Till'. WEALTH Ol 1 ' NATIONS.

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parents, and commonly spin in order to make clothes forthemselves and their families. Even the independent work-men do not always work for public sjde, but are employedby some of their neighbours in manufactures for family use.The produce of their labour, therefore, frequently makes nofigure in those public registers, of which the records are some-times published with so much parade, and from which ourmerchants and manufacturers would often vainly pretend toannounce the prosperity or declension of the greatest empires.

Though the variations in the price of labour not only donot always correspond with those in the price of provisions,but are frequently quite opposite, we must not, upon thisaccount, imagine that the price of provisions has no influenceupon that of labour. The money price of labour is necessarilyregulated by two circumstances; the demand for labour, andthe price of the necessaries and conveniencies of life. Thedemand for labour, according as it happens to be increasing,stationary, or declining, or to require an increasing, stationary,or declining population, determines the quantity of the ne-cessaries and conveniencies of life which must be given to thelabourer; and the money price of labour is determined bywhat is requisite for purchasing this quantity. Though themoney price of labour, therefore, is sometimes high wherethe price of provisions is low, it would be still higher, the de-mand continuing the same, if the price of provisions was high.

It is because the demand for labour increases in years ofsudden and extraordinary plenty, and diminishes in those ofsudden and extraordinary scarcity, that the money price oflabour sometimes rises in the one, and sinks in the other.

In a year of sudden and extraordinary plenty, there arefunds in the hands of many of the employers of industry, suf-ficient to maintain and employ a greater number of indus-trious people than had been employed the year before ; andthis extraordinary number cannot always be had. Thosemasters, therefore, who want more workmen, bid against oneanother, in order to get them, which sometimes raises boththe real and the money price of their labour.

The contrary of this happens in a year of sudden and ex-traordinary scarcity. The funds destined for employing in-dustry are less than they had been the year before. A con-siderable number of people are thrown out of employment,who bid one against another, in order to get it, which some-times lowers both the real and the money price of labour.