On the Increase of Capital.
95
the West Indies; nothing can exceed the ceaseless industrial activity of the English people. We all of us labour, because there is some desire which we wish to gratify. Our labourers are pressed on to continuous hour by the necessity of procuring a livelihood. Our climate is rigorous, and the bounty of nature will not supply us with the means of supporting life unless we work with energy and with constancy. The middle classes are urged on to industrial activity by the desire to improve their social and material condition.
In America land and capital are plentiful, but labour dear;The economic condition of America, as far as the production of wealth is concerned, differs in some respects from that of each of the three countries we have considered. In America, labour is comparatively more scarce than either land or capital. We say comparatively more scarce, because in the West Indies the scarcity of labour is so great that the production of wealth is almost entirely prevented; but this is not the case in America, for in no country has the production of wealth advanced with greater rapidity. If, however, we compare America with England, we know that land is much cheaper in America and labour much dearer; and one of the consequences of this difference is strikingly exemplified by a circumstance which has been noticed by almost every traveller in America. effects of this upon agriculture.America is ill cultivated compared with England, and her agriculture appears to be most slovenly; there must be some cause for this difference; it cannot be explained by a commonplace remark on difference of race. An agriculturist, who may in England have cultivated his farm like a garden, will, if he emigrates to America, find it greatly to his interest to adopt a very different system of tillage. The reason of this may be best shown by an example. An English farmer, let us suppose, cultivates a hundred acres of land, for which he pays 200l. a year rent. 200l. a year expended in wages on his farm will return the farmer a fair profit for his capital and his exertion; but he may think that it will answer his purpose to farm more highly, to employ twice as much labour as before. He will be remunerated for the additional 200l. which he expends on wages, if the increased produce from the farm sufficiently exceeds the cost of this extra labour to