century ago, but they are very common now. Demand presented then fewer difficulties to be solved.

Whilst these fluctuations were harassing manufacturing profits and wages, till recently agricultural labourers stood on a different footing. A long series of ages had bound them closely to the particular spot in which they had been born. The feudal system and various kinds of serfdom had encroached upon their freedom. They were not free men, free to dispose of themselves at their pleasure. Hence they were not sellers of their own labour in a really open market. They were under many restraints from making their own bargains with their employers. In England they had gradually become emancipated from these restrictions; yet even in this country unwise and unthoughtful legislation had mischievously interfered with their liberty, to their great injury as labourers. A Poor Law which had been enacted for their relief was so constructed as to bring on them grievous harm. It secured them maintenance when out of work, but at a particular spot, in their own parish. The principle of a poor law need not be discussed in this place, but this special enactment practically deprived them of freedom of motion, and of the natural and fitting market for the sale of their labour. A labourer who had wandered into another district, and had through want of success in procuring employment become chargeable on the poor-rate, was immediately sent back to his own parish. That was the body which was bound to support him. planted down in a small narrow locality. spirit or means to migrate on his own account. If he did so, he was in imminent peril of being driven back to his

He was thus

He had little

place of settlement. He learned to feel that his life was sentenced to be spent in his parish, and he comforted himself with the feeling that there he possessed out-door relief with a dole of bread for every child born to him, and ultimately the workhouse in the background for old age. Under such circumstances his wages underwent little change. Whether the farmers were prosperous or the reverse, the labourers carried away home a wage which was settled on no market principle, but was rather a maintenance distributed to a dependant. By the substitution of a large union for a small parish as the basis of relief, thus enlarging the field in which the labourer may work without danger of removal, by the diminution of out-door relief and a more direct appeal to a man's own efforts with a broader sphere of action-by the railway and cheapness of locomotion, by the rapid increase of the demand for labourers in the manufacturing towns, by these and other causes the position of the agricultural labourer has been radically changed. He migrates freely over the whole country. He can offer his services in many markets. He earns better wages and tempts others at home to follow his example. The labourers are fewer in the parish, and their dependence on the farmers has been largely diminished. farmers have now to compete for the labour of good men by the offer of higher wages, and those wages are earned by a marked improvement in the quality of agricultural labour. The agricultural labourer has now largely acquired the general position of workmen selling their labour in wide markets.

The

The question now presents itself, What security have the sellers of labour that they obtain the price for it

which is just and fair? Wages are a portion of the produce of labour, and when labour is very productive the labourer possesses in that fact a force which is felt by the employer. When trade is brisk and demand for goods active and prices rule high, the employer comes under very powerful motives for yielding to increased terms demanded by the workmen in bargaining for wages. The more productive the labour and the larger the sums realised on the sale of its products, the more eager is the capitalist to engage workmen on improved wages. Still, even under such circumstances, the labourer may doubt whether profits would not admit of a still larger reward for himself. The master's share of the goods may still be excessive and be capable of diminution. Still stronger would be the doubt when the masters proclaim that profits are sinking, that sales and prices languish; may it not be that they have been spoiled by excessive profits, and think only of what is quite natural and proper, and will not hear of diminution?

The force which battles against the purchasers of labour and furnishes the workmen with a powerful guarantee for the reasonableness of the wages paid is the competition of masters with one another. It is excellently described by Mr Denny. "The master is at struggle and real fight with every other employer in his own country and trade. And this competition between employer and employer has done more for the success of this country than any other force or active struggle in it. The Clyde has fought with the Tyne and the Mersey, and on the Clyde every master has contended with every other for the work to be done. So powerful

has this contest been that with all the advances in wages and all the obstacles the crotchets of our workmen have thrown in the way, the price of sailing ships has not perceptibly advanced in this generation. This free competition of master against master has been the secret of this country's advance as a manufacturing nation." This is the language of practical experience and is confirmed on every side. The modern world, most of all England, is incessantly accumulating capital. Not to employ it is to lose it. In spite of the tidal fluctuations of trade, the means of investing capital, of applying it to production, are growing with a rapidity unexampled in the history of mankind. The spread of comfort and riches has been incalculable, and riches are only another word for things made by labour. The growth of manufacturing towns and populations has been marvellous. In every corner of the land people are saving, are investing (not money—be it never forgotten-money is only a machine for transferring ownership), goods rescued from enjoyment, in opening new mines, building fresh factories, constructing fleets of merchant ships, scattering commodities over the planet. Fortunes are made everywhere and brought to England, and fortunes are nothing but fresh savings of commodities by turning them into capital. Now it cannot be too, strongly impressed on our working classes that every one of these operations is the result of capital, that capital is useless without labour, and consequently that every fortune made, every profit accumulated and not wasted on pure luxury, is an eager demander of labour, and searches about for workmen to create incomes and further profits. Without labour

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22 fr ac ver pups Vie sá a press re see with spital for the possession of aberes. buy xala bums viht desire to find a business vich Ka Teld him reams be be land or owner or leader put interest or anything else whateven Suck are the habits of mode and so rast ze the spaces on the earth which are yet ed Varge the contries whose powers of yielding wealth are in an infancy of development that these babits wi As for a A time indeed may come a time that Mr Mill was fond of speaking of when the earth will be filed, and every vacant space cultivated, and the supply of food incapable of further increase. When mankind shall have reached that stage, the competition between employers to procure labour will grow feeble, saving will lose its motive, and either population must contract itself or wages will dwindle down to the minimum of absistence. But that period is too remote for the Political Economist of our day, and of centuries to come. We must deal with the facts that surround us. One result of these facts, of these movements of capital in search for labour, is that in England alone the annual payment of wages has been estimated at 400 millions of pounds sterling. Wages have risen during recent years in all branches of industry, and barring occasional fluctuations will rise still more.

But it may be objected that this statement omits to take into account an adverse force which acts very pre