There is no assumption so entirely fatal to a just explanation of what is really taking place in society, as the assumption, that the natural wages of labour in food and clothing are always nearly the same, and just about sufficient to maintain a stationary population. All the most common causes of an acceleration or retardation in the movements of the great machine of human society, involve variations, and often great variations, in the real wages of labour. Commodities in general, and corn most particularly, are continually rising or falling in money-price, from the state of the supply as compared with the demand, while the money-price of labour remains much more nearly the same. In the case of a rise of corn and commodities, the real wages of common day-labour are necessarily diminished: the labourer obtains a smaller proportion of what he produces; profits necessarily rise; the capitalists have a greater power of commanding labour; more persons are called into full work, and the increased produce which follows, is the natural remedy for that state of the demand and supply, from whatever cause arising, which had occasioned the temporary rise in the money-price of commodities. On the other hand, if corn and other commodities fall in money-price, as compared with the money-price of labour, it is obvious that the day-labourer, who gets employment, will be able to buy more corn with the money which he receives; he obtains a larger proportion of what he produces; profits necessarily fall; the capitalists have a diminished power of commanding labour; fewer persons are fully employed, and the diminished production which follows, is the natural remedy for that state of the demand and supply, from whatever cause arising, which occasioned the temporary fall in the money-price of commodities. The operation of these remedial processes to prevent the continuance of excess or defect, is so much what one should naturally expect, and is so obviously confirmed by general experience, that it is inconceivable that a proposition should have obtained any currency which is founded on a supposed law of demand and supply diametrically opposed to these remedial processes. It will be recollected, that the question of a glut is exclusively whether it may be general, as well as particular, and not whether it may be permanent as well as temporary. The causes above mentioned act powerfully to prevent the permanence either of glut or scarcity, and to regulate the supply of commodities so as to make them sell at their natural prices. But this tendency, in the natural course of things, to cure a glut or a scarcity, is no more a proof that such evils have never existed, than the tendency of the healing processes of nature to cure some disorders without assistance from man, is a proof that such disorders have not existed.