Page:Tales in Political Economy by Millicent Garrett Fawcett.djvu/57

 cleared, and plantain suckers were put in, to form a new plantation. Afterwards the same process was repeated on a piece of ground less favourably situated; and so it happened that the amount of labour necessary to procure a certain quantity of plantains steadily and necessarily increased. And as the labour of procuring food increased, whilst the labour of producing manufactured commodities either remained stationary or was reduced, the exchange value of food compared with manufactured articles steadily increased. It is no doubt true that the cost of obtaining food would have tended to increase, if the numbers of the colony had remained the same. They would still have gathered their plantains at first in those places where they could be found with least trouble, and as these best places began to be used up they would find that the same amount of food could only be obtained through a greater amount of labour than was at first necessary. In fishing, they would have gone first to the nearest and fullest pools; and it is probable that by degrees they would find that they must either fish for a