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keep down the wages of common labour. Much more must this be the case, when, by the change of circumstances, all barriers have been broken down, and the communication is free throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland.
Fifty years ago, it was contended by those who advocated the propriety of throwing small farms together, that, by the increase of products which would follow from better husbandry, wages would be raised, and that the husbandman, in his new capacity of a labourer, would, by reason of the high wages, be better off than in his ancient capacity of a small farmer. Those, who argued thus, did not perceive, that the benefit on which they laid so much stress, could not by possibility be permanent. They proceeded rashly on the tacit assumption of population being a given quantity. They did not observe, that, in his condition of a small farmer, the husbandman had a degree of isolation, while, in his condition of a labourer, he would have no source of subsistence on which others could not encroach[1].
- ↑ Were the competition as free between the occupiers of land, as between the purchasers of food in the market, there
