Ch. ix. Of the Commercial System. 135 



greatly exceed both the foreign and domestic de- 

 mand at the old prices. These prices, therefore, 

 will continue to fall, till the stock and labour em- 

 ployed in this direction cease to yield unusual 

 profits. In this case it is evident that, though in 

 an early period of such a manufacture, tlie product 

 of the industry of one man for a day might have 

 been exchanged for such a portion of food as would 

 support forty or fifty persons; yet, at a subsequent 

 period, the product of the same industry might 

 not purchase the support of ten. 



In the cotton trade of this country, which has 

 extended itself so wonderfully during the last 

 twenty-five years, very little efi'ect has hitherto 

 been produced by foreign competition.* The very 

 great fall which has taken place in the prices of 

 cotton goods has been almost exclusively owing 

 to domestic competition; and this competition has 

 so glutted both the home and foreign markets, that 

 the present capitals employed in the trade, not- 

 withstanding the very peculiar advantages which 

 they possess from the savingof labour, have ceased 

 to possess any advantage whatever in the general 

 rate of their profits. Although, by means of the 

 admirable machinery used in the spinning of cot- 

 ton, one boy or girl can now do as much as many 

 grown persons could do formerly; yet neither the 

 wages of the labourer, nor the profits of his master, 

 are higher than in those employments where no 

 machinery is used, and no savingof labour acconi- 

 plished. 



* 18lfi. 



