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Show 334 OF THE PROFITS OF CAPITAL. [cu. v. I 'vould ask, is there any considerable trade that is confessedly understocked, and where high profits have been long pleading in vain for additional capital? The war has now been at an end above four years; and though the removal of capital generally occasions some partial loss, yet it is seldom long in taking place, if it be ten1pted to remove by great den1and and high profits; but if it be only discouraged frotn proceeding in its accustomed course by falling profits, while the profits in all other trades, owing to general low prices, are falling at the san1e tin1e, though not perhaps precisely in the san1e degree, it is highly probable that its motions will be slow and hesitating. It must be allo\ved then, that in contemplating the altered relation bet\:veen labour and the produce obtained by it which occasions a fall of profits, we only take a view of half the question if we advert exclusively to a rise in the wages of labour without referring to a fall in the prices of comtnodities. Their effects on profits n1ay be precisely the same; but the latter case, where there is no question respecting the state of the land, shews at once how much profits depend upon the prices of con11nodities, and upon the cause \vhich determines these prices, namely the supply compared with the demand. At all times indeed, and on every supposition, the ~reat lin1iting principle vvhich depends upon the Increasing difficulty of procurino- food from th~ soil, or on the still n1ore general ~ause, a limitation of the population, in ,vhatever way it tnay SEC. IV.] OF THE PROFITS OF CAPI'l'AL. 335 be occasioned, is ready to act; ahd, if not overcon1e by countervailing facilities, will necessarily lower the rate of profits on the land, and from the land this fall will extend to all other departments of industry. But even this great principle operates according to the laws of den1and and supply and cotnpetition. The specific reasdn why profits must fall as the land becon1es tnore and 1nore exhausted is, that from the intrinsic nature of necessaries, and of the soil from which they are procured, the demand for them and the price of them cannot possibly go on increasing in proportion to the expense of producing them. The cost in labour of producing capital increases faster than the value of such capital when produced, or its efficiency in setting fresh labourers to work. The boundary to the further value of and demand for corn, lies clear and distinct before us. Putting importation out of the question, it is precisely when the produce of the last land taken into cultivation 'vill but just l~place the capital and support the population employed in cultivating it. Profits must then be at their lo\vest theoretical limit. In their progress towards this point, the continued accun1ulation of capital will always have a tendency to lo,ver then1; and at no one period can they ever be higher than the state of the land, under all the circumstances 'vill admit. ' They may be lower, however, as was before stat_ed, in any degree, from an abundant supply of capital con1parcd 'vith the detnand for produce |
