cause, below the general rate of wages in the country, this is a real advantage in the foreign market. It lessens the . comparative cost of production of those articles, in relation to others; and has the same effect as if their production required so much less labor. Take, for instance, the case of the United States in respect to certain commodities. In that country, tobacco and cotton, two great articles of export, are produced by slave labor, while food, and manufactures generally, are produced by free laborers, who either work on their own account or are paid by wages. In spite of the inferior efficiency of slave labor, there can be no reasonable doubt that in a country where the wages of free labor are so high, the work executed by slaves is a better bargain to the capitalist. To whatever extent it is so, this smaller cost of labor, being not general, but limited to those employments, is just as much a cause of cheapness in the products, both in the home and in the foreign market, as if they had been made by a less quantity of labor. If the slaves in the Southern States were emancipated, and their wages rose to the general level of the earnings of free labor in America, she might be obliged to erase some of the slave-grown articles from the catalogue of her exports, and would certainly be unable to sell any of them in the foreign market at the present price. Their cheapness is partly an artificial cheapness, which may be compared to that produced by a bounty on production or on exportation; or, considering the means by which it is obtained, an apter comparison would be with the cheapness of stolen goods.

An advantage of a similar economical, though of a very different moral character, is that possessed by domestic manufactures; fabrics produced in the leisure hours of families partially occupied in other pursuits, who, not depending for subsistence on the produce of the manufacture, can afford to sell it at any price, however low, for which they think

it worth while to take the trouble of producing. In an account of the Canton of Zurich, to which I have had occasion to refer on another subject, it is observed,* “The workman of Zurich is to-day a manufacturer, to-morrow again an agriculturist, and changes his occupation with the seasons, in a continual round. Manufacturing industry and tillage advance hand in hand, in inseparable alliance, and in this union of the two occupations the secret may be found, why the simple and unlearned Swiss manufacturer can always go on competing, and increasing in prosperity, in the face of those extensive establishments fitted out with great economic, and (what is still more important) intellectual, resources. Even in those parts of the canton where manufactures have extended themselves the most widely, only one seventh of all the families belong to manufactures alone; four sevenths combine that employment with agriculture. The advantage of this domestic or family manufacture consists chiefly in the fact, that it is compatible with all other avocations, or rather that it may in part be regarded as only a supplementary employment. In winter, in the dwellings of the operatives, the whole family employ themselves in it; but as soon as spring appears, those on whom the early field labors devolve, abandon the in-door work; many a shuttle stands still; by degrees, as the field-work increases, one member of the family follows another, till at last, at the harvest, and during the so-called 'great works,' all hands seize the implements of husbandry; but in unfavorable weather, and in all otherwise vacant hours, the work in the cottage is resumed, and when the ungenial season again recurs, the people return in the same gradual order to their home occupation, until they have all resumed it."

• Historisch-geographisch-statistisches Gemälde der Schweiz. Erstes Heft. 1834, p. 105.

In the case of these domestic manufactures, the comparative cost of production, on which the interchange between countries depends, is much lower than in proportion to the quantity of labor employed. The work people, looking to the earnings of their loom for a part only, if for any part, of their actual maintenance, can afford to work for a less remuneration than the lowest rate of wages which can exist in the employments by which the laborer has to support the whole expense of a family. Working, as they do, not for an employer but for themselves, they may be said to carry on the manufacture at no cost at all, except the small expense of a loom and of the material; and the limit of possible cheapness is not the necessity of living by their trade, but that of earning enough by the work, to make that social employment of their leisure hours not disagreeable.

4. These two cases, of slave labor and of domestic manufactures, exemplify the conditions under which low wages enable a country to sell its commodities cheaper in foreign markets, and consequently to undersell its rivals, or to avoid being undersold by them. But no such advantage is conferred by low wages when common to all branches of industry. General low wages never caused any country to undersell its rivals, nor did general high wages ever hinder it from doing so.

To demonstrate this, we must return to an elementary principle which was discussed in a former chapter.* General low wages do not cause low prices, nor high wages high prices, within the country itself. General prices are not raised by a rise of wages, any more than they would be raised by an increase of the quantity of labor required in all production. Expenses which affect all commodities

Supra, book iii. ch. iv.

equally, have no influence on prices. If the maker of broadcloth or cutlery, and nobody else, had to pay higher wages, the price of his commodity would rise, just as it would if he had to employ more labor; because otherwise he would gain less profit than other producers, and nobody would engage in the employment. But if every body has to pay higher wages, or everybody to employ more labor, the loss must be submitted to; as it affects everybody alike, no one can hope to get rid of it by a change of employment, each therefore resigns himself to a diminution of profits, and prices remain as they were. In like manner, general low wages, or a general increase in the productiveness of labor, does not make prices low, but profits high. If wages fall, (meaning here by wages the cost of labor,) why, on that account, should the producer lower his price? He will be forced, it may be said, by the competition of other capitalists who will crowd into his employment. But other capitalists are also paying lower wages, and by entering into competition with him they would gain nothing but what they are gaining already. The rate then at which labor is paid, as well as the quantity of it which is employed, affects neither the value nor the price of the commodity produced, except in so far as it is peculiar to that commodity, and not common to commodities generally.

Since low wages are not a cause of low prices in the country itself, so neither do they cause it to offer its commodities in foreign markets at a lower price. It is quite true that if the cost of labor is lower in America than in England, America could sell her cottons to Cuba at a lower price than England, and still gain as high a profit as the English manufacturer. But it is not with the profit of the English manufacturer that the American cotton spinner will make his comparison; it is with the profits of other American capitalists. These enjoy, in common with himself, 20*

VOL. II.

the benefit of a low cost of labor, and have accordingly a high rate of profit. This high profit the cotton spinner must also have; he will not content himself with the English profit. It is true he may go on for a time at that lower rate, rather than change his employment; and a trade may be carried on, sometimes for a long period, at a much lower profit than that for which it would have been originally engaged in. Countries which have a low cost of labor, and high profits, do not for that reason undersell others, but they do oppose a more obstinate resistance to being undersold, because the producers can often submit to a diminution of profit without being unable to live, and even to thrive, by their business. But that is all which their advantage does for them; and in this resistance they will not long persevere, when a change of times which may give them equal profits with the rest of their countrymen has become manifestly hopeless.

$ 5. There is a class of trading and exporting communities, on which a few words of explanation seem to be required. These are hardly to be looked upon as countries carrying on an exchange of commodities with other countries, but more properly as outlying agricultural or manufacturing establishments belonging to a larger community. Our West India colonies, for example, cannot be regarded as countries, with a productive capital of their own. If Manchester, instead of being where it is, were on a rock in the North Sea, (its present industry nevertheless continuing,) it would still be but a town of England, not a country trading with England; it would be merely, as now, the place where England finds it convenient to carry on her cotton manufacture. The West Indies, in like manner, are the place where England finds it convenient to carry on the production of sugar, coffee, and a few other tropical commodities. All the capital employed is English capital;