the
necessaries on which wages are expended. If, therefore, by the extension
of foreign trade, or by improvements in machinery, the food and
necessaries of the labourer can be brought to market at a reduced price,
profits will rise. If, instead of growing our own corn, or manufacturing
the clothing and other necessaries of the labourer, we discover a new
market from which we can supply ourselves with these commodities at a
cheaper price, wages will fall and profits rise; but if the commodities
obtained at a cheaper rate, by the extension of foreign commerce, or by
the improvement of machinery, be exclusively the commodities consumed by
the rich, no alteration will take place in the rate of profits. The rate
of wages would not be affected, although wine, velvets, silks, and other
expensive commodities, should fall 50 per cent., and consequently
profits would continue unaltered.

Foreign trade, then, though highly beneficial to a country, as it
increases the amount and variety of the objects on which revenue may be
expended, and affords, by the abundance and cheapness of commodities,
incentives to saving, and to the accumulation of capital, has no
tendency to raise the profits of stock, unless the commodities imported
be of that description on which the wages of labour are expended.

The remarks which have been made respecting foreign trade, apply equally
to home trade. The rate of profits is never increased by a better
distribution of labour, by the invention of machinery, by the
establishment of roads and canals, or by any means of abridging labour
either in the manufacture or in the conveyance of goods. These are
causes which operate on price, and never fail to be highly beneficial to
consumers; since they enable them with the same labour, or with the
value of the produce of the same labour, to obtain in exchange a greater
quantity of the commodity to which the improvement is applied; but they
have no effect whatever on profit. On the other hand, every diminution
in the wages of labour raises profits, but produces no effect on the
price of commodities. One is advantageous to all classes, for all
classes are consumers; the other is beneficial only to producers; they
gain more, but every thing remains at its former price. In the first
case, they get the same as before; but every thing on which their gains
are expended, is diminished in exchangeable value.

The same rule which regulates the relative value of commodities