Ch. ix. Of the Commercial System. 145 



also cease to be progressive ; and wages will be 

 reduced to that sum, which, under the existing 

 prices of provisions, and the existing habits of 

 the people, will just keep up, and no more than 

 keep up, a stationary population. A state so 

 circumstanced is under a moral impossibility of 

 increasing, whatever may be the plenty of corn, 

 or however high may be the profits of stock in 

 other countries.* It may indeed at a subsequent 

 period, and under new circumstances, begin to 

 increase again. If by some happy invention in 

 mechanics, the discovery of some new channel of 

 trade, or an unusual increase of agricultural wealth 

 and population in the surrounding countries, its 

 exports, of whatever kind, were to become un- 

 usually in demand, it might again import an 

 increasing quantity of corn, and might again in- 

 crease its population. But as long as it is unable 

 to make yearly additions to its imports of food, 

 it will evidently be unable to furnish the means 

 of support to an increasing population ; and it 

 will necessarily experience this inability, when, 

 from the state of its commercial transactions, the 

 funds for the maintenance of its labour become 

 stationary, or begin to decline. 



* It is a curious fact, that among the causes of the decline of 

 the Dutch trade, Sir William Temple reckons the cheapness of 

 corn, which, he says, " has been for these dozen years, or more, 

 general in these parts of Europe." (V^ol. i. p. 69.) This cheapness, 

 he says, impeded the vent of spices and other Indian commodities 

 among the Baltic nations, by diminishing their power of pur- 

 chasing. 



VOL. II. L 



