234 General Observation.s. Bk. iii. 



like constant employment.* It would of course 

 require high corn wages of day-labour even to keep 

 up the supply of a stationary population, where 

 the days of working would only amount to half of 

 the year. 



In the case also of the prevalence of prudential 

 habits, and a decided taste for liie conveniences 

 and comforts of life, as, according to the supposi- 

 tion, these habits and tastes do not operate as an 

 encouragement to early marriages, and are not in 

 fact spent almost entirely in the purchase of corn, 

 it is quite consistent with the general principles 

 laid down, that the population should not proceed 

 at the same rate as is usual, artetis paribus, in 

 other countries, where the corn wages of labour are 

 equally high. 



The quantity of employment in any country will 

 not of course vary from year to year, in the same 

 manner as the quantity of produce must necessa- 

 rily do, from the variation of the seasons ; and con- 

 sequently the check from want of employment will 

 be much more steady in its operation, and much 

 more favourable to the lower classes of people, 

 than the check from the immediate want of food. 

 The first will be the preventive check ; the second 

 the positive check. When the demand for labour 

 is either stationary, or increasing very slowly, 

 people not seeing any employment open by which 



* This observation is exemplified in the slow progress of popu- 

 lation in some parts of the Spanish dominions in America, com- 

 pared with its progress in the United States. 



