II.
The Shipwrecked Sailors.
Division of labour—Exchange—Are luxurious expenditure and waste good for trade?—Demand for commodities not a demand for labour—Demand and supply—Competition—Value and price—Elements of value—Free trade—The influence of increase of population on the cost of food—The principle of diminishing productiveness of extractive industries—Increasing cost of agricultural products may be accompanied by a diminishing cost of manufacturing products.
Once Captain Adam and some twenty of the passengers and crew of a sailing vessel were shipwrecked on a small uninhabited island in the Pacific. They were like Robinson Crusoe in one respect, which was, that they were fortunate enough to be able to save a number of things off the wreck, which they found to be of immense value and comfort. They were not able, like Robinson Crusoe, to go to their vessel before it broke up, and ransack it for the most useful things they could find; they got
