labourer, diminution in his compensation, and diminution of freedom.

What is true with regard to the females of this neighbourhood is
equally true with regard to the men, women, and children of the world.
Wherever there exists competition for the purchase of labour, there
the labourer has his choice among employers, and the latter are not
only required to pay higher wages, but they are also required to treat
their workmen and workwomen with the consideration that is due to
fellow-beings equal in rights with themselves: but wherever there is
not competition for the purchase of labour, the labourer is compelled
to work for any who are willing to employ him, and to receive at the
hands of his employer low wages and the treatment of a slave, for
slave he is. Here is a plain and simple proposition, the proof of
which every reader can test for himself. If he lives in a
neighbourhood in which there exists competition for the purchase of
labour, he knows that he can act as becomes a freeman in determining
for whom he will work, and the price he is willing to receive for his
services; but if he lives in one in which there is competition for the
sale of labour, he knows well that it does not rest with him to
determine either where he will work or what shall be his wages.

Where all are farmers, there can be no competition for the purchase of
labour, except for a few days in harvest; but there must be
competition for the sale of labour during all the rest of the year. Of
course, where all are farmers or planters, the man who has labour to
sell is at the mercy of the few who desire to buy it, as is seen in
our Southern States, where the labourer is a slave; and in Ireland,
where his condition is far worse than that of the slaves of the South;
and in India, where men sell themselves for long terms of years to
labour in the West Indies; and in Portugal, where competition for the