districts, have entirely lost the little capital they possessed;
and, unable to continue in their farms, have deserted them, and left
their labourers without the means of employment. In a country, the
peculiar defects of which were already a deficiency of capital, and
a redundancy of population, such a check to the means of employing
labour must be attended with no common distress. In Ireland, it is
quite certain, that there are no mercantile capitals ready to take
up those persons who are thus thrown out of work, and even in Great
Britain the transfer will be slow and difficult.

Our commerce and manufactures, therefore, must increase very
considerably before they can restore the demand for labour already
lost; for the and a moderate increase beyond this will scarcely make
up disadvantage of a low money price of wages.

These wages will finally be determined by the usual money price of
corn, and the state of the demand for labour.

There is a difference between what may be called the usual price of
corn and the average price, which has not been sufficiently attended
to. Let us suppose the common price of corn, for four years out of
five, to be about L2 a quarter, and during the fifth year to be L6.
The average price of the five years will then be L2 16s.; but the
usual price will still be about L2, and it is by this price, and not
by the price of a year of scarcity, or even the average including
it, that wages are generally regulated.

If the ports were open, the usual price of corn would certainly
fall, and probably the average price; but from at has before been
said of the existing laws of France, and of the practice among the