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On Mr. Ricardo'’ s System 
[No^- 
great, in consequence of this invariability of value : yet, I believe, we shall find, 
that this incidental notice, paving t.he way to similar propositions more specifically 
made, is all on which is grounded that which is subsequently treated as having 
been proved, namely, that because prices, estimated in the commodity gold, 
cannot vary on a rise taking place in wages, therefore these rises of wages 
must, under all circumstances, be made good by reductions in the rate of profits. 
For instance, in a few pages after, we meet with this proposition ; “ The proportion 
which might be paid for wages, fs of the utmost importance in the question of 
profits ; for it must at once be seen that profits would be high or low, ex- 
actly in proportion as w T ages were low or high. But it could not, in the least, af- 
fect the relative value of products, as wages would be high or low in all occupations. 
If the hunter urged the plea of his paying a large proportion, or the value of 
a large proportion of his game for wages, as an inducement to the fisherman to 
give him more fish in exchange for his game, the latter would state, that he was 
equally affected by the same cause.” “ No alteration in the wages of labour 
could produce any alteration in the relative value of these commodities ; for sup- 
pose them to rise, no greater quantity of labour would be required in any of these 
occupations ; but it would be paid for at a higher price ; and the same reasons 
which should make the hunter and fisherman endeavour to raise the value of their 
game and fish, would cause the owner of the mine to raise the value of his gold.— 
This inducement, acting with the same force on all these three occupations, and the 
relative situation of those engaged in them being the same before and after the rise 
of wages, the relative value of game, and fish, and gold, would continue unalter- 
ed. — Wages might rise 20 per cent, and profits consequently fall in a greater or less 
proportion, without occasioning the least alteration in these commodities.” 
Here may be observed the growing confidence with which the proposition is now 
laid down, that as relative value, which, as he knows it, is price estimated in the 
commodity gold, cannot be altered ; and as thus, relative value, or price, remain- 
ing the same, whether wages rise or not, consumers, who have to pay gold price 
for all products, cannot be affected by the rise of wages ; which being the case, rises 
of wages, he concludes, must be paid by capitalists in a reduction of their profits. 
At page 31 we find the original incidental notice, on which his conclusions are 
grounded, swelled into abroad assertion, “ that there can he no rise in the value of 
labour without a fall of profits and that, as the corn must be divided between 
the farmer, and the labourer, the greater the proportion given to the latter, the less 
must remain for the former ; while, at page 45, it is announced, as having been 
clearly proved, that prices cannot rise, on a rise in the cost of producing food, and 
on a consequent rise of wages, as maintained by Adam Smith, and others; and that 
he has shewn how there are no grounds for such an opinion : and again, in his 
chapter on profits, where wc had a right to expect a full explanation, of how in- 
variability in the relations of products to products, or fixedness of relative value, 
could produce so inconsequent a consequence as making one class of men poor, 
or possessed of little value, exactly as it put another class in possession of much 
value or wealth, (wealth and value being totally distinct, and proceeding from 
different sources, by his otvn theory',) we find it has been taken for granted, that 
these matter's have already been satisfactorily proved ; “ that corn, and manu- 
factured goods always sell at the same price, whether wages are high or low ; and 
' that profits are, in consequence, always high, when wages happen to be low, and 
vice versa ; and after a considerable number of ingenious arithmetical illustrations, 
grounded on the presumed admission of all he requires, namely, that if it so hap- 
pens that fixedness in the relations of products to products exists after all things 
have become more expensive in an equal degree, then the consequence must be the 
causing of one class of producers to be impoverished, and the rest of the society to 
be left in the former circumstances ; which illustrations, under this assumption, 
looking to him like actual demonstration, he triumphantly exclaims, “ If the far- 
mer gets no additional value for the corn which remains after payfing rent ; if the 
manufacturer gets no additional value for the goods which he manufactures ; and if 
both are obliged to pay a greater value in wages, can any point be more clearly es- 
tablished, than that profits must fall with a rise of wages 1 ?” 
1 Mr. Mills protests “ there is not a demonstration in Euclid, in which the links 
are more indissoluble” than in Mr. Ricardo’s Theory of Profits. Article 
Sup. JEnc. Brit. Ami the Opium Eater exclaims, that Mr. Ricardo “ had deduce 
a priori , from the understanding itself, laws which first gave a ray of light into t e 
unwieldy chaos of materials, and had constructed what had been hut a collection o 
tentative discussions into a science of regular proportions, now first standing on an ex 
.ernal basis.” 1 
