CONTENTS. PAGE Wages depend, at any particular period, on the Magnitude of Natural or Necessary Rate of Wages; different in different Countries and Periods; depends on the Quantity and Species of the Articles required for the support of the Disadvantage of Low Wages, and of having the Labourers Hiring by Time and by Piece-work. Advantages of the latter. Law for repressing Combinations among Workmen repealed in 1824. Impolicy of that law. Its real effect. Voluntary Combinations ought not to be forcibly suppressed. Ne- cessity of adopting vigorous measures for preventing one Interests of the Labourers promoted, and their Condition im- proved, by increased facilities of Production and Exchange. Circumstances which have conspired to prevent the Inven- tions and Discoveries of the last half-century from effecting ON THE CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH DETERMINE THE RATE OF WAGES. WAGES Constitute the reward or compensation paid to labourers by those who employ them, in return for their services. Taken in its widest sense, the term labourers is very comprehensive. In addition to the myriads who are engaged in agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing pursuits, it comprises all sorts of public functionaries, from the prime minister downwards, with those who crowd the ranks of what are called the learned and liberal professions. These parties, how widely soever they may differ in everything else, agree in this, that they exchange their services for valuable considerations of one sort or other. Their entire subsistence, in so far at least as they depend on their employment, is derived from wages; and they are as evidently labourers as if they handled a shuttle or a spade, or held a plough. Even those to whom ample fortunes have descended, are not exempted from the necessity of exertion. The duties and obligations which property brings along with it, are not a little onerous. The judicious management of a large estate, or other property, requires much care and circumspection. Without this, it will probably be wasted or dissipated; and, at all A events, it cannot be applied to its legitimate ends, of advancing the interests and the honour of its possessors, and the well-being of their tenants, dependants, and neighbours. Though the contrary be sometimes affirmed, the rich have little in common with the gods of Epicurus. Idleness is hardly less injurious to them than to the poor. Notwithstanding the influence which justly belongs to rank and wealth, every one is aware that "It is the hand of the diligent which bears rule." We may therefore say with Paley, that "Every man has his work. The kind of work varies, and that is all the difference there is. A great deal of labour exists beside that of the hands; many species of industry beside bodily operation, requiring equal assiduity, more attention, more anxiety. It is not true, therefore, that men of elevated stations are exempted from work; it is only true that there is assigned to them work of a different kind: whether more easy or more pleasant may be questioned; but certainly not less wanted, not less essential to the common good." 1 In the following treatise the term labourers is taken in its popular and more confined sense. Our investigations refer to the wages of those only who labour with the hand, as contradistinguished from those who labour with the head. Manual labourers form, however, by far the most numerous class in all nations, and though ranking lower in public estimation than the others, their functions are of paramount importance. Our fleets and armies depend on them for recruits; their expenditure furnishes the largest portion of the public revenue; and their industry and ingenuity supply most part of the conveniences and enjoyments which raise civilised man above the savage. An inquiry into the circumstances which determine the wages and condition of those to whom the other classes are so deeply indebted, and who at the same time form so large a portion of all societies, must possess a superior degree of interest. It has much 1 Works, v. 98. Ed. 1819. |