five per cent upon it may be much more ample,
may support a much larger number of capitalists and their families in
much greater affluence, than a profit of twenty-five per cent on the
comparatively small capital of a poor country. The _gross_ profit of a
country is the actual amount of necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries,
which are divided among its capitalists: but whether this be large or
small, the rate of profit may be just the same. The rate of profit is
the proportion which the profit bears to the capital; which the surplus
produce after replacing the outlay, bears to the outlay. In short, if we
compare the _price paid_ for labour and tools with what that labour and
those tools will _produce_, from this ratio we may calculate the rate of
profit.

As the gross profit may be very different though the rate of profit be
the same; so also may the absolute price paid for labour and tools be
very different, and yet the proportion between the price paid and the
produce obtained may be just the same. For greater clearness, let us
omit, for the present, the consideration of tools, materials, &c, and
conceive production as the result solely of labour. In a certain
country, let us suppose, the wages of each labourer are one quarter of
wheat per year, and 100 men can produce, in one year, 120 quarters. Here
the price paid for labour is to the produce of that labour as 100 to
120, and profits are 20 per cent. Suppose now that, in another country,
wages are just double what they are in the country before supposed;
namely, two quarters of wheat per year, for each labourer. But suppose,
likewise, that the productive power of labour is double what it is in
the first country; that by the greater fertility of the soil, 100 men
can produce 240 quarters, instead of 120 as before. Here it is obvious,
that the real price paid for labour is twice as great in the one country
as in the other; but the produce being also twice as great, the ratio
between the price of labour and the produce of labour is still exactly
the same: an outlay of 200 quarters gives a return of 240 quarters, and
profits, as before, are 20 per cent.

Profits, then (meaning not gross profits, but the rate of profit),
depend (not upon the price of labour, tools, and materials--but) upon
the ratio between the price of labour, tools, and materials, and the
produce of them: upon the proportionate share of the produce of industry
which it is necessary to offer, in ord