the British conftitution which protects and governs North America, and that of the mercantile company which oppreffes and domineers in the Eaft Indies, cannot perhaps be better illuftrated than by the different ftate of those countries.

The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the neceffary effect, fo it is the natural fymptom of increasing national wealth. The fcanty maintenance of the labouring poor, on the other hand, is the natural fymptom that things are at a ftand, and their starving condition that they are going faft backwards.

In Great Britain the wages of labour feem, in the prefent times, to be evidently more than what is precisely neceffary to enable the labourer to bring up a family. In order to fatisfy ourfelves upon this point it will not be neceffary to enter into any tedious or doubtful calculation of what may be the lowest fum upon which it is poffible to do this. There are many plain fymptoms that the wages of labour are no-where in this country regulated by this lowest rate which is confiftent with common humanity.

First, in almost every part of Great Britain there is a distinction, even in the lowest species of labour, between fummer and winter wages. Summer wages are always highest. But on account of the extraordinary expence of fewel, the maintenance of a family is moft expenfive in winter. Wages, therefore, being highest when this expence is loweft, it seems evident that they are not regulated by what is neceffary for this expence; but by the quantity and supposed

2

С НАР.

VIII.

BOOK

I.

value of the work. A labourer, it may be faid
indeed, ought to fave part of his fummer wages
in order to defray his winter expence; and that
through the whole year they do not exceed what
is neceffary to maintain his family through
the whole year.
A flave, however, or one abfo-
lutely dependent on us for immediate fubfift-
ence, would not be treated in this manner. His
daily fubfiftence would be proportioned to his
daily neceffities.

Secondly, the wages of labour do not in Great Britain fluctuate with the price of provifions. Thefe vary every-where from year to year, frequently from month to month. But in many places the money price of labour remains uniformly the fame fometimes for half a century together. If in thefe places, therefore, the labouring poor can maintain their families in dear years, they must be at their eafe in times of moderate plenty, and in affluence in those of extraordinary cheapnefs. The high price of provifions during these ten years paft has not in many parts of the kingdom been accompanied with any fenfible rife in the money price of labour. It has, indeed, in fome; owing probably more to the increase of the demand for labour, than to that of the price of provifions.

Thirdly, as the price of provifions varies more from year to year than the wages of labour, fo, on the other hand, the wages of labour vary more from place to place than the price of provifions. The prices of bread and butcher's meat are generally the fame, or very nearly the fame,

through

VIII.

through the greater part of the united kingdom. CHA P. These and moft other things which are fold by retail, the way in which the labouring poor buy all things, are generally fully as cheap or cheaper in great towns than in the remoter parts of the country, for reafons which I fhall have occafion to explain hereafter. But the wages of labour in a great town and its neighbourhood are frequently a fourth or a fifth part, twenty or fiveand-twenty per cent. higher than at a few miles diftance. Eighteen pence a day may be reckoned the common price of labour in London and its neighbourhood. At a few miles diftance it falls to fourteen and fifteen pence. Ten-pence may be reckoned its price in Edinburgh and its neighbourhood. At a few miles diftance it falls to eight pence, the ufual price of common labour through the greater part of the low country of Scotland, where it varies a good deal less than in England. Such a difference of prices, which it seems is not always fufficient to transport a man from one parish to another, would neceffarily occafion fo great a tranfportation of the most bulky commodities, not only from one parish to another, but from one end of the kingdom, almoft from one end of the world to the other, as would foon reduce them more nearly to a level. After all that has been faid of the levity and inconftancy of human nature, it appears evidently from experience that a man is of all forts of luggage the most difficult to be tranfported. If the labouring poor, therefore, can maintain their families in those parts of the kingdom where the

VOL. II.

I

price

BOOK price of labour is loweft, they must be in affluence where it is highest.

I.

Fourthly, the variations in the price of labour. not only do not correfpond either in place or time with those in the price of provifions, but they are frequently quite oppofite.

Grain, the food of the common people, is dearer in Scotland than in England, whence Scotland receives almost every year very large fupplies. But English corn must be fold dearer in Scotland, the country to which it is brought, than in England, the country from which it. comes; and in proportion to its quality it cannot be fold dearer in Scotland than the Scotch corn that comes to the fame market in competition with it. The quality of grain depends chiefly upon the quantity of flour or meal which. it yields at the mill, and in this respect English grain is fo much fuperior to the Scotch, that, though often dearer in appearance, or in proportion to the measure of its bulk, it is generally cheaper in reality, or in proportion to its quality, or even to the measure of its weight. The price of labour, on the contrary, is dearer in England than in Scotland. If the labouring poor, therefore, can maintain their families in the one part of the united kingdom, they must be in affluence in the other. Oatmeal indeed fupplies the common people in Scotland with the greatest and the best part of their food, which is in general much inferior to that of their neighbours of the fame rank in England. This difference, however, in the mode of their fubfiftence is not the caufe,

but

VIII.

but the effect, of the difference in their wages; CHA P. though, by a ftrange mifapprehenfion, I have frequently heard it reprefented as the caufe. It is not because one man keeps a coach while his neighbour walks a-foot, that the one is rich and the other poor: but because the one is rich he keeps a coach, and because the other is poor he walks a-foot.

During the courfe of the laft century, taking one year with another, grain was dearer in both parts of the united kingdom than during that of the prefent. This is a matter of fact which cannot now admit of any reasonable doubt; and the proof of it is, if poffible, still more decifive with regard to Scotland than with regard to EnglandIt is in Scotland fupported by the evidence of the public fiars, annual valuations made upon: oath, according to the actual ftate of the mar-kets, of all the different forts of grain in every different county of Scotland. If fuch direct proof could require any collateral evidence to confirm it, I would observe that this has likewife been the cafe in France, and probably in most other parts of Europe. With regard to France there is the clearest proof. But though it is certain that in both parts of the united kingdom grain was fomewhat dearer in the last century than in the prefent, it is equally certain that labour was much cheaper. If the labouring poor, therefore, could bring up their families then, they must be much more at their eafe now. In the laft century, the most ufual day-wages of common labour through the greater part of Scotland