing capital at a profit of three per cent. per annum, while a shopkeeper thinks himself ill paid by less than twenty per cent. We find a London banker satisfied with a profit of seven per cent., while his partner in Calcutta requires fifteen.

Circumstances which decide what, at a given time and in a given place, shall be the average rate of Wages, and the average rate of Profit.—These differences are partly real and partly apparent. So far as they are real, they are occasioned partly by the influence of the different instruments of production, or, in other words, the different sources of revenue, on one another; the influence for instance, of the rate of profits on the amount of wages, and of the amount of wages on the rate of profits; partly by the greater or less severity of the sacrifices which the labourer and the capitalist must make in addition to the undergoing mere toil or abstinence; and partly by the difficulty with which capital and labour are transferred from one employment to another. A difficulty caused partly by physical obstacles and partly by human habits and institutions. The influence of these causes on the average rates of wages and of profits in the same Country, in different employments of labour and capital, we shall consider hereafter; and having assumed for the purposes of the following discussion that a certain average rate of wages and a certain average rate of profit exists, we shall now endeavour to explain the causes by which these average rates are determined, or, in other words, to explain the circumstances which decide what, at a given time and in a given place, shall be the average rate of wages and the average rate of profit. We have already stated, as one of the principal sources of difficulty in Political Economy, the mutual dependence of its different propositions. A dependence which, as it respects the theory of wages and profits, is so great that it is impossible to give a complete view of the causes which affect the one, without adverting to all those which affect the other. We will endeavour to keep them as distinct as we can, and we shall begin by wages, as that subject is capable of being separately considered to the greatest extent.

Meanings of the words High and Low, as applied to Wages.—We have already defined Wages to be the remuneration received by the labourer in recompense for having exerted his faculties of mind and body. They are said to be high or low, in proportion to the extent of that remuneration. That extent has been estimated by three different measures; and the words high and low wages have, consequently, been used in three different senses.

First. Wages have been termed high or low, according to the amount of money earned by the labourer within a given period, without any reference to the commodities which that money would purchase; as when we say that wages have risen in England since the reign of Henry VII., because the labourer now receives 1s. 6d, or 2s. a-day, and then received only 4½d.

Secondly. They have been termed high or low, according to the quantity and quality of the commodities obtained by the labourer, without any reference to his receipts in money; as when we say that wages have fallen in England since the reign of Henry VII., because the labourer then earned two pecks of wheat a-day, and now earns only one.

Thirdly. They have been termed high or low, according to the share or proportion which the labourer receives of the produce of his own labour, without any reference to the total amount of that produce.

The first nomenclature, that which measures wages simply by their amount in money, is the popular one. The second, that which considers wages simply with reference to the quantity and quality of the commodities received by the labourer, or, to speak more correctly, purchasable with his money wages, was that generally adopted by Adam Smith. The third, that which considers wages as high or low, simply with reference to the labourer's share or proportion of what he produces, was introduced by Mr. Ricardo, and has been continued by many of his followers.

This last use of the words high and low wages has always appeared to us one of the most unfortunate of Mr. Ricardo's many innovations in the language of Political Economy. In the first place, it has a tendency to withdraw our attention, even when we are considering the subject of wages, from the facts which most influence the labourer's condition. To ascertain whether his wages are high or low, we are desired to inquire, not whether he is ill or well paid,—not whether he is well or ill fed, or clothed, or lodged, or warmed, but simply what proportion of what he produces comes to his share. During the last four or five years many a hand-weaver has received only 8s. 3d. for producing, by a fortnight's exertion, a web that the capitalist has sold for 8s. 4d. A coal merchant often pays his men £2 a-week, and charges his employers for their services £2 10s. But, according to Mr. Ricardo's nomenclature, the wages of the weaver, at 4s. 1½d. a-week, are much higher than those of the coal-heaver at £2, since the weaver receives 99 per cent. of the value of his labour, while the coal-heaver has only 80 per cent.

And, even if the nomenclature in question were free from this objection, even if the point on which it endeavours to fix the attention were the most important, instead of being the least important, incident to wages, it still would be inconvenient, from its tendency to render the writer who employs it both inconsistent and obscure. It is almost impossible to affix to terms of familiar use a perfectly new meaning, and not from time to time to slide into the old one. When Mr. Ricardo says that "nothing can affect profits but a rise of wages," p. 118; that "whatever raises the wages of labour lowers the profits of stock," p. 231; that "high wages invariably affect the employers of labour by depriving them of a portion of their real profits," p. 129; that, "as the wages of labour fall the profits of stock rise," p. 499; he means by high wages, not a large amount, but a large proportion. But when he speaks of the "encouragement which high wages give to the increase of population," pp. 88-361, he means by high wages a large amount. And many of his followers and opponents have supposed the words high and low to be used by him as indicative of quantity, not proportion. The consequence has been that, since the publication of his great Work, an opinion has prevailed that high wages and high profits are incompatible, and that whatever is taken from the one is added to the other. The slightest attempt to try this theory by an actual example will show its absurdity. The usual supposition is, that the capitalist, at an average, advances the wages of his labourers for one year, and receives, after deducting rent, one-tenth of the value of what they produce. We are inclined to think that in England the average rate of profit is rather greater, and the average period of advance rather less. After making many inquiries on these subjects in Manchester, we found the general opinion to be, that the manufacturing capitalist turns his capital, at an average, twice in the year, and receives on each operation a profit of 5 per cent.; and that the shopkeeper, at an average, turns his capital four times in a year, and receives on each operation a profit of about 3½ per cent. On these data the labourer's share would, of course, be much greater than according to the ordinary estimate. We will suppose, however, that estimate to be correct, and that, after rent has been deducted, the labourer receives, on an average, nine-tenths of the value of what he produces. Under these circumstances a rise in the amount of wages amounting to one-tenth, or from 10s. to 11s. a-week, if that rise is to be deducted from the capitalist's share, would utterly destroy all profit whatever. A rise of one-fifth, or from 10s. to 12s. a-week, would occasion to the capitalist a loss equal to the whole amount of his former profit. A fall in wages of one-tenth would double profits; a fall of one-fifth would treble them. Now we know that general variations in the amount of wages to the amount of one-tenth or one-fifth, or to a greater extent, are not of unfrequent occurrence. Yet who ever heard of their producing such an effect on profits?

And yet this doctrine has received the sanction both of theoretic and practical men. Mr. Francis Place is asked by the Committee on Artisans and Machinery, (First Report p. 46,*24) "Do not the masters in consequence of a rise of wages raise their prices?"—"No," he answers; "I believe there is no principle of Political Economy better established than this of wages; increase of wages must come from profits."

Did Mr. Place ever apply this doctrine when his men asked for higher wages on a general mourning? Even the Committee appear to have taken this view of the question. The subject is so important, that we will venture to extract the following passage from the Report made in the following Session:—

"Those eminent persons who, during the last fifty years, have reduced the rules that govern the operations of trade and industry to a Science, undertake to show, by arguments and facts, that the effect of low wages is not a low price of the commodity to which they are applied, but the raising of the average rate of profits in the Country in which they exist. The explanation of this proposition occupies a large portion of the justly celebrated work of the late Mr. Ricardo, on the Principles of Political Economy; and is also ably set forth in the following evidence of Mr. M'Culloch, to which your Committee particularly desire to draw the attention of the House:—

" 'Have you turned your attention to the effect of fluctuations in the rate of wages on the price of commodities?'—'I have.'

" 'Do you consider that when wages rise the price of commodities will proportionally increase?'—'I do not think that a real rise of wages has any effect whatever, or but a very imperceptible one on the price of commodities.'

" 'Then, supposing wages to be really lower in France than in this Country, do you think that that circumstance would give the French any advantage over us in the foreign market'—'No, I do not; I do not think it would give them any advantage whatever. I think it would occasion a different distribution of the produce of industry in France from what would obtain in England, but that would be all. In France the labourers would get a less proportion of the produce of industry, and the capitalists a larger proportion.'

" 'Could not the French manufacturer, if he gets his labour for less than the English manufacturer, afford to sell his goods for less?' 'As the value of goods is made up wholly of labour and profit, the whole and only effect of a French manufacturer getting his labour for less than an English manufacturer is to enable him to make more profit than the English manufacturer can make, but not to lower the price of his goods. The low rate of wages in France goes to establish a high rate of profits in all branches of industry in France.'

" 'What conclusion do you come to in making a comparison between wages in England and wages in France?'—'I come to this conclusion, that, if it be true that wages are really higher in England than in France, the only effect of that would be to lower the profits of capital in England below their level in France, but that will have no effect whatever on the price of the commodities produced in either Country.'

" 'When you say that wages do not affect prices, what is it that does affect prices?'—'An increase or diminution of the quantity of labour necessary to the production of the commodity.'

" 'Supposing that there was a free export of machinery, so that France could get that machinery, do you think that under those circumstances we should retain those advantages which we possess at the present moment?'—'Yes, we should; for the export of the machinery would not lower our wages, or increase the wages in France, so that we should preserve that advantage to the full extent that we have it at this moment.'

" 'Will you explain to the Committee why you are of opinion that the French manufacturer would not undersell the English, seeing that his profits are larger than the English manufacturer?'—'Because if he were to offer to undersell the English, he can only do it by consenting to accept a less rate of profit on his capital than the other French capitalists are making on theirs, and I cannot suppose a man of common sense would act upon such a principle.'

" 'Are the Committee to understand, that although a French manufacturer pays half the wages to his men in France which our manufacturers do in England, yet that his wages being on a par, or a level, in general, with the other wages in France, will render his profits on a par with them, and consequently he would not undersell the English merchant by lowering his profits below the average rate of profits in France?'—'Precisely so. I believe, in point of fact, there is no such difference; but he could not undersell the English manufacturer unless he took lower profits than all other producers in France were making. I might illustrate this by what takes place every day in England, where you never find the proprietor of rich land, in order to get rid of his produce, offering it in Mark Lane at a lower rate than that which is got by a farmer or proprietor of the very worst land in the Kingdom.'

" 'Would it not produce a larger sale if the French manufacturer were to sell at a less price?'—'Supposing that to be so, the greater the sale the greater would be the loss of profit.' "*25

We have extracted this passage as indicating the views of the Committee, not those of Mr. M'Culloch. Mr. M'Culloch, as will appear on turning to his evidence, meant by wages really high and really low, not a larger or a smaller amount, but a larger or a smaller proportion. But the Committee appear to have understood him to mean a larger or a smaller amount.

Mr. Bradbury had previously stated the common day wages in France to be about half the wages paid in England.

He was asked, "In what way do you consider that lower wages in France give the French manufacturers an advantage over English manufacturers?"—"I conceive that if they pay 3d. a pound for spinning to the operative spinner, and we pay 6d., that would give them an advantage of 3d. a pound in the cost."

"You mean to say that the French would be able to sell the article they make, in consequence of paying lower wages, cheaper than the English could sell it?"—"They could afford it 3d. a pound cheaper."

"You mean to say that, according to the rate of wages paid, the price of the article for which they are paid is high or low?"—"It may be afforded higher or lower, I should imagine, as the cost be more or less."

"Therefore the whole reason and ground on which you think that low wages give them an advantage is, that low wages contribute to enable them to sell the article cheaper than if they paid higher wages?"—"Yes, labour constituting a material feature in the cost."

"You conceive that increased cost would be a loss to the party, if the price was not increased in proportion?"—"I should imagine so."

"Might not the profits of the proprietor be lessened?"—"They might be lessened, which is in effect a loss."

"Might not that enable him to bear the loss which the difference of wages produces?"*26—"If he chose to make that sacrifice."

"Might not the profits be lessened until there were no profits at all?"*27—"Very easily, I should think."—(Fifth Report of the Select Committee on Artisans and Machinery, pp. 547, 549, 550.)

It was with reference to this evidence that Mr. M'Culloch was examined. His examination commences thus:—

"Have you read the evidence which has been given before this Committee?"—"I have read portions of it only."

"Have you read the evidence given by Mr. Bradbury?"—"A part of it."

"That part in which he conceives that foreigners have an advantage over the English manufacturers in consequence of wages being lower in France?"—"Yes, I have read that."

And then follows the question:—

"Have you turned your attention to the effect of fluctuations in the rate of wages on the price of commodities?"

Now if the Committee understood Mr. M'Culloch to mean, by high or low wages, not a great or small amount, but a great or small proportion, his evidence and that of Mr. Bradbury had nothing in common.

The whole of the confusion has been occasioned by the verbal ambiguity which we have pointed out, and would not have arisen if Mr. Ricardo had used any other adjectives than high and low to express a larger or smaller proportion.

The two other meanings of the words high and low wages, that which refers to the money, and that which refers to the commodities, received by the labourer, are both equally convenient, if we consider the rate of wages at the same time and place; for then they both mean the same thing. At the same time and place the labourer who receives the highest wages necessarily obtains the most commodities. But when we refer to different places, or different times, the words high or low wages direct the attention to very different subjects, as we understand them to mean more or less in money, or more or less in commodities. The differences which have taken place in the amount of money wages at different times inform us of scarcely any thing but the abundance or scarcity of the precious metals at those times: facts which are seldom of much importance. The differences in the amount of money wages in different places at the same time are of much more importance, since they indicate the different values of the labour of different Countries in the general market of the world. But even these differences afford no premises from which the positive condition of the labouring classes, in any Country, can be inferred, and but imperfect grounds for estimating their relative condition. The only data which enable us to ascertain the actual situation of the labourers at any given time and place, or their comparative situation at different times and places, are the quantity and quality of the commodities which form their wages, if paid in kind, or are purchasable with their wages, if paid in money. And as the actual or comparative situation of the labourer is the principal object of the following inquiry, we shall use the word wages to express, not the money, but the commodities, which the labourer receives; and we shall consider wages to rise as the quantity or quality of those commodities is increased or improved, and to fall as that quantity or quality is diminished or deteriorated.

It is obvious, too, that the labourer's situation does not depend on the amount which he receives at any one time, but on his average receipts during a given period—during a week, a month, or a year; and that the longer the period taken, the more accurate will be the estimate. Weekly wages have, of course, more tendency to equality than daily ones, and annual than monthly; and, if we could ascertain the amount earned by a man during five, or ten, or twenty years, we should know his situation better than if we confined our attention to a single year. There is, however, so much difficulty in ascertaining the amount of wages during very long periods, that a single year will probably be the best that we can take. It comprehends what, in most climates, are very different—summer and winter wages; it comprehends also the period during which the most important vegetable productions come to maturity in temperate climates, and on that account has generally been adopted by Political Economists as the average period for which capital is supposed to be advanced.

We should observe that we include, as part of the wages of the married labourer, those of his wife and unemancipated children. To omit them would lead to inaccurate estimates of the comparative situation of the labourers in different Countries, or in different occupations. In those employments which are carried on under shelter, and with the assistance of that machinery which affords power, and requires human aid only for its direction, the industry of a woman, or a child, approaches in efficiency that of a full-grown man. A girl of fourteen can manage a power-loom nearly as well as her father; but where strength, or exposure to the seasons, is required, little can be done by the wife, or the girls, or even by the boys, until they approach the age at which they usually quit their father's house. The earnings of the wife and children of many a Manchester weaver or spinner exceed, or equal, those of himself. Those of the wife and children of an agricultural labourer, or of a carpenter, or a coalheaver, are generally unimportant—while the husbands, in each case, receive 15s. a-week, the weekly income of the one family may be 40s., and that of the other only 17s. or 18s.

It must be admitted, however, that the workman does not retain the whole of this apparent pecuniary advantage. The wife is taken from her household labours, and a part of the increased wages is employed in purchasing what might, otherwise, be produced at home. The evils to the children are still greater. The infants suffer from the want of maternal attention, and those who are older from fatigue and confinement, from the want of childish relaxation and amusement, and, what is far more important, from the deficiency of religious, moral, and intellectual education. The establishment of infant and Sunday schools, and laws regulating the number of hours during which children may labour, are palliatives of these evils, but they must exist, to a certain degree, whenever the labour of the wife and children is the subject of sale; and though not, all of them, perhaps, strictly within the province of Political Economy, must never be omitted in any estimate of the causes affecting the welfare of the labouring classes.

Difference between the Amount of Wages and the Price of Labour.—The last preliminary point to which we have to call the reader's attention is, the difference between the Amount of Wages and the Price of Labour, or, in other words, between the earnings of a labourer during a given time, and the price paid for the performance of a given quantity of work.

If men were the only labourers, and if every man worked equally hard, and for the same number of hours, during the year, these two expressions would be synonymous. If each man, for instance, worked three hundred days during each year, and ten hours during each day, one three-thousandth part of each man's yearly wages would be the price of an hour's labour. But neither of these propositions is true. The yearly wages of a family often include, as we have seen, the results of the labour of the wife and children. And few things are less uniform than the number of working days during the year, or of working hours during the day, or the degree of exertion undergone during these hours.

The established annual holidays in Protestant Countries are between fifty and sixty. In many Catholic Countries they exceed one hundred. Among the Hindoos they are said to occupy nearly half the year. But these holidays are confined to a certain portion of the population; the labour of a sailor, or a soldier, or a menial servant, admits of scarcely any distinction of days.

Again, in Northern and Southern latitudes, the hours of out-door labour are limited by the duration of light; and in all climates by the weather. When the labourer works under shelter, the daily hours of labour may be uniform throughout the year. And, independently of natural causes, the daily hours of labour vary in different Countries, and in different employments in the same Country. The daily hours of labour are, perhaps, longer in France than in England, and certainly are longer in England than in Hindostan. In Manchester the manufacturer generally works twelve hours a-day; in Birmingham, ten: a London shopman is seldom employed more than eight or nine.

There is still more discrepancy between the exertions made by different labourers in a given period. They are often, indeed, unsusceptible of comparison. There is no common measure of the toils undergone by a miner and a tailor, or of those of a shopman and an iron-founder. And labour which is the same in kind may vary indefinitely both in intensity and in productiveness. Many of the witnesses examined by the Committee on Artisans and Machinery (Session of 1824,) were English manufacturers, who had worked in France. They agree as to the comparative indolence and inefficiency of the French labourer, even during his hours of employment. One of the witnesses, Adam Young, had been two years in one of the best manufactories in Alsace. He is asked, "Did you find the spinners there as industrious as the spinners in England?" and replies, "No; a spinner in England will do twice as much as a Frenchman. They get up at four in the morning, and work till ten at night; but our spinners will do as much in six hours as they will in ten."

"Had you any Frenchmen employed under you?"—"Yes; eight at two francs a day."

"What had you a day?"—"Twelve francs."

"Supposing you had had eight English carders under you, how much more work could you have done?"—"With one Englishman I could have done more than I did with those eight Frenchmen. It cannot be called work they do: it is only looking at it, and wishing it done."

"Do the French make their yarn at a greater expense?"—"Yes; though they have their hands for much less wages than in England."—Pp. 580, 582.

The following evidence of Edwin Rose, given on the Factory Inquiry of 1833, relates to a rather later period, and is valuable from the extensive experience of the witness.

"Are wages lower in France, as far as you have seen, than in England?"—"If I have a shop of men in England for any thing, then I have to see how much I have to pay them for the work they turn out of any kind; but if I have the same shop in France, then I must have twice the number of hands to do the same amount of work. It is true I pay them less a-piece there; but I have seen that you must have twice as large a building to contain the hands, twice as many clerks and book-keepers, and overlookers to look after them, and twice as many tools to do the same quantity of work as is done here in England; and the master there must have twice as much interest of money on all this; and their minds seem to me to get more bewildered with stress of work there than here. It seems to me that you have double the number of people there to do the same amount of work, whatever it be; but their wages are lower in money."

"But do you consider their wages higher in reality?"—"I really do; they are better paid in proportion to the work they turn out than what the English are."

"What do you think of French workmen, as workmen?"—"I don't think they have that perseverance that English have. I often have noticed them trying a thing, and then, if it don't answer at first, they seem terrified, and shrug up their shoulders, and throw it aside; but an English workman keeps trying and trying, and won't give up near so soon as the Frenchman. A house-joiner or carpenter's wages are from thirty-five to forty sous a day. His work compared with English work is very rough, and but little of it in comparison. A stonemason's wages are from three francs to four francs. They are inferior to our masons in laying foundations. Then, as to time of work, I think two English masons in the same time do more work on an average than three of theirs."

"In short, do you know any single species of labour that stands a master cheaper in France than in England, quality and quantity of work being considered?"—"I don't know any, unless it be tailors' and shoemakers' wages; and I am not sure about them. Clothes are dearer in France than in England; but shoes are cheaper, the duty being off leather."—First Report of the Factory Commission, D. i. p. 121.

Even in the same Country, and in the same employments, similar inequalities are constantly observed. Every one is aware that much more exertion is undergone by the labourer by task-work than by the day-labourer; by the independent day-labourer than by the pauper; and even by the pauper than by the convict.

It is obvious that the rate of wages is less likely to be uniform than the price of labour, as the amount of wages will be affected, in the first place, by any variations in the price, and in the second place, by any variations in the amount, of the labour exerted.

In England, the average annual wages of labour are three times as high as they are in Ireland; but as the labourer in Ireland is said not to do more than one-third of what is done by the labourer in England, the price of labour may, in both Countries, be about equal. In England, the labourer by task-work earns much more than the day-labourer; but, as it is certainly as profitable to employ him, the price of his labour cannot be higher. It may be supposed, indeed, that the price of labour is every where, and at all times, the same; and, if there were no disturbing causes,—if all persons knew perfectly well their own interest, and strictly followed it, and there were no difficulties in moving capital and labour from place to place, and from employment to employment,—the price of labour, at the same time, would be every where the same. But these difficulties occasion the price of labour to vary materially, even at the same time and place; and variations both in the amount of wages and in the price of labour, at different times and in different places, are occasioned not only by these causes, but by others which will be considered in a subsequent part of this Treatise.

These variations affect very differently the labourer and his employer. The employer is interested in keeping down the price of labour; but while that price remains the same, while at a given expense he gets a given amount of work done, his situation remains unaltered. If a farmer can get a field trenched for £12, it is indifferent to him whether he pays the whole of that sum to three capital workmen, or to four ordinary ones. The three would receive higher wages than the four, but, as they would do proportionably more work, their labour would come just as cheap. If the three could be hired at £3 10s. a-piece, while the four required £3 a-piece, though the wages of the three would be higher, the price of the work done by them would be lower.

It is true that the causes which raise the amount of the labourer's wages often raise the rate of the capitalist's profits. If, by increased industry, one man performs the work of two, both the amount of wages and the rate of profits will generally be raised. But the rate of profit will be raised, not by the rise of wages, but in consequence of the additional supply of labour having diminished its price, or having diminished the period for which it had previously been necessary to advance that price, or having rendered, as in the instances mentioned by Edwin Rose, the labour previously employed more productive.

The labourer, on the other hand, is principally interested in the amount of wages. The amount of his wages being fixed, it is certainly his interest that the price of his labour should be high, for on that depends the degree of exertion imposed on him. But, if the amount of his wages be low, he must be comparatively poor—if that amount be high he must be comparatively rich—whatever be his remuneration for each specific act of exertion. In the one case he will have leisure and want; in the other toil and abundance. We are far from thinking that the evils of severe and incessant labour, or the benefits of a certain degree of leisure, ought to be left out in any estimate of happiness. But, as we observed in the beginning of this Treatise, it is not with happiness, but with wealth, that we are concerned as Political Economists; we profess to state facts for the information and instruction of the student, not to lay down rules to guide the conduct of the legislator. In explaining the general laws according to which wealth is produced and distributed, we do not assume that all the means by which it can be augmented ought to be encouraged, or even to be permitted. We do not assume even that wealth is a benefit. In fact, however, wealth and happiness are very seldom opposed. Nature, when she imposed on man the necessity of labour, tempered his repugnance to it by making long-continued inactivity painful, and by strongly associating with exertion the idea of its reward. The poor and half employed Irish labourer, or the still poorer and less industrious savage, is as inferior in happiness as he is in income to the hard-worked English artisan. The Englishman's industry may sometimes be excessive; his desire to better his condition may sometimes drive him on toils productive of disease ill recompensed by the increase of his wages; but that such is not generally the case may be proved by comparing the present duration of life in England with its former duration, or with its duration in other Countries. It is generally admitted that, during the last fifty years, a marked increase has taken place in the industry of our population, and that they are now the hardest-working labourers in the world. But during the whole of that period the average duration of their lives has been constantly increasing, and appears still to increase; and, notwithstanding the apparent unhealthiness of many of their occupations, notwithstanding the atmosphere of smoke and steam and, what appears to be still more injurious, of dust, in which many of them labour for sixty-nine hours a week, they enjoy, as a community, longer life than the lightly-toiled inhabitants of the most favoured soils and climates.

The average annual mortality in England and Wales is computed by Mr. Rickman at one in forty-nine. In the extensive inquiry instituted by the Poor-Law Commissioners in 1834 into the state of the labouring classes in America and the Continent of Europe, the only Countries in which the mortality appeared to be so small as in England, were Norway, in which it appeared to be one in fifty-four, and the Basses Pyrenees, in which it appeared to be one in fifty. In all the other Countries which gave returns it exceeded the English proportion sometimes by doubling it, and in the majority of instances by more than one-fourth.*28

Having marked the distinction which really exists between the price of labour and the amount of wages, we shall for the future consider every labouring family as consisting of the same number of persons, and exerting the same degree of industry. On that supposition, the distinction between the price of labour and the amount of wages will be at an end; or rather, the only distinction will be, that the former expression designates the remuneration for each specific exertion; the latter, the aggregate of all those separate remunerations, as summed up at the end of each year. And the question to be answered will be, what are the causes which decide what in any given Country, and at any given period, shall be the quantity and quality of the commodities obtained by a labouring family during a year?

Proximate Cause deciding the Rate of Wages.

The proximate cause appears to be clear. The quantity and quality of the commodities obtained by each labouring family during a year must depend on the quantity and quality of the commodities directly or indirectly appropriated during the year to the use of the labouring population, compared with the number of labouring families, (including under that term all those who depend on their own labour for subsistence;) or, to speak more concisely, on the Extent of the Fund for the maintenance of Labourers, compared with the Number of Labourers to be maintained.

Discussion of Seven Opinions inconsistent with this Proposition.—This proposition is so nearly self-evident, that if Political Economy were a new Science we should assume it without further remark. But we must warn our readers that this proposition is inconsistent with opinions which are entitled to consideration, some from the number, and others from the authority, of those who maintain them.

First. It is inconsistent with the doctrine, that the Rate of Wages depends solely on the proportion which the number of Labourers bears to the amount of Capital in a Country. The word capital has been used in so many senses that it is difficult to state this doctrine precisely; but we know of no definition of that term which will not include many things that are not used by the labouring classes; and if our proposition be correct, no increase or diminution of these things can directly affect wages. If half the plate glass in the Country were to be destroyed to-morrow the capital of the Country would be diminished; but the only sufferers would be those who possess or wish to possess plate glass; among whom the labouring classes are not included. But if half the existing stock of coarse tobacco were destroyed, the immediate consequence would be a fall of wages; not as estimated in money, but as estimated in the commodities consumed by the labourer. Though receiving the same money wages, the labourer would have less tobacco, or, if he chose to continue undiminished his consumption of tobacco, then less of other things, than he had before. So if a foreign merchant were to come to settle in this Country, and bring with him a cargo of raw and manufactured silk, lace, and diamonds, that cargo would increase the capital of the Country; silk, lace, and diamonds would become more abundant, and the enjoyments of those who use them would be increased: the enjoyments of the labourers, supposing them not to be consumers of silk, lace, or diamonds, would not be directly increased: indirectly and consequentially, they might be increased. The silk might be re-exported in a manufactured state, and commodities for the use of labourers imported in return; and then, and not till then, wages would rise; but that rise would be occasioned, not by the first addition to the capital of the Country, which was made in the form of silk, but by the substituted addition made in the form of commodities used by the labourer.

Secondly. It is inconsistent with the doctrine, that Wages depend on the proportion borne by the number of Labourers to the whole revenue of the society of which they are members. In the example last suggested, of the introduction of a new supply of lace or diamonds, the revenues of those who use lace or diamonds would be increased; but as wages are not spent on those articles, they would remain unaltered. It is possible, indeed, to state cases in which the revenue of a large portion of a community might be increased, and yet the wages of the labourers might fall without an increase of their numbers. We will suppose the principal trade of Ireland to be the raising of produce for the English market; and that for every two hundred acres ten families were employed in raising, on half the land, their own subsistence, and on the remainder corn and other exportable crops requiring equal labour. Under such circumstances, if a demand should arise in the English market for cattle, butchers'-meat, and wool, instead of corn, it would be the interest of the Irish landlords and farmers to convert their estates from arable into pasture. Instead of ten families for every two hundred acres, two might be sufficient: one to raise the subsistence of the two, and the other to tend the cattle and sheep. The revenue of the landlords and the farmers would be increased: and, if they employed the whole of that increase in the purchase of Irish labour, all parties would be benefited. But if they devoted the greater part of it to the purchase of English manufactures, the services of a large portion of the Irish labourers would cease to be required; a large portion of the land formerly employed in producing commodities for their use would be devoted to the production of commodities for the use of England; and the fund for the maintenance of Irish labour would fall, notwithstanding the increase of the revenue of the landlords and farmers.

Absenteeism.—Thirdly. It is inconsistent with the prevalent opinion that the non-residence of landlords, funded proprietors, mortgagees, and other unproductive consumers, can be detrimental to the labouring inhabitants of a Country which does not export raw produce.

In a Country which exports raw produce, wages may be lowered by such non-residence. If an Irish landlord resides on his estate, he requires the services of certain persons, who must also be resident there, to minister to his daily wants. He must have servants, gardeners, and perhaps gamekeepers. If he build a house, he must employ resident masons and carpenters; part of his furniture he may import, but the greater part of it must be made in his neighbourhood; a portion of his land, or, what comes to the same thing, a portion of his rent, must be employed in producing food, clothing, and shelter for all these persons, and for those who produce that food, clothing, and shelter. If he were to remove to England, all these wants would be supplied by Englishmen. The land and capital which was formerly employed in providing the maintenance of Irish labourers would be employed in producing corn and cattle to be exported to England to provide the subsistence of English labourers. The whole quantity of commodities appropriated to the use of Irish labourers would be diminished, and that appropriated to the use of English labourers increased, and wages would, consequently, rise in England, and fall in Ireland.

It is true that these effects would not be co-extensive with the landlord's income. While, in Ireland, he must have consumed many foreign commodities, he must have purchased tea, wine, and sugar, and other things which the climate and the manufactures of Ireland do not afford, and he must have paid for them by sending corn and cattle to England. It is true, also, that while in Ireland he probably employed a portion of his land and of his rents for other purposes, from which the labouring population received no benefit, as a deer park, or a pleasure garden, or in the maintenance of horses or hounds. On his removal, that portion of his land which was a park would be employed, partly in producing exportable commodities, and partly in producing subsistence for its cultivators; and that portion which fed horses for his use might be employed in feeding horses for exportation. The first of these alterations would do good; the second could do no harm. Nor must we forget that, through the cheapness of conveyance between England and Ireland, a portion or perhaps all, of those whom he employed in Ireland might follow him to England, and, in that case, wages in neither Country would be affected. The fund for the maintenance of labourers in Ireland, and the number of labourers to be maintained, would both be equally diminished, and the fund for the maintenance of labourers in England, and the number of labourers to be maintained, would both be equally increased.

But after making all these deductions, and they are very great, from the supposed effect of the absenteeism of the Irish proprietors on the labouring classes in Ireland, we cannot agree with Mr. M'Culloch that it is immaterial. We cannot but join in the general opinion that their return, though it would not affect the prosperity of the British Empire, considered as a whole, would be immediately beneficial to Ireland, though perhaps too much importance is attached to it.

In Mr. M'Culloch's celebrated examination before the Committee on the state of Ireland, (4th Report, 814, Sess. 1825), he was asked, "Supposing the largest export of Ireland were in live cattle, and that a considerable portion of rent had been remitted in that manner, does not such a mode of producing the means of paying rent contribute less to the improvement of the poor than any extensive employment of them in labour would produce?"—He replies, "Unless the means of paying rent are changed when the landlord goes home, his residence can have no effect whatever."

"Would not," he is asked, "the population of the country be benefited by the expenditure among them of a certain portion of the rent which (if he had been absent) has (would have) been remitted (to England)?" "No," he replies. "I do not see how it could be benefited in the least. If you have a certain value laid out against Irish commodities in the one case, you will have a certain value laid out against them in the other. The cattle are either exported to England, or they stay at home. If they are exported, the landlord will obtain an equivalent for them in English commodities; if they are not, he will obtain an equivalent for them in Irish commodities; so that in both cases the landlord lives on the cattle, or on the value of the cattle: and whether he lives in Ireland or in England, there is obviously just the very same amount of commodities for the people of Ireland to subsist upon."

This reasoning assumes that the landlord, while resident in Ireland, himself personally devours all the cattle produced on his estates; for on no other supposition can there be the very same amount of commodities for the people of Ireland to subsist upon, whether their cattle are retained in Ireland or exported.

But when a Country does not export raw produce, the consequences of absenteeism are very different. Those who derive their incomes from such a Country cannot possibly spend them abroad until they have previously spent them at home.

When a Leicestershire landlord is resident on his estate, he employs a certain portion of his land, or, what is the same, of his rent, in maintaining the persons who provide for him those commodities and services, which must be produced on the spot where they are consumed. If he should remove to London, he would want the services of Londoners, and the produce of land and capital which previously maintained labourers resident in Leicester would be sent away to maintain labourers resident in London. The labourers would probably follow, and wages in Leicestershire and London would then be unaltered; but until they did so, wages would rise in the one district and fall in the other. At the same time, as the rise and fall would compensate one another, as the fund for the maintenance of labour, and the number of labourers to be maintained, would each remain the same, the same amount of wages would be distributed among the same number of persons, though not precisely in the same proportion as before.

If he were now to remove to Paris, a new distribution must take place. As the price of raw produce is lower in France than in England, and the difference in habits and language between the two Countries prevents the transfer of labourers from the one to the other, neither the labourers nor the produce of his estates could follow him. He must employ French labourers, and he must convert his share of the produce of his estate, or, what is the same thing, his rent, into some exportable form in order to receive it abroad. It may be supposed that he would receive his rent in money. Even if he were to do so, the English labourers would not be injured, for as they do not eat or drink money, provided the same amount of commodities remained for their use, they would be unaffected by the export of money. But it is impossible that he could receive his rent in money unless he chose to suffer a gratuitous loss. The rate of exchange between London and Paris is generally rather in favour of London, and scarcely ever so deviates from par between any two Countries, as to cover the expense of transferring the precious metals from the one to the other, excepting between the Countries which do, and those which do not, possess mines. The remittances from England to France must be sent, therefore, in the form of manufactures, either directly to France, or to some Country with which France has commercial relations. And how would these manufactures be obtained? Of course in exchange for the landlord's rent. His share of the produce of his estates would now go to Birmingham or Sheffield, or Manchester or London, to maintain the labourers employed in producing manufactures, to be sent and sold abroad for his profit. An English absentee employs his income precisely as if he were to remain at home and consume nothing but hardware and cottons. Instead of the services of gardeners and servants, upholsterers and tailors, he purchases those of spinners, and weavers, and cutlers. In either case his income is employed in maintaining labourers, though the class of labourers is different; and in either case, the whole fund for the maintenance of labourers, and the number of labourers to be maintained, remaining unaltered, the wages of labour cannot be affected.

But, in fact, that fund would be rather increased in quantity and rather improved in quality. It would be increased, because land previously employed as a park, or in feeding dogs and horses, or hares and pheasants, would now be employed in producing food or clothing for men. It would be improved, because the increased production of manufactured commodities would occasion an increased division of labour, the use of more and better machinery, and the other improvements which we have ascertained to be its necessary accompaniments.

One disadvantage, and one only, it appears to us would be the result. The absentee in a great measure escapes domestic taxation. We say in a great measure, because he still remains liable, if a proprietor of houses or of land, to those taxes which fall upon rent: he pays too, a part of the taxes on the materials of manufactures; and if it were our policy to tax income or exported commodities, he might be forced to pay to the public revenue even more than his former proportion. But, under our present system, which throws the bulk of taxation on commodities produced for internal consumption, he receives the greater part of his revenue without deduction, and, instead of contributing to the support of the British Government, contributes to support that of France or Italy. This inconvenience, perhaps, about balances the advantages which we have just mentioned, and leaves a community which exports only manufactures neither impoverished nor enriched by the residence abroad of its unproductive members.

We ought, perhaps, on this occasion again to remind our readers that it is to wealth and poverty that our attention, when writing on Political Economy, is confined. The moral effects of absenteeism must never be neglected by a writer who inquires into the causes which promote the happiness of nations, but are without the province of a Political Economist. Nor do we regret that they are so, for they form a subject on which it is far more difficult to obtain satisfactory results. In one respect, indeed, the moral question is the more simple, as it is not complicated by the consideration whether raw produce or manufactures are exported, or whether the non-resident landlord is abroad, or in some town within his own Country. If his presence is to be morally beneficial, it must be his presence on his own estate. To the inhabitants of that estate the place to which he absents himself is indifferent. Adam Smith believed his residence to be morally injurious. "The residence of a court," he observes, (book ii. ch. iii.) "in general makes the inferior sort of people dissolute and poor. The inhabitants of a large village, after having made considerable progress in manufactures, have become idle in consequence of a great Lord having taken up his residence in their neighbourhood." And Mr. M'Culloch, whose fidelity and intelligence as an observer may be relied on, states, as the result of his own experience, that in Scotland the estates of absentees are almost always the best managed. Much, of course, depends on individual character; but we are inclined to believe that, in general, the presence of men of large fortune is morally detrimental, and that of men of moderate fortune morally beneficial, to their immediate neighbourhood. The habits of expense and indulgence which, in different gradations, prevail among all the members of a great establishment, are mischievous as examples, and perhaps still more so as sources of repining and discontent. The drawing-room and stable do harm to the neighbouring gentry, and the housekeeper's room and servant's hall to their inferiors. But families of moderate income, including under that term incomes between £500 and £2000 a year, appear to be placed in the station most favourable to the acquisition of moral and intellectual excellence, and in its diffusion among their associates and dependents. We have no doubt that a well-regulated gentleman's family, removing the prejudices, soothing the quarrels, directing and stimulating the exertions, and awarding praise or blame to the conduct of the villagers round them, is among the most efficient means by which the character of a neighbourhood can be improved. It is the happiness of this Country that almost every parish has a resident fitted by fortune and education for these services; and bound, not merely by feelings of propriety, but as a matter of express and professional duty, to their performance. The dispersion throughout the Country of so many thousand clerical families, each acting in its own district as a small centre of civilization, is an advantage to which, perhaps, we have been too long accustomed to be able to appreciate its extent.

Still, however, we think that even the moral effects of absenteeism have been exaggerated. Those who declaim against the twelve thousand English families supposed to be resident abroad, seem to forget that not one-half, probably not one-quarter, of them, if they were to return, would dwell any where but in towns, where their influence would be wasted, or probably not even exerted. What does it signify to the Northumbrian or Devonshire peasant whether his landlord lives in London, or Cheltenham, or Rome? And even of those who would reside in the country, how many would exercise that influence beneficially? How many would be fox-hunters or game-preservers, or surround themselves with dependents whose example would more than compensate for the virtues of their masters? Nothing can be more rash than to predict that good would be the result of causes which are quite as capable of producing evil.

The economical effects have been still more generally misunderstood; and we have often been tempted to wonder that doctrines so clear as those which we have just been submitting to our readers should be admitted with reluctance even by those who feel the proofs to be unanswerable, and should be rejected at once by others, as involving a paradox too monstrous to be worth examination.

Much of this, probably, arises from a confusion of the economical with the moral part of the question. Many writers and readers of Political Economy forget that the clearest proof that absenteeism diminishes the virtue or the happiness of the remaining members of a community is no answer to arguments which aim only at proving that it does not diminish their wealth.

Another and perhaps the chief source of error is the circumstance that, when the landlord is present, the gain is concentrated, and the loss diffused, when he is absent the gain is diffused, and the loss concentrated. When he quits his estate, we can put our finger on the village tradesman and labourer who lose his custom and employment. We cannot trace the increase of custom and employment that is consequently scattered among millions of manufacturers. When he returns, we see that the expenditure of £2000 or £3000 a year in a small circle gives wealth and spirit to its inhabitants. We do not see, however clearly we may infer it, that so much the less is expended in Manchester, Birmingham, or Leeds. The inhabitants of his village attribute their gain and their loss to its causes; and their complaints and acknowledgments are loud in proportion to the degree in which they feel their interests to be affected. No single manufacturer is conscious that the average annual export of more than forty millions sterling has been increased or diminished to the amount of £2000 or £3000. And even if aware of that increase or diminution, he would not attribute it to the residence in Yorkshire or Paris of a given individual, of whose existence he probably is not aware. When to obvious and palpable effects nothing is to be opposed but inferences deduced by a long, though perfectly demonstrative, reasoning process, no one can doubt which will prevail, both with the uneducated, and the educated, vulgar.

Many persons, also, are perplexed by the consideration, that all the commodities which are exported as remittances of the absentee's income are exports for which no return is obtained; that they are as much lost to this Country as if they were a tribute paid to a foreign State, or even as if they were thrown periodically into the sea. This is unquestionably true; but it must be recollected, that whatever is unproductively consumed is, by the very terms of the proposition, destroyed, without producing any return. The only difference between the two cases is, that the resident landlord performs that destruction here; the absentee performs it abroad. In either case, he first purchases the services of those who produce the things which he, for his benefit, not for theirs, is to consume. If he stays here, he pays a man to brush a coat, or clean a pair of boots, or arrange a table; all which in an hour after are in their former condition. When abroad, he pays an equ