We often observe, in this country, an inclination manifested to regulate by law the rate of wages, not with the view of instituting any such naturally equitable partition, but of establishing a _minimum_ below which life cannot be comfortably supported. These reasoners proceed, it will at once be admitted, not on the rights of man, but on the claims of humanity. To such a project there is but one objection; it will assuredly fail of its humane intention. It is presumed that the competition amongst the workmen to obtain employment has so far advanced, that these cease to obtain a sufficient remuneration for their labour. The thousand men whom a great capitalist employs, are inadequately paid. The legislature requires that they should be paid more liberally. But the amount which the capitalist has to expend in wages is limited. The same amount which sustained a thousand men, can, under the new scale of remuneration, sustain only nine hundred. The nine hundred are better fed, but there is one hundred without any food whatever. Our well-intentioned humanity looks round aghast at the confusion she is making. Suppose, it may be said, that a law of this description should be passed at so fortunate a conjuncture, that it should not interfere with the existing relations between the capitalist and the workman, but have for its object to arrest the tendency which wages have to fall; suppose that the legislature, satisfied with the existing state of things, should pronounce it a punishable offence to offer or accept a lower rate of remuneration, would not such a law be wise? The answer is obvious. If there is a tendency at any time in wages to fall, it is because there is a tendency in population to increase, or in capital to diminish; circumstances, both of them, which it is not in the power of criminal jurisprudence to wrestle with.