the quality of the goods that he buys, and the character of the person that he deals with; a regard for his own interest will protect him against fraud more effectually than any regulations. which the government can devise. But it is not so when he buys

the services of a physician. Health or sickness, life or death, then depends upon the competent information and skill of the person employed by him; and of these qualities he is a very poor judge, as sickness may have been a rare occurrence in his family. But the consequences of an error may be fatal, and the event indicates but very imperfectly the beneficial or injurious consequences of the medical treatment pursued. A plausible charlatan may easily impose upon the credulity of the public, and many valuable lives may be lost before his ignorance and presumption can be fully exposed. Most governments attempt to protect the community against such injury by multiplying restrictions upon irregular practitioners, and extending the full privileges of the profession only to those who have completed a prescribed course of education, and have obtained a diploma, or certificate of competency, from a board of duly qualified examiners.

I have already intimated that competition for employment is sometimes restricted, not only by law, but by the customs of the country, or by the habits and feelings of the people. In the United States, mobility of fortune, station, and employment is the most striking feature of society; no impediment is created by law or fashion to the most frequent and sudden changes of position and business. Thus an equalizing process is constantly going on with respect both to Wages and Profits; no one profession or employment can enjoy even a momentary advantage without sharing it among a crowd of competitors. In England, it is far otherwise; a well-established and clearly defined gradation of ranks has existed so long, and has so moulded the habits and expectations of the people, that comparatively few think of stepping out of the station or the business to which they were born. The larger emoluments and superior advantages of a different position hardly attract their notice, and certainly excite no emulation or regret.

In England, and, to a small extent, in some of the States of this country, an obstacle to the free circulation of labor is created by the poor-laws. A town or parish is bound to support those

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paupers only who were born in it, or who, in various ways specified by the laws, have obtained a 'settlement" within its limits. Sometimes, forty days' undisturbed residence were made sufficient for obtaining a settlement; more stringent regulations required that the person should have been assessed to parish rates and paid them, or should have served an apprenticeship there, or have been hired into service there and remained in such service for a full year. Those who have not complied with these requisites may be warned off, or sent home to the parish where they belong. Through such regulations, it is evident that there may be a superfluity of labor in one place, and considerable deficiency of it in another, and that industry may be very unequally compensated in different districts. Frequent litigation arises under the law of settlement, as the facts in each case are often imperfectly known or difficult to be proved; and cases of extreme hardship sometimes happen, as when a family reduced by poverty and sickness are forcibly removed to a distance from the place which they have chosen for their home, or are sent travelling over the whole country in search of the parish to which they rightfully belong. But, as already intimated, the evil is not one of much moment here in America, where the Wages of labor are high, and where there is but little pauperism among the native-born, and that little can be supported at insignificant expense. No great pains, therefore, are taken to prevent a person from obtaining a settlement wherever he likes.

Mr. Senior justly remarks, that "the difficulty with which labor is transferred from one occupation to another is the principal evil of a high state of civilization. It exists in proportion to the Division of Labor. In a savage state, almost every man is equally fit to exercise, and in fact does exercise, almost every employment. But in the progress of improvement, two circumstances combine to render narrower and narrower the field within which a given individual can be profitably employed. In the first place, the operations in which he is engaged become fewer and fewer; in a large manufactory, the man who is engaged in one of these operations has little experience in any of the others. And in the second place, the skill which the Division of Labor gives to each distinct class of artificers generally prevents whatever peculiar dexterity an individual may have from being of any value in a

business to which he has not been brought up. A workman whose specific labor has ceased to be in demand finds every other long-established employment filled by persons whose time has been devoted to it from the age at which their organs were still pliable and their attention fresh."

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This subject is excellently illustrated by Mr. Laing, with reference to the qualifications of emigrants to perform the novel tasks imposed upon them by their change of residence. "Two hundred years ago," he says, "when the peopling of the old American colonies was going on, the great mass of the population of the mother country was essentially agricultural; but every working man could turn his hand to various kinds of work, as well as to the plough. He was partly a smith, carpenter, wheelwright, stonemason, shoemaker. The useful arts were not, as now, entirely in the hands of artisans bred to no other labor but their own trade or art; very expert, skilful, and cheap producers in that, but not used to, or acquainted with, any other kind of work. This inferior stage of civilization, in which men were not co-operative to the same extent as now, but every man did a little at everything, and made a shift with his own unaided workmanship and production, was a condition of society very favorable to emigration-enterprise and to colonization. It continues still in the United States, and is the main reason why their settlers in the backwoods are more handy, shift better for themselves, and thrive better, than the man from this country, who has been all his life engaged in one branch of industry, and in that has had the co-operation of many trades preparing his tools and the materials for his work.

"Another advantage for emigration in that state of society which we in Great Britain have entirely outgrown, was, that the female half of the population contributed almost as much as the male half to the subsistence of a family, especially an emigrant family. In the days of King James, and of Charles I. and Charles II., and down even to the end of the last century, the emigrant could reckon upon the household work of the females of his family as more or less profitable, and at least saving, by the production of all clothing material. In genteel families at home, all the family linen and cloth for common wear, and often some for sale in the country towns, was produced by household work. The progress of society to a higher state of material refine

ment has entirely superseded such family production. Co-operative labor in factories supplies the public with much better and finer goods; and the public taste is so much refined by the continual enjoyment of finer articles, that the old mode and quality of production would not satisfy it now; but that former state was more favorable to emigration than our present more advanced social condition. There seems to be a stage in the progress of nations at which they can throw off swarms with most success. A nation, like an individual, may become too refined for colonizing; its social state too co-operative; men too dependent on other men for the gratification of acquired tastes and habits, which have become part of their nature, and interwoven with the daily life even of the poorer classes."

The case of household or home manufactures, here alluded to by Mr. Laing, is an interesting one, as it shows that, under certain circumstances, persons may be willing to work, and may find it profitable to work, for much less than the ordinary compensation of labor in their neighborhood. An agricultural family has considerable leisure time in the course of the year, the winter being a period of almost entire suspension of their customary tasks. This leisure they may profitably devote to any species of manufacture which can be pursued at home, at intervals, and without the aid of costly tools; for however poorly such labor may be compensated, its proceeds are all clear gain. The time would be entirely lost, if it were not thus employed. Thus, spinning and knitting may continue to be carried on by hand in many a humble family, long after the most perfect machinery for performing these processes has been invented, and the prices of the articles spun or knit have consequently been reduced to a very low rate. The family would not be enabled to subsist by devoting themselves entirely to these employments; but their subsistence being already secured by agriculture or some other adequately compensated labor, their leisure may be economized by such supplementary tasks, and a small addition be thus obtained to their slender income. The Swiss, a frugal and industrious people, are noted for having carried these home manufactures, especially of watches and toys, to a great extent, and for maintaining them against the formidable competition of British fuel, capital, and machinery.

A similar case is presented in the Wages of female labor, which are usually much lower than those of males. The reason is, that comparatively few women are solely dependent upon what they can earn for themselves; most of them have a husband, father, or brother by whom they are supported. Being fed from other sources, they can afford to perform at a very low price the few tasks that are deemed appropriate for their sex. So many of them are willing to work upon these terms, in order to obtain, not a livelihood, but the means of copying a new fashion, or of purchasing a coveted article of furniture or a bit of finery, that Wages in their whole department of industry are permanently depreciated; and the few women who are unfortunate enough to be thrown wholly upon the fruits of their own industry for subsistence are reduced to great straits. Thus, sewing is a peculiarly feminine occupation, and is therefore more inadequately paid than any other species of manual labor. Hood attracted the attention and sympathy of all England for the hard fate of the needlewomen of London; and novelists have woven many pathetic fictions out of the sorrows of governesses. The menial services of females are better paid, in America at least, than any other species of woman's industry; a good cook sometimes earns more than an accomplished teacher, and certainly finds it easier to obtain employment. The meanness, or, as most women consider it, the degrading character, of the employment, must be compensated by high money-Wages.

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CHAPTER XI.

CAUSES WHICH AFFECT THE RATE OF PROFITS: LIMITED EXTENT OF

THE FIELD FOR THE USE OF CAPITAL: THE THEORY OF GLUTS.

CAPITAL being amassed, as we have seen, by frugality or abstinence, Profits are the reward of abstinence, just as Wages are the remuneration of labor, and Rent is the compensation for the use of land. Labor, capital, and land are the three instruments of production; and therefore the exchangeable value of everything produced is resolvable into three component parts, — Wages,