cent. therefore, the undertaker of the one will expect a yearly profit of
about one hundred pounds only; while that of the other will expect about
seven hundred and thirty pounds. But though their profits are so very
different, their labour of inspection and direction may be either altogether
or very nearly the same. In many great works, almost the whole labour of
this kind is committed to some principal clerk. His wages properly express
the value of this labour of inspection and direction. Though in settling
them some regard is had commonly, not only to his labour and skill, but to
the trust which is reposed in him, yet they never bear any regular
proportion to the capital of which he oversees the management ; and the
owner of this capital, though he is thus discharged of almost all labour,
still expects that his profit should bear a regular proportion to his
capital. In the price of commodities, therefore, the profits of stock
constitute a component part altogether different from the wages of labour, and
regulated by quite different principles.

In this state of things, the whole produce of labour does not always belong
to the labourer. He must in most cases share it with the owner of the stock
which employs him. Neither is the quantity of labour commonly employed in
acquiring or producing any commodity, the only circumstance which can
regulate the quantity which it ought commonly to purchase, command or
exchange for. An additional quantity, it is evident, must be due for the
profits of the stock which advanced the wages and furnished the materials of
that labour.

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the
landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and
demand a rent even for its natural produce. The wood of the forest, the
grass of the field, and all the natural fruits of the earth, which, when
land was in common, cost the labourer only the trouble of gathering them,