WAGES 35 



When a people is in a position to be able to limit 

 itself to the use of the better sorts of land then the sole 

 circumstance which regulates the extent of its living 

 is the state of scientific attainment. 



But when a people is unable to restrict its culti- 

 vation to the better sort of land the value of scientific 

 attainment may be largely diminished and even lost, 

 and increases of knowledge may be rendered valueless 

 as soon as they arise. If in addition to the superior 

 lands the poorer also are cultivated the common dividend 

 must be diminished. And where population increases 

 to the very extreme limits of cultivability then, not- 

 withstanding the employment of all the resources of 

 civilisation, the condition of a large portion of the popu- 

 lation must be removed only a degree from starvation. 

 In the case of peoples obliged through press of numbers 

 to call into use inferior qualities of land the standard 

 of living is not determined by the degree of scientific 

 advance alone, but also by the extent to which the 

 benefits of knowledge are decreased through the recourse 

 to inferior soils ; and the scale of living is determined 

 by the extent of science less the subtraction which 

 follows from the descent of cultivation. 



That a descent of cultivation diminishes the living 

 of those who subsist by agricultural work must be clear, 

 and this is amply borne out on a comparison of the 

 agricultural wages of the Old and New Worlds ; but 

 what is not so clear is that it affects other wages ; if, 

 however, the wages of other callings are also compared 

 it will be found that the descent of agriculture affects 

 them equally (see Table No. IX). 



A plenty or scarcity of land vitally affects the well- 

 being of a people. For, observe, precisely the same 

 methods as overseas being employed in the United 

 Kingdom, Germany, and France, yet the living of the 

 people is much inferior to what it is in the United 

 States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The 



