This rapid turning over of capital, and the consequent more rapid accumulation of the labour-fund, depends upon the confidence of the capitalist that his capital will work to a profit. It will not so work if he is to be undersold. If wages could press upon profit beyond a certain ascertained limit, he would be undersold. The home competition of localities and individuals is perpetually forcing on the most economical arrangements in production. The foreign competition is doing so still more. If we have increased productiveness here, through scientific application, the same increased productiveness, from the same causes, is going forward elsewhere. 'Price-Currents' supply a perpetual barometer of industrial cloud or sunshine; and the manufacturer and merchant have constantly to unfurl or furl their sails according to the indications. Whenever there is shipwreck, the ship's crew and the captain partake of a common calamity; and the calamity is always precipitated and made more onerous when, from any cause, there is not cordial sympathy and agreement. [37] We have already noticed the ancient oppressive laws for the regulation of labour, in Chap. VII. We recur to them here more particularly, as illustrating the principle of Wages. [38] See the full 'Charge' in the 'Harleian Miscellany.' [39] See the Evidence on Poor-laws before a Committee of House of Commons, 1837. [40] Hearth-money was a tax upon houses according to the number of chimneys, at the rate of two shillings a chimney, for every house having more than two chimneys. [41] See the passage in Dunoyer, 'Liberté du Travail,' tom. i. p. 416. [42] Sir John M'Neill's 'Report on Free and Pauper Colonies in Holland.' 1853. [43] Morison, 'Labour and Capital,' Appendix B. [44] Chronicon Preciosum, 1745, p. 136. [45] Morison, 'Labour and Capital,' p. 24. CHAPTER XXV. What political economy teaches--Skilled labour and trusted labour--Competition of unskilled labour--Competition of uncapitalled labour--Itinerant traders--The contrast of organised industry--Factory-labour and garret-labour-- Communism--Proposals for state organisation of labour-- Social publishing establishment--Practical co-operation. There is a passage in Wordsworth's 'Excursion' in which he describes the benevolent and philosophical hero of his poem, a pedler, listening to the complaints of poverty, and searching into the causes of the evil:--