48
stituted as society is at present constituted in this country, that is, with a small class of proprietors of the soil and a large class of persons with no source of income besides their labour; but instead of supposing the power of labouring to commence from the moment of birth, as in the former case, let us now suppose its commencement to be deferred until the age of eight or ten, and instead of its remaining nearly stationary from the period of adolescence, let us further suppose that it shall continue increasing with the advance of age, until the very termination of life. According to this supposition, the earnings of a child eight or ten years of age might perhaps be one or two shillings a week. At the age of twenty they might have increased to eight or ten shillings. We may take them as twenty or twenty-four shillings at forty, and as two or three pounds at seventy. Consequently this case differs from the existing state of things, in what regards the labouring classes, much more materially than the last.
Now it is evident that, upon this supposition, all the pressure arising from a scarcity of food, would fall in the first instance on the junior mem-
