THE WEALTH OE NATIONS.

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of children is the greatest of all encouragements to mar-riage. We cannot, therefore, wonder that the people iuNorth America should generally marry very young. Not-withstanding the great increase occasioned by such earlymarriages, there is a continual complaint of the scarcity ofhands in North America . The demand for labourers, thefunds destined for maintaining them, increase, it seems, stillfaster than they can find labourers to employ.

Though the wealth of a country should be very great, yetif it has been long stationary, we must not expect to find thewages of labour very high in it. The funds destined for thepayment of wages, the revenue and stock of its inhabitants,may be of the greatest extent; but if they have continued forseveral centuries of the same or very nearly of the same ex-tent, the number of labourers employed every year couldeasily supply, and even more than supply, the number wantedthe following year. There could seldom be any scarcity ofhands, nor could the masters be obliged to bid against oneanother in order to get them. The hands, on the contrary,would, iu this case, naturally multiply beyond their employ-ment. There would be a constant scarcity ot employment,and the labourers would be obliged to bid against one an-

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other in order to get it. If in such a country the wages oflabour had ever been more than sufficient to maintain the la-bourer, and to enable him to bring up a family, the competi-tion of the labourers and the interest of the masters wouldsoon reduce them to this lowest rate which is consistent withcommon humanity. China has been long one of the richest,that is, one of the most fertile, best cultivated, most industri-ous, and most populous countries in the world. It seems,however, to have been long stationary. Marco Polo , whovisited it more than live hundred years ago, describes its cul-tivation, industry, and populousness, almost in the same termsin which they are described by travellers in the presenttimes. It had, perhaps, even long before his time, acquiredthat full complement of riches which the nature of its lawsand institutions permits it to acquire. The accounts of alltravellers, inconsistent in many other respects, agree in thelow wages of labour, and in the difficulty which a labourerfinds in bringing up a family in China . If by digging theground a whole day he can get what will purchase a smallQuantity of rice in the evening, he is contented. The con-dition of artificers is, if possible, still worse. Instead of wait-

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