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farmers, and labourers, in the country, and has prevailed among them. No apprenticebreak down that natural equality which would ship has ever been thought necessary to quaotherwise take place in the commerce which is lify for husbandry, the great trade of the councarried on between them. The whole annual try. After what are called the fine arts, and produce of the labour of the society is annual- the liberal professions, however, there is per ly divided between those two different sets of haps no trade which requires so great a varie people. By means of those regulations, a ty of knowledge and experience. The innugreater share of it is given to the inhabitants merable volumes which have been written upof the town than would otherwise fall to them, on it in all languages, may satisfy us, that aand a less to those of the country. mong the wisest and most learned nations, it has never been regarded as a matter very easily understood. And from all those volumes we shall in vain attempt to collect that knowledge of its various and complicated operations which is commonly possessed even by the common farmer; how contemptuously soever the

The price which the town really pays for the provisions and materials annually imported into it, is the quantity of manufactures and other goods annually exported from it. The dearer the latter are sold, the cheaper the former are bought. The industry of the town becomes more, and that of the country very contemptible authors of some of them less advantageous.

may sometimes affect to speak of him. There is scarce any common mechanic trade, on the contrary, of which all the operations may not be as completely and distinctly explained in a pamphlet of a very few pages, as it is pos sible for words illustrated by figures to explain them. In the history of the arts, now pub. lishing by the French Academy of Sciences, several of them are actually explained in this manner. The direction of operations, besides, which must be varied with every change of the weather, as well as with many other accidents, requires much more judgment and discretion, than that of those which are always the same, or very nearly the same.

The

That the industry which is carried on in towns is, everywhere in Europe, more advantageous than that which is carried on in the country, without entering into any very nice computations, we may satisfy ourselves by one very simple and obvious observation. In every country of Europe, we find at least a hundred people who have acquired great fortunes, from small beginnings, by trade and manufactures, the industry which properly belongs to towns, for one who has done so by that which properly belongs to the country, the raising of rude produce by the improvement and cultivation of land. Industry, therefore, must be better rewarded, the wages Not only the art of the farmer, the general of labour and the profits of stock must evi- direction of the operations of husbandry, but dently be greater, in the one situation than in many inferior branches of country labour rethe other. But stock and labour naturally quire much more skill and experience than seek the most advantageous employment. the greater part of mechanic trades. They naturally, therefore, resort as much as man who works upon brass and iron, works they can to the town, and desert the country. with instruments, and upon materials of which The inhabitants of a town being collected the temper is always the same, or very nearly into one place, can easily combine together. the same. But the man who ploughs the The most insignificant trades carried on in ground with a team of horses or oxen, works towns have, accordingly, in some place or with instruments of which the health, strength, other, been incorporated; and even where they and temper, are very different upon different have never been incorporated, yet the corpo- occasions. The condition of the materials ration-spirit, the jealousy of strangers, the a- which he works upon, too, is as variable as version to take apprentices, or to communicate that of the instruments which he works with, the secret of their trade, generally prevail in and both require to be managed with much them, and often teach them, by voluntary as- judgment and discretion. The common ploughsociations and agreements, to prevent that free man, though generally regarded as the pattern competition which they cannot prohibit by of stupidity and ignorance, is seldom defective bye-laws. The trades which employ but a in this judgment and discretion. He is less small number of hands, run most easily into accustomed, indeed, to social intercourse, than such combinations. Half-a-dozen wool-comb- the mechanic who lives in a town. His voice ers, perhaps, are necessary to keep a thousand and language are more uncouth, and more spinners and weavers at work. By combining difficult to be understood by those who are not to take apprentices, they can not only en- not used to them. His understanding, howgross the employment, but reduce the whole ever, being accustomed to consider a greater manufacture into a sort of slavery to them- variety of objects, is generally much superior selves, and raise the price of their labour much to that of the other, whose whole attention, above what is due to the nature of their work. from morning till night, is commonly occupied The inhabitants of the country, dispersed in performing one or two very simple operain distant places, cannot easily combine to- tions. How much the lower ranks of people gether. They have not only never been in- in the country are really superior to those of orporated, but the incorporation spirit never the town, is well known to every man whom

either business or curiosity has led to converse | same time to demonstrate, that though some much with both. In China and Indostan, ac- countries have, by this course, attained to a cordingly, both the rank and the wages of considerable degree of opulence, it is in itself country labourers are said to be superior to necessarily slow, uncertain, liable to be disthose of the greater part of artificers and ma- turbed and interrupted by innumerable accinufacturers. They would probably be so dents, and, in every respect, contrary to the The interests, everywhere, if corporation laws and the cor-order of nature and of reason poration spirit did not prevent it. prejudices, laws, and customs, which have The superiority which the industry of the given occasion to it, I shall endeavour to extowns has everywhere in Europe over that of plain as fully and distinctly as I can in the the country, is not altogether owing to corpo-third and fourth books of this Inquiry. iations and corporation laws. It is supported People of the same trade seldom meet toby many other regulations. The high duties gether, even for merriment and diversion, but upon foreign manufactures, and upon all the conversation ends in a conspiracy against goods imported by alien merchants, all tend the public, or in some contrivance to raise to the same purpose. Corporation laws en- prices. It is impossible, indeed, to prevent able the inhabitants of towns to raise their such meetings, by any law which either could prices, without fearing to be undersold by the be executed, or would be consistent with lifree competition of their own countrymen. berty and justice. But though the law canThose other regulations secure them equally not hinder people of the same trade from against that of foreigners. The enhancement sometimes assembling together, it ought to do of price occasioned by both is everywhere fi-nothing to facilitate such assemblies, much nally paid by the landlords, farmers, and la- less to render them necessary. A regulation which obliges all those of the bourers, of the country, who have seldom opposed the establishment of such monopolies. same trade in a particular town to enter their They have commonly neither inclination nor names and places of abode in a public regisfitness to enter into combinations; and the ter, facilitates such assemblies. It connects clamour and sophistry of merchants and ma- individuals who might never otherwise be nufacturers easily persuade them, that the pri-known to one another, and gives every man vate interest of a part, and of a subordinate of the trade a direction where to find every part, of the society, is the general interest of other man of it. the whole.

A regulation which enables those of the In Great Britain, the superiority of the in- same trade to tax themselves, in order to produstry of the towns over that of the country vide for their poor, their sick, their widows seems to have been greater formerly than in and orphans, by giving them a common inthe present times. The wages of country la-terest to manage, renders such assemblies nebour approach nearer to those of manufactur-cessary.

That in-ever.

ing labour, and the profits of stock employed An incorporation not only renders them nein agriculture to those of trading and manu-cessary, but makes the act of the majority facturing stock, than they are said to have binding upon the whole. In a free trade, an done in the last century, or in the beginning effectual combination cannot be established of the present. This change may be regard- but by the unanimous consent of every single ed as the necessary, though very late conse-trader, and it cannot last longer than every quence of the extraordinary encouragement single trader continues of the same mind given to the industry of the towns. The The majority of a corporation can enact a byestocks accumulated in them come in time to law, with proper penalties, which will limit be so great, that it can no longer be employed the competition more effectually and more with the ancient profit in that species of in- durably than any voluntary combination whatdustry which is peculiar to them. dustry has its limits like every other; and the The pretence that corporations are neces increase of stock, by increasing the competi- sary for the better government of the trade, is tion, necessarily reduces the profit. The low-without any foundation. ering of profit in the town forces out stock to tual discipline which is exercised over a workthe country, where, by creating a new demand man, is not that of his corporation, but that for country labour, it necessarily raises its of his customers. It is the fear of losing their wages. It then spreads itself, if I may say employment which restrains his frauds and so, over the face of the land, and, by being corrects his negligence. An exclusive corpoemployed in agriculture, is in part restored to ration necessarily weakens the force of this the country, at the expense of which, in a discipline. A particular set of workmen must it had originally been accumu- then be employed, let them behave well or ill. great measure, lated in the town. That everywhere in Eu-It is upon this account that, in many large rope the greatest improvements of the country incorporated towns, no tolerable workmen are have been owing to such overflowings of the to be found, even in some of the most neces stock originally accumulated in the towns, I sary trades. If you would have your work shall endeavour to shew hereafter, and at the tolerably executed, it must be done in the

The real and effec

year, would have fully equalled them. By the 12th of Queen Anne, c. 12. it is declared, That whereas, for want of sufficient maintenance and encouragement to curates, the cures have, in several places, been meanly I supplied, the bishop is, therefore, empower

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suburbs, where the workmen, having no ex- of the master mason, supposing him to have clusive privilege, have nothing but their char- been without employment one-third of the acter to depend upon, and you must then smuggle it into the town as well as you can. It is in this manner that the policy of Europe, by restraining the competition in some employments to a smaller number than would otherwise be disposed to enter into them, occasions a very important inequality in theed to appoint, by writing under his hand whole of the advantages and disadvantages of and seal, a sufficient certain stipend or althe different employments of labour and stock. lowance, not exceeding fifty, and not less Secondly, The policy of Europe, by increas- than twenty pounds a-year.' Forty pounds ing the competition in some employments be- a-year is reckoned at present very good pay for yond what it naturally would be, occasions a curate; and, notwithstanding this act of another inequality, of an opposite kind, in the parliament, there are many curacies under whole of the advantages and disadvantages of twenty pounds a-year. There are journeythe different employments of labour and stock. men shoemakers in London who earn forty It has been considered as of so much im- pounds a-year, and there is scarce an indusportance that a proper number of young peo trious workman of any kind in that metropople should be educated for certain professions, lis who does not earn more than twenty. that sometimes the public, and sometimes the This last sum, indeed, does not exceed what piety of private founders, have established is frequently earned by common labourers in many pensions, scholarships, exhibitions, bur-many country parishes. Whenever the law saries, &c. for this purpose, which draw many has attempted to regulate the wages of workmore people into those trades than could men, it has always been rather to lower them

in this manner.

otherwise pretend to follow them. In all than to raise them. But the law has, upon Christian countries, I believe, the education many occasions, attempted to raise the wages of of the greater part of churchmen is paid for curates, and, for the dignity of the church, to Very few of them are edu- oblige the rectors of parishes to give them cated altogether at their own expense. The more than the wretched maintenance which long, tedious, and expensive education, there- they themselves might be willing to accept of fore, of those who are, will not always pro- And, in both cases, the law seems to have cure them a suitable reward, the church being been equally ineffectual, and has never either crowded with people, who, in order to get been able to raise the wages of curates, or to employment, are willing to accept of a much sink those of labourers to the degree that was smaller recompence than what such an edu- intended; because it has never been able to cation would otherwise have entitled them to; | hinder either the one from being willing to and in this manner the competition of the accept of less than the legal allowance, on acpoor takes away the reward of the rich. It count of the indigence of their situation and would be indecent, no doubt, to compare the multitude of their competitors, or the either a curate or a chaplain with a journey- other from receiving more, on account of the man in any common trade. The pay of a contrary competition of those who expected curate or chaplain, however, may very proper- to derive either profit or pleasure from emly be considered as of the same nature with ploying them. the wages of a journeyman. They are all The great benefices and other ecclesiastical three paid for their work according to the dignities support the honour of the church, contract which they may happen to make notwithstanding the mean circumstances of with their respective superiors. Till after the some of its inferior members. middle of the fourteenth century, five merks, paid to the profession, too, makes some comcontaining about as much silver as ten pounds pensation even to them for the meanness of of our present money, was in England the their pecuniary recompence. In England, usual pay of a curate or a stipendiary parish and in all Roman catholic countries, the lotpriest, as we find it regulated by the decrees of tery of the church is in reality much more adseveral different national councils. At the same vantageous than is necessary. The example period, fourpence a-day, containing the same of the churches of Scotland, of Geneva, and quantity of silver as a shilling of our present of several other protestant churches, may samoney, was declared to be the pay of a mas- tisfy us, that in so creditable a profession, in ter mason; and threepence a-day, equal to which education is so easily procured, the ninepence of our present money, that of a hopes of much more moderate benefices will journeyman mason*. The wages of both draw a sufficient number of learned, decent, these labourers, therefore, supposing them to and respectable men into holy orders. have been constantly employed, were much superior to those of the curate. The wages

* See the Statute of Labourers, 25, Ed. III.

The respect

In professions in which there are no bene fices, such as law and physic, if an equal proportion of people were educated at the public expense, the competition would soon be so

great as to sink very much their pecuniary re- | with inconsistency. "They make the most ward. It might then not be worth any man's magnificent promises to their scholars," says while to educate his son to either of those he, " and undertake to teach them to be wise, professions at his own expense. They would to be happy, and to be just; and, in return be entirely abandoned to such as had been for so important a service, they stipulate the educated by those public charities, whose num- paltry reward of four or five minæ." "They "ought bers and necessities would oblige them in ge- who teach wisdom," continues he, neral to content themselves with a very miser- certainly to be wise themselves; but if any man able recompence, to the entire degradation of were to sell such a bargain for such a price, the now respectable professions of law and he would be convicted of the most evident physic. folly." He certainly does not mean here to That unprosperous race of men, commonly exaggerate the reward, and we may be assured called men of letters, are pretty much in the that it was not less than he represents it. situation which lawyers and physicians proba- Four mine were equal to thirteen pounds six bly would be in, upon the foregoing supposi-shillings and eightpence; five mine to sixteen tion. In every part of Europe, the greater pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence.part of them have been educated for the Something not less than the largest of those church, but have been hindered by different two sums, therefore, must at that time have reasons from entering into holy orders. They have generally, therefore, been educated at the public expense; and their numbers are everywhere so great, as commonly to reduce the price of their labour to a very paltry recompence.

been usually paid to the most eminent teachers at Athens. Isocrates himself demanded ten minæ, or L. 33. 6: 8 from each scholar. When he taught at Athens, he is said to have I understand this had a hundred scholars. to be the number whom he taught at one Before the invention of the art of printing, time, or who attended what we would call one the only employment by which a man of let-course of lectures; a number which will not ters could make any thing by his talents, was appear extraordinary from so great a city to so that of a public or private teacher, or by com- famous a teacher, who taught, too, what was municating to other people the curious and at that time the most fashionable of all sciuseful knowledge which he had acquired ences, rhetoric. He must have made, there. himself; and this is still surely a more hon-fore, by each course of lectures, a thousand ourable, a more useful, and, in general, even minæ, or L.3333; 6: 8. A thousand minæ, a more profitable employment than that other accordingly, is said by Plutarch, in another of writing for a bookseller, to which the art place, to have been his didactron, or usual of printing has given occasion. The time price of teaching. Many other eminent teachand study, the genius, knowledge, and appli-ers in those times appear to have acquired cation requisite to qualify an eminent teacher of the sciences, are at least equal to what is necessary for the greatest practitioners in law and physic. But the usual reward of the eminent teacher bears no proportion to that of the lawyer or physician, because the trade of the one is crowded with indigent people, who have been brought up to it at the public expense; whereas those of the other two are encumbered with very few who have not been educated at their own. The usual recompence, however, of public and private teach ers, small as it may appear, would undoubtedly be less than it is, if the competition of those yet more indigent men of letters, who write for bread, was not taken out of the market.

Before the invention of the art of printing, a scholar and a beggar seem to have been terms very nearly synonymous. The different governors of the universities, before that time, appear to have often granted licences to their scholars to beg.

great fortunes. Georgias made a present to the temple of Delphi of his own statue in solid gold. We must not, I presume, suppose that it was as large as the life. His way of living, as well as that of Hippias and Protagoras, two other eminent teachers of those times, is represented by Plato as splendid, even to ostentation. Plato himself is said to have lived with a good deal of magnificence. Aristotle, after having been tutor to Alexander, and most munificently rewarded, as it is universally agreed, both by him and his father, Philip, thought it worth while, notwithstanding, to return to Athens, in order to resume the teaching of his school. Teachers of the sciences were probably in those times less common than they came to be in an age or two afterwards, when the competition had probably somewhat reduced both the price of their labour and the admiration for their persons. The most eminent of them, however, appear always to have enjoyed a degree of In ancient times, before any charities of this consideration much superior to any of the like kind had been established for the education of profession in the present times. The Atheindigent people to the learned professions, the nians sent Carneades the academic, and Diorewards of eminent teachers appear to have genes the stoic, upon a solemn embassy to Deen much more considerable. Isocrates, in Rome; and though their city had then de what is called his discourse against the soph-clined from its former grandeur, it was stili ists, reproaches the teachers of his own times an independent and considerable republic.

Carneades, too, was a Babylonian by birth; and as there never was a people more jealous of admitting foreigners to public offices than the Athenians, their consideration for him must have been very great.

men of other decaying manufactures, who, wherever the statute of apprenticeship takes place, have no other choice, but either to come upon the parish, or to work as common labourers; for which, by their habits, they are This inequality is, upon the whole, perhaps much worse qualified than for any sort of marather advantageous than hurtful to the pub-nufacture that bears any resemblance to their lic. It may somewhat degrade the profession own. They generally, therefore, chuse to of a public teacher; but the cheapness of li- | come upon the parish. terary education is surely an advantage which greatly overbalances this trifling inconveniency. The public, too, might derive still greater benefit from it, if the constitution of those schools and colleges, in which education is carried on, was more reasonable than it is at present through the greater part of Europe. Thirdly, the policy of Europe, by obstruct. ing the free circulation of labour and stock, both from employment to employment, and from place to place, occasions, in some cases, a very inconvenient inequality in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of their different employments.

Whatever obstructs the free circulation of labour from one employment to another, obstructs that of stock likewise; the quantity of stock which can be employed in any branch of business depending very much upon that of the labour which can be employed in it. Corporation laws, however, give less obstruction to the free circulation of stock from one place to another, than to that of labour. It is everywhere much easier for a wealthy merchant to obtain the privilege of trading in a town-corporate, than for a poor artificer to obtain that of working in it.

The obstruction which corporation laws The statute of apprenticeship obstructs the give to the free circulation of labour is comfree circulation of labour from one employ-mon, I believe, to every part of Europe. ment to another, even in the same place. The exclusive privileges of corporations ob.. struct it from one place to another, even in the same employment.

That which is given to it by the poor laws is, so far as I know, peculiar to England. It consists in the difficulty which a poor man finds in obtaining a settlement, or even in beIt frequently happens, that while high ing allowed to exercise his industry in any wages are given to the workmen in one ma- parish but that to which he belongs. It is nufacture, those in another are obliged to con- the labour of artificers and manufacturers tent themselves with bare subsistence. The only of which the free circulation is obstructone is in an advancing state, and has there-ed by corporation laws. The difficulty of obfore a continual demand for new hands; the taining settlements obstructs even that of com other is in a declining state, and the super-mon labour. It may be worth while to give abundance of hands is continually increasing. some account of the rise, progress, and preThose two manufactures may sometimes be sent state of this disorder, the greatest, perin the same town, and sometimes in the same haps, of any in the police of England. neighbourhood, without being able to lend When, by the destruction of monasteries, the the least assistance to one another. The sta-poor had been deprived of the charity of those tute of apprenticeship may oppose it in the religious houses, after some other ineffectual one case, and both that and an exclusive cor- attempts for their relief, it was enacted, by the poration in the other. In many different ma- 43d of Elizabeth, c. 2. that every parish nufactures, however, the operations are so should be bound to provide for its own poor, much alike, that the workmen could easily and that overseers of the poor should be annuchange trades with one another, if those ab- ally appointed, who, with the church-wardens, surd laws did not hinder them. The arts of should raise, by a parish rate, competent sums weaving plain linen and plain silk, for ex- for this purpose. ample, are almost entirely the same. That of By this statute, the necessity of providing weaving plain woollen is somewhat different; for their own poor was indispensably imposed but the difference is so insignificant, that upon every parish. Who were to be coneither a linen or a silk weaver might become sidered as the poor of each parish became, a tolerable workman in a very few days. If therefore, a question of some importance. any of those three capital manufactures, there- This question, after some variation, was at fore, were decaying, the workmen might find last determined by the 13th and 14th of a resource in one of the other two which was Charles II. when it was enacted, that forty in a more prosperous condition; and their days undisturbed residence should gain any wages would neither rise too high in the person a settlement in any parish; but that thriving, nor sink too low in the decaying ma- within that time it should be lawful for two nufacture. The linen manufacture, indeed, justices of the peace, upon complaint made is in England, by a particular statute, open by the church-wardens or overseers of the to every body; but as it is not much cultivat-poor, to remove any new inhabitant to the ed through the greater part of the country, it parish where he was last legally settled; uncan afford no general resource to the work-less he either rented a tenement of ten pounds

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