a country: and, as the wages of productive labor form nearly the whole of that fund, it is usual to overlook the smaller and less important part, and to say that wages depend on population and capital. It will be convenient to employ this expression, remembering, however, to consider it as elliptical, and not as a literal statement of the entire truth.
With these limitations of the terms, wages not only depend upon the relative amount of capital and population, but can not, under the rule of competition, be affected by anything else. Wages (meaning, of course, the general rate) can not rise, but by an increase of the