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be moderate. If the field of employment be large 

 in proportion to capital, wages will be high. If 

 the field of employment be small in proportion to 

 capital, as it is, at this moment, in this country, 

 wages will be low. But the price of labour is 

 high, moderate, or low, in reference to the cost of 

 the usual articles of the labourer's subsistence. 

 We see that it is not the cost which governs the 

 price of labour, though it is the standard to which 

 the price is referred, and has some influence in 

 adjusting the price. But still there is a difference 

 in the operations of these principles in governing 

 the wages of the labourer in agriculture, and the 

 labourer in manufactures. In the one instance, in 

 governing the rate of the wages of the labourer in 

 husbandry, these principles commonly act in har- 

 mony, and therefore produce an uniform and re- 

 gular result. In the other instance, in governing 

 the rate of the wages of the artisan, they are con- 

 tinually conflicting, and therefore produce an irre- 

 gular and uncertain result. The original and deter, 

 mining principle of the price of labour, namely, 

 the prices of the necessaries of life, has more in- 

 fluence on the wages of the labourers in husbandry, 

 than on the wages of the labourers in manufac- 

 tures ; because bread is not only a chief article of 

 the subsistence of the labourers in husbandry, but 

 also the chief commodity which their labour pro- 

 duces. If the demand for home-grown corn, the 

 commodity which this labour produces, fall off, 

 which it would do under a free trade system, 



