e idea of cheapness, without
reflecting that the term is merely relative, and that it is very
possible for a people to be miserably poor, and some of them
starving, in a country where the money price of corn is very low. Of
this the histories of Europe and Asia will afford abundant
instances.

In considering the condition of the lower classes of society, we
must consider only the real exchangeable value of labour; that is,
its power of commanding the necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries
of life.

I stated in the Observations, and more at large in the Inquiry into
rents,(11*) that under the same demand for labour, and the same
consequent power of purchasing the means of subsistence, a high
money price of corn would give the labourer a very great advantage
in the purchase of the conveniences and luxuries of life. The effect
of this high money price would not, of course, be so marked among
the very poorest of the society, and those who had the largest
families; because so very great a part of their earnings must be
employed in absolute necessaries. But to all those above the very
poorest, the advantage of wages resulting from a price of eighty
shillings a quarter for wheat, compared with fifty or sixty, would
in the purchase of tea, sugar, cotton, linens, soap, candles, and
many other articles, be such as to make their condition decidedly
superior.

Nothing could counterbalance this, but a much greater demand for
labour; and such an increased demand, in consequence of the opening
of our ports, is at best problematical. The check to cultivation has
been so sudden and decisive, as already to throw a great number of
agricultural labourers out of employment;(12*) and in Ireland this
effect has taken place to such a degree, as to threaten the most
distressing, and even alarming, consequences. The farmers, in some
districts, have entirely lost the little capital they possessed;
and, unable to continue in their farms, have deserted them, and left
their labourers without the means of employment. In a country, the
peculiar defects of which were already a deficiency of capital, and
a redundancy of population, such a check to the means of employing
labour must be attended with no common distress. In Ireland, it is
quite certain, that there are no mercantile capitals ready to take
up those persons who are thus thrown out of work, and even in Great
Britain the transfer will be slow and difficult.

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