52 WAGES AND EMPIRE 



muneration of all forms of labour soon becomes equalised 

 by a transfer of workmen from the less to the more 

 profitable. In short, all labour being devoted to produc- 

 tion from the land can receive merely that which it 

 itself makes ; it cannot receive more and (in most cases) 

 does not receive less ; and the extent of its living there- 

 fore must be dominated by the quality of the land upon 

 which it works. 



A shortage of land reduces wages on the good land to 

 what they are on the had, and produces scarcity rent. — It 

 will be as well to refer to those cases in which labour for 

 hire obtains less than what it itself makes. In countries 

 suffering a scarcity of land the workman upon the better 

 land does not receive the whole of his product, but 

 only so much of it as he could have produced on inferior 

 land, and it is on the low quality land alone that he 

 receives wages equal to his product. Such a state of 

 things would be impossible in countries of an abundance 

 of land, since it is merely necessary for the workman 

 to take himself a good piece of land in order to reap all 

 that he can make. Consequently in those countries 

 upon aU lands the workman receives the full value of 

 what he himself produces. But in overpeopled countries 

 the workman upon the superior land does not receive 

 remuneration equal to all he produces owing to the 

 descent of agriculture. Had there been no overcrowding 

 he could have obtained a portion of superior land, and 

 any who wished to employ him must Live paid him what 

 he could make on such land ; but as he cannot obtain 

 such land he is forced to accept wages equal to what 

 he could make on inferior land. The remedy by which 

 the workman can always obtain the whole of the pro- 

 duct of his labour is the same as that by which he can 

 be relieved from low wages ; it consists in putting at his 

 disposal a sufficiency of better quality land. Then upon 

 the superior land he must receive all he makes, while 



