ABSTRACT
The proportion which might be paid for wages is of the utmost importance in the question of profits; for it must at once be seen that profits would be high or low exactly in proportion as wages were low or high. A rise of wages from the circumstances of the labourer being more liberally rewarded, or from a difficulty of procuring the necessaries on which wages are expended, does not, except in some instances, produce the effect of raising price, but has a great effect in lowering profits. All commodities cannot rise at the same time without an addition to the quantity of money. The importation of gold, and a rise in the price of all homemade commodities with which gold is purchased or paid for, are effects absolutely incompatible.
