Page:Thoughts on the Corn laws, addressed to the working classes of the county of Gloucester.djvu/17

13 of whom receive profit for the capital they employ, and the risk they incur: indeed, where much machinery is employed, wages do not necessarily form a very large proportion of the expenses of manufacturing the article: for although all machinery may be said to be the result of labour, the returns that the manufacturer obtains for it are regulated by the rate of profits, and not by the price of labour.

It may, perhaps, make this matter clearer, to look at it in another shape. Let us suppose, therefore, that the price of food remains unchanged; while there is an alteration in the price of articles of comfort, not absolutely necessary for the support of existence.

If we suppose that a labourer spends about a shilling a month in the purchase of cotton goods; and if we suppose, farther, that some improvement takes place in their manufacture that enables them to be sold at half their former price;—he can now buy the same amount of this cotton for sixpence, that he paid a shilling for before; so that, after making his usual purchases, he has sixpence left in his pocket.

Now, as the fall in the price of cotton goods will not enable the country to maintain a greater population, there being no additional food for their support, the fall in the price of cotton cannot, by adding to the number of labourers, create any increased competition to lower wages. Thus the