“A collection from the rich of eighteen shillings in the pound, even if distributed in the most judicious manner, would have an effect similar to that resulting from the supposition which I have just made; and no possible sacrifices of the rich, particularly in money, would for any time prevent the recurrence of distress among the lower members of society, whoever they were. Great changes might, indeed, be made. The rich might become poor and some of the poor rich; but while the present proportion between population and food continues, a part of society must necessarily find it difficult to support a family, and this difficulty will naturally fall on the least fortunate members.” Malthus mentions that in a great scarcity which occurred in England in 1801, no less than ten millions sterling were given away in charity. In one case cited by our author, a man with a family received fourteen shillings a week from his parish. His common earnings were ten shillings a week, and his weekly revenue therefore twenty-four. Before the scarcity he had been in the habit of purchasing a bushel of flour a week, with eight shillings perhaps, and consequently had two shillings out of his ten to spare for other necessaries. During the scarcity he was enabled to purchase the same quantity at nearly three times the price. He paid twenty-two shillings for his bushel of flour, and had as before two shillings remaining for other wants. The price of labour, says Malthus, when left to find its natural level, is a most important political barometer, explaining the relations between the supply of provisions and the demand for them: between the quantity to be consumed and the number of consumers: and, taken on the average, it further expresses clearly the wants of society respecting population—that is, whatever may be the number of children to a marriage necessary to maintain exactly the present population, the price of labour will be just sufficient to support this number, or be above it or below it, according to the state of the real funds for the maintenance of labour, whether stationary, progressive, or retrograde. “Instead, however, of considering it in this light, we consider it as something which we may raise or depress at pleasure, something which depends principally upon his Majesty’s justices of the peace. When an advance in the price of provisions already expresses that the demand is too great for the supply, in order to put the labourer in the same position as before, we raise the price of labour; that is, we increase the demand, and are then much surprised that the price of provisions continues rising. In this we act much in the same manner, as if, when the quicksilver in the common glass stood at ‘stormy,’ we were to raise it by some mechanical pressure to ‘settled fair,’ and then be greatly astonished that it continued raining.”