Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/350

 rather as private, than public advantages. An immense capital could not be employed in China in preparing manufactures for foreign trade, without taking off so many labourers from agriculture, as to alter this state of things, and in some degree to diminish the produce of the country. The demand for manufacturing labourers would naturally raise the price of labour; but as the quantity of subsistence would not be increased, the price of provisions would keep pace with it; or even more than keep pace with it, if the quantity of provisions were really decreasing. The country would be evidently advancing in wealth: the exchangeable value of the annual produce of its land and labour, would be annually augmented; yet the real funds for the maintenance of labour, would be stationary, or even declining; and, consequently, the increasing wealth of