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In the greater part of the towns in Scotland, however, there is

an incorporation of bakers, who claim exclusive privileges,

though they are not very strictly guarded. The proportion between

the different rates, both of wages and profit, in the different

employments of labour and stock, seems not to be much affected,

as has already been observed, by the riches or poverty, the

advancing, stationary, or declining state of the society. Such

revolutions in the public welfare, though they affect the general

rates both of wages and profit, must, in the end, affect them

equally in all different employments. The proportion between

them, therefore, must remain the same, and cannot well be

altered, at least for any considerable time, by any such

revolutions.

CHAPTER XI. OF THE RENT OF LAND.