raise the price of his machine in consequence of a rise of wages, an unusual quantity of capital would be employed in the construction of such machines, till their price afforded only the usual profits. The manufacturer of hats, by the employment of the machine, if he sells his hats for 8000_l._, is precisely in the same situation as before; he employs no more capital, and obtains the same profits. The competition of trade would not long allow this; for as capital would flow to the most profitable employment, he would be obliged to lower the price of hats, till his profits had sunk to the general level. Thus then is the public benefited by machinery: these mute agents are always the produce of much less labour than that which they displace, even when they are of the same money value. Through their influence, an increase in the price of provisions which raises wages, will affect fewer persons: it will reach, as in the above instance, eighty-five men instead of a hundred; and the saving which is the consequence, shews itself in the reduced price of the commodity manufactured. Neither machines nor any other commodities are raised in price, but all commodities which are made by machines fall, and fall in proportion to their durability. It appears, then, that in proportion to the quantity and the durability of the fixed capital employed in any kind of production, the relative prices of those commodities on which such capital is employed, will vary inversely as wages; they will fall as wages rise. It appears too that no commodities whatever are raised in absolute price, merely because wages rise; that they never rise unless additional labour be bestowed on them; but that all commodities in the production of which fixed capital enters, not only do not rise with a rise of wages, but absolutely fall; fall too as much as 68 per cent., with a rise of seven per cent. in wages, if fixed capital be exclusively employed, and be of the duration of 100 years. The above statement, which asserts the compatibility of a rise of wages, with a fall of prices, has, I know, the disadvantage of novelty, and must trust to its own merits for advocates; whilst it has for its opponents, writers of distinguished and deserved reputation. It should however be carefully remembered, that in this whole argument I am supposing money to be of an invariable value; in other words, to be always the produce of the same quantity of unassisted labour. Money, however, is a variable commodity; and the rise of wages as well as of commodities, is frequently occasioned by a fall in the value of money. A rise of wages from this cause will indeed be invariably accompanied by a rise in the price of commodities: but in such cases, it will be found that labour and all commodities have not varied in regard to each other, and that the variation has been confined to money.