INTRODUCTION.

In Professor Cairnes’ Essay on Political Economy, we
ind at page 254 the following :
“Let me briefly explain what I mean by this expression.
(Laws of the phenomena of wealth.) It is one in very fre.
quent use ; but, like many other expressions in frequent use,
t does not always perhaps carry to the mind of the hearer
a very definite idea. Of course I do not mean by the laws of
the phenomena of wealth, Acts of Parliament. I mean the
natural laws of those phenomena. Now what are the phenomena
 of wealth ? Simply the facts of wealth; such facts as
production, exchange, price; or again, the various forms
which wealth assumes in the process of distribution, such
as wages, profits, rent, interest, and so forth. These are
the phenomena of wealth; and the natural laws of these
phenomena are certain constant relations in which they
stand towards each other and towards their causes. For
example, capital grows from year to year in this country at
a certain rate of progress; in the United States the rate is
considerably more rapid; in China considerably slower.
Now these facts are not fortuitous, but the natural result of
causes ; of such causes as the external physical circumstances
of the countries in question, the intelligence and moral character
 of the people inhabiting them, and their political and
social institutions; and so long as the causes remain the
same, the result will remain the same. Similarly, the
prices of commodities, the rent of land, the rates of wages,
profits and interest, differ in different countries; ‘but here
again, not at random. The particular forms which these
phenomena assume are no more matters of chance than the
‘emperature or the mineral productions of the countries in
which they occur are matters of chance; or than the fauna
and flora which flourish on the surface of those countries are
matters of chance. Alike in the case of the physical and of