The Author of the Plan of the English Commerce, 2d Edition printed 1730, will answer this Question for me; for Page 65, he says, China and India, and other Eastern Countries have the most extended Manufactures, and the greatest Variety of them in the World; and their Manufactures push themselves on the World by the meer Stress of their Cheapness, which causes their Consumption;and Page 66, he says, the Wages of their labouring People do not exceed two Pence Sterling per Day.
23. If there were full Employment for the working People, their Wages would as certainly rise to the just Value of Labour, as we know every thing else doth, for which the Demand is equal to the Quantity; and therefore I deny that there is Work enough to employ the People, or that Property is reasonably or sufficiently diffused, till Necessaries are rendered so plentiful, and thereby so cheap, that the Wages of the labouring Man will purchase as many of them as the decent and comfortable Support of a middling Family requires in that Station of Life.
24. E. Phillips, Page 44, says, I believe I shall be allowed to compute the Rents of the Kingdom at 20 Millions.
25. All taxes on commodities of universal Consumption raise, at least, 10 per cent more than their Rate on the People, because the Dealers in those Commodities exact that Interest for the Money advanced for the Tax; If I put this Exceeding at 15 per cent, I believe Experience will justify me. See Fog's Journal of February the 20th, 1732-3.
If we consider that Taxes on Goods inhance the Charge of Living, and consequently of Labour, in some Degree at least, we can't doubt but that the Taxes on Goods must inhance their Price to the Consumer, at least as much as I have supposed, because Labour enters so essentially into every thing, as to constitute the chief Value thereof.
26. In a Mass of People, there is not above one half labouring or manufacturing. For suppose we have 8 Millions of People, and that the Limits of the Age of Labour be placed between 13 and 63, and that 2/3 of the People are between these Ages; from these we must deduct at least 1/6, under the following Classes; Female, sequestered from Labour by the Condition of their Sex; the Idle, by Rank or Choice; Men of Profession; such as vend the Manufacture of others, but add no real Value to them; the Sick and Impotent. By this Computation, there only remains one half labouring or manufacturing. I am persuaded I put the Number too high, and that there are not above three Millions of working People. The Price of Labour is raised in proportion to the Scarcity of Labourers; they being somewhat like their Commodities, dear in Proportion to their Scarcity: Any Number of labouring People sitting idle increaseth the Price of Labour, double of the Proportion which that Number bears in the whole.
For Example: Suppose three Millions of labouring People, and 30,000 Men carrying Arms, or levying Taxes; 30,000 is one per cent on 3 Millions, and these living on the Labour of the rest makes another one per cent in all two, or double of that Proportion. See Fog's Journal of January 20th, 1732-3.
27. See the last Paragraph of the Spectator, no. 200.
28. The Sum coin'd in Queen Elizabeth's Time, who reform'd most of the old Specie, shews we then had not much Money amongst us;whereas the Sums coin'd in the Reigns of King Charles IId, and King James IId, being 6 Millions and an Half of Gold, and 2,200,000 in Silver, shew we had a vast Balance in our Favour, near 9 Millions being coin'd during these two Reigns. And this suggests that my Argument is just, that asserts the vast Increase of People during these Reigns, was owing to such a vast Balance of Trade in our Favour.
29. Mr Richard Bradley, Professor of Botany in the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of the Royal Society, in his Philosophical Inquiry into the ate sever Winter, and Scarcity and Dearness of Provisions, printed 1729, page 5 and 6, says, "It was generally computed that we had in England, in the Year 1715, about 13Millions Sterling Money; of which it was reckon'd there were about 11 Millions circulating: But since the Year 1720, and from thence to 1724 or 1725, there were scarce 7 Millions supposed to circulate; which, he says, must necessarily hurt the poorer Sort of People;" and I say, every other sort in general with them, though not in the same Degree, perhaps, because, we know, as the Proverb says, the weakest must go to the Wall.