Ch. viii. Of the Agricultural System. 127 



In the present case the demand for labour is 

 very small, and though the population is incon- 

 siderable, it is greater than the scanty capital of 

 the country can fully employ ; the condition of 

 the labourer therefore is depressed by his being 

 able to command only such a quantity of food as 

 will maintain a stationary or very slowly increas- 

 ing population. It is further depressed by the 

 low relative value of the food that he earns, 

 which gives to any surplus he may possess a very 

 small power in the purchase of manufactured 

 commodities or foreign produce. 



Under these circumstances, we cannot be sur- 

 prised that all accounts of Poland should repre- 

 sent the condition of the lower classes of society 

 as extremely miserable ; and the other parts of 

 Europe which resemble Poland in the state of 

 their land and capital, resemble it in the condition 

 of their people. 



In justice, however, to the agricultural system, 

 it should be observed that the premature check 

 to the capital and the demand for labour, which 

 occurs in some of the countries of Europe, while 

 land continues in considerable plenty, is not occa- 

 sioned by the particular direction of their in- 

 dustry, but by the vices of the government and 

 the structure of the society, which prevent its 

 full and fair developement in that direction. 



Poland is continually brought forward as an 

 example of the miserable effects of the agricul- 

 tural system. But nothing surely can be less 

 fair. The misery of Poland does not arise from 



