owing to an increase of trade the demand for labour is very active, employers, rather than be deprived of the labour which enables them to obtain their profits, will raise wages in order to retain the services of their employés. The employed try to sell their labour for as much money as possible, but their competition between themselves tends to depress wages. Suppose that three labourers are anxious to obtain work of an employer who only wants the services of one of them. Assuming that all three are equally good workmen, and competition to be unrestricted, the situation will be gained by him who will consent to take the lowest wages. If, on the other hand, three employers are seeking the services of one labourer, he will be hired by the employer who offers the highest wages. It must however be remembered, that the whole industrial population of a country does not compete indiscriminately for all employments. It is rather divided into a series of layers, within each of which considered separately there is a real and effective competition; but as between the different layers or groups competition is practically inoperative. Thus the lowest class of manual labourers are not in competition for the same kind of employment as the skilled artisan; and again, the skilled artisan is not in competition with the professional classes. This limitation of competition is one of the most powerful of the causes which produce different rates of wages in different kinds of employment.

Circumstances which regulate the Amount of Wages. Wages depend on the proportion between the wages-fund and the number of the labouring population. If this proportion remains unchanged, the average rate of wages cannot be raised. This should be borne in mind by those who desire to improve the condition of the labourer by raising his wages; for none of these efforts will prove successful if they do not tend either to increase the wages-fund or reduce the number of the labouring population. The wages-fund increases when a fresh employment for capital is opened, and when, therefore, there is additional inducement to save. The wages-fund has been much increased by the introduction of machinery, which by decreasing the cost of production has

set free a large quantity of capital and labour, which has been employed by their owners in extending their own trades, or in carrying out new industrial enterprises. In both these cases fresh employment for labour is provided, and the wages-fund is increased. Suppose that a manufacturer is carrying on his business with a capital of £10,000, and that he discovers some new process which, by saving time or avoiding waste, reduces the cost of production 10 per cent. He will now be able to carry on the same business with £9000 which previously required £10,000. There is no reason to suppose that the £1000 which he has saved will be spent unproductively. Even if it is placed in a bank it will be used as capital. But it will in all probability be used by the manufacturer to enlarge his own business. In other words, he will erect new buildings, and employ more labour, fixed and circulating capital are both increased, the wages-fund is augmented and wages rise. The wages-fund is virtually inceased by any circumstance which cheapens food. The wages of labour are in reality increased though no change takes place in the amount of money received by the labourers, if this money will exchange for an increased quantity of bread and meat. A Dorsetshire labourer with 9s. a week was better off when bread was Iod. a gallon, than he was with 10s. a week when bread was Is. 5d. a gallon.

The influence of Population on Wages. The greatest difficulty in permanently improving the condition of the labouring population arises from the fact that an increase of the wages-fund is almost invariably followed by a corresponding increase in the number of the wages-receiving class. At the time of the repeal of the corn laws, it was thought by some ardent repealers that the cheap food which the abolition of the duty on corn brought to every cottage in the kingdom, would permanently improve the condition of the labouring poor; it was said that there would be no more starvation, and no more pauperism. The workhouses, it was confidently asserted, would soon be in ruins. The result has proved far otherwise. The cheap food, which the repeal of the corn laws brought to England, has stimulated a vast increase

of population; the benefit which might have been derived from a plentiful supply of cheap food has been absorbed by the demands of millions of hungry mouths. The principal effect, on the labourer, produced by the repeal of the corn laws is that cheap food has enabled him, not to live in greater comfort, but to support an increased number of children. Such considerations lead to the conclusion that no material improvement in the condition of the working-classes can be permanent unless it is accompanied by circumstances which will prevent a counterbalancing increase of population.

The importance of raising the Standard of Comfort. No circumstance would prevent over-population so effectually as a general raising of the customary standard of comfort among the poorer classes. If they had accustomed themselves to a more comfortable style of living, they would use every effort not again to sink below it. Ricardo says on this subject:"The friends of humanity cannot but wish that in all countries the labouring classes should have a taste for comforts and enjoyments, and that they should be stimulated by all legal means in their exertions to procure them. There cannot be a better security against a superabundant population." It is because there has recently been such a distinct advance in the standard of comfort among the agricultural labourers, that there is every reason to hope that the improvement they have effected in their condition will be permanent. The younger generation are prepared to enter other employments, to move to other localities and emigrate to other countries rather than endure the life which their forefathers led.

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Malthus on Population. Malthus, in his celebrated essay on population, shewed that there is a constant tendency in animal life to increase beyond the nourishment prepared for it, and that therefore unless there are some checks placed upon population the total production of food would in course of time be insufficient to supply the wants of mankind. It has been thought by some that Malthus was manifestly in the wrong, because there appears no likelihood of the means of subsistence becoming insufficient for the wants of the

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population of the globe. It must, however, be remembered. that what Malthus said was, that this insufficiency would prevail if there were no checks on population. These checks do exist, and are in active operation in every country; that is to say, in every country either the total number of births of which the population is capable does not take place, or else a large proportion of those who are born, die. The population is kept down, either by prudence, or by such agencies as war, famine, and pestilence. The germs of existence both in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, if they could freely develop themselves, would, as Malthus shewed, fill millions of worlds in the course of a few thousand years. "Necessity, that imperious, all-pervading law of nature, restrains them within the prescribed limits. . . . In plants and irrational animals the view of the subject is simple. Wherever there is liberty, the power of increase is exerted; and the superabundant effects are repressed afterwards by want of room and nourishment." He then shewed that man had the same tendency to increase beyond his means of subsistence, and that where no other checks restrained the increase of population it is reduced by the difficulty of obtaining food, by disease, and by other agencies which bring misery and degradation in their train. But beside these positive checks on population, there are also preventive or prudential checks; and in his essay on population he examines the condition of many countries in order to ascertain whether the prudential or the positive check is the more operative. In most countries both checks are in operation in London the number of children who die of diseases produced by want of food, clothing and attention, and from over-crowding, is appalling, and is a blot upon the civilisation of this country; for it is hardly necessary to say that as civilisation advances, the prudential check grows stronger, and the positive check less active. The civilisation of a country might also be measured by comparing the activity of the prudential check with that of the positive check.

A right conception of the importance of population is fundamental to an understanding of the causes which

regulate the wages of labour. An increase in population, unaccompanied by counterbalancing circumstances, acts upon the condition of the labourer in two ways; it increases the price of food by rendering a resort to less productive soils necessary; and by increasing the number of the wagesreceiving class it decreases the share which each receives from the wages-fund.

Emigration is an insufficient remedy for Over-Population. Emigration has been considered by some a sufficient remedy for over-population. There are, however, many objections to relying on emigration as the sole means of checking the natural increase of population. In the first place, those who are the poorest and the most destitute have not the means to emigrate, and if means were provided by the government or by a national subscription, the colonies would very probably object to being made the receptacles of the pauperism of the Old World. Those that we are anxious to get rid of the colonies would not accept; and those who are prosperous and in good employment would have no motive to leave their occupations. In the second place, unless prudential checks are in operation, the place of those who have emigrated will soon be filled by a new generation. And, in the third place, emigration cannot be looked upon as a permanent remedy for over-population, because in the course of time the colonies will be as thickly-peopled as the old countries of Europe now are, and the principal advantage of emigration will then cease to exist. Notwithstanding the incompleteness of this remedy for over-population, emigration may at the present time do great good, if it is accompanied by increased activity of the preventive or prudential check upon population. For some time to come every skilled labourer who reaches America or Australia will be a source of wealth to those nations, whilst his absence will tend to reduce the overstocked labo ur-markets of Europe. The emigration of labourers from Ireland to America has no doubt been very serviceable to both countries; and a somewhat similar movement on the part of English agricultural labourers, although on a very much smaller scale, has recently produced a very marked improvement on the