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The effects deduced from the abstract hypothesis, which I considered in the last Lecture, of children being able to labour from the moment of birth, correspond much more nearly with the existing condition of the labouring classes, than, on a comparison of the data of that hypothesis with their actual powers, a first view would lead us to expect. The natural helplessness of the first years of infancy is a weight in favour of prudential motives, which operates in a certain degree to oppose the consequences resulting from the theory. But then again, on the other hand, there are countervailing circumstances, in the actual condition of so-
would be no greater degree of isolation in the condition of a small farmer than in that of a labourer. But it cannot be as free, in the case of the former, as in that of the latter. Mr. Babbage, in his late work on the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, has added a new element to the previously known elements of price. This is the cost of verification, as he terms it, or, (what it amounts to in other words,) a payment for confidence. On account of the difficulties which would attend the enforcing a hard bargain with a tenant, and the inconveniences which would arise from a frequent change of tenants, this element enters very largely into almost every bargain about the letting of land. I have here inverted the common order of the terms, and considered the use of the land the price, and the rent the thing purchased.
