CHAP X.

Of Wages and Profit in the different Employments of Labor and Stock.

THE whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labor and ftock muft, in the fame neighbourhood, be either perfectly equal or continually tending to equality. If in the fame neighbourhood, there was any employ. ment evidently either more or lefs advantageous than the reft, fo many people would crowd into it in the one cafe, and fo many would defert it in the other, that its advantages would foon return to the level of other employments. This at least would be the cafe in a fociety where things were left to follow their natural courfe, where there was perfect liberty, and where every man was perfectly free both to chufe what occupation hẹ thought proper, and to change it as often as he thought proper. Every man's intereft would prompt him to feek the advantageous, and to fhun the disadvantageous employment.

Pecuniary wages and profit, indeed are everywhere in Europe extremely different according to the different employments of labor and ftock. But this difference arifes partly from certain circumftances in the employments themselves, which either really, or at least in the imaginations of men, make up for a small pecuniary gain in fome,

and counter-balance a great one in others; and partly from the policy of Europe, which no-where leaves things at perfect liberty.

The particular confideration of thofe circum. ftances and of that policy will divide this chapter into two parts.

PART 1.

Inequalities arifing from the Nature of the Employments themselves.

THE five following are the principal circumftances

which, fo far as I have been able to obferve, make up for a small pecuniary gain in fome employments, and counter-balance a great one in others: first, the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employments themselves; fecondly, the eafinefs and cheapnefs, or the difficulty and expenfe of learning them; thirdly, the conftancy or inconftancy of employment in them; fourthly, the small or great trust which must be reposed in those who exercise them; and, fifthly the probability or improbability of fuccefs in them.

First, The wages of labor vary with the cafe or hardship, the cleanliness or dirtinefs, the honorablenefs or difhonorableness of the employment. Thus in moft places, take the year round, a journeyman taylor earns lefs than a journeyman weaver. His work is much easier. A journeyman weaver earns lefs than a journeyman fmith. His work is not always eafier, but it is much cleanlier. A journeyman blacksmith,

though an artificer, feldom earns fo much in twelve hours as a collier, who is only a laborer, does in eight. His work is not quite fo dirty, is less dangerous, and is carried on in day-light, and above ground. Honor makes a great part of the reward of all honorable profeffions. In point of pecuniary gain, all things confidered, they are generally under-recompenfed, as I fhall endeavour to show by and by. Difgrace has the contrary effect. The trade of a butcher is a brutal and an odious business; but it is in most places more profitable than the greater part of common trades. The most deteftable of all employments, that of public executioner, is, in proportion to the quantity of work done, better paid than any common trade whatever.

Hunting and fishing, the most important employments of mankind in the rude ftate of fociety, become in its advanced ftate their most agreeable amusements, and they pursue for pleasure what they once followed from neceffity. In the advanced ftate of society, therefore, they are all very poor people who follow as a trade, what other people pursue as a paftime. Fishermen have been fo fince the time of Theocritus. A poacher is every where a very poor man in Great Britain. In countries where the rigor of the law fuffers no poachers, the licensed hunter is not in a much better condition. The natural tafte for those employments makes more people follow them than can live comfortably by them, and the produce of their labor, in proportion *See Idyllium XXI.

to its quantity, comes always too cheap to market to afford any thing but the most scanty subsistence to the laborers.

Difagreeablenefs and difgrace affect the profits of ftock in the fame manner as the wages of labor. The keeper of an inn or tavern, who is never mafter of his own houfe, and who is expofed to the brutality of every drunkard,' exercises neither a very agreeable nor a very creditable business. But there is fcarce any common trade in which a small stock yields fo great a profit.

Secondly, The wages of labor vary with the eafinefs and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning the business.

When any expenfive machine is erected, the extraordinary work to be performed by it before it is worn out, it must be expected, will replace the capital laid out upon it, with at least the ordinary profits. A man educated at the expense of much labor and time to any of those employments which require extraordinary dexterity and skill, may be compared to one of those expensive machines. The work which he learns to perform, it must be expected, over and above the usual wages of common labor, will replace to him the whole expense of his education, with at least the ordinary profits of an equally valuable capital. It muft do this too in a reasonable time, regard being had to the very uncertain duration of human life, in the fame manner as to the more certain duration of the machine.

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The difference between the wages of fkilled labor and thofe of common labor, is founded upon this principle.

The policy of Europe confiders the labor of all mechanics, artificers, and manufacturers, as fkilled labor; and that of all country laborers as common labor. It feems to fuppose that of the former to be of a more nice and delicate nature than that of the latter. It is fo perhaps in fome cases; but in the greater part it is quite otherwise, as I fhall endeavour to fhow by and by. The laws and customs of Europe, therefore, in order to qualify any perfon for exercifing the one fpecies of labor, impofe the neceffity of an apprenticeship, though with different degrees of rigor in different places. They leave the other free and open to every body. During the continuance of the apprenticeship, the whole labor of the apprentice belongs to his master. In the mean time he muft, in many cafes, be maintained by his parents or relations and in almost all cafes must be cloathed by them. Some money too is commonly given to the mafter for teaching him his trade. They who cannot give money, give time, or become bound for more than the ufual number of years; a confideration which, though it is not always advantageous to the master, on account of the ufual idleness of apprentices, is always difadvantageous to the apprentice. In country labor, on the contrary, the laborer, while he is employed about the easier, learns the more difficult parts of his business, and his own labor maintains him through all the