Admirable machinery! No steam-engine could let its steam on, or off, with more precision. The legislature or governor "could always tell whether or not labour for hire was too scarce or too plentiful," and open or close his value accordingly. "No legislature, hardly any individual could be in doubt" about the matter! Indeed! when was hired labour ever thought too cheap--in other words, too plentiful--by the capitalist? When was it ever thought too dear--in other words, too scarce--by the labourer? Could the most ingenious man devise a question on which there would be more certainly two quite opposite and conflicting opinions? And suppose the legislature to have come to a decision--say that the labour was too scarce--there would still be this other question to decide, whether to _lower_ the price, in order to tempt emigrants, might not be as good a means of rendering labour more plentiful, as to _raise_ the price in order to render it still more difficult for labourers to become landowners? Here there is surely scope for the most honest diversity of opinion. One party might very rationally advise to entice thither the stream of emigration:--"Let it flow more copiously," they might exclaim, "though we retain the waters for a shorter time;" while the party thoroughly imbued with the doctrine of the "sufficient price" would devise fresh dikes and dams, and watch the locks more narrowly. In his "sufficient price," Mr Wakefield has discovered the secret spring that regulates the economical relations of society. He has his hand upon it. He, or his lawgiver, will henceforward regulate the supply of labour, and the remuneration of labour, upon scientific principles. Unenviable post! We should infinitely prefer the task of the philosopher in _Rasselas_, who fancied himself commissioned to distribute rain and sunshine, in just proportions, to all the farmers in the neighbourhood.