The exchangeable value in the market of Europe of the annual produce of its land and labour has, without doubt, increased very considerably.

But, upon examination, it will be found that the increase has been chiefly in the produce of labour and not in the produce of land, and therefore, though the wealth of the nation has been advancing with a quick pace, the effectual funds for the maintenance of labour have been increasing very slowly, and the result is such as might be expected.

The increasing wealth of the nation has had little or no tendency to better the condition of the labouring poor.

They have not, I believe, a greater command of the necessaries and conveniences of life, and a much greater proportion of them than at the period of the Revolution is employed in manufactures and crowded together in close and unwholesome rooms.
Could we believe the statement of Dr Price that the population of England has decreased since the Revolution, it would even appear that the effectual funds for the maintenance of labour had been declining during the progress of wealth in other respects.

For I conceive that it may be laid down as a general rule that if the effectual funds for the maintenance of labour are increasing, that is, if the territory can maintain as well as the stock employ a greater number of labourers, this additional number will quickly spring up, even in spite of such wars as Dr Price enumerates.