24 
Condition of the Agricultural Labourer, vcith 
governed by competition in the labour-market. This is true in the 
main ; but the manner in which the labourer lives, the amount of 
comfort which he is enabled to command, must likewise be taken 
into account; for as the well-being of the community requires that 
the labouring classes should enjoy the largest amount of comfort 
compatible with their positi(m, everything which can be done in 
furtherance of this object ought to be adopted, taking care not to 
derange the great principle of competition in regulating the price 
of wages. All our efforts for improving the condition of the 
working classes must be in subordination to this ruling principle, 
with the \'iew of mitigating its intensity in particular instances, 
not of counteracting its general working. 
In all competitions, there must of course be competing parties. 
In competition for wages, there are the employers and the em- 
ployed ; those who wish to get labour for wages, and those who 
wish to get wages for labour. While the amount of wages offered 
on the one hand, and of labour offered on the other, remain sta- 
tionary, wages will remain stationary. This, however, is not the 
case in this country, the fund for the payment of wages and the 
supply of labour being both, as has been shown, rapidly increas- 
ing every year. If both increased at the same rate, wages would 
not be affected. If the fund for the payment of wages increases 
more rapidly than the supply of labour, wages will rise; if less 
rapidly, they will fall. This is briefly the theory of wages; and 
most of the suggestions I have offered for improving the condition 
of the labouring classes aim at increasing the wages-fund, the 
amount of which will depend on the diligence and skill of the 
labourer, and the enterprise and good management of the em- 
ployer. If the labourers are idle or unskilful, their labour will 
be less productive. If the farmer be incompetent, wasteful, or 
timid, he will not employ the necessary amount of labour, or he 
will employ it unskilfully; and in either case the fund for the 
payment of wages will be less than it ought to be, or than it 
would be under better management. 
Whenever the wages-fund does not increase, or if it increases 
slowlv, whilst the number of those to be supported by it increases 
rapidly, it is evident that the labourers must suffer, and especially 
ttie least skilful, who will first be driven to compete for emplov- 
ment by accepting lower wages; but eventually the more skilful 
labourers will be driven to compete in like manner, and this com- 
petition will tend to lower the condition, to lessen the comforts of 
the whole labouring population. Competition is, however, limited 
in its action upon wages, by the amount necessary for the 
labourer's subsistence, taking the term in its largest sense ; for 
below this amount it is olivious that the general range of wages 
cannot long be depressed. Competition of labour for wages may, 
