CHAPTER II.

Circumstances which determine the Rate of Wages.Section I. Market or Actual Wages—Depend on the Proportion between Capital and Population—Identity of the interests of Capitalists and Labourers.Section II. Natural or Necessary Wages—Depend on the Species and Quantity of Food and other Articles consumed by the Labourer. Different in different Countries and Periods—Influence of Fluctuations of Wages on the Condition of the Labourers—Advantage of a High Rate of Wages—Disadvantage of having Labourers dependent for support on the cheapest Species of Food—Circumstances affecting the Condition of Labourers—Education—Piece-work—Limiting the Hours of Labour—High Wages not a Cause of Idleness—Comparative Cheapness of Free and Slave Labour.Section III. Difference in their Influence over Wages between a Demand for Labour, and a Demand for its Products.

It has just been seen that the wages earned by the labourers engaged in different employments may, when all things are taken into account, be considered about equal; and therefore, without regarding the difference that actually exists in the amount of money, or of commodities, earned by different sets of workmen, and supposing that the wages of all sorts of labour are reduced to the same common rate, we shall now endeavour to discover the principles which determine that common or average rate.

This inquiry, which, as it relates to the means of subsistence of the largest and not least valuable portion of society, is practically one of the most important in the science, will be facilitated by dividing it into three branches; the object in the first being to discover the circumstances which determine the market or actual rate of wages at any given moment; in the second, to discover the circumstances which determine the natural or necessary rate of wages, or Edition: current; Page: [316] the wages required to enable the labourer to subsist and continue his race; and in the third, to ascertain the difference between a demand for labour and for its products.