rate or in its value. A rent which consists | any new rivals. Secrets of this kind, how. either in a certain proportion, or in a certain ever, it must be acknowledged, can seldom quantity, of the rude produce, is no doubt af- be long kept; and the extraordinary protit fected in its yearly value by all the occasional can last very little longer than they are kept. and temporary fluctuations in the market price of that rude produce; but it is seldom affected by them in its yearly rate. In settling the terms of the lease, the landlord and farmer endeavour, according to their best judgment, to adjust that rate, not to the temporary and occasional, but to the average and ordinary price of the produce.

Secrets in manufactures are capable of being longer kept than secrets in trade. A dyer who has found the means of producing a particular colour with materials which cost only half the price of those commonly made use of, may, with good management, enjoy the advantage of his discovery as long as he lives, and even leave it as a legacy to his posterity. Such fluctuations affect both the value and His extraordinary gains arise from the high the rate, either of wages or of profit, accord-price which is paid for his private labour. ing as the market happens to be either over- They properly consist in the high wages of stocked or understocked with commodities or that labour. But as they are repeated upon with labour, with work done, or with work to every part of his stock, and as their whole be done. A public mourning raises the price amount bears, upon that account, a regular of black cloth (with which the market is al-proportion to it, they are commonly considermost always understocked upon such occa- ed as extraordinary profits of stock. sions), and augments the profits of the merch- Such enhancements of the market price are ants who possess any considerable quantity of evidently the effects of particular accidents, of it. It has no effect upon the wages of the which, however, the operation may sometimes weavers. The market is understocked with last for many years together. commodities, not with labour, with work done, Some natural productions require such a not with work to be done. It raises the singularity of soil and situation, that all the wages of journeymen tailors. The market is land in a great country, which is fit for prohere understocked with labour. There is an ducing them, may not be sufficient to supply effectual demand for more labour, for more the effectual demand. The whole quantity work to be done, than can be had. It sinks brought to market, therefore, may be disposed the price of coloured silks and cloths, and of to those who are willing to give more than nereby reduces the profits of the merchants what is sufficient to pay the rent of the land who have any considerable quantity of them which produced them, together with the wages upon hand. It sinks, too, the wages of the of the labour and the profits of the stock which workmen employed in preparing such com- were employed in preparing and bringing them modities, for which all demand is stopped for to market, according to their natural rates. six months, perhaps for a twelvemonth. The Such commodities may continue for whole market is here overstocked both with commo- centuries together to be sold at this high price; dities and with labour. and that part of it which resolves itself into the rent of land, is in this case the part which is generally paid above its natural rate. The rent of the land which affords such singular and esteemed productions, like the rent of some vineyards in France of a peculiarly hapry soil and situation, bears no regular proportion to the rent of other equally fertile and equally well cultivated land in its neighbourhood. The wages of the labour, and the proWhen, by an increase in the effectual de-fits of the stock employed in bringing such mand, the market price of some particular commodities to market, on the contrary, are commodity happens to rise a good deal above seldom out of their natural proportion to those the natural price, those who employ their of the other employments of labour and stock stocks in supplying that market, are generally in their neighbourhood. careful to conceal this change. If it was commonly known, their great profit would tempt so many new rivals to employ their stocks in the same way, that, the effectual demand being fully supplied, the market price would soon be reduced to the natural price, A monopoly granted either to an individual and, perhaps, for some time even below or to a trading company, has the same effect it. If the market is at a great distance as a secret in trade or manufactures. The from the residence of those who supply it, monopolists, by keepin the market constantly they may sometimes be able to keep the se- understocked by never fully supplying the ef. cret for several years together, and may so fectual demand, sell their commodities much long enjoy their extraordinary profits without above the natural price, and raise their emo

But though the market price of every particular commodity is in this manner continually gravitating, if one may say so, towards the natural price; yet sometimes particular accidents, sometimes natural causes, and sometimes particular regulations of police, may, in many commodities, keep up the market price, for a long time together, a good deal above the natural price.

Such enhancements of the market price are evidently the effect of natural causes, which may hinder the effectual demand from ever being fully supplied, and which may continue, therefore, to operate for ever.

luments, whether they consist in wages or pro- | afterwards educated to the trade will naturally fit, greatly above their natural rate. suit itself to the effectual demand. The po

The price of monopoly is upon every occa- lice must be as violent as that of Indostan or sion the highest which can be got. The natu- ancient Egypt (where every man was bound ral price, or the price of free competition, on by a principle of religion to follow the occuthe contrary, is the lowest which can be taken, not upon every occasion indeed, but for any considerable time together. The one is upon every occasion the highest which can be squeezed out of the buyers, or which it is supposed they will consent to give; the other is the lowest which the sellers can commonly afford to take, and at the same time continue their business.

pation of his father, and was supposed to commit the most horrid sacrilege if he changed it for another), which can in any particular employment, and for several generations together, sink either the wages of labour or the profits of stock below their natural rate.

This is all that I think necessary to be observed at present concerning the deviations, whether occasional or permanent, of the marThe exclusive privileges of corporations, ket price of commodities from the natural statutes of apprenticeship, and all those laws price.

which restrain in particular employments, the The natural price itself varies with the nacompetition to a smaller number than might tural rate of each of its component parts, of otherwise go into them, have the same ten-wages, profit, and rent; and in every society dency, though in a less degree. They are a this rate varies according to their circumstansort of enlarged monopolies, and may fre- ces, according to their riches or poverty, their quently, for ages together, and in whole classes of employments, keep up the market price of particular commodities above the natural price, and maintain both the wages of the labour and the profits of the stock employed about them somewhat above their natural rate.

Such enhancements of the market price may last as long as the regulations of police which give occasion to them.

The market price of any particular commodity, though it may continue long above, can seldom continue long below, its natural price. Whatever part of it was paid below the natural rate, the persons whose interest it affected would immediately feel the loss, and would immediately withdraw either so much land or so much labour, or so much stock, from being employed about it, that the quantity brought to market would soon be no more than sufficient to supply the effectual demand. Its market price, therefore, would soon rise to the natural price; this at least would be the case where there was perfect liberty.

advancing, stationary, or declining condition. I shall, in the four following chapters, endeavour to explain, as fully and distinctly as I can, the causes of those different variations.

First, I shall endeavour to explain what are the circumstances which naturally determine the rate of wages, and in what manner those circumstances are affected by the riches or poverty, by the advancing, stationary, or declining state of the society.

Secondly, I shall endeavour to shew what are the circumstances which naturally determine the rate of profit; and in what manner, too, those circumstances are affected by the like variations in the state of the society.

Though pecuniary wages and profit are very different in the different employments of labour and stock; yet a certain proportion seems commonly to take place between both the pecuniary wages in all the different employments of labour, and the pecuniary profits in all the different employments of stock. This proportion, it will appear hereafter, depends partThe same statutes of apprenticeship and ly upon the nature of the different employother corporation laws, indeed, which, when a ments, and partly upon the different laws and manufacture is in prosperity, enable the work-policy of the society in which they are carried man to raise his wages a good deal above their on. But though in many respects dependent natural rate, sometimes oblige him, when it upon the laws and policy, this proportion decays, to let them down a good deal below it. As in the one case they exclude many people from his employment, so in the other they exclude him from many employments. The effect of such regulations, however, is not near so durable in sinking the workman's wages below, as in raising them above their natural rate. Their operation in the one way may endure for many centuries, but in the other it can last no longer than the lives of some of the workmen who were bred to the business in the time of its prosperity. When they are gone, the number of those who are

seems to be little affected by the riches or poverty of that society, by its advancing, stationary, or declining condition, but to remain the same, or very nearly the same, in all those different states. I shall, in the third place, endeavour to explain all the different circumstances which regulate this proportion.

In the fourth and last place, I shall endeavour to shew what are the circumstances which regulate the rent of land, and which either raise or lower the real price of all the different substances which it produces.

CHAP. VIII.

OF THE WAGES OF LABOUR.

THE produce of labour constitutes the natural recompence or wages of labour.

the landlord demands a share of almost all the produce which the labourer can either raise or collect from it. His rent makes the first deduction from the produce of the labour which is employed upon land.

It seldom happens that the person who tills the ground has wherewithal to maintain himself till he reaps the harvest. His mainte

In that original state of things which pre-nance is generally advanced to him from the cedes both the appropriation of land and the stock of a master, the farmer who employs accumulation of stock, the whole produce of him, and who would have no interest to emlabour belongs to the labourer. He has nei- ploy him, unless he was to share in the prother landlord nor master to share with him. duce of his labour, or unless his stock was to Had this state continued, the wages of la- be replaced to him with a profit. This profit bour would have augmented with all those makes a second deduction from the produce improvements in its productive powers, to of the labour which is employed upon land. which the division of labour gives occasion. The produce of almost all other labour is All things would gradually have become liable to the like deduction of profit. In all cheaper. They would have been produced by arts and manufactures, the greater part of the a smaller quantity of labour; and as the com-workmen stand in need of a master, to admodities produced by equal quantities of labour would naturally in this state of things be exchanged for one another, they would have been purchased likewise with the produce of a smaller quantity.

vance them the materials of their work, and their wages and maintenance, till it be completeu. He shares in the produce of their labour, or in the value which it adds to the materials upon which it is bestowed; and in this share consists his profit.

whole produce of his own labour, or the whole value which it adds to the materials upon which it is bestowed. It includes what are usually two distinct revenues, belonging to two distinct persons, the profits of stock, and the wages of labour.

But though all things would have become cheaper in reality, in appearance many things It sometimes happens, indeed, that a single might have become dearer, than before, or independent workman has stock sufficient both have been exchanged for a greater quantity of to purchase the materials of his work, and to other goods. Let us suppose, for example, maintain himself till it be completed. He is that in the greater part of employments the both master and workman, and enjoys the productive powers of labour had been improved to tenfold, or that a day's labour could produce ten times the quantity of work which it had done originally; but that in a particular employment they had been improved only to double, or that a day's labour could produce only twice the quantity of work which it had done before. In exchanging the produce of a day's labour in the greater part of employments for that of a day's labour in this particular one, ten times the original quantity of work in them would purchase only twice the original quantity in it. Any particular quantity in it, therefore, a pound weight, for example, would appear to be five times dearer than before. In reality, however, it would be twice as cheap. Though it required five times the quantity of other goods to purchase it, it would require only half the quantity of labour either to purchase or to produce it. The acquisition, therefore, would be twice as easy as before.

Such cases, however, are not very frequent; and in every part of Europe twenty workmen serve under a master for one that is independent, and the wages of labour are everywhere understood to be, what they usually are, when the labourer is one person, and the owner of the stock which employs him another.

What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little, as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower, the wages of labour.

It is not, however, difficult to foresee which But this original state of things, in which of the two partics must, upon all ordinary octhe labourer enjoyed the whole produce of his casions, have the advantage in the dispute, own labour, could not last beyond the first in- and force the other into a compliance with troduction of the appropriation of land and their terins. The masters, being fewer in numthe accumulation of stock. It was at an end, ber, can combine much more easily and the therefore, long before the most considerable law, besides, authorises, or at least does not improvements were made in the productive prohibit, their combinations, while it prohibits powers of labour; and it would be to no pur- those of the workmen. We have no acts of pose to trace further what might have been parliament against combining to lower the its effects upon the recompence or wages of price of work, but many against combining labour. to raise it. In all such disputes, the masters As soon as land becomes private property, can hold out much longer. A landlord, a

But though, in disputes with their workmen, masters must generally have the advantage, there is, however, a certain rate, below which it seems impossible to reduce, for any considerable time, the ordinary wages even of the lowest species of labour.

farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, subsistence, generally end in nothing but the though they did not employ a single workman, punishment or ruin of the ringleaders. could generally live a year or two upon the stocks, which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year, without employment. In the long run, the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate.

A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to mainWe rarely hear, it has been said, of the tain him. They must even upon most occacombinations of masters, though frequently of sions be somewhat more, otherwise it would those of workmen. But whoever imagines, be impossible for him to bring up a family, upon this account, that masters rarely com- and the race of such workmen could not last bine, is as ignorant of the world as of the sub-beyond the first generation. Mr Cantillon ject. Masters are always and everywhere in seems, upon this account, to suppose that the a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, com- lowest species of common labourers must bination, not to raise the wages of labour a- everywhere earn at least double their own bove their actual rate. To violate this com- maintenance, in order that, one with another, bination is everywhere a most unpopular ac- they may be enabled to bring up two childtion, and a sort of reproach to a master among ren; the labour of the wife, on account of his neighbours and equals. We seldom, in- her necessary attendance on the children, bedeed, hear of this combination, because it is ing supposed no more than sufficient to prothe usual, and, one may say, the natural state vide for herself. But one half the children of things, which nobody ever hears of. Mas-born, it is computed, die before the age of ters, too, sometimes enter into particular com- manhood. The poorest labourers, therefore, binations to sink the wages of labour even be- according to this account, must, one with low this rate. These are always conducted another, attempt to rear at least four children, with the utmost silence and secrecy till the in order that two may have an equal chance moment of execution; and when the work-of living to that age. But the necessary men yield, as they sometimes do without re- maintenance of four children, it is supposed, sistance, though severely felt by them, they may be nearly equal to that of one man. The are never heard of by other people. Such labour of an able-bodied slave, the same combinations, however, are frequently resisted author adds, is computed to be worth double by a contrary defensive combination of the his maintenance; and that of the meanest la workmen, who sometimes, too, without any bourer, he thinks, cannot be worth less than provocation of this kind, combine, of their that of an able-bodied slave. Thus far at own accord, to raise the price of their labour. least seems certain, that, in order to bring up Their usual pretences are, sometimes the high a family, the labour of the husband and wife price of provisions, sometimes the great profit together must, even in the lowest species of which their masters make by their work. But common labour, be able to earn something whether their combinations be offensive or de- more than what is precisely necessary for their fensive, they are always abundantly heard of. own maintenance; but in what proportion, In order to bring the point to a speedy deci- whether in that above-mentioned, or in any sion, they have always recourse to the loudest other, I shall not take upon me to determine. clamour, and sometimes to the most shocking There are certain circumstances, however, violence and outrage. They are desperate, which sometimes give the labourers an ad. and act with the folly and extravagance of vantage, and enable them to raise their wages desperate men, who must either starve, or considerably above this rate, evidently the frighten their masters into an immediate com- lowest which is consistent with common bupliance with their demands. The masters, manity. upon these occasions, are just as clamorous When in any country the demand for those upon the other side, and never cease to call who live by wages, labourers, journeymen, aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, servants of every kind, is continually increas and the rigorous execution of those laws which ing; when every year furnishes employment have been enacted with so much severity a- for a greater number than had been employed gainst the combination of servants, labourers, the year before, the workmen have no occaand journeymen. The workmen, accordingly, very seldom derive any advantage from the violence of those tumultuous combinations, which, partly from the interposition of the civil magistrate, partly from the superior stea diness of the masters, partly from the necessiters not to raise wages. ty which the greater part of the workmen are The demand for those who live by wages, under of submitting for the sake of present it is evident, cannot increase but in propor.

sion to combine in order to raise their wages. The scarcity of hands occasions a competition among masters, who bid against one another in order to get workmen, and thus voluntarily break through the natural combination of mas

tion to the increase of the funds which are selves, though less for exportation. If the destined to the payment of wages. These money price of labour, therefore, be higher funds are of two kinds, first, the revenue than it is anywhere in the mother-country, which is over and above what is necessary for the maintenance; and, secondly, the stock which is over and above what is necessary for the employment of their masters.

When the landlord, annuitant, or monied man, has a greater revenue than what he judges sufficient to maintain his own family, he employs either the whole or a part of the surplus in maintaining one or more menial servants. Increase this surplus, and he will naturally increase the number of those ser

vants.

its real price, the real command of the neces saries and conveniencies of life which it conveys to the labourer, must be higher in a stili greater proportion.

But though North America is not yet so rich as England, it is much more thriving, and advancing with much greater rapidity to the further acquisition of riches. The most decisive mark of the prosperity of any country is the increase of the number of its inhabitants. In Great Britain, and most other European countries, they are not supWhen an independent workman, such as a posed to double in less than five hundred weaver or shoemaker, has got more stock years. In the British colonies in North than what is sufficient to purchase the mate- America, it has been found that they double rials of his own work, and to maintain him- in twenty or five-and-twenty years. Nor in self till he can dispose of it, he naturally employs one or more journeymen with the surplus, in order to make a profit by their work. Increase this surplus, and he will naturally increase the number of his journeymen.

The demand for those who live by wages, therefore, necessarily increases with the increase of the revenue and stock of every country, and cannot possibly increase without it. The increase of revenue and stock is the increase of national wealth. The demand for those who live by wages, therefore, naturally increases with the increase of national wealth, and cannot possibly increase without it.

the present times is this increase principally owing to the continual importation of new inhabitants, but to the great multiplication of the species. Those who live to old age, it is said, frequently see there from fifty to a hundred, and sometimes many more, descendents from their own body. Labour is there so well rewarded, that a numerous family of childron, instead of being a burden, is a source of opulence and prosperity to the parents. The labour of each child, before it can leave their house, is computed to be worth a hundred pounds clear gain to them. A young widow with four or five young children, who, It is not the actual greatness of national among the middling or inferior ranks of peowealth, but its continual increase, which ocple in Europe, would have so little chance for casions a rise in the wages of labour. It is a second husband, is there frequently courted not, accordingly, in the richest countries, but as a sort of fortune. The value of children is in the most thriving, or in those which are the greatest of all encouragements to marriage. growing rich the fastest, that the wages of la- We cannot, therefore, wonder that the people bour are highest. England is certainly, in the present times, a much richer country than any part of North America. The wages of labour, however, are much higher in North America than in any part of England. In the province of New York, common labourers earn three shillings and sixpence currency, equal to two shillings sterling, a-day; shipcarpenters, ten shillings and sixpence curren- Though the wealth of a country should be cy, with a pint of rum, worth sixpence ster- very great, yet if it has been long stationary, ling, equal in all to six shillings and sixpence we must not expect to find the wages of lasterling; house-carpenters and bricklayers, bour very high in it. The funds destined for eight shillings currency, equal to four shill- the payment of wages, the revenue and stock ings and sixpence ster ing; journeymen tai- of its inhabitants, may be of the greatest exlors, five shillings currency, equal to about tent; but if they have continued for several two shillings and tenpence sterling. These centuries of the same, or very nearly of the prices are all above the London price; and same extent, the number of labourers employwages are said to be as high in the other colo-ed every year could easily supply, and even nies as in New York. The price of provi. more than supply, the number wanted the sions is everywhere in North America much following year. There could seldom be any lower than in England. A dearth has never scarcity of hands, nor could the masters be been known there. In the worst seasons obliged to bid against one another in order to they have always had a sufficiency for them- get them. The hands, on the contrary, would,

This was written in 1773, before the commencement of the late disturbances.

in North America should generally marry very young. Notwithstanding the great increase occasioned by such early marriages, there is a continual complaint of the scarcity of hands in North America. The demand for labourers, the funds destined for maintaining them increase, it seems, still faster than they can find labourers to employ.

in this case, naturally multiply beyond their employment. There would be a constant | scarcity of employment, and the labourers