If the cotton machinery, in this country, were to go on increasing at its present rate, or even much faster; but instead of producing one particular sort of substance which may be used for some parts of dress and furniture, etc. had the qualities of land, and could yield what, with the assistance of a little labour, economy, and skill, could furnish food, clothing, and lodging, in such proportions as to create an increase of population equal to the increased supply of these necessaries; the demand for the products of such improved machinery would continue in excess above the cost of production, and this excess would no longer exclusively belong to the machinery of the land.(7)

There is a radical difference in the cause of a demand for those objects which are strictly necessary to the support of human life, and a demand for all other commodities.  In all other commodities the demand is exterior to, and independent of, the production itself; and in the case of a monopoly, whether natural or artificial, the excess of price is in proportion to the smallness of the supply compared with the demand, while this demand is comparatively unlimited.  In the case of strict necessaries, the existence and increase of the demand, or of the number of demanders, must depend upon the existence and increase of these necessaries themselves; and the excess of their price above the cost of their production must depend upon, and is permanently limited by, the excess of their quantity above the quantity necessary to maintain the labour required to produce them; without which excess of quantity no demand could have existed, according to the laws of nature, for more than was necessary to support the producers.

It has been stated, in the new edition of the Wealth of nations, that the cause of the high price of raw produce is, that such price is required to proportion the consumption to the supply.(8) This is also true, but it affords no solution of the point in question.  We still want to know why the consumption and supply are such as to make the price so greatly exceed the cost of production, and the main cause is evidently the fertility of the earth in producing the necessaries of life.  Diminish this plenty, diminish the fertility of the soil, and the excess will diminish; diminish it still further, and it will disappear.  The cause of the high price of the necessaries of life above the cost of production, is to be found in their abundance, rather than their scarcity; and is not only essentially different from the high price occasioned by artificial monopolies, but from the high price of those peculiar products of the earth, not connected with food, which may be called natural and necessary monopolies.