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Show S68 ON TilE 1Ml\1:EDIATE CAUSES [CH. VII. mers * but there would be little work or food for ' . their grown up sons; and from vary1ng mar~ets and varying crops, the profits of the fanner might be the lowest at the very time when, according to the division of the produce, it ought to be the highest~ that is, when there was the greatest pr?portionate excess of produce above what was pmd to the labourer. The wages of the labourer cannot sink belo\v a certain point, but a part of the produce, from excess of supply, tnay :or a time be absolutely useless, and permanently It may so fall · fron1 competition as to yield only the lo\vest profits. I would observe further, that if in consequence · of a din1inished demand for corn, the cultivators were to \Vithdraw ·their capitals so as better to proportion their supplies to the quantity that could be properly paid for; yet if they could not en1ploy the capital they had withdrawn in any other .':ay, '¥hich, according to the preceding suppositiOn, they could not, it is certain that, though they might for a tin1e make fair profits of the s1nall * In Norway and Sweden, particularly the former, where the acrricultural labourer either lives in the farmer's family or has a p~rtion of land as~igned to him in lieu of wages, he is in general pretty well fed, although there is but little demand for labom:, and considerable competition for such employment. In countne.s 5.0 circumstanced, (and there are many such all over the world,) It 15 perfectly futile to attempt to estimate pro~ts by the excess of th.e produce above what is consumed in obtaining it, when for this excess there may be often little or no market. All cv1. d e n tly depends upon the exchangeable value of the disposable pro· ducc. SEC. III.] OF THE PHOGRESS OF WEALTH. 369 stock which they still continued to employ in ao-riculture, the consequences to them as cultivators ·would be, to all intents and purposes, the sa1ne as if a general fall had taken place on all their capital. If, in the process of saving, all that was lost by the capitalist was gained by the labourer, the check to the progress of " realth \VOU}d be but tClTIporary, as stated by 1\!Ir. Ricardo; and the con equences .need not be apprehended. But if the conversion of revenue into capital pushed beyond a certain point must, by diminishino' the ffectual demand for produce, thro\v the labourino' classes out of etnploytnent, it is obvious that the adoption of parsimonious habits in too great a degree may be accon1panied by the most di~tress ing effects at first, and by a n1arked d pression of \Vealth and population permanently. It is not, of course, tneant to be stated that parsimony, or even a ten1porary dimjnution of con- . sutnption, ~- is not often in the highest degree u eful, and someti1nes absolutely necessary to the progress of wealth. A state 111ay certainly be r•ined by extravagance ; and a din1inution of the ac~ual expenditure n1ay not only be necessary on this ~ccount, but when the capital of a country i deficient, compared with the demand for its produ~ ts, a. ten1porary econon1y of consun1ption i. requned, 1n order to provide that supply of capital *Parsimony, ~r the conversion · of revenue into capital, may ~ake place without a11y diminution of consumption, if the revenue Increases first. .B B |