be both slow and partial in its effects
upon labour. Meat, milk, butter, cheese, and potatoes are slowly
affected by the price of corn; house rent, bricks, stone, timber,
fuel, soap, candles, and clothing, still more slowly; and, as far as
some of them depend, in part or in the whole, upon foreign materials
(as is the case with leather, linen, cottons, soap, and candles),
they may be considered as independent of it; like the two remaining
articles of tea and sugar, which are by no means unimportant in
their amount.

It is manifest therefore that the whole of the wages of labour can
never rise and fall in proportion to the variations in the price of
grain. And that the effect produced by these variations, whatever
may be its amount, must be very slow in its operation, is proved by
the manner in which the supply of labour takes place; a point, which
has been by no means sufficiently attended to.

Every change in the prices of commodities, if left to find their
natural level, is occasioned by some change, actual or expected, in
the state of the demand or supply. The reason why the consumer pays
a tax upon any manufactured commodity, or an advance in the price of
any of its component parts, is because, if he cannot or will not pay
this advance of price, the commodity will not be supplied in the
same quantity as before; and the next year there will only be such a
proportion in the market, as is accommodated to the number of
persons who will consent to pay the tax. But, in the case of labour,
the operation of withdrawing the commodity is much slower and more
painful. Although the purchasers refuse to pay the advanced price,
the same supply will necessarily remain in the market, not only the
next year, but for some years to come. Consequently, if no increase
take place in the demand, and the advanced price of provisions be
not so great, as to make it obvious that the labourer cannot support
his family, it is probable, that he will continue to pay this
advance, till a relaxation in the rate of the increase of population
causes the market to be under-supplied with labour; and then, of
course, the competition among the purchasers will raise the price
above the proportion of the advance, in order to restore the supply.
In the same manner, if an advance in the price of labour has taken
place during two or three years of great scarcity, it is probable
that, on the return of plenty, the real recompense of labour will
continue high