What is the original cause of wages and profits? It
may be answered with truth—The bounty of Nature; or in other words, the productiveness of the field on which industry is employed, Taking our illustration from agriculture, as the simplest and at the same time the most important of employments, it is obvious, that if cultivation is to be permanently carried on, the indispen- sable expenses of production must be paid. Seed must be re- served; the cattle must be fed; the implements of agrieulture must be repaired, and in time replaced: inanure must be procured; and the drains, fences, Sec. kept up. The :;urplus which remains after defraying these outgoings. is, under the most favourable cir- cumstances, wages and profits. In new countries, where fertile land is cheap and plentiful, this fund is very large, and wages and profits very high ; whilst rent, in strictness, being non-exist Ait, and taxes merely nominal, the labourer and the capitalist divide the whole. As population increases, it becomes necessary to draw the supplies of teed, which gosern its price, from an inferior soil. The owners of the best land can now procure a rent for their farms; the amount of which is measured by the difference between their pro- duce and that of the least fertile land in cultivation. Agricultural industry having become less productive, there remains less surplus produce to divide between the employer and his workmen : one or both must, therefore, take a le.-s share. If, as is most prebahe, .capital has increased faster than labourers, the competition of capi- talists reduces profits, whilst wages remain nearly stationary. As population goes on increasing, it beeomee tecessary to culivate soils still less fertile: at elch succo,sive step, rent rise, even if heavy taxes do not make their appearance: at cell successive step, agricultural industry becomes less productive,—that i, the surplus remaining to be divided between master and man becomes lees: profits sink lower and lower; and theuell wage mav decline more gradually, yet as the greater number of people is the cause of the decreased pr;ductiveness of agriculture, the e,,:npe!ition (A' labourers will speedily compel their reduclien. la thu manuflictures have begun to sprit;g up; aid after a while, their production may lie enormous, heiking at the quantity of the com- modity, but scanty measured by fool, or by those in iispensable articles of necessity, in the preparation of which feel is the chief ( lenient of cost. Various causee may retard this declen- sion for a while. Improved communica:ions may lee-en the cost of transporting commodities: improvements in agriculture, or in agricultural tools awl implements, may enable a greater produce to be drawn from the same slid ; or, by loag training, the Inbourer may work better and work het l:. r than bethre.* lint it is obvious, that if a nation were altogether confined to its own soil fhr its sepplies of fcod, the time must come—supposing population sh mid con- tinue to increase — when rents will rise to a- maximcm, and both wages and profits must sink to a minimum. In the case of wages, this minimum is easily determinable : it cannot be less than will enable a maa to exist and bring up a family. Wages have perhaps reached this point in lre!and ; as rents have reached their maximum in thateountry. The minimum that a capitalist will be content to receive for the trouble and risk of employing his capital, is not so easily settled : but as millions are risked and lost on the chance of a very moderate percentage, and as (significant fact!) the new Joint Stock Banking Company .offers only two per mut. for deposits for not less than three months, it is probably near that point in England. It may be thought that we have taken a limited view of pro- Auction, having said nothing of manuthetures. No one truth, however, is better established than that, all things considered, profits are equal. If much is to be gained in agriculture, no one will embark in trade or manufactures, unless he gets an equal, or, should the business be leas pleasaot or less creditable than farm- ing, a greater profit. On the other hand, no one would cultivate the soil if he could get much more by manufactures or trade. Agricultine, commerce, or manufactures, may each be said to be a test of money profits; but the first is usually chosen, as its pro- cesses are more simple, mme uniform, and the pursuit is more ex- tensive, than those of any other single trade.
• We incline to believe, that improvements and a greater capability of bearing labour. would neutralize the rressure arising from the decreasin4 fertil ty of soil, if industry bad a fair neld and uo favour. This, however. it nowhere possesses. Despotic governments, restraint+, prohibition+, and protections or enormous taxation imposed ui on the nutty ter the benefit of the few, have, either singly or combined, de,;,,ngel industry in et, ry country.
It may also be said, that, without any reference to the doctrines of wages and profits, the workman in manufactures produces largely, and is entitled to a greater share of the produce than he gets. .There is good reason for supposing that the persons who use this argument, either wilfully or ignorantly overlook the ez- posses which must be paid before there is any production to divide.
They see an article to which their hands have given the last form, and they cry., We have produced that. They put out of view the
cost of keeping machinery and buildings in repair, and of even-
tually replacing them. They will not consider, or they do not know—perhaps, indeed, no one could accurately compute—the number.of persons besides themselves who have claims upon a
single piece of mixed goods. The parties who grew, prepared, and transported the silk, the cotton, the dyes, the gums—who furnished the fuel and vehicles by which the indispensable materials were pre- pared and transported, as well as those who provided:the implements of manufacture—are clearly all entitled to a share. lithe inhabi- tants of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, the dwellers under the earth, and the sojourners on the great waters, who have in
any way contributed to the production of a commodity, were to come bodily forward and claim their share, the mere finisher would
find marvelously little remaining out of his production;; and would see—perhaps own—that his master's profits were not so great as he had fancied. Even if this profit were abandoned to him, its help would be very small. He could not eat his production, he could not drink it, he could not turn it into a house. How would he manage to exchange it, and for what? It is not a deficiency
of cottons, or silks, or cunning works in brass and iron, under which we labour ; it is a deficiency offood—the foundation of all comfort and of all prialuetion, awl by which the real value of all manuffictured goods inuet be measured. Precious things might become more plentiful than those we have just mentioned, without really bettering our condition. Pearl-banks richer than any yet existing might miraculously spring up on every shore above low- water mark ; every hundred might be astounded by a counterpart of Sinbad's Valley of Diamonds; and, richer than the fabled El Dorado, every brook might bear down large lumps of. pure gold; yet, in the emphatic language of Scripture, "all this would avail nothing,- so long as a grasping and selfish " Order" stands be- tween a nation and its daily bread. The board of our workhouses might be covered with golden plate, the brows of our paupers might be bound with diamond tiaras; yet, so long as food was scarce and dear—so long as our rulers refused to allow these pro- ductions to be exchamiged for corn and meat—so long would the bulk of the people be miserable, and the middle classes uneasy. One practical conclusion from all this is, that combinations can norer work good; althomth Colonel TORRENS seems to infer that they sometimes may. Their general existence would appear to be U symptom of disease in the economical body ; for competition, in a healthy state of timings, will always secure their fair reward to every class of producers or distributors. It is possible, indeed, to conceive a case where tire net produce remainieg to be ills Vied be- tweea capitalist and operative may be great, yet the share of the labourer be very small. This, however, can only happen where time lawless state of society renders property insecure, or where labourers—a scarcely possible cae under such eircumstaeces- have increased !lister than capital. But neither evil is to be reine- d:ell by fbreible combinatinns. Wherever capital is plentiful— (and all who iementher the midions upon millions that have been squalidered in loans and bubbles, who look around them and see the millions that have been sunk in Waterloo Bridges, in canals or docks or railroads, and the millions that are ready to be invested in any scheme which proin'ses a fair dividend, will be convinced that in England it is superabundant)—the cum:Cation of capitalists will sink profits to the lowest and raise wages to the highest prae- tcable point. Any attempt by cumbination to get beyund this, can only end in the ruin of the cslubiners. Putting the pride and passions of the masters out of the question, self-interest will induce them to withdraw their capital from these businesses, and either to invest it in securities without risk and trouble, or transport it to other countries, and there carry on their industrbes undertakings; whilst the misguided workmen will dicover, that they must first endure the distress of famine, and then be driven to compete with the other labourers of an already overstocked market, and thus permanently reduce wages still lower than they are. Any scheme for bettering the condition of the operatives by Factory Bills or Eight-hours Labour projects, must effect still worse results : they will reduce the production of that which we now exchange, by a roundabout process, for food. Any plan for an equal di- vision of land or rents (and such plans have been gravely suggested), would be equally useles4. The existence of high rent's, when arising from a deficient production of feed, is of itself a proof of too large a population in proportion to the soil. Great as the incomes of individuals may seem, they would be un- felt if divided amongst the people ; whilst the mere attempt to compass the division would bring ilbont a civil war, or drive from the country every person possessing the means of quitting it; and leave the masses, after a short saturnalia, without capital, without employers, without directive skill—a numerous people with, all the savage's wants, but without his powers of supplying or endurirg them. Then is there no remedy for those evils? Is there no other practical conelusion to be reached, than that combinations to lower wages will only work evil? It would be hard if there were not for pellticel economy, rightly understood, is the tro5t practical of ienees. The conclusion to which it points is—to extend the field for the employment of capital and labour, and to increase the productiveness of industry. At home, it is clear, no means exist of doing this ; but "there is a world elsewhere." The sterility of the uncultivated soil in Great Britain will keep profits low ; let us try what they would be if measured by the returns to industry from the primeval soil of the valley of the Mississippi, or of the plains of Russia and Poland. We have already hinted at the remedy for low wages and scanty profits : it may be told in a sen- tence—Aliment THE CORN-LAWS. If workmen are wise, they will combine with their employers, against the practical advocates of low wages, low profits, and dear food.
The Corn-laws, however, though perhaps the foundation of our derangements, is not the only cause ; and neither in justice to the landlords nor to the people should the abolition of the Bread-tax be the sole change. But we must postpone the consideratioa of the other fetters upon industry till next week.
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