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Show 80 ON 'rHE NATURE AND [ CH. II. of the sort of labour ,vbich produced them. If the con1modities have been obtained by the exertion of manual labour exclusively, aided at least only by the unappropriated bounties of nature, the "\\rhole remuneration will, of course, belong to _the labourer, and the usual value of this remuneration, in the existing state of the society, would be the usual price of the commodity. . The second condition to be fulfilled Is, that the assistance which may have been given to the labourer, from the previous accu1nulation of objects which facilitate future production, should be so remunerated as to continue the application of this assistance to the production of the corntnodities required. If by means of certain advanc~s to the labourer of machinery, food, and matenals previously collected, he can execute eight or ten times as much work as he could without such assistance, the person furnishing thetn might appear, at first, to be entitled to the difference between the po,vers of unassisted labour and the powers of labour so assisted. But the prices of con1modities do not depend upon their intrinsic utility, but upon the supply and the demand. The increased po\lvers of labour would naturally produce an increased supply of commodities; their prices \Vould consequently fall; and the ren1uneration for the capital advanced \\'"Ould soon be reduced to what vvas necessary, in the existing state of the society, to bring the articles to the production of \IV hich they 'vere applied to n1arket. With regard to the labourers en1ployed, as neither their exertions nor their skill \vould SEC • . III. J · 1\iEASUH.ES OF VALUE. 81 necessarily he n1uch greater than if they had 'vorked unassisted, their re1nuneration would be nearly the san1e as before, and vvould depend entirely upon the exchangeable value of the kind of labour they had contributed, estin1ated in the usual 'vay by the ·demand and the supply. It is not, therefore, quite correct to represent, as Adan1 Sn1ith does, the profits of capital .as a deduction from the produce of labour. They are only a fair ren1uneration for .that part of the production con ... tributed by the capitalist, estin1ated exactly in the san1e way as the contribution of the labourer. 1'he third condition to be fulfilled is, that the price of con1modities should be such as to effect the continued supply of the food and raw InateTials used by the labourers and capitalists; and 've know that this price cannot be paid \Vithout yielding a rent to the landlord on ahnost all the land actually in use. In speaking of the landlords, i\..dam Stnith's language is again exceptionable. He represents then1, rather invidiously, as loving to reap where they have never so\vn, and as obliging the labourer to pay for a licence to obtain those natural, products, which, \:vhen land was in con1- mon, cost only the trouble of collecting.* But he 'voulcl hin1self be the first to ackno\vledge that, if land vvere not appropriated, its produce would be, beyond co1nparison, less abundant, and consequently dearer; and, if it be appropriated, son1e persons or other must necessarily be the proprietors. It matters not to the society whether these * \V calth of Nations, Book I. ch. vi. p. 7 4. 6th edit~ G |