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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow LABOURERS' WAGES 17 June 1822 - The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 5 Speeches and Evidence

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LABOURERS’ WAGES 17 June 1822 - David Ricardo, The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 5 Speeches and Evidence [1819]

Edition used:

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, ed. Piero Sraffa with the Collaboration of M.H. Dobb (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005). Vol. 5 Speeches and Evidence 1815-1823.

Part of: The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, 11 vols (Sraffa ed.)

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


LABOURERS’ WAGES
17 June 1822

Mr. Littleton presented a petition ‘from the miners, iron-makers, and coal-masters of Dudley, praying that the House would enjoin a more strict observance of the law, which directs that labourers should be paid only in money, and not in provisions or other commodities.’

Mr. Ricardo thought it impossible to renew so obnoxious an act. Mr. Owen prided himself upon having introduced the provision system. He had opened a shop at New Lanark, in which he sold the best commodities to his workmen cheaper than they could be obtained elsewhere; and he was persuaded that the practice was a beneficial one.