a component part altogether different
from the wages of labour, and regulated by
quite different principles.
In this state of things, the whole produce
of labour does not always belong to the labourer.
He must in most cases share it with
the owner of the stock which employs him.
Neither is the quantity of labour commonly
employed in acquiring or producing any
commodity, the only circumstance which can
regulate the quantity which it ought commonly
to purchase, command or exchange for.
An additional quantity, it is evident, must be
due for the profits of the stock which advanced
the wages and furnished the materials of
that labour.
As soon as the land of any country has all
become private property, the landlords, like
all other men, love to reap where they never
sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural
produce. The wood of the forest, the
grass of the field, and all the natural fruits of
the earth, which, when land was in common,
cost the labourer only the trouble of gathering
them, come, even to him, to have an additional
price fixed upon them. He must
then pay for the licence to gather them, and
must give up to the landlord a portion of
what his labour either collects or produces.
This portion, or, what comes to the same
thing, the price of this portion, constitutes the
rent of land, and in the price of the greater
part of commodities, makes a third component
part.
The real value of all the different component
parts of price, it must be observed, is measured
by the quantity of labour which they
can, each of them, purchase or command.
Labour measures the value, not only of that
part of price which resolves itself into labour,
but of that which resolves itself into rent, and
of that which resolves itself into profit.
In every society, the price of every commodity
finally resolves itself into some one or
other, or all of those three parts; and in every
improved society, all the three enter, more or
less, as component parts, into the price of the
far greater part of commodities.
In the price of corn, for example, one part
pays the rent of the landlord, another pays the
wages or maintenance of the labourers and labouring
cattle employed in producing it, and
the third pays the profit of the farmer. These
three parts seem either immediately or ultimately
to make up the whole price of corn.
A fourth part, it may perhaps be thought is
necessary for replacing the stock of the farmer,
or for compensating the wear and tear of
his labouring cattle, and other instruments of
husbandry. But it must be considered, that
the price of any instrument of husbandry, such
as a labouring horse, is itself made up of the
same three parts; the rent of the land upon
which he is reared, the labour of tending and
rearing him, and the profits of the farmer, who
advances both the rent of this land, and the
wages of this labour. Though the price of the
corn, therefore, may pay the price as well as
the maintenance of the horse, the whole price
still resolves itself, either immediately or ultimately,
into the same three parts of rent, labour,
and profit.
In the price of flour or meal, we must add
to the price of the corn, the profits of the miller,
and the wages of his servants; in the price
of bread, the profits of the baker, and the
wages of his servants; and in the price of
both, the labour of transporting the corn from
the house of the farmer to that of the miller,
and from that of the miller to that of the baker,
together with the profits of those who advance
the wages of that labour.
The price of flax resolves itself into the
same three parts as that of corn. In the price
of linen we must add to this price the wages
of the flax-dresser, of the spinner, of the weaver,
of the bleacher, &c. together with the
profits of their respective employers.
As any particular commodity comes to be
more manufactured, that part of the price
which resolves itself into wages and profit,
comes to be greater in proportion to that which
resolves itself into rent. In the progress of
the manufacture, not only the number of profits
increase, but every subsequent profit is
greater than the foregoing; because the capital
from which it is derived must always be
greater. The capital which employs the weavers,
for example, must be greater than that
which employs the spinners; because it not
only replaces that capital with its profits, but
pays, besides, the wages of the weavers: and
the profits must always bear some proportion
to the capital.
In the most improved societies, however,
there are always a few commodities of which
the price resolves itself into two parts only,
the wages of labour, and the profits of stock;
and a still smaller number, in which it consists
altogether in the wages of labour. In
the price of sea-fish, for example, one part
pays the labour of the fisherman, and the other
the profits of the capital employed in the fishery.
Rent very seldom makes any part of it,
though it does sometimes, as I shall shew
hereafter. It is otherwise, at least through
the greater part of Europe, in river fisheries.
A salmon fishery pays a rent; and rent, though
it cannot well be called the rent of land, makes
a part of the price of a salmon, as well as
wages and profit. In some parts of Scotland,
a few poor people make a trade of gathering,
along the sea-shore, those little variegated
stones commonly known by the name of Scotch
pebbles. The price which is paid to them by
the stone-cutter, is altogether the wages of
their labour; neither rent nor profit makes any
part of it.
But the whole price of any commodity must
still finally resolve itself into some one or other