In a country so loaded with debt as ours, it is in vain to talk, as Lord John Russell lately did, of a “natural price.” The term, indeed, has no kind of significance under any circumstances; and we are perfectly certain that the noble lord, when he employed it, was not attempting to clothe a distinct idea in words. He found the phrase somewhere—perhaps borrowed it from the _Economist_—and used it, because he thought it sounded well. If he could reduce the price of all commodities here to the level of that which prevails in a Continental country—a consummation which appears to be contemplated and desired by the Free-Traders—the result would necessarily be a like decadence of our wealth—not accompanied, however, by a relaxation of our present burdens. The high wages which the working-classes receive in this country, contrasted with the low wages which are given elsewhere, depend upon the return which is yielded to the capitalist who calls their labour into being. Now, let us see what effect depression in any one great branch of industry exercises upon the working-classes, who are not immediately dependent upon it for their subsistence. This involves one of the most curious phenomena in economical science. When an interest is depressed, it does not always happen—especially in the first stage of depression—that the labourers attached to that interest feel immediately the consequences of the decline. Agricultural wages, for example, do not fluctuate according to the price of wheat. The retrenchment which becomes necessary in consequence of lessened returns is usually effected, in the first instance at least, by curtailment of personal expenditure on the part of the cultivator—by abstinence from purchases, not necessary indeed, but convenient—and by that species of circumspect, but nameless thrift, which, at the end of a year, makes a very considerable difference in the amount of tradesmen’s bills. This kind of retrenchment is the easiest, the safest, and the most humane; and it is not until the depression becomes so great as to render other and more stringent modes of economising necessary, that the agricultural labourer is actually made to feel his entire dependence upon the land, and the interest which he has in its returns. The small tradesmen and dealers in the country and market towns are usually the first to discern what is called the pressure of the times. They find that the farmers are no longer taking from them the same quantity of goods as before; that their stocks, especially of the more expensive articles, remain on their hands unsold; and that there is no demand for novelties. If the depression goes so far as to necessitate a diminution of rental, then the same economy, but on a wider scale, is practised by the landlord. Expensive luxuries are given up, establishments contracted, and the town’s-people begin to complain of a dull season, for which they find it impossible to account, seeing that money is declared to be cheap.