( 292 ) Bk. iv. 



CHAP. IV. 



Objections to this Mode considered. 



OxVE objection which perhaps will be made to 

 this plan is, that from which alone it derives its 

 value — a market rather understocked with labour. 

 This must undoubtedly take place in a certain 

 degree ; but by no means in such a degree as to 

 -affect the wealth and prosperity of the country. 

 But putting this subject of a market understocked 

 with labour in the most unfavourable point of 

 view, if the rich will not submit to a slight incon- 

 venience necessarily attendant on the attainment 

 of what they profess to desire, they cannot really 

 be in earnest in their professions. Their bene- 

 volence to the poor must be either childish play 

 or hypocrisy; it must be either to amuse them- 

 selves or to pacify the minds of the common 

 people with a mere show of attention to their 

 wants. To wish to better the condition of the 

 poor by enabling them to command a greater 

 quantity of the necessaries and comforts of life, 

 and then to complain of high wages, is the act of 

 a silly boy who gives away his cake and then cries 

 for it. A market overstocked with labour, and 

 an ample remuneration to each labourer, are ob- 

 jects perfectly incompatible with each other. In 

 the annals of the world they never existed toge- 



