third, or even two-fifths. This, however, he regarded as a proof that there was a steadily increasing difficulty in obtaining food. The common impression, on the contrary, was, that men lived better than in olden times-having now meat, wheaten bread, sugar, tea, and coffee; whereas, in days long past, they were content with bread composed of barley, rye, and acorns. To prove that such was not the fact, he asserted that, whereas, in the latter half of the fifteenth century, the laborer could have 192 pints of wheat as wages for a week, he then (1810) could have but 80 pints; and, since his day, another writer has ventured to assert that, in 1495, he could have 199 pints, or more than three bushels, for that amount of labor.

What were the annual wages of a laborer at that precise period, we have no means of ascertaining; but as the change was very slow, little error can result from taking those of the closing years of the previous century. In 1389, a plough-driver had 7s., and a carter 10s. a-year, without clothing, or any other perquisite; and it is esteemed doubtful if, in addition to this, he had even his own wretched food. On an average of years, those wages would command not more than a quarter of wheat, or eight bushels; yet are we told, that a laborer could earn three bushels per week. In the same year, 450 days' labor were required for harvesting the produce of 200 acres of land-the average yield being about six bushels per acre; or, in the whole, 1200 bushels, =23 bushels harvested for each day's work. The week's return, at the same rate, would be sixteen bushels, of which almost exactly one-fifth is allowed, as the wages of every week in the year. Of the people who worked, nearly all were employed on the land, manufactures being then in their infancy. Had all been so employed, with precisely similar returns, it would follow, that five weeks' wages would be equal to the whole annual crop; and yet, such statements are put forth gravely, by writers who know that, at that period, the land and its representative took at least twothirds, leaving very little to the laborer. The harvest-hand of the present day does not receive even a fortieth of the quantity harvested; but he has work throughout the year, and harvest wages do not differ very greatly from those of other days. In the fifteenth century, on the contrary-employment during the * Principles of Political Economy, p. 177.

VOL. III.-10

year being rare-those wages constituted an important portion of the year's revenue; as we see to be, even now, the case with the laborers of Ireland. Increase of wealth and population facilitates the distribution of employment throughout the year-thus increasing greatly the circulation, economy, and productiveness of labor; a fact that should have been known by all the economists who have, for so many years, been engaged in demonstrating the Malthusian doctrine, by proving the laborer's allowance of food to be less, in the present day, than it had been in those of the Plantagenets and Lancasters. Absurdity could scarcely be carried further than as it is exhibited in some of the statements on this subject.

Comparing the rents of the present time, with those of the days of Arthur Young,* the Edinburgh Review † shows that, in the intervening period, the average price, per acre, paid in Bedford and Norfolk, had grown from 11s. 9d. to 25s. 3d. ; but that, within the same period, there had been various economies of cultivation amounting to 328. 2d.-being more than double the increase of rent. The difference between the two goes to the farmer-being so much added to his profits. Added to these economies, are the vast advantages resulting from the creation of a great domestic marketenabling the farmer to obtain green crops, dairy produce, meat, and wool, in double the amount obtained by his predecessor.

These are vast advantages; and if, under such circumstances, land and labor do not increase in value, it must be owing to some error in the system. What that is, may readily be seen. In the days of Smith and Young, men, to a great extent, cultivated their own little properties. Since then, land has become more and more consolidated-producing a necessity for a great farming class to stand between, and be supported by, the man who owns the land, and him who tills it. The produce being the fund out of which wages, rent, and profits, are to be paid, the more that is taken by this last, the less there is to be divided among the others. The proportion borne by profits to the whole product, being, according to the reviewer, an increasing one, we thus obtain the true reason why it is, that land does not increase in value, and why it is, that the power of the farm-laborer to command supplies of food decreases, when, in the natural course † July, 1852.

* 1770.

of things, it should increase. The recent tendency of all English action, in regard to land, has been a retrograde one; and therefore it is, that there has been, on the part of nearly all the economists of that country, so ingenious an effort to furnish natural laws, in virtue of which the Creator may be made to assume the responsibility for poverty and crime produced by man.

In France, as has been already shown, the number of agricultural families nearly doubled in the period from 1700 to 1840the average daily wages of agricultural labor, in the same time, almost quadrupling. In the first period, the proportion allotted to the laborer was thirty-five per cent.; in the latter, it was sixty per cent. In the first, the land-owner retained sixty-five per cent., or almost twice as much as the laborer's share; whereas, in the latter, he retained but forty per cent.-being only twothirds as much. Nevertheless, so great had been the increase of product, that the smaller proportion of the latter period gave to the capitalist 2,000,000,000 of francs, in place of 850,000,000 received in the earlier ones. *

Such is the course of things in every country in which wealth and population are permitted to increase, and commerce is allowed to extend itself-all existing commodities then necessarily declining in their value as compared with labor, and labor rising as compared with them, because of constant diminution in the cost of reproduction. In Prussia, forty years since, a third of the product was regarded as the share to which the tenant might equitably be entitled. Since then-labor having become greatly more productive-the laborer's proportion has rapidly increased. So, too, is it in Russia and in Spain; whereas, in Ireland, India, Mexico, and Turkey, it has steadily declined-wealth, in all those countries, tending downwards, instead of upwards.

Its

Wealth should grow more rapidly than population. growth, however, being in the direct ratio of the rapidity of circulation, it is necessarily slow in all the countries of advancing centralization that being the certain road towards slavery, and political and moral death. Every increase in the ratio of wealth to population, is attended with an augmentation of the power of the laborer, as compared with that of landed or other capital.

* The reader will find these facts given much more at length, by turning to vol. ii. p. 60. ante.

We all see, that when ships are more numerous than cargoes, freights are low; and, vice versa, that when cargoes are more abundant than ships, freights are high. When ploughs and horses more abound than ploughmen, the latter fix the wages; but when ploughmen are more abundant than ploughs, the owners of the latter determine the distribution of the product. Wealth increasing rapidly, new soils are brought into cultivation, and more ploughmen are required. The demand for ploughs producing a demand for more men to mine the coal and smelt the ore, the iron-master becomes a competitor for the laborer, who obtains a larger proportion of the constantly increasing return to labor. He, in turn, becoming a better purchaser of cloth, the manufacturer becomes a competitor with the iron-master and the farmer for his services. His proportion being again increased, he now requires sugar, and tea, and coffee; and next, the ship-master competes with the manufacturer, the iron-master, and the farmer. With the growth of wealth and population, there is, thus, a constant increase in the demand for mental and physical effort the increased productiveness of which, and the consequently increased facility of accumulating wealth, are followed necessarily, and certainly, by an increase of the laborer's proportion. His wages rising, the proportion of the capitalist falls; yet now the latter accumulates fortune more rapidly than everhis interest, and that of the laborer, being in perfect harmony with each other. Seeking evidence of this, we find it in the constantly increasing amount of the rental of France and England, derived from the appropriation of a constantly decreasing proportion of the product of the land; as well as in the enormous amount of railroad tolls, derived from a charge for transportation that sinks into insignificance, when compared with those of the wagoner and the turnpike owner. The highest evidence of increasing wealth, is to be found in the reduction of the capitalist's proportion; and yet, the cardinal principle of the Ricardo-Malthusian doctrine is found in the assertion, that, with the growth of wealth and population, that proportion must increase.

Nothing is more frequent than references to those "good old times" when the laborer obtained food more readily than at present, yet nothing could be more erroneous. The whole quantity consumed in England now, is, at the lowest estimate, sixty

times as great as in the days of Edward III.; while the population is but little more than six times greater. Divided equally, the average, per head, would be ten times as great, in quantity— making no allowance for difference of quality. In those days of barbarous wassail, the waste among the nobles and their followers was very great. In our day, economy prevails everywhere, and it does so necessarily-the general standard of living rising, in exact accordance with the diminution in the proportion of labor's products given to the proprietor of the land. Increase of wealth tending, therefore, to the production of economy, that, in turn, aids in the increase of wealth—thus facilitating the extension of cultivation over the richer soils. Therefore it is, that the higher the quality of the soils in cultivation, and the larger the amount of production, the greater must be the power of the laborer to provide for his family and himself; and the greater the need for care and economy among those who do not sell their labor, and yet are required to conform to the higher standard that has been established.

Capital being, thus, the great equalizer of conditions, the interests of all are concerned in the adoption of measures required for preventing that waste of it which results from war, or from the absence of prompt demand for the potential energy resulting from its consumption in the form of food. The more instantly the demand for human effort follows the supply, the greater must be the power of accumulation, and the stronger must be the tendency towards diminution in the proportion of the capitalist, and increase in that of the laborer.*

The following table of the results of the two systems, may now be compared by the reader with what is passing before his eyes— having done which, he can select for himself, the one he deems most in accordance with the facts.

That the change which takes place in the mode of distribution, is a direct consequence of the limitation of value to the cost of reproduction, is thus shown by Professor Ferrara, of Turin:—

"The present, resting on the accumulations of the past, acquires a productive force which, otherwise, it could not have. Having made the acquisition, it becomes strengthened for emancipation from the need of further aid. Labor, past and present-capital and labor-meeting each other in the market, the general law of value governs all their negotiations-that law being directly constituted for the emancipation of the present from the tyranny of the past."-Biblioteca dell' Economista, vol. xiii. p. lxix.