end of the seventeenth century. Without roads, or canals, or railroads, how difficult was it to bring the seller and the buyer together! All manufactures would be, for the most part, local. The cloths of Kendal might go to the neighbouring fairs on packhorses; and thence slowly spread through the country by pedlars and other small dealers; and the proceeds might return to the manufacturer at the end of a year. But the rapid turning over of capital which begins with buying a bale of cotton at New York, and having it in Sydney in the shape of calico in three months, with the bill that is to pay for it drawn at Manchester, accepted in Sydney, and discounted in London in another three months, is a turning over of capital which was scarcely imagined by the projectors and practical traders of a century ago.

This rapid turning over of capital, and the consequent more rapid accumulation of the labour-fund, depends upon the confidence of the capitalist that his capital will work to a profit. It will not so work if he is to be undersold. If wages could press upon profit beyond a certain ascertained limit, he would be undersold. The home competition of localities and individuals is perpetually forcing on the most economical arrangements in production. The foreign competition is doing so still more. If we have increased productiveness here; through scientific application, the same increased productiveness, from the same causes, is going forward elsewhere. Price-currents' supply a perpetual barometer of industrial cloud or sunshine; and the manufacturer and merchant have constantly to unfurl or furl their sails according to the indications. Whenever there is shipwreck, the ship's crew and the captain partake of a common calamity; and the calamity is always precipitated and made more onerous when, from any cause, there is not cordial sympathy and agreement.

QUESTIONS UPON CHAPTER XXIV.

1. What was the condition of agricultural labourers in the reign of Henry I. ? 2. What caused the improvement in their condition during the next two centuries?

3. What are the great principles which govern the rate of wages?

4. Mention some instances of laws opposed to the natural laws of demand and supply.

5. Mention some modern instances of laws opposed to the natural law of exchange.

6. What is the real labour-fund?

7. What is the effect of a want-fund?

8. What has been the increase in the produce of the land during a century and a half?

9. Has this rate of increase been greater or less than that of the population ?

10. What was the national accumulation of capital at the end of the seventeenth century?

11. What was the remedy proposed for the pressure of population upon capital?

12. Instance some measures taken with this view.

13. Demonstrate the folly of these schemes.

14. What is the cause that the Free and Pauper Colonies of Holland are commercial failures?

15. What was the chief cause of the rapid increase in the accumulated capital during the last half of the eighteenth century?

16. What is the comparative rate of the recent increase in capital and in population?

17. What effect has this had on the rate of wages?

18. What is the cause of the difficulty in ascertaining the actual rate of wages?

19. Give an instance of the difference between the actual and the norcinal value of money.

20. What would be the result if the wages of labour were to fluctuate with the prices of commodities?

21. What is the reason that wages have risen whilst prices have fallen ?

22. Give an instance of the evils resulting from an absence of the desire to accumulate on the part of the labourer.

23. Give an estimate of the general proportion of wages to profits.

24. Upon what does the profitable employment of capital depend?

CHAP. XXV. Misapprehension of Political Economy. 383

CHAPTER XXV.

Necessity for elementary instruction in political economy-Skilled labour and trusted labour-Combinations, of every kind, that are opposed to the great principles of political economy are combinations of producers against con

sumers.

6

THERE is a passage in Wordsworth's Excursion' in which he describes the benevolent and philosophical hero of his poem, a pedlar, listening to the complaints of poverty, and searching into the causes of the evil:

"Nor was he loth to enter ragged huts,

Huts where his charity was blest; his voice
Heard as the voice of an experienced friend.
And, sometimes, where the poor man held dispute
With his own mind, unable to subdue
Impatience, through inaptness to perceive
General distress in his particular lot;
Or cherishing resentment, or in vain
Struggling against it, with a soul perplex'd
And finding in herself no steady power
To draw the line of comfort that divides
Calamity, the chastisement of Heaven,
From the injustice of our brother men ;
To him appeal was made, as to a judge;
Who, with an understanding heart, allay'd
The perturbation; listened to the plea;
Resolved the dubious point; and sentence gave
So grounded, so applied, that it was heard
With softened spirit-e'en when it condemn'd."

The poor man is accustomed to hold dispute with his own mind; he thinks his particular lot is worse than the general lot; his soul is perplexed in considering whether his condition is produced by a common law of society, or by the

injustice of his fellow-men; the experienced friend listens, discusses, argues,-but he argues in a temper that produces a softened spirit. The adviser soothes rather than inflames, by dealing with such questions with "an .understanding heart." He unites the sympathizing heart with the reasoning understanding.

Now, we may fairly inquire if, during the many unfortunate occasions that are constantly arising of contests for what are called the rights of labour against what is called the tyranny of capital, those who are the most immediate sufferers in the contest are addressed with the "understanding heart?" If argument be used at all, the principles which govern the relations between capital and labour are put too often dictatorially or patronisingly before them, as dry, abstract propositions. They are not set forth as matters of calm inquiry whose truths, when dispassionately examined, may be found to lead to the conclusion that a steadilyincreasing rate of wages, affording the employed a greater amount of comforts and conveniences, is the inevitable result of increasing capital, under conditions which depend upon the workers themselves. The result is generally such as took place in a Lancashire strike, where one of the leaders exclaimed, "The sooner we can rout political economy from the world, the better it will be for the working classes." It might, indeed, as well be said, the sooner we can rout acoustics from the world, the better it will be for those who have ears to hear; but the absurdity would not be corrected by a mathematical demonstration to those who did not comprehend mathematics. The same person held that political economy was incompatible with the gospel precept of doing unto others as we would be done unto, because it encourages buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest; and he necessarily assumed that political economy recommends the capitalist to buy labour cheap and sell it dear. We have not learnt that calmly and kindly he was told, in the real spirit of political economy, that it is impossible that, by any individual or local advan

tage the capitalist may possess, he can long depress wages below the rate of the whole country, because other capitalists would enter into competition for the employment of labour, and raise the average rate. If Wordsworth's experienced friend had heard this perversion of the meaning of the axiom about markets, he would have said, we think, that to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest simply means, in commerce, to buy an article where its cheapness represents abundance, and to sell it in a place where its dearness represents a want of it and a consequent demand, —even as he, the pedlar, bought a piece of cloth at Kendal, where there was plenty of cloth, and sold it for a profit at Grasmere, where there was little cloth. The business of mercantile knowledge and enterprise is to discover and apply these conditions; so that, if a trader were to buy hides in Smithfield and carry them to Buenos Ayres, he would reverse these conditions, he would buy in the dearest market and sell in the cheapest. Political economythe declaimer against it might have been told-says that to produce cheap is essential to large demand, and constantlyincreasing demand; but it does not say that cheap production necessarily implies diminished wages. It says that cheap production, as a consequence of increased production, depends upon the constantly-increasing use of capital in production, and the constantly-diminishing amount of mere manual labour compared with the quantity produced—which result is effected by the successive application of all the appliances of science to the means of production. At every step of scientific improvement there is a demand for labour of a higher character than existed without the science. At every extended organization of industry, resulting from an extended demand, not only skilled labour, but trusted labour, becomes more and more in request; and the average amount of all labour is better paid. A bricklayer is paid more than the man who mixes his mortar, because one is a skilled labourer, and has learnt his art by some expenditure of time, which is capital. The merchant's bookkeeper is