WEALTH OF NATIONS. 143 



sub-division. These vary with the wealth and property 

 of the community as wages do, but in a very different 

 manner; for the increase of capital, which tends to raise 

 the rate of wages, lowers by competition the rate of 

 profit, as indeed the rise of wages does also. The pro- 

 gress of the community, however, in prosperity, has a 

 tendency to raise both the wages of labour and the 

 profits of stock ; while a retrograde state of a country 

 never fails to lower both profits and wages. The profit 

 of money, or interest, follow the like rules. It depends 

 upon the proportions of borrowers to lenders; that 

 is, on the supply of money compared with the demand 

 for it, and the profits made by those who borrow it to 

 invest in trade. It depends not at all upon the mere 

 quantity of the precious metals. The profits of stock 

 form generally the subject of the ninth chapter. The 

 tenth relates to the rate of wages and profits in different 

 employments, and consists of two parts the one treating 

 of the inequalities arising from the nature of the employ- 

 ment of labour or capital, the other treating of the in- 

 equalities produced by the policy of states. 



1. The inequalities of the first class affecting wages of 

 labour are fivefold, arising severally from the disagree- 

 able nature of the employment, the expense or difficulty 

 of learning it, the inconstancy and precariousness of the 

 demand, the great trust reposed in the workman or the 

 capitalist, and the improbability of success in the work 

 or investment; each of these disadvantages requires a 

 certain increase of gain to the labourer, or to the capi- 

 talist, as a compensation for the disagreeableness, the 

 education, the period of inaction, the trust, the risk of 

 loss. Of these five circumstances two only affect the 



