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That indolence which is the natural effect of the ease and

security of their situation, renders them too often, not only

ignorant, but incapable of that application of mind, which is

necessary in order to foresee and understand the consequence of

any public regulation.

The interest of the second order, that of those who live by

wages, is as strictly connected with the interest of the society

as that of the first. The wages of the labourer, it has already

been shewn, are never so high as when the demand for labour is

continually rising, or when the quantity employed is every year

increasing considerably. When this real wealth of the society

becomes stationary, his wages are soon reduced to what is barely

enough to enable him to bring up a family, or to continue the

race of labourers. When the society declines, they fall even

below this. The order of proprietors may perhaps gain more by the

prosperity of the society than that of labourers; but there is no

order that suffers so cruelly from its decline. But though the

interest of the labourer is strictly connected with that of the

society, he is incapable either of comprehending that interest,

or of understanding its connexion with his own.