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CHAP. X.

Of Wages and Profit in the different Employments

TH

of Labour and Stock.

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HE whole of the advantages and difad- CHA P. vantages of the different employments of labour and stock muft, in the fame neighbour

hood, be either perfectly equal or continually tending to equality. If in the fame neighbourhood, there was any employment evidently either more or lefs advantageous than the rest, fo many people would crowd into it in the one cafe, and so many would defert it in the other, that its advantages would foon return to the level of other employments. This at least would be the cafe in a fociety where things were left to follow their natural courfe, where there was perfect liberty, and where every man was perfectly free both to chufe what occupation he thought proper, and to change it as often as he thought proper. Every man's intereft would prompt him to feek the advantageous, and to fhun the disadvantageous employment.

Pecuniary wages and profit, indeed, are everywhere in Europe extremely different according to the different employments of labour and flock. But this difference arifes partly from certain circumstances in the employments themfelves, which, either really, or at least in the imaginations of men, make up for a small pecu

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BOOK niary gain in fome, and counter-balance a great I. one in others; and partly from the policy of Europe, which no-where leaves things at perfect liberty.

The particular confideration of thofe circumstances and of that policy will divide this chapter into two parts.

PART I.

Inequalities arifing from the Nature of the Employments themselves.

THE five following are the principal circumftances which, fo far as I have been able to obferve, make up for a small pecuniary gain in fome employments, and counter-balance a great one in others: firft, the agreeablenefs or dif agreeablenefs of the employments themselves; fecondly, the eafinefs and cheapnefs, or the dif ficulty and expence of learning them; thirdly, the conftancy or inconftancy of employment in them; fourthly, the fmall or great truft which must be reposed in those who exercise them; and fifthly, the probability or improbability of fuccefs in them.

First, The wages of labour vary with the eafe or hardship, the cleanliness or dirtinefs, the honourablenefs or difhonourableness of the employment. Thus in moft places, take the year round, a journeyman taylor earns lefs than a journeyman weaver. His work is much easier. A journeyman weaver earns less than a journeyman fmith. His work is not always eafier, but

X.

it is much cleanlier. A journeyman blacksmith, CHA P. though an artificer, feldom earns fo much in twelve hours as a collier, who is only a labourer, does in eight. His work is not quite fo dirty, is lefs dangerous, and is carried on in day-light, and above ground. Honour makes a great part of the reward of all honourable profeffions. In point of pecuniary gain, all things confidered, they are generally under-recompenfed, as I shall endeavour to show by and by. Difgrace has the contrary effect. The trade of a butcher is a brutal and an odious bufinefs; but it is in most places more profitable than the greater part of common trades. The moft deteftable of all employments, that of public executioner, is, in proportion to the quantity of work done, better paid than any common trade whatever.

Hunting and fishing, the most important employments of mankind in the rude state of fociety, become in its advanced ftate their most agreeable amusements, and they pursue for pleasure what they once followed from neceffity. In the advanced ftate of fociety, therefore, they are all very poor people who follow as a trade, what other people purfue as a pastime. Fishermen have been fo fince the time of* Theocritus. A poacher is every-where a very poor man in Great Britain. In countries where the rigour of the law fuffers no poachers, the licensed hunter is not in a much better condition. The natural tafte for those employments makes more people follow them than can live comfortably by them, * See Idyllium xxi.

BOOK and the produce of their labour, in proportion I. to its quantity, comes always too cheap to market to afford any thing but the most scanty fubfiftence to the labourers.

Difagreeablenefs and difgrace affect the profits of stock in the fame manner as the wages of labour. The keeper of an inn or tavern, who is never master of his own houfe, and who is exposed to the brutality of every drunkard, exercises neither a very agreeable nor a very creditable bufinefs. But there is fcarce any common trade in which a small stock yields fo great a profit.

Secondly, The wages of labour vary with the eafinefs and cheapnefs, or the difficulty and expence of learning the business.

When any expenfive machine is erected, the extraordinary work to be performed by it before it is worn out, it must be expected, will replace the capital laid out upon it, with at least the ordinary profits. A man educated at the expence of much labour and time to any of thofe employments which require extraordinary dexterity and fkill, may be compared to one of thofe expenfive machines. The work which he learns to perform, it must be expected, over and above the ufual wages of common labour, will replace to him the whole expence of his education, with at least the ordinary profits of an equally valuable capital. It must do this too in a reasonable time, regard being had to the very uncertain duration of human life, in the fame manner as to the more certain duration of the machine.

The

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The difference between the wages of killed CHA P. labour and thofe of common labour, is founded upon this principle.

The policy of Europe confiders the labour of all mechanics, artificers, and manufacturers, as skilled labour; and that of all country labourers as common labour. It seems to fuppofe that of the former to be of a more nice and delicate nature than that of the latter. It is fo perhaps in fome cases; but in the greater part it is quite otherwise, as I fhall endeavour to fhew by and by. The laws and cuftoms of Europe, therefore, in order to qualify any perfon for exercifing the one species of labour, impofe the neceffity of an apprenticeship, though with different degrees of rigour in different places. They leave the other free and open to every body. During the continuance of the apprenticeship, the whole labour of the apprentice belongs to his master. In the mean time he must, in many cafes, be maintained by his parents or relations, and in almost all cafes must be cloathed by them. Some money too is commonly given to the master for teaching him his trade. They who cannot give money, give time, or become bound for more than the ufual number of years; a confideration which, though it is not always advantageous to the mafter, on account of the ufual idleness of apprentices, is always disadvantageous to the apprentice. In country labour, on the contrary, the labourer, while he is employed about the easier, learns the more difficult parts of his business, and his own labour maintains him

through

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