When speaking of the future of industry it is well to remember that forces now seldom used, and perhaps seldom thought of, such as the energies liberated by chemical and intermolecular action, may hold infinite resources in reserve for mankind. But agriculture is different. Admitting that with nitrogen got from the atmosphere, or with phosphorus extracted from the subsoil, we may enrich the land indefinitely, still we are continually confronted with the limitations of time and space, which must determine the development of living things, and of agricultural products among them. When albumen can be scientifically produced then will the Ricardian theory become obsolete. Until then it holds the field. 2. OF WAGES AND PROFITS Let us now approach these two laws of Malthus and Ricardo—the law of population and the law of rent—and ask what effect they are likely to have upon the condition of the worker and the amount of his wages. The answer is not very reassuring. On the one hand there is an indefinite increase in the numbers of the proletariat—the result of unchecked procreation, for “the moral restraint” can hardly be said to have influence at all. The inevitable result is the degradation of human labour. On the other hand, the law of diminishing returns causes a continuous rise in the price of necessaries. Between low wages on the one hand and high prices on the other, the worker feels himself crushed as between the hammer and the anvil. Turgot had long since given utterance to the tragic thought that the wages of the worker are only just sufficient to keep him alive. His contemporary Necker gave expression to the view in terms still more melancholy. “Were it possible,” writes Necker, “to discover a kind of food less agreeable than bread but having double its sustenance, people would then be reduced to eating only once in two days.” These must be looked upon as mere isolated statements, sufficiently well attested by contemporary facts, perhaps, but laying no claim to be considered general, permanent, and inevitable laws such as Ricardo and Malthus would have regarded them. And Ricardo still more emphatically declares that “the natural price of labour is that price which is necessary to enable the labourers one with another to subsist and to perpetuate their race without either increase or diminution.” Note the last words, “without increase or diminution”; that is, if a working man has more children than are necessary for replacing their parents, then their wages will fall below the normal rate until increased mortality shall have again established equilibrium.