Page:Thoughts on the causes and consequences of the present high price of provisions.djvu/26

[ 18 ] starving in another; of which we have numerous examples in our schools, colleges, alms-houses, and other charitable foundations. Merchants and traders are constantly gainers by it; because they can always raise the prices of whatever they deal in, faster than the value of money decreases: but the labourer, having nothing to subsist on but his daily work, must ever be behind-hand in advancing the price of his labour; because he is not able to wait till it acquires its due proportion of value, and therefore by it he must suffer extremely. The land-owner likewise cannot raise his rents in any proportion to the fall of the value of money; because the charges of cultivation, the family-expences of the occupiers, and the maintenance of an increasing poor, all burthens inseparable from his land, must all rise in proportion to that fall; and these must perpetually retard his progress. The price of labour and of land must by degrees advance, as money