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ON THE NATURE, CAUSES AND
[CH. II.

wages which the labourer may receive, will be obvious from the following considerations.

Let us suppose, what is probably not far from the truth, that a man who employs himself in shrimping, earns about the same remuneration as the common agricultural labourer, and let us further suppose, that the shrimper in the time of Edward III. could on an average bring home 800 shrimps a day. Now if at a subsequent period of some extent, shrimps were to frequent the shores in greater abundance, so that 1600 might ordinarily be obtained by a day's labour, and the supply of shrimps were doubled, it is quite certain that we should say, and correctly say, that shrimps had proportionably fallen in value, not that labour had proportionably risen. In the same manner, if from a diminished afflux of shrimps to our shores, only 400 could be obtained by a day's labour, it is equally certain that we should say, and correctly say, that shrimps had risen in value, not that labour had fallen.

The value of the shrimps would be determined by the supply compared with the demand. The demand, in this case, for the produce of a day's shrimping would be accurately represented by the power of commanding a day's labour, whether the means of supporting the labourer were abundant or scanty; and the demand being given, the value of a given number of shrimps would be inversely as the supply.

If it would take the same man the same quantity of labour to obtain 100 prawns, as it would to obtain 400 shrimps, and yet he found it advantageous to continue getting prawns, it would be a great absurdity to say that labour was altered in value on account of the difference in the returns; and it would be little less absurd in the case previously supposed, if when the labour advanced was exactly of the same character, and employed for the same time, to say that the difference in the produce obtained, arising from the plenty or scarcity of the article compared with the given demand of a day's labour, would make any kind of difference in the value of the labour advanced.

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