would be obliged to bid against one another lowest class of labourers, therefore, notwithin order to get it. If in such a country the standing their scanty subsistence, must some wages of labour had ever been more than suf-way or another make shift to continue their ficient to maintain the labourer, and to enable race so far as to keep up their usual numbers. him to bring up a family, the competition of But it would be otherwise in a country the labourers and the interest of the masters where the funds destined for the maintenance would soon reduce them to the lowest rate of labcur were sensibly decaying. Every year which is consistent with common humanity. the demand for servants and labourers would, China has been long one of the richest, that in all the different classes of employments, be is, one of the most fertile, best cultivated, less than it had been the year before. Many most industrious, and most populous, coun- who had been bred in the superior classes, not tries in the world. It seems, however, to have being able to find employment in their own been long stationary. Marco Polo, who vi- business, would be glad to seek it in the lowsited it more than five hundred years ago, de-est. The lowest class being not only overscribes its cultivation, industry, and poplous-stocked with its own workmen, but with the ness, almost in the same terms in which they overflowings of all the other classes, the comare described by travellers in the present petition for employment would be so great in times. It had, perhaps, even long before his it, as to reduce the wages of labour to the time, acquired that full complement of riches most miserable and scanty subsistence of the which the nature of its laws and institutions labourer. Many would not be able to find permits it to acquire. The accounts of all employment even upon these hard terms, but travellers, inconsistent in many other respects, would either starve, or be driven to seek a subagree in the low wages of labour, and in the sistence, either by begging, or by the perpetradifficulty which a labourer finds in bringing tion, perhaps, of the greatest enormities. Want, up a family in China. If by digging the famine, and mortality, would immediately preground a whole day he can get what will pur- vail in that class, and from thence extend themchase a small quantity of rice in the evening, selves to all the superior classes, till the number he is contented. The condition of artificers of inhabitants in the country was reduced to is, if possible, still worse. Instead of waiting what could easily be maintained by the reveindolently in their work-houses for the calls nue and stock which remained in it, and which of their customers, as in Europe, they are had escaped either the tyranny or calamity continually running about the streets with the which had destroyed the rest. This, perhaps, tools of their respective trades, offering their is nearly the present state of Bengal, and of services, and, as it were, begging employment. some other of the English settlements in the The poverty of the lower ranks of people in East Indies. In a fertile country, which had China far surpasses that of the most beggarly before been much depopulated, where subnations in Europe. In the neighbourhood sistence, consequently, should not be very difof Canton, many hundred, it is commonly ficult, and where, notwithstanding, three or said, many thousand families have no habitation on the land, but live constantly in little fishing-boats upon the rivers and canals. The subsistence which they find there is so scanty, that they are eager to fish up the nas-tween the genius of the British constitution, tiest garbage thrown overboard from any Eu- which protects and governs North America, ropean ship. Any carrion, the carcase of a and that of the mercantile company which opdead dog or cat, for example, though half pu- presses and domineers in the East Indies, trid and stinking, is as welcome to them as cannot, perhaps, be better illustrated than by the most wholesome food to the people of the different state of those countries. other countries. Marriage is encouraged in The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as China, not by the profitableness of children, it is the necessary effect, so it is the natural but by the liberty of destroying them. In symptom of increasing national wealth. The all great towns, several are every night expos- scanty maintenance of the labouring poor, on ed in the street, or drowned like puppies in the other hand, is the natural symptom that the water. The performance of this horrid things are at a stand, and their starving conoffice is even said to be the avowed business dition, that they are going fast backwards. by which some people earn their subsistence. In Great Britain, the wages of labour seem, China, however, though it may, perhaps, in the present times, to be evidently more stand still, does not seem to go backwards. than what is precisely necessary to enable the Its towns are nowhere deserted by their inha- labourer to bring up a family. In order to bitants. The lands which had once been cul- satisfy ourselves upon this point, it will not tivated, are nowhere neglected. The same, be necessary to enter into any tedious or or very nearly the same, annual labour, must, doubtful calculation of what may be the lowtherefore, continue to be performed, and the est sum upon which it is possible to do this. funds destined for maintaining it must not, There are many plain symptoms, that the consequently, be sensibly diminished. The wages of labour are nowhere in this country

four hundred thousand people die of hunger in one year, we may be assured that the funds destined for the maintenance of the labouring poor are fast decaying. The difference be

regulated by this lowest rate, which is con-usual price of common labour through the sistent with common humanity. greater part of the low country of Scotland, First, in almost every part of Great Britain where it varies a good deal less than in Engthere is a distinction, even in the lowest spe- land. Such a difference of prices, which, it cies of labour, between summer and winter seems, is not always sufficient to transport a wages. Summer wages are always highest. man from one parish to another, would necesBnt, on account of the extraordinary expense sarily occasion so great a transportation of the of fuel, the maintenance of a family is most most bulky commodities, not only from one expensive in winter. Wages, therefore, being parish to another, but from one end of the kinghighest when this expense is lowest, it seems dom, almost from one end of the world to the evident that they are not regulated by what other, as would soon reduce them more nearly is necessary for this expense, but by the quan- to a level. After all that has been said of the tity and supposed value of the work. A la- levity and inconstancy of human nature, it bourer, it may be said, indeed, ought to save appears evidently from experience, that man part of his summer wages, in order to defray is, of all sorts of luggage, the most difficult to his winter expense; and that, through the be transported. If the labouring poor, therewhole year, they do not exceed what is neces-fore, can maintain their families in those parts sary to maintain his family through the whole of the kingdom where the price of labour is year. A slave, however, or one absolutely lowest, they must be in affluence where it is dependent on us for immediate subsistence, highest. would not be treated in this manner. His Fourthly, the variations in the price of ladaily subsistence would be proportioned to his bour not only do not correspond, either in daily necessities. place or time, with those in the price of proSecondly, the wages of labour do not, in visions, but they are frequently quite opposite. Great Britain, fluctuate with the price of pro- Grain, the food of the common people, is visions. These vary everywhere from year to dearer in Scotland than in England, whence year, frequently from month to month. But Scotland receives almost every year very large in many places, the money price of labour re-supplies. But English corn must be sold mains uniformly the same, sometimes for half dearer in Scotland, the country to which it is a century together. If, in these places, therefore, the labouring poor can maintain their families in dear years, they must be at their ease in times of moderate plenty, and in affluence in those of extraordinary cheapness. The high price of provisions during these ten years past, has not, in many parts of the kingdom, been accompanied with any sensible rise in the money price of labour. It has, indeed, in some; owing, probably, more to the increase of the demand for labour, than to that of the price of provisions.

brought, than in England, the country from which it comes; and in proportion to its quality it cannot be sold dearer in Scotland than the Scotch corn that comes to the same mar. ket in competition with it. The quality of grain depends chiefly upon the quantity of flour or meal which it yields at the mill; and, in this respect, English grain is so much superior to the Scotch, that though often dearer in appearance, or in proportion to the measure of its bulk, it is generally cheaper in reality, or in proportion to its quality, or even to the Thirdly, as the price of provisions varies measure of its weight. The price of labour, more from year to year than the wages of la- on the contrary, is dearer in England than in bour, so, on the other hand, the wages of la- Scotland. If the labouring poor, therefore, Dour vary more from place to place than the can maintain their families in the one part of price of provisions. The prices of bread and the united kingdom, they must be in affluence butchers' meat are generally the same, or very in the other. Oatmeal, indeed, supplies the nearly the same, through the greater part of common people in Scotland with the greatest the united kingdom. These, and most other and the best part of their food, which is, in things which are sold by retail, the way in general, much inferior to that of their neighwhich the labouring poor buy all things, are bours of the same rank in England. This generally fully as cheap, or cheaper, in great difference, however, in the mode of their subtowns than in the remoter parts of the coun-sistence, is not the cause, but the effect, of try, for reasons which I shall have occasion to the difference in their wages; though, by a explain hereafter. But the wages of labour strange misapprehension, I have frequently in a great town and its neighbourhood, are heard it represented as the cause. It is not frequently a fourth or a fifth part, twenty or five-and-twenty per cent, higher than at a few miles distance. Eighteen pence a day may be reckoned the common price of labour in London and its neighbourhood. At a few miles distance, it falls to fourteen and fifteen pence. Tenpence may be reckoned its price in Edinburgh and its neighbourhood. At a few miles distance, it falls to eightpence, the

because one man keeps a coach, while his neighbour walks a-foot, that the one is rich, and the other poor; but because the one is rich, he keeps a coach, and because the other is poor, he walks a-foot.

During the course of the last century, taking one year with another, grain was dearer in both parts of the united kingdom than during that of the present. This is a matter of

fact which cannot now admit of any reason-subject. In 1688, Mr Gregory King, whose able doubt; and the proof of it is, if possible, skill in political arithmetic is so much extol still more decisive with regard to Scotland led by Dr Davenant, computed the ordinary than with regard to England. It is in Scot-income of labourers and out-servants to be land supported by the evidence of the public fifteen pounds a-year to a family, which he fiars, annual valuations made upon oath, ac- supposed to consist, one with another, of three cording to the actual state of the markets, of and a half persons. His calculation, there. all the different sorts of grain in every differ- fore, though different in appearance, corres ent county of Scotland. If such direct proof ponds very nearly at bottom with that of Judge could require any collateral evidence to con- Hales. Both suppose the weekly expense of firm it, I would observe, that this has like- such families to be about twenty-pence a-head. wise been the case in France, and probably in Both the pecuniary income and expense of most other parts of Europe. With regard to such families have increased considerably since France, there is the clearest proof. But though that time through the greater part of the kingit is certain, that in both parts of the united dom, in some places more, and in some less, kingdom grain was somewhat dearer in the though perhaps scarce anywhere so much as last century than in the present, it is equally some exaggerated accounts of the present wages certain that labour was much cheaper. If the of labour have lately represented them to the labouring poor, therefore, could bring up their public. The price of labour, it must be obfamilies then, they must be much more at served, cannot be ascertained very accurately their ease now. In the last century, the most anywhere, different prices being often paid at usual day-wages of common labour through the same place and for the same sort of lathe greater part of Scotland were sixpence in bour, not only according to the different abisummer, and fivepence in winter. Three shil- lities of the workman, but according to the lings a-week, the same price, very nearly still easiness or hardness of the masters. Where continues to be paid in some parts of the wages are not regulated by law, all that we Highlands and Western islands. Through can pretend to determine is, what are the the greater part of the Lowcountry, the most most usual; and experience seems to skew usual wages of common labour are now eight- that law can never regulate them properly, pence a-day; tenpence, sometimes a shilling, though it has often pretended to do so. about Edinburgh, in the counties which bor- The real recompence of labour, the rear der upon England, probably on account of quantity of the necessaries and conveniencies that neighbourhood, and in a few other places of life which it can procure to the labourer, where there has lately been a considerable rise has, during the course of the present century, in the demand for abour, about Glasgow, increased perhaps in a still greater proportion Carron, Ayrshire, & In England, the im- than its money price. Not only grain has beprovements of agriculture, manufactures, and come somewhat cheaper, but many other commerce, began much earlier than in Scot- things, from which the industrious poor derive land. The demand for labour, and conse- an agreeable and wholesome variety of food, quently its price, must necessarily have in- have become a great deal cheaper. Potatoes, creased with those improvements. In the last for example, do not at present, through the century, accordingly, as well as in the present, greater part of the kingdom, cost half the the wages of labour were higher in England price which they used to do thirty or forty than in Scotland. They have risen, too, con- years ago. The same thing may be said of siderably since that time, though, on account turnips, carrots, cabbages; things which were of the greater variety of wages paid there in formerly never raised but by the spade, but different places, it is more difficult to ascer- which are now commonly raised by the plough. tain how much. In 1614, the pay of a foot All sort of garden stuff, too, has become cheapsoldier was the same as in the present times, er. The greater part of the apples, and even eightpence a-day. When it was first estab- of the onions, consumed in Great Britain, lished, it would naturally be regulated by the were, in the last century, imported from Flanusual wages of common labourers, the rank ders. The great improvements in the coarser of people from which foot soldiers are com- manufactories of both linen and woollen cloth monly drawn. Lord-chief-justice Hales, who furnish the labourers with cheaper and better wrote in the time of Charles II. computes the clothing; and those in the manufactories of necessary expense of a labourer's family, con- the coarser metals, with cheaper and better insisting of six persons, the father and mother, struments of trade, as wel as with many atwo children able to do something, and two greeable and convenient pieces of household not able, at ten shillings a-week, or twenty-six furniture. Soap, salt, candles, leather, and pounds a-year. If they cannot earn this by fermented liquors, have, indeed, become a their labour, they must make it up, he supposes, either by begging or stealing. He appears to have enquired very carefully into this

* See his scheme for the maintenance of the poor, in Burn's History of the Poor Laws.

better station. Though their marriages are generally more fruitful than those of people of fashion, a smaller proportion of their children arrive at maturity. In foundling hospitals, and among the children brought up by parish charities, the mortality is still greater than among those of the common people.

good deal dearer, chiefly from the taxes which everywhere be found chiefly among the chilhave been laid upon them. The quantity of dren of the common people, who cannot afford these, however, which the labouring poor are to tend them with the same care as those of under any necessity of consuming, is so very small, that the increase in their price does not compensate the diminution in that of so many other things. The common complaint, that luxury extends itself even to the lowest ranks of the people, and that the labouring poor will not now be contented with the same food, clothing, and lodging, which satisfied them in former times, may convince us that it is not the money price of labour only, but its real recompence, which has augmented.

Every species of animals naturally multiplies in proportion to the means of their subsistence, and no species can ever multiply beyond it. But in civilized society, it is only Is this improvement in the circumstances of among the inferior ranks of people that the the lower ranks of the people to be regarded scantiness of subsistence can set limits to the as an advantage, or as an inconveniency, to further multiplication of the human species; the society? The answer seems at first abun- and it can do so in no other way than by dedantly plain. Servants, labourers, and work-stroying a great part of the children which men of different kinds, make up the far great- their fruitful marriages produce.

er part of every great political society. But The liberal reward of labour, by enabling what improves the circumstances of the great- them to provide better for their children, and er part, can never be regarded as any incon- consequently to bring up a greater number, veniency to the whole. No society can surely naturally tends to widen and extend those libe flourishing and happy, of which the far mits. It deserves to be remarked, too, that it greater part of the members are poor and mi- necessarily does this as nearly as possible in serable. It is but equity, besides, that they the proportion which the demand for labour who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body requires. If this demand is continually inof the people, should have such a share of the creasing, the reward of labour must necessariproduce of their own labour as to be them-ly encourage in such a manner the marriage selves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged. and multiplication of labourers, as may enable Poverty, though it no doubt discourages, them to supply that continually increasing dedoes not always prevent, marriage. It seems mand by a continually increasing population. even to be favourable to generation. A half- If the reward should at any time be less than starved Highland woman frequently bears more what was requisite for this purpose, the dethan twenty children, while a pampered fine ficiency of hands would soon raise it; and if lady is often incapable of bearing any, and is it should at any time be more, their excessive generally exhausted by two or three. Bar- multiplication would soon lower it to this nerenness, so frequent among women of fashion, cessary rate. The market would be so much is very rare among those of inferior station. understocked with labour in the one case, and Luxury, in the fair sex, while it inflames, per- so much overstocked in the other, as would haps, the passion for enjoyment, seems always soon force back its price to that proper rate to weaken, and frequently to destroy altogeth- which the circumstances of the society requirer, the powers of generation. ed. It is in this manner that the demand for men, like that for any other commodity, necessarily regulates the production of men, quickens it when it goes on too slowly, and stops it when it advances too fast. It is this

But poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children. The tender plant is produced; but in so cold a soil, and so severe a climate, soon withers and dies. It is not un-demand which regulates and determines the common, I have been frequently told, in the state of propagation in all the different counHighlands of Scotland, for a mother who has tries of the world; in North America, in Euborn twenty children not to have two alive. rope, and in China; which renders it rapidly Several officers of great experience have as- progressive in the first, slow and gradual in sured me, that, so far from recruiting their the second, and altogether stationary in the regiment, they have never been able to supply last.

said, is at the expense of his master; but that of a free servant is at his own expense. The wear and tear of the latter, however, is, in reality, as much at the expense of his master The wages paid to

it with drums and fifes, from all the soldiers' The wear and tear of a slave, it has been children that were born in it. A greater number of fine children, however, is seldom seen anywhere than about a barrack of soldiers. Very few of them, it seems, arrive at the age of thirteen or fourteen. In some places, one as that of the former. half the children die before they are four years journeymen and servants of every kind must of age, in many places before they are seven, be such as may enable them, one with another, and in almost all places before they are nine to continue the race of journeymen and ser This great mortality, however wil vants, according as the increasing, diminish

or ten.

C

ing, or stationary demand of the society, may part. Workmen, on the contrary, when they happen to require. But though the wear and are liberally paid by the piece, are very apt to tear of a free servant be equally at the ex- overwork themselves, and to ruin their health pense of his master, it generally costs him and constitution in a few years. A carpenter much less than that of a slave. The fund in London, and in some other places, is not destined for replacing or repairing, if I may supposed to last in his utmost vigour above say so, the wear and tear of the slave, is com- eight years. Something of the same kind monly managed by a negligent master or happens in many other trades, in which the careless overseer. That destined for perform-workmen are paid by the piece; as they geing the same office with regard to the free- nerally are in manufactures, and even in man is managed by the freeman himself. country labour, wherever wages are higher The disorders which generally prevail in the than ordinary. Almost every class of artifieconomy of the rich, naturally introduce cers is subject to some peculiar infirinity octhemselves into the management of the for- casioned by excessive application to their pemer; the strict frugality and parsimonious culiar species of work. Ramuzzini, an emiattention of the poor as naturally establish nent Italian physician, has written a particuthemselves in that of the latter. Under such lar book concerning such diseases. We do different management, the same purpose must not reckon our soldiers the most industrious require very different degrees of expense to set of people among us; yet when soldiers execute it. It appears, accordingly, from the have been employed in some particular sorts experience of all ages and nations, I believe, of work, and liberally paid by the piece, their that the work done by freemen comes cheaper officers have frequently been obliged to stipuin the end than that performed by slaves. It late with the undertaker, that they should not is found to do so even at Boston, New-York, be allowed to earn above a certain sum every and Philadelphia, where the wages of com- day, according to the rate at which they were mon labour are so very high.

The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the effect of increasing wealth, so it is the cause of increasing population. To com plain of it, is to lament over the necessary cause and effect of the greatest public prosDerity.

paid. Till this stipulation was made, mutual emulation, and the desire of greater gain, frequently prompted them to overwork themselves, and to hurt their health by excessive labour. Excessive application, during four days of the week, is frequently the real cause of the idleness of the other three, so much and It deserves to be remarked, perhaps, that it so loudly complained of. Great labour, either is in the progressive state, while the society is of mind or body, continued for several days advancing to the further acquisition, rather together is, in most men, naturally followed than when it has acquired its full complement by a great desire of relaxation, which, if not of riches, that the condition of the labouring restrained by force, or by some strong necespoor, of the great body of the people, seems sity, is almost irresistible. It is the call of to be the happiest and the most comfortable. nature, which requires to be relieved by some It is hard in the stationary, and miserable in indulgence, sometimes of ease only, but somethe declining state. The progressive state is, times too of dissipation and diversion. If it in reality, the cheerful and the hearty state to is not complied with, the consequences are all the different orders of the society; the often dangerous and sometimes fatal, and stationary is dull; the declining melancholy. such as almost always, sooner or later, bring The liberal reward of labour, as it encour-on the peculiar infirmity of the trade. If ages the propagation, so it increases the in- masters would always listen to the dictates of dustry of the common people. The wages of reason and humanity, they have frequently labour are the encouragement of industry, occasion rather to moderate, than to animate which, like every other human quality, im- the application of many of their workmen. It proves in proportion to the encouragement it will be found, I believe, in every sort of trade, receives. A plentiful subsistence increases that the man who works so moderately, as to the bodily strength of the labourer, and the be able to work constantly, not only preserves comfortable hope of bettering his condition, his health the longest, but, in the course of and of ending his days, perhaps, in ease and the year, executes the greatest quantity of plenty, animates him to exert that strength to work.

the utmost. Where wages are high, accord- In cheap years it is pretended, workmen ingly, we shall always find the workmen more are generally more idle, and in dear times active, diligent, and expeditious, than where more industrious than ordinary. A plentiful they are low; in England, for example, than 'subsistence, therefore, it has been concluded, in Scotland; in the neighbourhood of great relaxes, and a scanty one quickens their intowns, than in remote country places. Some dustry. That a little more plenty than ordiworkmen, indeed, when they can earn in four nary may render some workmen idle, cannot days what will maintain them through the be well doubted; but that it should have this week, will be idle the other three. This, how-effect upon the greater part, or that men in ever, is by no means the case with the greater general should work better when they are ill