Strona 222 z 2651

The produce of their labour, therefore, frequently makes no

figure in those public registers, of which the records are

sometimes published with so much parade, and from which our

merchants and manufacturers would often vainly pretend to

announce the prosperity or declension of the greatest empires.

Though the variations in the price of labour not only do not

always correspond with those in the price of provisions, but are

frequently quite opposite, we must not, upon this account,

imagine that the price of provisions has no influence upon that

of labour. The money price of labour is necessarily regulated by

two circumstances; the demand for labour, and the price of the

necessaries and conveniencies of life. The demand for labour,

according as it happens to be increasing, stationary, or

declining, or to require an increasing, stationary, or declining

population, determines the quantities of the necessaries and

conveniencies of life which must be given to the labourer; and

the money price of labour is determined by what is requisite for

purchasing this quantity. Though the money price of labour,

therefore, is sometimes high where the price of provisions is

low, it would be still higher, the demand continuing the same, if

the price of provisions was high.