THE NATION AND THE LABOURER. 45
the town. But such allegation is not practically
and really true, excepting in cases of improvident reckless
 speculation, or of exceptional misfortune, in which
the employer may have to succumb to the unexpected
or overwhelming pressure, and to lose whatever he may
have possessed invested in his business: in all other and
ordinary cases the employer of labour, whether tradesman,
wholesale dealer, manufacturer or farmer, averages the
profits and losses of his business, allows a margin for the
occasional consequences of adverse fortune, puts a favourable
 season against an unfavorable, a period of unwonted
activity in the demand for his produce or ‘products
against a corresponding period of unusual depression. It
is true that if the labourer survive until the favourable
season arrives, he will again be able to obtain full work
and to live for a time in comparative comfort ; but then
ne and his family may in the meantime have starved, or
he may have survived with his health so shattered and
strength so reduced by the hardships he has had to undergo,
 that he is no longer able to take advantage of the
more favourable circumstances when the storm is over
and all is again sunshine and fair weather.
In the case of the town, as we have already remarked
in the case of the nation, thus regulating and adjusting
‘he hours of labourand employing a portion of the munisipal
 funds for that purpose, the town . .%. e. the inhabitants
of the town collectively. .would not be in any degree
impoverished or rendered poorer. No wealth would be
lost, no money would have to be paid away ; it would be
1 question of internal economy only ; a question simply
of a modification in the distribution of a part of the