It is not true that the rate of wages has not increased with the nominal
price of provisions. I allow it has not fluctuated with that price,
nor ought it; and the squires of Norfolk had dined when they gave it as
their opinion, that it might or ought to rise and fall with the market
of provisions. The rate of wages in truth has no DIRECT relation to
that price. Labour is a commodity like every other, and rises or falls
according to the demand. This is in the nature of things; however, the
nature of things has provided for their necessities. Wages have been
twice raised in my time: and they bear a full proportion or even a
greater than formerly, to the medium of provision during the last bad
cycle of twenty years. They bear a full proportion to the result of
their labour. If we were wildly to attempt to force them beyond it, the
stone which we had forced up the hill would only fall back upon them
in a diminished demand, or what indeed is the far lesser evil, an
aggravated price, of all the provisions which are the result of their
manual toil.