Page:Thoughts on the Corn laws, addressed to the working classes of the county of Gloucester.djvu/14

10 for an article in the shop, that are not affected by the market price of labour or food in the country.

Take a yard of cotton, for instance. The value of the raw cotton as it is imported from India or America, although it is undoubtedly produced by labour, yet the wages of the Indian or American have nothing in the world to do with the price of food or the rate of wages in England.

Then there are the profits upon the capital employed by the importer, by the manufacturer, arid by the shopkeeper, none of which are reduced by the fall of wages.

Thus the price of every article that is sold may be divided into three parts:

The value of the raw article out of which the things is made;

The profits upon the capital employed in manufacturing and bringing it to market;

And, thirdly, the wages of the persons employed in producing it.

The proportions in which these three parts enter into the price of an article is very variable. Some are almost entirely made up of wages, the raw material out of which it is made being of very little comparative value.

The pendulum spring of a watch that governs the vibrations of the balance, has been calculated to be worth exactly fifty thousand times the value of the iron out of which it is made. Or the material may be very precious, as gold or the glazier's