Note 164-2 — Chapter III

How easily English farmers have accustomed themselves to the consequences of momentary calamities, may be seen from John Stuart Mill, Principles, II, ch. 11, 5 seq.; Thornton, Population and its Remedy, 1846, passim. Malthus, Principles, sec. 8, shows in opposition to Ricardo, Principles, ch. 8, that it is not all one to the laboring classes whether their wages rise while the price of the means of subsistence remains the same, or whether the rate of wages remaining nominally the same, the commodities to be purchased decline in price. If for instance, potato-food, physiologically considered, was just as good as flesh-food and wheat bread, yet an unmarried workman or a father with a number of children below the average would be able to save less from the former for the reason that it possesses less value in exchange. (Edinburg Rev., XII, 341.) Thus, e. g., in Ireland, between A. Young and Newenham (1778-1808), the rate of wages increased more than the price of potatoes, but all other means of subsistence in a still greater ratio. (Newenham, A view of Ireland, 1808.) Compare Malthus, On the Policy of Restricting the Importation of foreign Corn, 1815, 24 ff.; contra. Torrens, on the Corn trade, 1820, 374 ff.