NOTICE. We have endeavoured, in the following Treatise, to resolve the most important of all economic problems —that is, to trace and exhibit the circumstances which determine the rate of wages and the condition of the labouring classes. We have tried to compress our solution within the narrowest limits, by stripping it of extraneous matter, and contenting ourselves with an elucidation of the leading principles on which it depends. Though of general application, our investigations have especial reference to the labouring classes of the United Kingdom. The wish, how vain soever it may prove to be, to contribute to their improvement, has alone led to the publication of this little work. LONDON, November 1851. CONTENTS. PAGE 1 INTRODUCTION,--Varieties of Labour, CHAPTER I. Wages depend, at any particular period, on the Magnitude of the Fund or Capital appropriated to the payment of Wages, compared with the number of Labourers, CHAPTER II. Comparative Increase of Capital and Population, CHAPTER III. Natural or Necessary Rate of Wages; different in different CHAPTER IV. Disadvantage of Low Wages, and of having the Labourers habitually fed on the cheapest species of food. Advantage of High Wages, CHAPTER V. Different Rates of Wages in different Employments. Circumstances on which these differences depend, CHAPTER VI. Hiring by Time and by Piece-work. Advantages of the latter. Inexpediency of making Wages depend on the results of undertakings, CHAPTER VII. Law for repressing Combinations among Workmen repealed in 1824. Impolicy of that law. Its real effect. Voluntary Combinations ought not to be forcibly suppressed. Necessity of adopting vigorous measures for preventing one set of Workmen from obstructing others in their Employments, CHAPTER VIII. Interests of the Labourers promoted, and their Condition improved, by increased facilities of Production and Exchange. Circumstances which have conspired to prevent the Inventions and Discoveries of the last half-century from effecting a greater change for the better in the Condition of the Labourers. Influence of Taxation, CHAPTER IX. Friendly Societies. Savings Banks. Advantages of these Institutions, PAGE 69 74 89 99 CHAPTER X. Influence of Poor-Laws over the Condition of the Labourers, 108 CHAPTER XI. Education, 110 |