MRS. B.

Certainly not. It is not a necessary consequence of the invention of machinery, that more hands should be required in the manufacture where it is applied; the additional quantity of the commodity produced by the same number of hands will in some instances be sufficient to supply the increased demand. But supposing even that no augmentation of the commodity should be required, and that a certain number of hands should be dismissed in consequence of the abridgment of labour, the capital thus economised, by being applied to some other purpose, is an advantage both to the proprietor and the public, and eventually affords employment for the labourers thrown out of work.

Thus you see that capital, whether fixed or circulating, invariably promotes the increase of the produce of the country; we may, therefore, I think, define capital to be any accumulated produce which tends to facilitate future productions. And the capital of a country is composed of the aggregate property of all its inhabitants.

pure comfort and rear a family; but as the capitalis will always keep wages as low as he can, the accurer and his smily can seldom command more tat de recessaries of life.

CAROLINE.

3 the necessaries of life do you mean such angs as are indispensably necessary for its sipvert 2

MRS. B.

Nr: I mean such food, clothing, and general accommodation, as the climate and custom of the suncy have rendered essential to the preservation a de le, health, and decent appearance of the cwest cases of the people. Fuel, for instance, and warm doching, are necessary articles in this Civilissuncy; but they are not so in Africa. action and the progress of wealth and manufactures have greatly extended the scale of necessaries; the e of inen is now considered as necessary by all casses of people, and shoes and stockings, in EngHouses with and at least, finest equally so. giad windows and a chimney are become necessaris: ut f our poor were deprived of such acummoscion i would very materially increase TUBE Sgst them. In Ireland the peasantry geng up their children in a mud-cabin, the door A which suswers 3.so the purposes of window and

CAROLINE.

Then would it not be better that the labouring classes here should, like the Irish, accustom themselves to hardships and inconveniences, rather than indulge in a degree of comfortable accommodation, the privation of which, in a season of distress, is attended with so much misery?

MRS. B.

No; I would on the contrary wish rather to extend than contract the scale of the necessaries of life. There is more health, more cleanliness, more intellect, and more happiness, developed in an English cottage than in an Irish cabin. There is more strength, vigour, and industry in an English peasant, who feeds on meat, bread, and vegetables, than in an Irish one, who subsists on potatoes alone.

CAROLINE.

No doubt I would wish the lower classes every comfort which they can afford; but as their wages will not always allow them such gratifications, I thought it might be better that they should not be accustomed to them.

By lowering the scale of the comforts and ac commodations of the poor, you not only diminish their enjoyments, but deprive them of a resource

DEMAND FOR LABOUR, LOW WAGES, AND GREAT PROFIT ΤΟ THE CAPITALIST. INCREASE OF

CAPITAL CREATES GREATER DEMAND FOR LABOUR, HIGHER WAGES, AND LESS PROFIT TO THE NECESSITY OF RAISING SUBSIST

CAPITALIST.

-

ENCE BEFORE OTHER WORKS ARE UNDERTAKEN. HOW WAGES ARE LOWERED BY THE INCREASE

OF

POPULATION WITHOUT AN INCREASE OF

CAPITAL.

ON WAGES.

EFFECT OF SCARCITY OF PROVISIONS

EFFECT OF RAISING WAGES DURING

A SCARCITY. OF A MAXIMUM PRICE OF PROVISIONS. -EFFECT OF DIMINUTION OF POPULATION BY SICKNESS ON THE RATE OF WAGES. -IT IS NOT WORK BUT FUNDS THAT CREATE A DEMAND FOR LABOUR.

WAGES IN IRELAND.

IN TOWN AND COUNTRY.

WAGES

MRS. B.

IN our last conversation I think we came to this conclusion, that capital is almost as beneficial to

the poor as to the rich; for though the property of the one, it is by its nature destined for the maintenance of the other.

CAROLINE.

wages;

It comes to the labourer in the form of but as we must allow the capitalist a profit on his work, I should like very much to know what proportion that profit bears to the wages of the labourer?

MRS. B.

It varies extremely, but the wages of the labourer can never be permanently less than will afford him the means of living, otherwise he could not labour.

CAROLINE.

On the other hand, they can never be equal to the whole value of the work he produces; for if his master made no profit by him he would not employ him.

MRS. B.

of

Such then are the two extremes of the wages labour, but they admit of many intermediate degrees of variation. If besides furnishing subsistence for himself, the wages of the labourer would not enable him to maintain a wife and bring up a family, the class of labourers would gradually diminish, and the scarcity of hands would then raise their wages which would enable them to live with