have more opportunities of becoming known, and of forming connections and liaisons, sometimes of a more and sometimes of a less respectable kind. And thus it is that domestics owe to the servitude in which they are placed, and the unjustly low estimation in which they are held, their high wages, and comparatively comfortable condition.

The case of the hand-loom weavers affords a striking illustration of the unfavourable influence which the easy acquisition and conduct of a business usually has over the condition of those engaged in it. The art of weaving most fabrics may be learned with the greatest facility. And the lightness of the work, and the circumstance of its being principally carried on in the houses of the weavers, who are assisted by their families, make it be resorted to by a very large class of persons, many of whom are of weakly constitutions, and unable to engage in most other employments. Hence the wages of hand-loom weavers have been almost always below the ordinary level of wages in the generality of businesses. Latterly they have, through the increasing competition of power-looms, been reduced to a very low rate indeed, and the weavers have frequently been involved in extreme distress. But despite their low wages, the probability is, that the spread of powerlooms will in the end effect the all but total annihilation of the hand-weaving business. And there can be no doubt that the labouring class, as well as the other classes, will eventually gain by the change. In the meantime, however, the weavers have strong claims on the public sympathy; and every practicable means should be tried that may seem most likely to abridge and facilitate the painful state of transition in which they are involved, by introducing their children to other businesses, and by facilitating their emigration, or otherwise.

Thirdly, The wages of labour, in different employments, vary with the constancy and inconstancy of employment. Employment is much more constant in some trades than in others.

Many trades can only be carried on in particular

states of the weather, and seasons of the year; and if the workmen, who are engaged in such trades, cannot easily find employment in others during the time they are thrown out of them, their wages must be proportionally augmented. A journeyman jeweller, weaver, shoemaker, or tailor, for example, may, under ordinary circumstances, reckon upon obtaining constant employment. But masons, bricklayers, paviors, and, in general, all those workmen who carry on their business in the open air, are liable to perpetual interruptions. Their wages must, however, not only suffice to maintain them while they are employed, but also during the time they are necessarily idle. And they ought also to afford them, as Dr Smith has remarked, some compensation for those anxious and desponding moments which the thought of so precarious a situation must sometimes occasion.

This principle shows the fallacy of the opinion so generally entertained respecting the great earnings of porters, hackney coachmen, watermen, and generally of all workmen employed only for short periods, and on particular occasions. Such persons frequently make as much in an hour or two as a regularly employed workman makes in a day; but this greater hire, during the time they are employed, is found to be only a bare compensation for the labour they perform, and for the time they are necessarily idle. Instead of making money, such persons are almost invariably poorer than those who are engaged in more constant occupations.

The interruption to employments occasioned by the celebration of holidays, has a similar effect on wages. There are countries in which the holidays, excluding Sundays, make nearly a third part of the year; and the necessary wages of labour must there be about a third part, or 33 per cent., greater than they probably would be were these holidays abolished.

Fourthly, The wages of labour vary according to the small or great trust reposed in the workmen.

"The wages of goldsmiths and jewellers are everywhere

superior to those of many other workmen, not only of equal, but of much superior ingenuity; on account of the precious materials with which they are intrusted.

"We trust our health to the physician; our fortune, and sometimes our life and reputation, to the lawyer and attorney. Such confidence could not safely be reposed in people of a very mean or low condition. Their reward must be such, therefore, as may give them that rank in the society which so important a trust requires. The long time and the great expense which must be laid out in their education, when combined with this circumstance, necessarily enhances still further the price of their labour."1

Fifthly, The wages of labour in different employments vary according to the probability or improbability of success in them.

This cause of variation chiefly affects the wages of the higher class of labourers, or of those who practise what are usually denominated liberal professions.

If a young man be bound apprentice to a shoemaker or a tailor, there is hardly any doubt but he will attain to an ordinary degree of proficiency and expertness in his business, and that he will be able to live by it. But if he be bound apprentice to a lawyer, a painter, a sculptor, or a player, there are perhaps three or four chances to one that he never attains to such a degree of proficiency in any of these callings as will enable him to subsist on his earnings. But in professions where many fail for one who succeeds, the fortunate one ought not only to gain such a rate of wages as may ndemnify him for all the expenses incurred in his education, but also for all that has been expended on the education of his unsuccessful competitors. It is abundantly certain, however, that the wages of lawyers, players, sculptors, &c., taken in the aggregate, never amount to so large a sum. The lottery of the law, and of the other liberal professions, has

1 Wealth of Nations.

E

many great prizes, but there is, notwithstanding, a large excess of blanks. "Compute," says Dr Smith, “in any particular place, what is likely to be annually gained, and what is likely to be annually spent, by all the different workmen in any common trade, such as that of shoemakers or weavers, and you will find that the former sum will generally exceed the latter. But make the same computation with regard to all the counsellors and students of law in all the different Inns of Court, and you will find that their annual gains bear but a very small proportion to their annual expense, even though you rate the former as high and the latter as low as can well be done. The lottery of the law, therefore, is very far from being a perfectly fair lottery; and that, as well as many other liberal and honourable professions, is, in point of pecuniary gains, evidently under-recompensed."

But the love of that power, wealth, and consideration, which most commonly attend superior excellence in the liberal professions, and the overweening confidence placed by each individual in his own good fortune, are sufficient to overbalance all the disadvantages and drawbacks that attend them, and never fail to crowd their ranks with all the most generous and aspiring spirits.

It is unnecessary to enter upon any farther details with respect to this part of our subject. It has been sufficiently proved, that the permanent differences that obtain in the rates of wages paid to those who are engaged in different employments, in countries where industry is free and unfettered, merely suffice to balance the favourable or unfavourable circumstances attending them. When the cost of their education, the chances of their success, and the various disadvantages incident to their professions, have been taken into account, those who receive the highest wages are not really better paid than those who receive the lowest. The wages earned by the different classes of workmen are equal, not when each individual earns the same number of shillings, or of pence, in a given space of time, but when each is paid in

proportion to the severity of the labour he has to perform, to the degree of previous education and skill that it requires, and to the other causes of variation already specified. So long, indeed, as the principle of competition is allowed to operate without restraint, or so long as each individual is allowed to employ himself as he pleases, we may be assured that the higgling of the market will always adjust the rate of wages in different employments on the principle now stated, and that they will be, all things considered, nearly equal. If wages in one employment be depressed below the common level, labourers will leave it to go to others; and if they be raised above that level, labourers will be attracted to it from those departments where wages are lower, until their increased competition has sunk them to their average standard. We do not, however, mean to affirm, that this equalisation is in all cases immediately or speedily brought about. On the contrary, it often happens that, owing to an attachment to the trade, or the locality in which they have been bred, or the difficulty of learning another trade, individuals will continue, for a lengthened period, to practise a peculiar trade, or to continue in a particular district, when other trades in the same district and the same trade in more remote districts, yield better wages to those engaged in them. But how difficult soever, wages, taking everything into account, are sure to be equalised in the end. And the extraordinary facilities that are now afforded for becoming minutely acquainted with the various branches of industry carried on in all parts of the country, and of travelling from one point to another, will no doubt contribute to hasten the adjustment of wages according to the advantages and disadvantages incident to different businesses and districts. Without, however, insisting on these considerations, it is enough to state, that all inquiries, such as those in which we are now engaged, that have the establishment of general principles for their object, either are, or ought to be, founded on periods of average duration; and whenever such is the case, we may always, without occasioning any material error, assume that the wages earned in