LA \VS OF SUPPL Y AND DEMAND 105 



him, without risk of starvation, to refrain from taking unprofes- 

 sional fees. 



Strange, therefore, as the doctrine may sound, it is the wants 

 of men which regulate their wages : and this is a simple de- 

 duction from the principle that the cost of production ultimately 

 determines the prices. Where wants are few and simple, there 

 wages are low; where wants are numerous, wages are high; 

 and it is the wants which raise the wages, not the wages which 

 have created the wants : pay a savage more than he is accus- 

 tomed to, and he simply squanders the money. But while the 

 wants of men determine their pay, it is the demand for men of 

 that class which determines how many shall be employed at 

 that pay. This is the corrective to discontent. If their wants 

 are great, few or no men of the given class may get any pay 

 at all. It is the seller of labour who determines the price, but 

 it is the buyer who determines the number of transactions. 

 Capital settles how many men are wanted at given wages, but 

 labour settles what wages the man shall have. 



Surely we may be well satisfied with this conclusion. The 

 laws of demand and supply, rigid as they are, point to no 

 necessary impoverishment and degradation of the labourer as 

 men and means multiply ; they require for his improvement no 

 superhuman exercise of prudence on his part ; they ask for no 

 bounty from the men of great wealth. Well might men ex- 

 claim that the law was a law of death, when they so misread it as 

 to believe that unless an ignorant and brutish population could 

 be taught for the sake of unborn men to restrain their strongest 

 passion, poverty must be perpetuated in an ever-increasing 

 ratio. I do not so read the law ; but say, Convince these paupers 

 of their own misery. Teach them what comfort is, and a rational 

 self-interest will lead them to independence, which the more 

 wealthy have reached by the same path. Rational self-interest 

 has done most things in this world, the great duty of the teacher 

 being to distinguish rational from irrational self-interest. What- 

 ever school of religion or philosophy we belong to, we cannot 

 deny that each man, acting rationally for his own advantage, 

 will conduce to the good of all ; and if the motive be not the 

 highest, it is one which at least can alwavs be counted on. It 



