dearer: in this it is alleged the farmer finds his indemnification. True, he does so: but that cuts both ways; for precisely in this higher and indemnifying price, when it comes to affect the consumption of himself and his men, he finds also his own damage.

But there is still a final evasion likely to move subconsciously in the thoughts of a student, which it is better to deepen and strengthen until it becomes generally visiblethan to leave it behind as a rankling perplexity. He has

a confused idea that, in the distributions of landed produce, the shares which grow less in quantity sometimes grow larger in value. If a laborer, who got 6 quarters last year, gets only 5 this year, undeniably his corn wages have fallen, and yet his money wages may have risen; for 5 quarters, when wheat is selling for five guineas, will be worth twenty-five guineas; whereas 6 quarters, when wheat sold for four guineas, would be worth only twentyfour guineas. The laborer is therefore poorer in wheat, but he is a little richer in money. Now, the student may fancy that, by an indemnity similar in kind, but perhaps even greater in degree, profits may evade the declension which otherwise accompanies the expansion of agriculture. Where the value of each assignable part may be less, might not a larger quantity fall to the share of profits; and where a smaller quantity was allotted to profits, might it not compensate that defect by a much greater value? No: if the reader pursues the turns of the case through all changes, he will find the following result invariably following: - As worse land is taken into use, the landlord's share rises both in quantity and value: secondly, the laborer's share lessens in quantity but increases in value; whilst, thirdly the profitee's (or farmer's) share lessens both in quantity and value. Of two possible advantages, allowed under the circumstances, Rent comes in for both - Wages

for one Profits for neither. And the sole resource for profits against a never-ending declension, is that antagonistic tendency by which from time to time man defeats the original tendency of the land, raising indifferent land in 1840 to the level of what was very good land in 1340— consequently restoring profits (and often much more than restoring them) to that station which they had lost in the interval.

Except by this eternal counter-agency, profits cannot protect themselves by any special remedy against a continual degradation; that redress, which for rent procures much more than an indemnity, and for wages an imperfect indemnity, will not operate at all in behalf of profits. And this shall be exemplified in a simple case. Eight men, upon a known farm, have hitherto raised 80 quarters of wheat. By a descent upon worse land, under the coercion of rising population, ten men are now required to produce the same 80 quarters. That is, heretofore each man of the eight produced ten; but now, on the lower soil, each man of the ten produces eight. Consequently, on that land which determines the price of wheat, (see Chapter III. on Rent,) eight men now produce 64 quarters. This produce (since the least advantageously grown must rule the price) now becomes the regulating scale for price. Last year, when the produce of 80 quarters from eight men had been the lowest round of the ladder, the price had been £4 the quarter. Now, when a produce of 64 quarters from eight men is the lowest, the price will rise to £5. For 64: 80:: £4: £ 5.

But, when the produce was 80 quarters, selling at £4, the total money produced was £320. From which amount deduct the wages of eight men, (receiving, suppose each 5 quarters, or £160 in the whole,) and there will remain £160 for the profits.

Now, when the produce is 64 quarters, selling at £5, the total money produce will be still £320; the higher price having so far compensated the lower produce. From which amount deduct the wages of eight men, receiving each the value of 5 quarters, (or £200 in the whole,) and there will remain only £120 for profits.

It is true that the new rate of wages will not proceed on the old scale of quantity; the corn wages will somewhat decline; but this will not help the result: each man may not receive 5 quarters as heretofore, but always he will receive the value of more than 4 quarters at £5: always the eight men will receive more than £160; or else their wages will not have risen under a rise in the price of corn. Always therefore, from the same fixed sum of £320, the deduction for wages being greater, what remains for profit must be less.

This, however, it may be said, is an example drawn from the last round of the ladder, from the very last land under culture; first from that which was last some time back; secondly, from that which at present is last. Now, upon such land, it has been shown already, (Chapter III. on Rent,) that the entire return always divides between wages and profits; nothing at all is retained for rent. But you persuade yourself that on superior land, on rent-paying land, possibly the result for profits might turn out otherwise. One sentence will settle that point, and convince you that the logic of the case cannot be disturbed. What is it that determines the amount of rent upon any land whatever? It is simply the difference of product between the land assigned and the lowest under cultivation. For instance, in the case just now considered, the difference between the produce of the land now lowest, and that of the land lately lowest, is the difference between 80 quarters and 64; that is, a

difference of 16 quarters. This whole difference would become rent upon the penultimate land. And therefore it will serve no purpose to plead the higher money value upon each one of the 64, compared with the old value upon the 80. For it is evident, that when the 16 are deducted for rent, no matter at what price, the remainder of 64 must follow the same exact division between wages and profits as took effect upon the 64 of the lowest land according to the first exemplification. When the rent is deducted, precisely the same quantity remains for the penultimate land as on the very lowest land—disposable for precisely the same two calls of wages and profits and disposable under the precisely same law of division.

Here, therefore, we see the whole law of profits as it acts upon the largest scale. But at the same time we are made sensible, that under this law there must be exceptions. The law is founded ultimately on the decline of land, and consequently of profits on land; to which sort of profits, speaking generally, all others must conform. Yet that sometimes they do not, is evident from this, that in that case no rate of profits in any one speculation would or could differ from the ordinary rate. The land is always the same, and subject to the same sort of gradual degradation. If, therefore, the land furnished the sole principle of regulation, then in any one country, (as England,) having the same common land-standard, there could be only one rate of profit. But this we all know to be false. Whence, therefore, come the anomalies? Where lie the other principles which modify and disturb that derived from the land?

It is generally and rightly pleaded, as a sufficient explanation of the irregularities in profits, that origi nally they ranged themselves upon a scale, differing apparently in order that they might not differ virtually;

in fact, on the same principle as wages. Why do wages differ? Why is it that one workman gets a guinea a day, and another has some difficulty in obtaining a shilling? Notoriously because, whilst rude labor is open almost to universal competition, some special labor is hazardous, or disgusting, or under a variable demand, or even disreputable from its incidents; but above all, because it happens to be difficult of execution, and presupposes an elaborate (generally an expensive) education.

The laborer is often to be regarded not in the light of a man receiving merely wages, but of a man receiving wages for his daily work, and a considerable interest on the capital which he had been obliged to sink in his education. And often it happens that, as the modern processes of art or trade become more and more scientific, wages are continually rising. The qualifications of a master or of a mate, even in the commercial navy, are now steadily rising. Possibly the wider range of chemical knowledge, in such employments as dyeing, brewing, calico-printing, may devolve in its growing responsibilities chiefly upon a superior rank of workmen. In coining, or striking medals, where the ambition of nations is now driving their governments into substituting for that base mechanic art prevalent in Christendom, the noble fine art patronized in Pagan ages, it is probable that a higher class of workmen is slowly coming into request. And in the business of forgery applied to bank-notes, a business which once gave employment to much capital and various talent, simply by a rise in one qualification that whole interest has been suppressed. Besides a peculiar paper, manufactured with difficulty and hazard, the talent of engraving was required in provincial practice. Now, the profits might have paid for skill of that nature; an accomplice might have been elaborately educated for