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The Correspondents of the EDINBURGH MAGAZINE and LITERARY MISCELLANY are respectfully requested to transmit their Communications for the Editor to ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & COMPANY, Edinburgh, or to HURST, ROBINSON, & COMPANY, London; to whom also orders for the Work should be addressed.

Printed by J. Ruthven & Son.

THE

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE,

AND

LITERARY MISCELLANY.

JUNE 1826.

MR M'CULLOCH'S ESSAY ON THE RATE OF WAGES, AND THE CONDITION OF THE LABOURING CLASSES.

IN publishing this Essay at the present moment, Mr M'Culloch has rendered a most essential service to the cause of humanity. At a period when want of employment has occasioned the most appalling distress among many thousands of the labouring classes in our country, and when the attention, not only of these classes themselves, but of the wealthy and influential inhabitants, is so in tensely drawn to the investigation of the causes and probable remedies of these wide-spread calamities, it is doubly acceptable to receive, from the pen of a writer of so much acknowledged talent, and whose attention has been so exclusively devoted for many years to inquiries of this nature, the results of his reading, his experience, and observations on the state of the labouring classes. He has executed the task which he has undertaken with his usual ability, and in a style, too, which renders the Essay level to the capacities of the persons for whom it appears chiefly to be intended. The main truth, which he seems most anxious to inculcate on the labouring classes, is, that they are the framers of their own fortunes, that it rests almost entirely with themselves, whether they shall be all their lives subject to the extremes of penury, and consequent degradation in the scale of human society, or shall raise themselves to comfort, and at least a moderate degree of independence. The subject has been often treated of

VOL. XVIII.

already; but the new lights which have been thrown upon it by the investigations of Mr Malthus and Mr Ricardo, and more especially by the copious evidence which has been laid on the table of the two Houses of Parliament relative to the state of Ireland, have rendered our knowledge more precise, and enabled us to lay down as demonstrated truths various doctrines, which had been but partially broached, and of the soundness of which their authors themselves entertained many doubts. When Science thus lays hold of facts, which have been established by the best evidence, and produces from them axioms for the guidance of human conduct, we conceive that she is occupied in the most dignified manner; but when these axioms are inculcated with the earnestness, the plainness, and convincing power which are displayed in this Tract, and withal put into the hands of almost every man in the country, she is then occupied in the most useful manner; and we cannot help envying the feelings of the man who, by the powers of an enlarged and penetrating intellect, can produce the beneficial effects upon the minds of his countrymen, which we feel morally certain will be produced by the Essay before us. The principles of that benignant science, which is, unfortunately, but of very modern growth, which teaches us to discover the primary causes of national grandeur and decay, are here unfolded

4. M

in their bearings on the fortunes of the lower orders of society in a style to which these orders have scarcely ever been accustomed; and we hold it to be the chief merit of this little work, that it may be read with equal pleasure and advantage, by him whose mind has received the last touches of a finished education, and by the man whose knowledge reaches little farther than to the mere ability to read his school collection. Such a work is calculated to be equally beneficial to all,-to the higher orders, who possess the greatest portion of the capital of the country, in settling their notions as to the true relation in which they stand to the lower classes of society, and to these lower classes themselves, who subsist chiefly on the wages derived from the capital in the possession of the higher orders, in exhibiting a faithful display of those circumstances on which their well-being main ly rests.

Mr M'Culloch defines wages to "constitute the reward or compensation paid to labourers in return for their services by their employers." The labour or service of man may, like every thing else which is bought and sold, vary in its price. The labourer who at one time receives a certain quantity, or the value of a certain quantity, of the necessaries and conveniences of human life, in exchange for a certain quantity of his labour, may, at another time, receive a different quantity, or the value of a different quantity of these necessaries and conveniennes, in exchange for the same quantity of labour. And as labourers always form the great majority of the population of every civilized society, and as their comfort and welfare must be, in a great degree, dependent on the rate of wages they receive, it is obviously of the greatest importance, in a national, as well as individual point of view, to trace and exhibit the circumstances which determine the rate of wages, or the reward paid to the labourer for his services.

In proceeding to investigate these circumstances, Mr M'Culloch lays it down as a fundamental principle, that "the rate of wages in any given country, at any particular period, depends on the magnitude of the

fund or capital appropriated to the payment of wages, compared with the number of labourers." What is called the capital of a country consists of all that portion of the produce of industry existing in it, which can be made directly available, either to the support of human existence, or to the facilitating of production. That portion of capital, however, to which alone it becomes necessary to advert in the inquiries before us, consists of the food, clothes, and other articles required for the use and consumption of labourers, as this portion constitutes the fund out of which their wages must be wholly paid. If the amount of these articles is increased without a corresponding increase taking place in the population, a larger share of them will fall to each individual, or the rate of wages will be increased; and if, on the other hand, population is increased faster than capital, a less share will be apportioned to each individual, or, in other words, the rate of wages will be reduced.

Mr M'Culloch illustrates this fundamental principle in a clear and convincing manner. "Let us suppose," says he, "that the capital of à country, appropriated to the payment of wages, would, if reduced to the standard of wheat, form a mass of 10,000,000 of quarters. If the number of labourers in that country were two millions, it is evident that the wages of each, reducing them all to the same common standard, would be five quarters; and it is farther evident, that this rate of wages could not be increased otherwise than by increasing the quantity of capital in a greater proportion than the number of labourers, or by diminishing the number of labourers in a greater proportion than the quantity of capital. So long as capital and population continue to march abreast, or to increase or diminish in the same proportion, so long will the rate of wages, and consequently the condition of the labourers, continue unaffected'; and it is only when the proportion of capital to population varies,-when it is either increased or diminished, that the rate of wages sustains a corresponding advance or diminution. The well-being and comfort of the

1826.

643.

than formerly, but he would obtain
the same quantity of commodities in
Whatever,
exchange for them.
therefore, may be the state of money
wages in a country, whether they
are ls. or 5s. a-day, it is certain that,
if the amount of the national capital
and the population continue the
same, or increase or diminish in the
same proportion, no variation will
take place in the rate of wages.
Wages never really rise except when
the proportion of capital to popula-
tion is enlarged, and they never
really fall, except when that propor-
tion is diminished."

labouring classes are therefore espe-
cially dependent on the relation
which their increase bears to the in-
crease of the capital that is to feed
and employ them. If they increase
faster than capital, their wages will
be reduced, and if they increase
slower, they will be augmented. In
fact, there are no means whatever
by which the command of the la-
bouring class over the necessaries
and conveniences of life can be en-
larged, other than by accelerating
the increase of capital as compared
with population, or by retarding the
increase of population, as compared
with capital; and every scheme for
improving the condition of the la-
bourer, which is not bottomed on
this principle, or which has not an
increase of the ratio of capital to
population for its object, must be
completely nugatory and ineffectual.
"The wages of labour are most
commonly either paid or estimated
in money; and it may perhaps be
thought that their amount will, in
consequence, depend more on the
quantity of money in circulation in
a country, than on the magnitude of
its capital. It is really, however,
quite indifferent to the labourer whe-
ther the quantity of money received
by him as wages be great or small.
He will always receive such a quan-
tity as will suffice to put him in pos-
session of the portion of the national
capital falling to his share. Men
cannot subsist on coin or paper.
Where wages are paid in money, the
labourers must exchange it for ne-
cessaries and conveniences; and it is
not the quantity of money they re-
ceive, but the quantity of necessaries
and conveniences for which that
money will exchange, which is to
be considered as really forming their
wages. If the quantity of money in
Great Britain were reduced a half,
the rate of wages estimated in mo-
ney would decline in the same pro-
portion; but unless some change
had at the same time taken place in
the amount of that portion of the
capital of the country, consisting of
food, clothes, and other articles,
which enter into the consumption of
the labourer, he would continue in
He
precisely the same situation.
would carry a smaller quantity of
pieces of gold and silver to market

When it has thus been ascertained that the rate of wages in any given country, at any particular period of its progress, depends entirely on the proportion between that part of its capital appropriated to the payment of wages and the number of its labourers, it next becomes an important object to discover whether capital or population have a tendency to increase or diminish in the same or in different proportions. Our author, therefore, proceeds, in the second section of his Essay, to inquire into the comparative increase of capital and population. It is not possible to obtain any precisely accurate estimate of the absolute quantity of capital in a country at different periods, but the capacity of that capital to feed and employ labourers, and the rate of its increase, may notwithstanding be learned with sufficient accuracy, for the purpose of such an inquiry, by referring to the progress of population. Whenever we find the people of a country increasing without any, or with but very little variation taking place in their condition, we may conclude that the capital of a country is increasing in the same, or very nearly the same proportion. Now, it has been established, that the population of several of the states of North America has, after making due allowance for immigrants during the last century, continued to double in so short a period as twenty, or at most twentyfive years. And as the quantity of necessaries and conveniences falling

to the share of an inhabitant of the United States has not been materially increased or diminished during that century, this increase of population

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