living; imprudence, not least when recommended by law, depresses it. There were more to support, and no additional food. The result was in the highest degree an economical one.

The effect which such a poor law produced on wages was necessarily very great. Had it remained in force, the improvement which, since its alteration, has taken place in agricultural wages would scarcely have occurred. To relieve the suppliers of labour, already of themselves too prone to be thoughtless, from the consequences of an excess of supply, was to ruin the market, to depreciate the value of the article sold, and to rear up all over the land multitudes of human beings on a low level of existence. The example of Ireland taught the world to what misery a people would be content to descend that was reckless in the multiplication of its numbers. The loss of a million-and-a-half of its inhabitants out of eight by death and emigration was the fearful penalty which Ireland had to pay for her neglect of the most fundamental law of human nature, the terrible cost at which she adjusted the supply of labourers to the demand.

Against this constant tendency of human beings to over-multiplication of their numbers there is one available resource which can, and often does, exercise great force in counteracting the danger. A determinate standard of living, firmly established upon long habit, is capable of producing a similar effect on the mass of a population to that which is witnessed in the well-todo classes. It creates a certain amount of reluctance to contract marriage as likely to diminish the comforts to which the parties to it have been accustomed. When the

perception dawns on the minds of the labouring classes that trade tends to become permanently slacker, that their numbers are in excess, and that wages are likely to reach a lower level, many a young man hesitates to enter on a state which can scarcely fail to lower his manner of living. The sense that he has something to lose is awakened, and exerts power over his feelings. He refrains from contributing to keep up a supply of labourers which must entail fewer enjoyments in the future. The opposite result very commonly follows upon the opposite condition of a standard of life so low as to be scarcely able to be made worse. It was strikingly seen in the state of Ireland before the appearance of the potato-rot. The population had become reckless. Their dwellings were so habitually wretched, their food so low, and for several weeks in the year so precarious, the presence of disease, especially fever, so constant, their lives so mixed up, even in their own dwellings, with animals, that the feeling that there was something to lose by marriage was extinguished. They married and multiplied without thought; their supply of food bordered on the lowest margin of subsistence. When the visitation of disease rendered trust in the potato, as the staple of food, impossible, a new state of things came into being. Upwards of a million of the population had emigrated or perished. Bread necessarily took the place of the inferior root; a higher standard of living was established, and an excess of numbers. disappeared. Since these days Ireland has ceased to exhibit the spectacle of a reckless multiplication of the numbers of her people.

CHAPTER VII

WAGES.

II.

THE next point for consideration is the fund from which wages are derived. What is it that enables an employer to purchase the services of labourers in production? That fund is capital; and capital, we have seen, is that portion of the existing stock of machinery and commodities which is intentionally applied to the creation of fresh wealth. This proposition Professor Walker, in his able work on Wages, denies. He rejects the assumption that wages are paid out of capital, the saved results of the industry of the past. "On the contrary, he holds that in a philosophical view of the subject wages are paid out of the product of present industry." But he refutes his own view by admitting that in almost all cases wages are advanced out of capital. The cases are indeed few in which the fruits of the labour are so rapidly gathered that they actually pay the wages of the labourer. A fisherman may pay a sailor for the day's work by the sale of the fish as soon as the boat reaches the shore. But such events are rare and unimportant. The farmer's case is that of most industries. He must wait a year before he can replace out of the harvest the capital consumed in feeding his labourers

and his horses. The building of a steamship may take two years before she can be sold. A bad harvest may strip the farmer of a large portion of his capital; the ship may fetch only a price much smaller than what she cost to build. The cost of production is first provided out of the consumption of pre-existing capital.

But there is, on the other hand, a real and essential connection between what industry at work produces and wages. The employer must recover from new wealth made what he had destroyed in keeping up the labour or he will give up the business. He will cease to hire labourers, and wages will disappear. He may for a time go on producing at a loss, relying, like the farmer, on an average of years; but if the business and its distribution of wages are to continue, the vital condition that his capital shall be replaced with a reward for himself, must be fulfilled. In this sense wages clearly depend on the future results of industry.

From this cardinal fact, that wages are paid out of capital, comes forth the fundamental principle that the sellers of labour have the strongest interest that the means of purchasing what they have to sell should be as large as possible. The greater the number of buyers of labour, the more plentiful the means which they have of buying, the better price, the higher wages will the sellers obtain. Everything which makes the employer eager to give wages is good for the workman. Much the largest portion of existing capital is spent in wages; that is the labourers eat, drink, and consume the greatest part of the stock of wealth in the country. The saying, attributed to Mr Cobden, rightly declares that when two employers are seeking one man

wages rise; and the thing which creates the two employers is the existence of increased capital. Every act or policy, therefore, which has the effect of diminishing capital already in existence or of preventing its increase is obviously injurious to the interest of those who live by wages, and if deliberately designed to produce that effect is suicidal irrationality.

Another consideration carries great weight in this matter, and indeed in all the relations between labour and capital, and that is the manner in which capital is created. Except what nature gives as it were to start with, capital is the result of an act of the human will. It is derived from wealth, from commodities already produced, which their owner deliberately resolves not to consume in luxurious enjoyment, but to apply as instruments to the creation of fresh wealth. He saves this wealth by abstaining from the increase of his gratifications, and this is a personal act. It proceeds from a clear motive. The saver wishes to become richer,—to be better off. He makes a sacrifice for the sake of the ulterior object, which he prefers. Obviously in proportion to the strength of the desire will be the amount of the saving; and that desire will necessarily be influenced by the success it can achieve in obtaining the end desired, increase of fortune.

If profits are large, and the opportunities for extending business multiply, the tendency to save gathers strength, and capital rapidly accumulates. But if profits are low and are likely to become lower still, the effort to save is weakened, and the feeling is apt to arise that it is not worth while to lessen present enjoyment for the sake of a small increase of wealth. What policy,