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price of labour, and if the demand and supply were 

 always equal, would continue to govern it ; but 

 in every civilized country, especially in a country 

 overflowing with capital, there will be, as Mr. 

 Malthus observes, " many causes which in prac- 

 tice operating like friction in mechanics, prevent 

 the price of labour from rising and falling in pro- 

 portion to the price of its component parts," the 

 price of the necessaries of life the competition of 

 labourers the competition of capitalists are the 

 governing principles of the price of labour, and as 

 they act sometimes in one direction, and sometimes 

 in opposite directions, they prevent any regular 

 and settled price of labour. This is especially the 

 case with the wages of the manufacturing opera- 

 tives. The price of the necessaries of life, of which 

 bread is only a part, is far from influencing in an 

 uniform manner, much less of governing, the price 

 of this labour. If the competition of labour be 

 very great, and the competition of capital, or the 

 demand for labour, small, the price of labour will 

 be low, though the price of the articles of sub- 

 sistence be high : in this case the labourers are 

 wretched. If the competition of capital be great, 

 and there be little competition of labour, or a 

 small supply of labour, wages will be high, though 

 the price of the articles of subsistence be ever so 

 low : in this case the labourers would be unusually 

 prosperous. If the competition of capital, and the 

 competition of labour be in proportion, and there 

 is a field for the employment of both, wages will 



