e land
yields abundantly, wages may temporarily rise, and the producers may
consume more than their accustomed proportion; but the stimulus which
will thus be given to population, will speedily reduce the labourers to
their usual consumption. But when poor lands are taken into cultivation,
or when more capital and labour are expended on the old land, with a
less return of produce, the effect must be permanent. A greater
proportion of that part of the produce which remains to be divided,
after paying rent, between the owners of stock and the labourers, will
be apportioned to the latter. Each man may, and probably will, have a
less absolute quantity; but as more labourers are employed in proportion
to the whole produce retained by the farmer, the value of a greater
proportion of the whole produce will be absorbed by wages, and
consequently the value of a smaller proportion will be devoted to
profits. This will necessarily be rendered permanent by the laws of
nature, which have limited the productive powers of the land.

Thus we again arrive at the same conclusion which we have before
attempted to establish:--that in all countries, and at all times,
profits depend on the quantity of labour requisite to provide
necessaries for the labourers, on that land or with that capital which
yields no rent. The effects then of accumulation will be different in
different countries, and will depend chiefly on the fertility of the
land. However extensive a country may be where the land is of a poor
quality, and where the importation of food is prohibited, the most
moderate accumulations of capital will be attended with great reductions
in the rate of profit, and a rapid rise in rent; and on the contrary a
small but fertile country, particularly if it freely permits the
importation of food, may accumulate a large stock of capital without any
great diminution in the rate of profits, or any great increase in the
rent of land. In the Chapter on Wages, we have endeavoured to shew that
the money price of commodities would not be raised by a rise of wages,
either on the supposition that gold, the standard of money, was the
produce of this country, or that it was imported from abroad. But if it
were otherwise, if the prices of commodities were permanently raised by
high wages, the proposition would not be less true, which asserts that
high wages invariably affect the employers of labour, by depriving them
of a portion of their real profits. Supp