We are often told, that, as the wages of labor flail, profits rise, and as profits fall the wages of labor rise, but other causes besides the proportion of its returns paid to the laborer, are conceived to operate on it.Thus a simple increase in its quantity is assigned, in one part of the work, as sufficient of itself to occasion a fall in profits."When the stocks of many rich merchants are turned into the same trade, their mutual competition naturally tends to lower its profit; and when there is a like increase of stock in all the different trades carried on in the same society, the same competition must produce the same effect in all." Mr.Ricardo has, however, pointed out, from Adam Smith's own principles, that no such effect would ensue, and insists on it as a general principle that wages alone vary profit.Profits, according to him, are increased or diminished, exactly as the maintenance of labor is easy or difficult, from fertile land being abundant or scarce.Admitting the popular notion of capital, that serves as the basis of Adam Smith's reasonings, to be of a sort on which true science may be built, the theory of Mr.Ricardo seems to me hard to be controverted, and has certainly the merit of giving uniformity and regularity to the system.It has accordingly been acquiesced in very generally in Britain, by men who are given to this department of inquiry, and has been adopted and defended by many writers of unquestioned ability.Nevertheless, it may well be doubted, if it has added to the general confidence in the science.The conclusions to which it leads have in them something so extraordinary, as to exceed the strength of any common measure of faith in such abstractions.
Thus, according to the principles of this school, no extension of foreign trade, however advantageous, and no improvement in domestic industry, however great, can, in the least, increase profits.On the other hand, no diminution of foreign trade can, of itself, lessen profits.It follows also, from the same principles, that colonies give no commercial advantages to the mother country, and, therefore, that being in general expensive, they ought to be shaken off as a burden on her resources.Sir Henry Parnell observes, and quotes Mr.Mills in his support, that, "The capital which supplies commodities for the colonies would still prepare commodities if the colonies ceased to purchase them; and those commodities would find consumers, for every country contains within itself a market for all it can produce.There is, therefore, no advantage derived under freedom of competition, from that part of the trade with a colony, which consists in supplying it with goods, since no more is gained by it than such ordinary profits of stock as would be gained if no such trade existed."These, and similar do6trines, have something in them so strange, so contrary to experience, and seem so paradoxical, that they have m most people rather the effect of exciting surprise, than producing belief.They are exceeded, however, by what a writer in the Edinburgh Review has proved, and in my opinion satisfactorily proved, from the principles of his school, concerning the effect of Irish absenteeism.He shows that it can have no disadvantageous, and possibly may have an advantageous effect, that it can only cause capital to pass from one employment to another, possibly from a less, to a more advantageous employment.That, as it is the capital of the artisan, the tradesman, and shop-keeper, that yields them their revenue, were all their customers annihilated, they would still live equally well on their capitals.That so, were all the landlords in Ireland to leave it, and were their rents to be sent them, to a distant kingdom, in the shape either of cash or agricultural produce, it could not possibly be of any detriment to the country they abandoned.
Though the argument is skilfully conducted, and though it is in perfect accordance with the leading principles of the science -- for, if capitalists are dependent on their customers, what becomes of the all-sufficiency of capital? -- and, if the British government could advantage Ireland by taxing absentees, what becomes of the principle of non-interference? - yet there are perhaps few people, on whom it has had the effect the author probably desired.It has the disadvantage of proving too much.W hen it is shown, that, according to received principles, two large classes so intimately dependent on each other, as are the landlords of a great country, and the mechanics and capitalists that they employ, can be completely severed, without injuriously affecting the whole system of things in the society, we are rather inclined to doubt of the principles, than to acquiesce in the conclusion.However skilfully the argument may be urged, or however closely one part of it may seem joined to another, it has rather the effect of inducing skepticism than conviction.We still figure to ourselves that there is a loss to Ireland, a gain to some other place.We cannot get rid of the imagination, that, if the landlords were all to go in a body, for instance, to Brussels, and spend their rents there, they would give profitable employment, in some way or other, to a vast number of laborers, tradesmen, and artificers, and that the population and wealth of that town would be largely augmented, that of Ireland proportionally diminished.
