These goods would fall in exchangeable value as compared with others, others would rise inexchangeable value as compared with them. But there is a new demand created; for the owner ofthe new produce, as he has come into the market to sell goods of some kinds, so he has come tobuy goods of some other kinds. As the supply, which he brought, of certain kinds of goodstended to reduce their value, so the demand, which he brings, for other kinds tends to increasetheir value. The result is, that now there are certain kinds of goods, which it is less profitablethan usual to produce; others, which it is more profitable than usual to produce: and this is aninequality, which tends immediately to correct itself. This is the mode, in which every additionis made to the productions of a country, and it is a mode, which is evidently the same at everystage of the progress, from the greatest defect. to the greatest excess, of national riches. Itcommonly, of course, happens, that the man, who brings into the market an addition of produce,endeavours to bring it in goods that are in defective supply, and to purchase goods that are insuperabundant supply; and the state of the market generally enables him to do so: so that anaddition of produce brought into the market may just as often remedy a glut as be in any degreethe cause of it.
(4.iii.34) The doctrine of Mr. Malthus, on the subject of the glut, seems, at last, to amount tothis: that if saving were to go on at a certain rate, capital would increase faster than population;and that if capital did so increase, wages would become very high, and profits would sustain acorresponding depression. But this, if it were all allowed, does not prove the existence of a glut;it only proves another thing, namely, that there would be high wages and low profits. Whethersuch an increase of capital, scarcely coming within the range even of a rational supposition,would be a good thing or an evil thing, it would infallibly produce its own remedy, as the power,of capital to increase is diminished with the diminution of profits.
(4.iii.35) Mr. Malthus further says, that the high wages thus produced would generateidleness in the class of labourers. The prediction may be disputed; but, allowed to be correct, what is itsimport? If, wages continuing the same, less work is done, this is higher pay for an equal quantityof labour; it is therefore the same thing as a rise of wages. It would merely accelerate thatdiminution of profits, which must in time retard and finally stop the increase of capital, inconsequence of which wages would naturally fall. This, therefore, is not a different objectionfrom the former; it is precisely the same objection, only in a different form.
(4.iii.36) Mr. Malthus, thus, totally failing to prove a glut, even from a continued increase ofcapital greater than the greatest increase of population, substitutes, for arguments to prove thateffect, arguments to prove certain other effects.
(4.iii.37) He says, that were the annual produce thus to go on increasing, its value would bediminished. But this is merely a play upon the word. He says, I call the value of a commodity thenumber of days' wages it is equal to. If then wages are more than doubled, though you double theamount of your commodities, and have twice as much of every thing, yet you will have lessvalue. An arbitrary change, however, in the meaning of a word proves nothing. The facts, andtheir relations, remain the some, whatever Mr. Malthus, or I, may choose to call them. The factsstill are merely these, that society would have the supposed amount of commodities, and all itsbenefits, and that wages would be very high.
(4.iii.38) Mr. Malthus further says, that this rapid increase of capital would tend to diminishproduction. That on which the increase of production depends, is the increase of its twoinstruments, capital and labourers. By the very supposition which Mr. Malthus himself hasmade, and on which he is reasoning, both of these instruments are increasing at their most rapidpossible rate. It seems therefore a most extraordinary supposition, that production should not beincreasing at its most rapid possible rate.
(4.iii.39) If it be true, as Mr. Malthus supposes, that the high wages supposed woulddiminish labour, it will be true that less work will be done, and less production effected, than if every manworked more. Let us suppose that the diminution of labour goes on gradually, as wages increase,till at last each man does only half as much work as before, what then is the consequence?
Merely this, that if population is going on at its greatest possible rate, doubling itself in twentyyears, there will not be a greater increase of production from labour, than there would be if itdoubled itself only in forty years, and each man performed twice as much work. This would stillbe a more rapid rate than that at which capital increases, except in some very rare andextraordinary circumstances. But, if labour were so very dear, and capital so abundant, theconsequence would be, that as little as possible of production would be performed by man'slabour, as much as possible by machinery and cattle. Ingenuity would be racked to find themeans of superseding the most costly instrument. Machines would be multiplied and improvedwithout end; and a much greater proportion of the annual produce would be the result of capital,a much less the result of immediate labour. The diminution of production would not therefore benearly in proportion to the diminution of each man's labour.
(4.iii.40) The supposed effects therefore are really of no importance, otherwise it might stillbe questioned how far the inference is warranted, that high wages tend to diminish industry.
