But even the wage-fund doctrine aside, the economists of the Manchester School have not been disposed to regard the problem of distribution, the question of rent excepted, as one of much urgency or difficulty. They have been of the opinion expressed by Chevalier, thirty-five years ago, that this department of political economy is inferior in interest and importance to that of production. This has not been from a disposition to disregard the effects on human happiness, and the strength and stability of the state, wrought by a good or an ill distribution of the products of industry; but from a belief in the absolute sufficiency of economical forces, in a state of industrial freedom, to diffuse all burdens and all benefits alike, to the highest advantage of the industrial community. Laissez faire let these principles work unhindered, has hence come to contain pretty much the whole theory of distribution as held by the writers of this school. To such it can only be a matter of curious interest, so far as they are concerned as political economists, what are the facts of the distribution of wealth at any given time, or what the moral and social condition of any single class of the community. If things are wrong, they need only to be let to work themselves right, under the impulsion of purely economical forces; and such forces are constantly operating for the redress of grievances, and the repair of inequalities. If aught is wrong at present, it is simply because the free play of economic forces has been hindered by arbitrary enactment, or illegal violence in the past: the one thing required to bring about industrial relief is industrial freedom. So completely satisfied are the writers of this school

1

Certes, le partage des produits du travail est digne de toute la sollicitude de quiconque a de l'intelligence et du cœur. Cependant, elle est moins urgente à discuter, et pratiquement elle sera bien moins embarrassante que celle de l'accroisement harmonique et régulier de la production."-Troisième discours d'Ouverture du cours de l'année, 1841-2.

with the sufficiency of the force they invoke to secure a right distribution, that they refuse to make political freedom a condition,1 necessary or even important, for the successful operation of that force. The question of wages is no different in the United States from what it is in Russia, by reason of differences in the political institutions of those countries. It differs nothing in Austria from what it is in Prussia, by reason of the wide difference in popular intelligence existing between those countries. The ballot can do nothing to enhance wages: social oppor tunities can do nothing, except as they operate in restraint of population; sympathy and respect for labor can do nothing.. The economical force is all-sufficient, granted only a state of industrial freedom.

COMPETITION.

Competition it is, and competition alone, to which the economist looks to accomplish the distribution of the products of industry. Competition expresses the desire and the effort of the buyer to buy as cheaply, and of the seller to sell as dearly; of the one to give as little, and of the other to get as much, as he can; and inasmuch as every man is at once 2 buyer and seller, we say he gives as little and gets as much as the existing conditions of industry allow. Competition involves, therefore, we see, a free, easy and

1 Let me not seem, by omission, to do injustice. Many of the writers of this school have recognized, in the fullest manner, not only the moral and social, but also the industrial, advantages of education and political freedom, in increasing the productive power of the workman; but for the distribution of wealth, they hold strictly economical forces to be sufficient.

2 No man can buy anything, unless at the same time, he sells something; else he does not buy the thing he gets; it is given to him. When a man buys a pound of meat he sells a shilling, more or less. The butcher may say, I will send home the meat now, and you may hand in the shilling at the end of the week, or of the month; but the credit given does not alter the substantial relations of the parties to the transaction.

sure resort to the best market, whatever be the thing that is to be bought or sold.

If competition be perfect, no question can be made of its result in an equable division of all burdens and diffusion of all benefits throughout the industrial society. Let us consider the laborers and the employers of labor in a state of active competition. Each laborer will sell his labor at the highest price which any employer can afford to give, since the employers are in competition among themselves for labor. Each employer will get his labor at the lowest price at which any laborer1 can afford to sell it, since the laborers are in competition among themselves for employment. The lowest price at which any laborer will sell his labor is thus the highest price which any employer can afford to pay. If we suppose the rate of wages to any single laborer to be reduced, be it ever so little, below the highest price which any employer can afford to pay, the competition among employers for the extra profit thus offered will speedily reduce that margin to the minimum. If again we suppose the wages obtained by a single laborer to be above the average of his class, the resort of his fellows to that better market will instantly afford his individual employer all the labor he requires at the usual rate. So much for the reduction or elevation of the wages of a single laborer below or above the standard; but if we suppose that standard to be lowered, and the wages of the whole body of laborers to be reduced, we shall then find a like satisfactory result wrought out in one of two ways; either the employers, getting their labor for less, will sell their products at correspondingly reduced prices, and the laborers will thus, as consum

1 We here assume the industrial quality of all laborers to be the same, and all employers to stand on the same footing as regards business capacity and credit.

Every scene of competition is called a market."--F. W. New man, Lectures on Pol. Econ., p. 5.

ers,1 make good their nominal loss as producers, or, if prices be maintained, the enhanced profit thus afforded on each pound, bushel or yard of the product will incite each individual employer to produce all he can, and for this purpose to employ all the labor he can; and employers will thus be brought to bid against each other until the margin of extra profit wholly disappears, and the lowest price at which any laborer will sell his labor will thus again become the highest which any employer can afford to pay. On the other hand, if we suppose the standard of wages to be raised and the body of laborers to receive a larger compensation, then it will follow from the action of competition, that either prices will be raised correspondingly and the laborers lose as consumers what they have nominally gained as producers, or, prices remaining the same, the employers will find their profits trenched upon, and this, diminishing the motive to production, will diminish the employment offered, which will induce competition among the workmen for employment, which will restore the standard of wages.

The above account will hold good of laborers and employers found in the same locality and engaged in the same occupation. But if we assume laborers and employers to be dispersed among different localities and occupations, precisely the same result would, in a condition of absolute competition, be effected without loss and without delay. Laborers would seek employers or employers laborers, with perfect facility, across the dividing lines, whether territorial or industrial. All inequalities of condition would thus be immediately reduced. The effort of each to get the most possible for himself

1

"For this class (the prolétaires) as for all, the operation of competition is two-fold. They feel it both as buyers, and as sellers of services."-Bastiat, "Harmonies of Pol. Econ.," p. 280. Doubtless: but do they feel it equally, in their two capacities? For what Prof, Cairnes calls the excessive friction" of retail trade, see p. 313-5.

would simply result, with equal strength and opportunities, in giving the same to all.

By the operation of the same principle, any burden— say, a tax-imposed arbitrarily upon any class, whether of persons, of industrial processes, or of products, is distributed equally over the whole community. That burden, wherever first imposed, becomes an element in determining the actual net advantage enjoyed in their place by the class of persons, upon whom, or upon whose processes, or upon whose products, the burden is laid. The diminution thus effected in their substantial remuneration, will either cause their products to rise in price, while the same quantity is produced by the same number of laborers (which may be the case if the products are of prime importance or necessity); or laborers and employers will leave these avocations until the prices of their products, thus diminished in quantity, are raised by scarcity to a point which will afford wages to laborers and profits to employers equivalent, after full account be had of the exceptional burden, to those enjoyed in other departments of production. This is the reasoning of those who hold the diffusion theory of taxation.

Such is the operation of unhindered competition, achieving a beneficent distribution of the products of industry, equalizing all burdens and all benefits throughout the industrial community. These are the Economical Harmonies celebrated by Bastiat. Of course no one ever supposed that competition was perfect in any place, or in any department of human activity; but the political economists of the Manchester School have felt themselves at liberty to treat the questions of distribution precisely as if competition were perfect, regarding the failures as so far exceptional as not to impair the substantial validity of practical conclusions based on the assumption of universal competition. Our further course will lead us to investigate this assumption of a competition so general