“True. Well; the second law is that all the fruits of labour should be secured to the producer. This is not done; for taxation swallows up a grievous portion of what is produced.”
“But the labourer chooses to exchange part of the fruits of his labour for the sake of the protection of a government.”
“The third law,” interrupted Joel, “is that all exchanges of these fruits ought to be free and voluntary. Let our labourers give something in exchange for social protection, and welcome; but never tell me that they would willingly give as much as is now required from them in taxes, unless food was allowed so to abound as to afford a better recompense to their toil. While government checks the supply of food, the labourer cannot think the wealth he creates naturally distributed between the government and himself.”
“The co-operatives propose, I believe, to go on tilling more and more land as more food is wanted, and to give a sufficiency of its produce to every labourer.”
“Aye, madam, and many besides the co-operatives; but it would puzzle the wisest man among them to say where the sufficiency is to come from, after a time; the return from land being less and less as time passes on. Take the worst soil at present tilled....”
“Or a better soil, subtracting the rent; for the return from all land is equal when the rent is deducted.”
“Very true, madam. The produce is to be shared between the cultivator and his labourers, rent having nothing to do with the profits of the one or the wages of the other,—being the consequence entirely of the different qualities of the land. Well; let this produce be divided into wages and profits in what proportion you will, both decline as numbers increase and more food is wanted.”
“How is it then that farmers’ labourers have many things in their possession that farmers’ labourers used not to have? More shoes and stockings, and cloth coats, and other manufactured articles?”
“Because these things are more easily made, and cost less. A labourer may now have a pair of shoes for half as much corn, we will say, as he must have given for them some years ago. The same is the case with the farmer who employs him; so, though each may receive double the quantity of certain goods that they did some years ago, it does not follow that the rate of profits and wages is increased. If you reckoned the labourer’s gains in shoes, you might say that his wages are doubled; but if you reckon them in relation to the farmers’ profits, you may find them at the same time lowered; or that both wages and profits have in one sense increased; in another not. This blinds many people to the fact that wages and profits are continually declining.”
“Of course, if land produces less and less, there must be a smaller produce to divide between the capitalist and his labourers; and on the whole, they must share the decline pretty equally; since the farmer would not farm unless he could make some profit, and the labourers would not labour but for subsistence. But I am afraid this decline pulls down the profits of manufactures too; for farmers would turn manufacturers if they could make higher profits thereby; and then there would be a new demand for corn; the price would rise; farmers would return to farming, and would take in new land, the diminished produce of which would lower profits again.”