Page:Tales in Political Economy by Millicent Garrett Fawcett.djvu/34

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TALES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY.
[II.

made a dozen instead of two dozen clothes'-pegs; so I think the less you say about wasting things being good for trade, the better."

Poor Mr. Davies was a long time before he could get over his notion that the way to make everybody well off was for him to do nothing, and to eat as much as he could, and to destroy the products of his companions' labour as fast as possible. He was only prevented acting on this opinion by the stubborn resistance that was shown to it on the part of his comrades; and he had to learn by degrees that a demand for commodities is not a demand for labour; and that the only demand for labour is that which is ready to supply commodities to the labourer in exchange for those which his toil produces. If you demand commodities, you must supply the labourer who produces them with an equivalent value of some other commodities or services. So demand and supply cannot increase independently of each other. If demand increases, supply must increase at the same time. For instance, if Mrs. Collins wants the