wanting, or the skill and capital necessary to work them up be prevented
from forming, owing to the insecurity of property, to any other cause,
the cultivators will soon slacken in their exertions, and the motives to
accumulate and to increase their produce, will greatly diminish. But in
this case there will be a very slack demand for labour; and, whatever
may be the nominal cheapness of provisions, the labourer will not really
be able to command such a portion of the necessaries of life, including,
of course, clothing, lodging, etc. as will occasion an increase of
population.]
[Footnote 7: I have supposed some check to the supply of the cotton
machinery in this case. If there was no check whatever, the effects wold
show themselves in excessive profits and excessive wages, without an
excess above the cost of production.]
[Footnote 8: Vol. iv. p. 35.]
[Footnote 9: The more general surplus here alluded to is meant to
include the profits of the farmer, as well as the rents of the landlord;
and, therefore, includes the whole fund for the support of those who are
not directly employed upon the land. Profits are, in reality, a surplus,
as they are in no respect proportioned (as intimated by the Economists)
to the wants and necessities of the owners of capital. But they take a
different course in the progress of society from rents, and it is
necessary, in general, to keep them quite separate.]
[Footnote 10: According to the calculations of Mr Colquhoun, the value
of our trade, foreign and domestic, and of our manufactures, exclusive
of raw materials, is nearly equal to the gross value derived from the
land. In no other large country probably is this the case. P. Colquhoun,
Treatise on the wealth, power, and resources of the British Empire, 2nd
ed. 1815, p. 96. The whole annual produce is estimated at
about 430 millions, and the products of agriculture at about 216
millions.]
[Footnote 11: To the honour of Scotch cultivators, it should be
observed, that they have applied their capitals so very skilfully and
economically, that at the same time that they have prodigiously
increased the produce, they have increase the landlord's proportion ot
it. The difference between the landlord's share of the produce in
Scotland and in England is quite extraordinary--much greater than can be
accounted for, either by the natural soil or the absence of tithes and
poor's rates. See Sir John Sinclair's valuable An account of husbandry
in Scotland, (Edinburgh) not long since published--works replete with
the most useful and interesting information on agricultural subjects.]
[Footnote 12: See Evidence before the House of Lords, given in by Arthur
Young. p. 66.]
[Footnote 13: In all our discussions we should endeavour, as well as we
can, to separate that part of high price, which arises from excess of
currency, from that part, which is natural, and arises from permanent
causes. In the whole course of this argument, it is particularly
necessary to do this.]
[Footnote 14: It will be observed, that I have said in a progressive
country; that is, in a country which requires yearly the employment of a
greater capital on the land, to support an increasing population. If
there were no question about fresh capital, or an increase of people,
and all the land were good, it would not then be true that corn must be
sold at its necessary price. The actual price might be diminished; and
if the rents of land were diminished in proportion, the cultivation
might go on as before, and the same quantity be produced. It very rarely
happens, however, that all the lands of a country actually occupied are
good, and yield a good net rent. And in all cases, a fall of prices must
destroy agricultural capital during the currency of leases; and on their
renewal there would not be the same power of production.]
[Footnote 15: This conclusion may appear to contradict the doctrine of
the level of the precious metals. And so it does, if by level be meant
level of value estimated in the usual way. I consider the doctrine,
indeed, as quite unsupported by facts, and the comparison of the
precious metals to water perfectly inaccurate. The precious metals are
always tending to a state of rest, or such a state of things as to make
their movement unnecessary. But when this state of rest has been nearly
attained, and the exchanges of all countries are nearly at par, the
value of the precious metals in different countries, estimated in corn
and labour, or the mass of commodities, is very far indeed from being
the same. To be convinced of this, it is only necessary to look at
England, France, Poland, Russia, and India, when the exchanges are at
par. That Adam Smith, who proposes labour as the true measure of value
at all times and in all places, could look around him, and yet say that
the precious metals were always the highest in value in the richest
countries, has always appeared to me most unlike his usual attention to
found his theories on facts.]
[Footnote 16: Even upon the system of importation, in the actual state
and situation of the countries of Europe, higher prices must accompany
superior and increasing wealth.]
[Footnote 17: We must not be so far deceived by the evidence before
Parliament, relating to the want of connection between the prices of
corn and of labour, as to suppose that they are really independent of
each other. The price of the necessaries of life is, in fact, the cost
of producing labour. The supply cannot proceed, if it be not paid; and
though there will always be a little latitude, owing to some variations
of industry and habits, and the distance of time between the
encouragement to population and the period of the results appearing in
the markets: yet it is a still greater error, to suppose the price of
labour unconnected with the price of corn, than to suppose that the
price of corn immediately and completely regulates it. Corn and labour
rarely march quite abreast; but there is an obvious limit, beyond which
they cannot be separated. With regard to the unusual exertions made by
the labouring classes in periods of dearness, which produce the fall of
wages noticed in the evidence, they are most meritorious in the
individuals, and certainly favour the growth of capital. But no man of
humanity could wish to see them constant and unremitted. They are most
admirable as a temporary relief; but if they were constantly in action,
effects of a similar kind would result from them, as from the population
of a country being pushed to the very extreme limits of its food. There
would be no resources in a scarcity. I own I do not see, with pleasure,
the great extension of the practice of task work. To work really hard
during twelve or fourteen hours in the day, for any length of time, is
too much for a human being. Some intervals of ease are necessary to
health and happiness: and the occasional abuse of such intervals is no
valid argument against their use.]
[Footnote 18: I have hinted before, in a note, that profits may, without
impropriety, be called a surplus. But, whether surplus or not, they are
the most important source of wealth, as they are, beyond all question,
the main source of accumulation.]
[Footnote 19: Adam Smith notices the bad effects of high profits on the
habits of the capitalist. They may perhaps sometimes occasion
extravagance; but generally, I should say, that extravagant habits were
a more frequent cause of a scarcity of capital and high profits, than
high profits of extravagant habits.]
End of Project Gutenberg's Nature and Progress of Rent, by Thomas Malthus