What I have said of the art of printing, may be affirmed of all the instruments of labour, from the nail and the hammer to the locomotive and the electric telegraph. Society becomes possessed of all through its more abundant consumption, and _it enjoys all gratuitously_, for the effect of inventions and discoveries is to reduce the price of commodities; and all that part of the price which has been annihilated, and which represents the share invention has in production, evidently renders the product gratuitous to that extent. All that remains to be paid for is the human labour, the immediate labour, /and it is paid for without reference to the result of the invention, at least when that invention has passed through the cycle I have just described--the cycle which it is designed to pass through. I send for a tradesman to my house; he comes and brings his saw with him; I pay him two shillings for his day's work, and he saws me twenty-five boards. Had the saw not been invented, he would probably not have made out to furnish me with one, and I should have had to pay him the same wages for his day's work. The _utility_ produced by the saw is then, as far as I am concerned, a gratuitous gift of nature, or rather it is a part of that inheritance which, _in common_ with all my brethren, I have received from my ancestors. I have two workmen in my field. The one handles the plough, the other the spade. The result of their labour is very different, but the day's wages are the same, because the remuneration is not proportioned to the utility produced, but to the effort, the labour, which is exacted. I entreat the reader's patience, and beg him to believe that I have not lost sight of free trade. Let him only have the goodness to remember the conclusion at which I have arrived: _Remuneration is not in proportion to the utilities which the producer brings to market, but to his labour_.* * It is true that labour does not receive a uniform remuneration. It may be more or less intense, dangerous, skilled, etc. Competition settles the usual or current price in each department--and this is the fluctuating price of which I speak. I have drawn my illustrations as yet from human inventions. Let us now turn our attention to natural advantages. In every branch of production, nature and man concur. But the portion of utility which nature contributes is always gratuitous. It is only the portion of utility which human labour contributes which forms the subject of exchange, and, consequently, of remuneration. The latter varies, no doubt, very much in proportion to the intensity of the labour, its skill, its promptitude, its suitableness, the need there is of it, the temporary absence of rivalry, etc. But it is not the less true, in principle, that the concurrence of natural laws, which are common to all, counts for nothing in the price of the product.