126 Of the Agricultural System. Bk. iii. 



in a country where the wages of labour estimated 

 in food are low, and that food is relatively of a 

 very low value, both with regard to domestic and 

 foreign manufactures, the condition of the labour- 

 ing classes of society must be the worst possible. 



Poland, and some parts of Russia, Siberia and 

 European Turkey, afford instances of this kind. 

 In Poland the population seems to be almost 

 stationary or very slowly progressive ; and as 

 both the population and produce are scanty, 

 compared with the extent of territory, we may 

 infer with certainty that its capital is scanty, and 

 yet slowly progressive. It follows, therefore, 

 that the demand for labour increases very slowly, 

 and that the real wages of labour, or the command 

 of the labouring classes over the necessaries and 

 conveniences of life, are such as to keep the popu- 

 lation down to the level of the slowly increasing 

 quantity that is awarded to them. And as from 

 the state of the country the peasantry cannot have 

 been much accustomed to conveniences and com- 

 forts, the checks to its population are more likely 

 to be of the positive than of the preventive kind. 



Yet here corn is in abundance, and great 

 quantities of it are yearly exported. Hence it 

 appears that it is not either the power of the 

 country to produce food, or even what it actually 

 produces, that limits and regulates the progress 

 of population, but the quantity and value of the 

 food which in the actual state of things is awarded 

 to the labourer, and the rate at which these funds 

 appropriated increase. 



