290 LAND AND LABOR. 



scarcity of hands occasions a competition among masters, who 

 bid against one another, and thus voluntarily break through the 

 natural combination of masters not to raise wages. 



" But it would be otherwise in a country where the fund des- 

 tined for the maintenance of labor was sensibly decaying. Ev- 

 ery year the demand for servants and laborers would, in all the 

 different classes of employment, be less than it had been the 

 year before. Many who had been in the superior classes, not 

 being able to find employment in their own business, would be 

 glad to seek it in the lowest. The lowest class being not only 

 overstocked with its own workmen, but with the overflowings 

 of all the other classes, the competition for employment would 

 be so great in it as to reduce the wages of labor to the most 

 miserable and scanty subsistence of the laborers. Many would 

 not be able to find employment even upon these hard terms, 

 but would either starve, or be driven to seek a subsistence, 

 either by begging, or by the perpetration of the greatest enor- 

 mities. " Wealth of Nations. 



Here are clearly defined the conditions that cer- 

 tainly follow the full and the partial employment of 

 " those who live by wages." A demand for workmen 

 and advance in wages would have the direct and im- 

 mediate effect of putting into the hands of the great 

 body of the people a largely increased amount of 

 funds ; first, because of the additional number that 

 had been brought into employment; and, secondly, 

 because of the advance in compensation, caused by 

 competition among employers to obtain operatives. 



The market for home consumption would at once 

 be fully doubled by the increased normal consumption 

 of the people, before whom all our present surplus 

 would quickly disappear, creating greatly increased 

 demands for reproduction and stimulating every in- 

 dustry, as did the bringing of all into employment at 



