apital is but another name for the last year's harvest, or the
buildings, tools, and manufactures which the labourers themselves, or
their predecessors, have produced. The utmost the ex-capitalist could
expect--and he must practise his handicraft before he can be entitled
even to this--is to be admitted on a footing of equality in the
extensive firm that would be constituted of his quondam operatives.

We often observe, in this country, an inclination manifested to regulate
by law the rate of wages, not with the view of instituting any such
naturally equitable partition, but of establishing a _minimum_ below
which life cannot be comfortably supported. These reasoners proceed, it
will at once be admitted, not on the rights of man, but on the claims of
humanity. To such a project there is but one objection; it will
assuredly fail of its humane intention. It is presumed that the
competition amongst the workmen to obtain employment has so far
advanced, that these cease to obtain a sufficient remuneration for their
labour. The thousand men whom a great capitalist employs, are
inadequately paid. The legislature requires that they should be paid
more liberally. But the amount which the capitalist has to expend in
wages is limited. The same amount which sustained a thousand men, can,
under the new scale of remuneration, sustain only nine hundred. The nine
hundred are better fed, but there is one hundred without any food
whatever. Our well-intentioned humanity looks round aghast at the
confusion she is making.

Suppose, it may be said, that a law of this description should be passed
at so fortunate a conjuncture, that it should not interfere with the
existing relations between the capitalist and the workman, but have for
its object to arrest the tendency which wages have to fall; suppose that
the legislature, satisfied with the existing state of things, should
pronounce it a punishable offence to offer or accept a lower rate of
remuneration, would not such a law be wise? The answer is obvious. If
there is a tendency at any time in wages to fall, it is because there is
a tendency in population to increase, or in capital to diminish;
circumstances, both of them, which it is not in the power of criminal
jurisprudence to wrestle with.

We hear political economy frequently censured by these advocates for
violent and legislative remedies, for paying more attention to the
accumulation than the distribution of wealth. But in what chap