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greater hire, during the time they are employed, is found to be only a bare compensation for the labour they perform, and for the time they are necessarily idle: instead of making money, such persons are almost invariably poorer than those engaged in more constant occupations.

The interruption to employments occasioned by the celebration of holidays, has a similar effect on wages. There are countries in which the holidays, including Sundays, amount to about half the year; and the necessary wages of labour must there be about double what they would be were these holidays abolished.

Fourthly, The wages of labour vary according to the small or great trust which must be reposed in the workmen.

"The wages of goldsmiths and jewellers are every where superior to those of many other workmen, not only of equal, but of much superior ingenuity, on account of the precious materials with which they are intrusted,

"We trust our health to the physician; our fortune, and sometimes our life and reputation, to the lawyer and attorney. Such confidence could not safely be reposed in people of a very mean or low condition. Their reward must be such, therefore, as may give them that rank in society which so important a trust requires. The long time and the great expense which must be laid out in their education, when combined with this circumstance, necessarily enhance still further the price of their labour."1

Fifthly, The wages of labour in different employments vary according to the probability or improbability of success in them.

This cause of variation chiefly affects the wages of the higher class of labourers, or of those who practise what are usually denominated liberal professions.

If a young man be bound apprentice to a shoemaker or a tailor, there is hardly any doubt he will attain to an ordinary degree of proficiency and expertness in his business, and

1"Wealth of Nations," p. 47.

that he will be able to live by it. But if he be bound apprentice to a lawyer, a painter, a sculptor, or a player, there are five chances to one against his ever attaining to such a degree of proficiency in any of these callings as will enable him to subsist on his earnings. But in professions where many fail for one who succeeds, the fortunate one should not only gain such a rate of wages as may indemnify him for the expenses incurred in his education, but also for all that has been expended on the education of his unsuccessful competitors. It is abundantly certain, however, that the wages of lawyers, players, sculptors, &c., taken in the aggregate, never amount to so large a sum. The lottery of the law and other liberal professions has many great prizes; but there is, notwithstanding, a large excess of blanks. "Compute," says Smith," in any particular place, what is likely to be annually gained, and what is likely to be annually spent, by all the different workmen in any common trade, such as that of shoemakers or weavers, and you will find that the former sum will generally exceed the latter. But make the same computation with regard to all the counsellors and students of law, in all the different inns of court, and you will find that their annual gains bear but a very small proportion to their annual expense, even though you rate the former as high, and the latter as low as can well be done. The lottery of the law, therefore, is very far from being a perfectly fair lottery; and that, as well as many other liberal and honourable professions, is, in point of pecuniary gains, evidently under-recompensed."

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But the love of that wealth, power, and consideration, which most commonly attend superior excellence in any the liberal professions, and the overweening confidence placed by each individual in his own good fortune, are sufficient to overbalance all the disadvantages and drawbacks that attend them, and never fail of crowding their ranks with all the most generous and aspiring spirits.

The pecuniary wages or earnings of scientific and literary men are, with a few rare exceptions, very inconsiderable.

This arises from a variety of causes; but principally, perhaps, from the indestructibility, if we may so term it, and rapid circulation of their works and inventions. The cloth of the manufacturer, and the corn of the agriculturist, are speedily consumed, and there is a continued demand for fresh supplies of the same articles. Such, however, is not the case with new inventions, new theories, or new literary works. They may be universally made use of, but they cannot be consumed. The moment that the invention of logarithms, the mode of spinning by rollers, and the discovery of the cow-pox, had been published, they were rendered imperishable, and every one was in a condition to profit by them.

It was no longer necessary to resort to their authors. The results of their researches had become public property, had conferred new powers on every individual, and might be applied by any one. The institution of patents does not materially affect what is now stated. That the progress of the arts may not be checked, their duration is limited to a comparatively short period. And as the invention is known in other countries to which the patent does not extend, if the discoverer were to exact a high price for the produce of his invention, it would be clandestinely imported from abroad.

The condition of purely literary men, in a pecuniary point of view, is still less to be envied. However profound and learned, if a work be not at the same time popular and pleasing, its sale will be but limited. And as principles and theories may be developed in an endless variety of ways, whatever is new and original may be appropriated by others, and served up in what may probably prove a more

desirable form.

Hence, though a work should have the greatest influence over the legislation of the country, or the state of the arts, it may redound but little to the advantage of the author. A scientific work is seldom very attractive in point of style; and unless it have this recommendation, it will be read only by a few. It may have a great reputation among those

capable of appreciating its merits, but it will not have a great sale. It will be bought, or rather, perhaps, borrowed and consulted by those who are anxious to profit by its statements and discussions; but the generality of readers will know it only by report. It is not, therefore, so much on the depth, originality, and importance of its views, as on the circumstance of its being agreeable to the public taste, that the success, and consequently the productiveness, of a book to the author must depend. The value of the work of a man's hands is generally proportioned to the quantity of labour expended upon it; but in works of the mind no such correspondence can be traced between the toil and the recompense. Many a middling novel has produced more money than the "Principia," or the "Wealth of Nations;" and in this respect, the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" has been far inferior to the "Arabian Nights"! Works of fancy are at once the most popular and the least easily superseded. Success in them is not, however, common; and except when it is very decided, it rarely confers much celebrity. It is fortunate, therefore, that a few individuals should be at all times captivated by the delights of study, and eager in the pursuit of learned and scientific researches for the gratification resulting from them. Had the taste for study depended only on the pecuniary emoluments which it brings along with it, it may well be doubted whether it would ever have found a single votary; and we should have been deprived, not only of very many of our most valuable and important discoveries in the arts, as well as in philosophy and legislation, but of much that refines and exalts the character, and supplies the best species of amusement.

It is unnecessary to enter upon any further details with respect to this part of our subject. It has been sufficiently proved, that the permanent differences that obtain in the wages paid to those engaged in different employments in countries where industry is perfectly unfettered,

are rarely more than sufficient to balance the favourable or unfavourable circumstances attending them. When the cost of their education, the chances of their success, and the various disadvantages incident to their professions, are taken into account, those who receive the highest wages are not really better paid than those who receive the lowest. The wages earned by the different classes of workmen are equal, not when each individual earns the same number of shillings, or of pence, in a given space of time, but when each is paid in proportion to the severity of the labour he has to perform, to the degree of education and skill that it requires, and to the other causes of variation already specified. So long, indeed, as the principle of competition is allowed to operate without restraint, or as individuals may employ themselves as they please, we may be assured, that the higgling of the market will adjust the rates of wages in different employments on the principle now stated, and that they will be, all things considered, nearly equal. If wages in one employment be depressed below the common level, labourers will leave it to go to others; and if they be raised above that level, labourers will be attracted to it from those departments where wages are lower, until their increased competition has sunk them to the average standard. A period of greater or less duration, according to the peculiar circumstances affecting each employment, is always required to bring about this equalisation. But all inquiries that have the establishment of general principles for their object, either are or should be founded on periods of average duration; and whenever such is the case, we may always, without falling into any material error, assume that the wages earned in different employments are, all things taken into account, about equal.

It may further be observed in reference to these principles, that wherever industry is unfettered, and knowledge generally diffused, the talents of all are turned to the best account. Indeed it may be safely affirmed, that of the myriads

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