of wages,
and the increasing difficulty of supplying the increasing population
with necessaries, the profits of the farmer, may, for an interval of
some little duration, be above the former level. An extraordinary
stimulus may be also given for a certain time, to a particular branch of
foreign and colonial trade; but the admission of this fact by no means
invalidates the theory, that profits depend on high or low wages, wages
on the price of necessaries, and the price of necessaries chiefly on the
price of food, because all other requisites may be increased almost
without limit.

It should be recollected that prices always vary in the market, and in
the first instance, through the comparative state of demand and supply.
Although cloth could be furnished at 40_s._ per yard, and give the usual
profits of stock, it may rise to 60 or 80_s._ from a general change of
fashion, or from any other cause which should suddenly and unexpectedly
increase the demand, or diminish the supply of it. The makers of cloth
will for a time have unusual profits, but capital will naturally flow to
that manufacture, till the supply and demand are again at their fair
level, when the price of cloth will again sink to 40_s._, its natural or
necessary price. In the same manner, with every increased demand for
corn, it may rise so high as to afford more than the general profits to
the farmer. If there be plenty of fertile land, the price of corn will
again fall to its former standard, after the requisite quantity of
capital has been employed in producing it, and profits will be as
before; but if there be not plenty of fertile land, if, to produce this
additional quantity, more than the usual quantity of capital and labour
be required, corn will not fall to its former level. Its natural price
will be raised, and the farmer, instead of obtaining permanently larger
profits, will find himself obliged to be satisfied with the diminished
rate which is the inevitable consequence of the rise of wages, produced
by the rise of necessaries.

The natural tendency of profits then is to fall; for, in the progress of
society and wealth, the additional quantity of food required is obtained
by the sacrifice of more and more labour. This tendency, this
gravitation as it were of profits, is happily checked at repeated
intervals by the improvements in machinery, connected with the
production of necessaries, as well as by discoveries in the science of
agriculture whic