against the mouth of a cannon; and if such acts should be frequent in Turkey, upon any one set of useful men, would it not drive them away to other countries, and thin their numbers yearly? and would not the remaining few double or triple their wages? which is the case with our sailors, in time of war, to the great detriment of our commerce."1

In proof of the accuracy of this statement, it may be mentioned, that while the wages of all other sorts of labourers and artisans are uniformly higher in the United States than in England, those of sailors are generally lower. The reason is, that the navy of the United States is manned by means of voluntary enlistment only. The Americans are desirous of becoming a great naval power, and they have wisely relinquished a practice which would have driven their best sailors from their service, and have forced them to man their fleet with the sweepings of their gaols.

It has been estimated, that there were above 16,000 British sailors on board American ships at the close of last war; and the wages of our seamen, which in time of peace rarely exceed 40s. or 50s. a-month, had then risen to 100s. and 120s. This extraordinary influx of British seamen into the American service, and no less extraordinary rise in their wages at home, can be accounted for only by our continuing to resort to impressment after it has been abandoned by the United States. Formerly our seamen were in the habit, on the breaking out of a war, of deserting to Holland; but the difference of language was an insuperable obstacle to their carrying this practice to any very injurious extent. Deserters to the United States do not, however, encounter any such obstacle. There our sailors are assured of a safe asylum among their kindred and friends-among those whose language, religion, customs, and habits are identical with their own--and who are anxious to avail themselves of every means by which they may draw them to their service. The

1 Richardson's Essay on the Causes of the Decline of Foreign Trade. Ed. 1756, p. 24.

abolition of impressment will be indispensable to countervail such overpowering inducements to desertion. And as it has been shown, that impressment is not really necessary for the manning of the fleet,1 we trust that it may be abolished; and that the efforts of the Americans to increase their naval power may not be assisted by our obstinately clinging to a system fraught with injustice and oppression.

The officers of the army and navy, and many of those functionaries who fill situations of great trust and responsibility, receive only a small pecuniary remuneration. The consideration attached to such situations, and the influence they confer on their possessors, form a principal part of their salary.

Secondly, The wages of labour in particular businesses vary according to the comparative facility with which they may be learned.

There are several sorts of labour which a man may perform without any, or with but very little, previous instruction; and in which he will, consequently, gain a certain rate of wages from the moment he is employed. But, in civilised societies, a great variety of employments can be carried on by those only who have been regularly instructed in them. And it is evident, that the wages of such skilled labourers must exceed the wages of those who are comparatively rude, so as to afford them a sufficient compensation for the time they have lost and the expense they have incurred, in their education. Suppose, to illustrate this principle, that the ordinary rate of wages paid to unskilled labourers is £35 a-year: If the education of a skilled labourer-a jeweller or engraver, for example—and his maintenance up to the period when he begins to support himself, cost £300 more than is required for the maintenance of an unskilled labourer up to the same period, it is quite obvious the former will not be in so good a situation as his unskilled neighbours, unless his wages exceed

1 Wealth of Nations-Note XII.

theirs by a sum sufficient not only to yield him the customary rate of profit on the extra sum of £300, expended on his education and maintenance, but to replace the sum itself previously to the probable termination of his life. If he obtain less than this, he will be underpaid; and if he obtain more, he will be overpaid, and there will be an influx of new entrants, until their competition has reduced wages to their proper level.

The policy of Great Britain, as of most other European nations, has added to the necessary cost of breeding up skilled labourers, by forcing them to serve as apprentices for a longer period than is in most cases necessary to obtain a knowledge of the trades they mean to exercise. But, as the wages of labour must be proportioned, not only to the skill and dexterity of the labourer, but also to the time he has spent, and the difficulties and expense to which he has been put in learning his business, it is plain, that if an individual be compelled to serve an apprenticeship of seven years to a business which he might have learned in two or three years, he must obtain a proportionally higher rate of wages after the expiration of his apprenticeship, than would otherwise have sufficed for his remuneration. The institution of unnecessarily long apprenticeships is, therefore, productive of a double injury. It injures the employers of workmen, by artificially raising the wages of their journeymen; and it injures the workmen, from its tendency to generate idle and dissipated habits, by making them pass so large a portion of their youth without any sufficient motive to be industrious.

By the common law of England, every man has a right to employ himself at pleasure in every lawful trade. But this sound principle was almost entirely subverted by a statute passed, in compliance with the solicitations of the corporate bodies, in the 5th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, commonly called the Statute of Apprenticeship. It enacted that no person should, for the future, exercise any trade, craft, or mystery, at that time exercised in England or Wales, unless he had previously served to it an apprenticeship of seven

years at least; and what had before been a bye-law of a few corporations, thus became the general and statute law of the kingdom. Fortunately, the courts of law were always singularly disinclined to enforce the provisions of this statute. Though the words of the act plainly include the whole kingdom of England and Wales, it was interpreted to refer only to market towns; and it was also interpreted to refer only to those trades which had been practised in England when the statute was passed, and to have no reference to such as had been subsequently introduced. This interpretation gave occasion to several very absurd and even ludicrous distinctions. It was adjudged, for example, that a coachmaker could neither himself make nor employ a journeyman to make his coach-wheels, but must buy them of a master wheelwright, this latter trade having been exercised in England before the 5th of Elizabeth. But a wheelwright, though he had never served an apprenticeship to a coachmaker, might either make himself, or employ journeymen to make coaches, the trade of a coachmaker not being within the statute, because not exercised in England at the time when it was passed. The contradiction and absurdity of these regulations, and the impolicy and injurious operation of the statute, had long been obvious; but so slow is the progress of sound legislation, and so powerful the opposition to every change affecting private interests, that its repeal did not take place until 1814. The Act for this purpose did not, however, interfere with any of the existing rights, privileges, or byelaws of the different legally constituted corporations. But wherever these do not interpose, the formation of apprenticeships and their duration is now left to be adjusted by the parties themselves.

The class of female domestic servants comprises one of the largest divisions of the labouring population, and that, perhaps, which is best provided for. And as most descriptions of in-door female labour may be practised with but little training, it may seem difficult to account for the high wages paid to domestics, and for their superior condition as com

pared with needle-women, washer-women, and those females generally who depend on chance employment. But, though in many respects desirable, the situation of domestic servants, whether male or female, has several considerable drawbacks. They are subject to numerous restraints. And, besides performing their respective menial offices, they are obliged to conform, whether they like them or not, to the rules and regulations of the families in which they live. Most people have, however, a disinclination to be thus dictated to by others. And those who consent to execute menial offices at the bidding of masters and mistresses, feel that they are engaged in what is reckoned a mean and servile employment, and that they occupy a low position in the public estimation. There is, we believe, much ill-founded prejudice in the estimate that is thus commonly formed of the station of household servants. We do not well see, supposing their education and other attainments to be equal, why a man's servants should be deemed to be of a lower class than his tradesmen. But such, whether right or wrong, is the opinion of the public; and its influence, and the various restraints to which they are subject, prevent many from entering service, and by lessening their numbers, contribute to raise the wages of those engaged in it.

These circumstances account, in so far, for what has been reckoned the extraordinary fact of great distress frequently prevailing amongst needle-women in London, while the condition of female servants is so very good. But very few of the former class have any desire to range themselves in the latter. They are mostly the daughters of professional people, decayed tradesmen, shopkeepers, and such like parties; and have from infancy been taught to look upon domestics as a lower class, to which, rather than descend, they would undergo any privation. And it is not to be denied, that their condition, besides its higher place in the public estimation, has some real and some supposititious advantages on its side. If they be less comfortably provided for than household servants, they at all events enjoy a greater degree of freedom; and