little latitude, owing to some variations of industry and habits,
and the distance of time between the encouragement to population
and the period of the results appearing in the markets: yet it is
a still greater error, to suppose the price of labour unconnected
with the price of corn, than to suppose that the price of corn
immediately and completely regulates it. Corn and labour rarely
march quite abreast; but there is an obvious limit, beyond which
they cannot be separated. With regard to the unusual exertions
made by the labouring classes in periods of dearness, which
produce the fall of wages noticed in the evidence, they are most
meritorious in the individuals, and certainly favour the growth
of capital. But no man of humanity could wish to see them
constant and unremitted. They are most admirable as a temporary
relief; but if they were constantly in action, effects of a
similar kind would result from them, as from the population of a
country being pushed to the very extreme limits of its food.
There would be no resources in a scarcity. I own I do not see,
with pleasure, the great extension of the practice of task work.
To work really hard during twelve or fourteen hours in the day,
for any length of time, is too much for a human being. Some
intervals of ease are necessary to health and happiness: and the
occasional abuse of such intervals is no valid argument against
their use.

18. I have hinted before, in a note, that profits may, without
impropriety, be called a surplus. But, whether surplus or not,
they are the most important source of wealth, as they are, beyond
all question, the main source of accumulation.

19. Adam Smith notices the bad effects of high profits on the