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If in such a country the wages of labour had ever been more than

sufficient to maintain the labourer, and to enable him to bring

up a family, the competition of the labourers and the interest of

the masters would soon reduce them to the lowest rate which is

consistent with common humanity. China has been long one of the

richest, that is, one of the most fertile, best cultivated, most

industrious, and most populous, countries in the world. It seems,

however, to have been long stationary. Marco Polo, who visited it

more than five hundred years ago, describes its cultivation,

industry, and populousness, almost in the same terms in which

they are described by travellers in the present times. It had,

perhaps, even long before his time, acquired that full complement

of riches which the nature of its laws and institutions permits

it to acquire.