The labouring poor, to use a vulgar expression, seem always to live from hand to mouth. Their present wants employ their whole whole attention, and they seldom think of the future. Even when they have an opportunity of saving they seldom exercise it, but all that is beyond their present neccessities goes, generally speaking, to the ale house.

If one fourth of the capital of a country were suddenly destroyed, or entirely transferred to a different part of the world, without any other cause occurring of a diminished demand for commodities, this scantiness of capital would certainly occasion great inconvenience to consumers, and great distress among the working classes; but it would be attended with great advantages to the remaining capitalists.

The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.

The perpetual struggle for room and food.

It has appeared that from the inevitable laws of our nature, some human beings must suffer from want. These are the unhappy persons who, in the great lottery of life, have drawn a blank.

Where are we to look for the consumption required but among the unproductive labourers of Adam Smith?.

I feel no doubt whatever that the parish laws of England have contributed to raise the price of provisions and to lower the real price of labour.