Page:The Effects of Civilisation on the People in European States.djvu/80

58 considered as possessed of a certain share of the land, and the produce of it. They have a claim on it resembling that of a mortgagee, who has a property in land equal to the interest of the sum he advances on it; that is, he has a claim on a part of the productions of it to that annual amount. Now, therefore, this capitalist, this manufacturer, is in reality a possessor of land, and, like him, has in his power and disposal a certain quantity of the necessaries of life, and can grant or withhold these in the same manner as his joint proprietors, as they may be called, may do. The manufacturer, therefore, forces his workmen to work for him, and to give him a share of what the work produces, in the same manner as we have shown the other proprietors of land or possessors of the necessaries of life do; for, the poor are under a necessity of working for him on the terms held out, or go without the things on which they subsist. They have no alternative but to work for him, or for another from whom they can have no other terms.