78 Of Poor- Laws. Bk. iii. 



good eflfects, which, he says, sometimes arise 

 from a year of moderate scarcity, that of making 

 the lower classes of people do more work, and 

 become more careful and industrious. The num- 

 ber of servants out of place, and of manufacturers 

 wanting employment during the late scarcities, 

 were melancholy proofs of the truth of these rea- 

 sonings. If a general rise in the wages of labour 

 had taken place proportioned to the price of pro- 

 visions, none but farmers and a few gentlemen 

 could have afforded to employ the same number 

 of workmen as before. Additional crowds of 

 servants and manufacturers would have been 

 turned off; and those who were thus thrown out 

 of employment would of course have no other 

 refuge than the parish. In the natural order of 

 things a scarcity must tend to lower, instead of to 

 raise, the price of labour. 



After the publication and general circulation of 

 such a work as Adam Smith's, I confess it appears 

 to me strange, that so many men, who would yet 

 aspire to be thought political economists, should 

 still think that it is in the power of the justices of 

 the peace or even of the omnipotence of parliament 

 to alter by a Jiat the whole circumstances of the 

 country; and when the demand for provisions is 

 greater than the supply, by publishing a particular 

 edict, to make the supply at once equal to or 

 greater than the demand. Many men who would 

 shrink at the proposal of a maximum, would pro- 

 pose themselves, that the price of labour should 

 be proportioned to the price of provisions, and do 



