An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent Part 3

[Footnote 16: Even upon the system of importation, in the actual state and situation of the countries of Europe, higher prices must accompany superior and increasing wealth.]

[Footnote 17: We must not be so far deceived by the evidence before Parliament, relating to the want of connection between the prices of corn and of labour, as to suppose that they are really independent of each other. The price of the necessaries of life is, in fact, the cost of producing labour. The supply cannot proceed, if it be not paid; and though there will always be a little lat.i.tude, owing to some variations of industry and habits, and the distance of time between the encouragement to population and the period of the results appearing in the markets: yet it is a still greater error, to suppose the price of labour unconnected with the price of corn, than to suppose that the price of corn immediately and completely regulates it. Corn and labour rarely march quite abreast; but there is an obvious limit, beyond which they cannot be separated. With regard to the unusual exertions made by the labouring cla.s.ses in periods of dearness, which produce the fall of wages noticed in the evidence, they are most meritorious in the individuals, and certainly favour the growth of capital. But no man of humanity could wish to see them constant and unremitted. They are most admirable as a temporary relief; but if they were constantly in action, effects of a similar kind would result from them, as from the population of a country being pushed to the very extreme limits of its food. There would be no resources in a scarcity. I own I do not see, with pleasure, the great extension of the practice of task work. To work really hard during twelve or fourteen hours in the day, for any length of time, is too much for a human being. Some intervals of ease are necessary to health and happiness: and the occasional abuse of such intervals is no valid argument against their use.]

[Footnote 18: I have hinted before, in a note, that profits may, without impropriety, be called a surplus. But, whether surplus or not, they are the most important source of wealth, as they are, beyond all question, the main source of acc.u.mulation.]

[Footnote 19: Adam Smith notices the bad effects of high profits on the habits of the capitalist. They may perhaps sometimes occasion extravagance; but generally, I should say, that extravagant habits were a more frequent cause of a scarcity of capital and high profits, than high profits of extravagant habits.]