The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface
• Editor’s Introduction
• Introduction and Plan of the Work
• Book I: Of the Causes of Improvement In the Productive Powers of Labour, and of the Order According to Which Its Produce Is Naturally Distributed Among the Different Ranks of the People.
• Chapter I: Of the Division of Labour 1
• Chapter II: Of the Principle Which Gives Occasion to the Division of Labour
• Chapter III: That the Division of Labour Is Limited By the Extent of the Market
• Chapter IV: Of the Origin and Use of Money
• Chapter V: Of the Real and Nominal Price of Commodities, Or of Their Price In Labour, and Their Price In Money
• Chapter VI: Of the Component Parts of the Price of Commodities
• Chapter VII: Of the Natural and Market Price of Commodities 1
• Chapter VIII: Of the Wages of Labour
• Chapter IX: Of the Profits of Stock
• Chapter X: Of Wages and Profit In the Different Employments of Labour and Stock 1
• Part I: Inequalities Arising From the Nature of the Employments Themselves 1
• Part II: Inequalities Occasioned By the Policy of Europe
• Chapter XI: Of the Rent of Land
• Part I: Of the Produce of Land Which Always Affords Rent
• Part II: Of the Produce of Land Which Sometimes Does, and Sometimes Does Not, Afford Rent
• Part III: Of the Variations In the Proportion Between the Respective Values of That Sort of Produce Which Always Affords Rent, and of That Which Sometimes Does and Sometimes Does Not Afford Rent
• Digression Concerning the Variations In the Value of Silver During the Course of the Four Last Centuries
• Book II: Of the Nature, Accumulation, and Employment of Stock
• Introduction
• Chapter I: Of the Division of Stock
• Chapter II: Of Money Considered As a Particular Branch of the General Stock of the Society, Or of the Expence of Maintaining the National Capital
• Chapter III: Of the Accumulation of Capital, Or of Productive and Unproductive Labour
• Chapter IV: Of Stock Lent At Interest
• Chapter V: Of the Different Employment of Capitals
• Book III: Of the Different Progress of Opulence In Different Nations
• Chapter I: Of the Natural Progress of Opulence
• Chapter II: Of the Discouragement of Agriculture In the Ancient State of Europe After the Fall of the Roman Empire
• Chapter III: Of the Rise and Progress of Cities and Towns, After the Fall of the Roman Empire
• Chapter IV: How the Commerce of the Towns Contributed to the Improvement of the Country
• Book IV: Of Systems of Political Œconomy
• Introduction
• Chapter I: Of the Principle of the Commercial Or Mercantile System
• Chapter II: Of Restraints Upon the Importation From Foreign Countries of Such Goods As Can Be Produced At Home
• Chapter III: Of the Extraordinary Restraints Upon the Importation of Goods of Almost All Kinds, From Those Countries With Which the Balance Is Supposed to Be Disadvantageous
• Part I: Of the Unreasonableness of Those Restraints Even Upon the Principles of the Commercial System 1
• Part II: Of the Unreasonableness of Those Extraordinary Restraints Upon Other Principles 2

PART II

Inequalities occasioned by the Policy of Europe

The policy of Europe occasions more important inequalitiesSUCH are the inequalities in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock, which the defect of any of the three requisites above-mentioned must occasion, even where there is the most perfect liberty. But the policy of Europe, by not leaving things at perfect liberty, occasions other inequalities of much greater importance.

in three ways:It does this chiefly in the three following ways. First, by restraining the competition in some employments to a smaller number than would otherwise be disposed to enter into them; secondly, by increasing it in others beyond what it naturally would be; and, thirdly, by obstructing the free circulation of labour and stock, both from employment to employment and from place to place.

(1) It restricts competition in some employments,First, The policy of Europe occasions a very important inequality in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock, by restraining the competition in some employments to a smaller number than might otherwise be disposed to enter into them.

principally by giving exclusive privileges to corporations, which require long apprenticeship and limit the number of apprentices.The exclusive privileges of corporations are the principal means it makes use of for this purpose.

The exclusive privilege of an incorporated trade necessarily restrains the competition, in the town where it is established, to those who are free of the trade. To have served an apprenticeship in the town, under a master properly qualified, is commonly the necessary requisite for obtaining this freedom. The bye-laws of the corporation regulate sometimes the number of apprentices which any master is allowed to have, and almost always the number of years which each apprentice is obliged to serve. The intention of both regulations is to restrain the competition to a much smaller number than might otherwise be disposed to enter into the trade. The limitation of the number of apprentices restrains it directly. A long term of apprenticeship restrains it more indirectly, but as effectually, by increasing the expence of education.

In Sheffield no master cutler can have more than one apprentice at a time, by a bye-law of the corporation. In Norfolk and Norwich no master weaver can have more than two apprentices, under pain of forfeiting five pounds a month to the king.1 No master hatter can have more than two apprentices any-where in England, or in the English plantations, under pain of forfeiting five pounds a month, half to the king, and half to him who shall sue in any court of record.2 Both these regulations, though they have been confirmed by a public law of the kingdom, are evidently dictated by the same corporation spirit which enacted the bye-law of Sheffield.3 The silk weavers in London had scarce been incorporated a year when they enacted a bye-law, restraining any master from having more than two apprentices at a time. It required a particular act of parliament to rescind this bye-law.4

Seven years seem anciently to have been, all over Europe, the usualSeven years is the usual period of apprenticeship. term established for the duration of apprenticeships in the greater part of incorporated trades. All such incorporations were anciently called universities; which indeed is the proper Latin name for any incorporation whatever. The university of smiths, the university of taylors, &c. are expressions which we commonly meet with in the old charters of ancient towns.5 When those particular incorporations which are now peculiarly called universities were first established, the term of years which it was necessary to study, in order to obtain the degree of master of arts, appears evidently to have been copied from the term of apprenticeship in common trades, of which the incorporations were much more ancient. As to have wrought seven years under a master properly qualified, was necessary, in order to entitle any person to become a master, and to have himself apprentices in a common trade; so to have studied seven years under a master properly qualified, was necessary to entitle him to become a master, teacher, or doctor (words anciently synonimous) in the liberal arts, and to have scholars or apprentices (words likewise originally synonimous) to study under him.

The Statute of Apprenticeship, which required it everywhere in England, has been confined to market towns,By the 5th of Elizabeth, commonly called the Statute of Apprenticeship,1 it was enacted, that no person should for the future exercise any trade, craft, or mystery at that time exercised in England, unless he had previously served to it an apprenticeship of seven years at least; and what before had been the bye-law of many particular corporations, became in England the general and public law of all trades carried on in market towns. For though the words of the statute are very general, and seem plainly to include the whole kingdom, by interpretation its operation has been limited to market towns, it having been held that in country villages a person may exercise several different trades, though he has not served a seven years apprenticeship to each, they being necessary for the conveniency of the inhabitants, and the number of people frequently not being sufficient to supply each with a particular set of hands.2

and to trades existing when it was passed.By a strict interpretation of the words too the operation of this statute has been limited to those trades which were established in England before the 5th of Elizabeth, and has never been extended to such as have been introduced since that time.3 This limitation has given occasion to several distinctions which, considered as rules of police, appear as foolish as can well be imagined. It has been adjudged, for example, that a coach-maker can neither himself make nor employ journeymen to make his coach-wheels; but must buy them of a master wheel-wright; this latter trade having been exercised in England before the 5th of Elizabeth.4 But a wheel-wright, though he has never served an apprenticeship to a coach-maker, may either himself make or employ journeymen to make coaches; the trade of a coach-maker not being within the statute, because not exercised in England at the time when it was made.5 The manufactures of Manchester, Birmingham, and Wolverhampton, are many of them, upon this account, not within the statute; not having been exercised in England before the 5th of Elizabeth.

In France, the duration of apprenticeships is different in differentThe term varies in France, towns and in different trades. In Paris, five years is the term required in a great number; but before any person can be qualified to exercise the trade as a master, he must, in many of them, serve five years more as a journeyman. During this latter term he is called the companion1 of his master, and the term itself is called his companionship.2

In Scotland there is no general law which regulates universally theand Scotland, where the regulations are less oppressive. duration of apprenticeships. The term is different in different corporations. Where it is long, a part of it may generally be redeemed by paying a small fine. In most towns too a very small fine is sufficient to purchase the freedom of any corporation. The weavers of linen and hempen cloth, the principal manufactures of the country, as well as all other artificers subservient to them, wheel-makers, reel-makers, &c. may exercise their trades in any town corporate without paying any fine. In all towns corporate all persons are free to sell butcher’s meat upon any lawful day of the week. Three years is in Scotland a common term of apprenticeship, even in some very nice trades; and in general I know of no country in Europe in which corporation laws are so little oppressive.

The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is theAll such regulations are as impertinent as oppressive. original foundation of all other property,3 so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his hands; and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper without injury to his neighbour, is a plain violation of this most sacred property. It is a manifest encroachment upon the just liberty both of the workman, and of those who might be disposed to employ him. As it hinders the one from working at what he thinks proper, so it hinders the others from employing whom they think proper. To judge whether he is fit to be employed, may surely be trusted to the discretion of the employers whose interest it so much concerns. The affected anxiety of the law-giver lest they should employ an improper person, is evidently as impertinent as it is oppressive.

The institution of long apprenticeships can give no security thatLong apprenticeships are no security against bad work, insufficient workmanship shall not frequently be exposed to public sale. When this is done it is generally the effect of fraud, and not of inability; and the longest apprenticeship can give no security against fraud. Quite different regulations are necessary to prevent this abuse. The sterling mark upon plate, and the stamps upon linen1 and woollen cloth,2 give the purchaser much greater security than any statute of apprenticeship. He generally looks at these, but never thinks it worth while to enquire whether the workmen had served a seven years apprenticeship.

and do not form young people to industryThe institution of long apprenticeships has no tendency to form young people to industry. A journeyman who works by the piece is likely to be industrious, because he derives a benefit from every exertion of his industry. An apprentice is likely to be idle, and almost always is so, because he has no immediate interest to be otherwise. In the inferior employments, the sweets of labour consist altogether in the recompence of labour. They who are soonest in a condition to enjoy the sweets of it, are likely soonest to conceive a relish for it, and to acquire the early habit of industry. A young man naturally conceives an aversion to labour, when for a long time he receives no benefit from it. The boys who are put out apprentices from public charities are generally bound for more than the usual number of years, and they generally turn out very idle and worthless.

Apprenticeships were unknown to the ancientsApprenticeships were altogether unknown to the ancients. The reciprocal duties of master and apprentice make a considerable article in every modern code.3 The Roman law is perfectly silent with regard to them. I know no Greek or Latin word (I might venture, I believe, to assert that there is none) which expresses the idea we now annex to the word Apprentice, a servant bound to work at a particular trade for the benefit of a master, during a term of years, upon condition that the master shall teach him that trade.

Long apprenticeships are altogether unnecessaryLong apprenticeships are altogether unnecessary. The arts, which are much superior to common trades, such as those of making clocks and watches, contain no such mystery as to require a long course of instruction. The first invention of such beautiful machines, indeed, and even that of some of the instruments employed in making them, must, no doubt, have been the work of deep thought and long time, and may justly be considered as among the happiest efforts of human ingenuity. But when both have been fairly invented and are well understood, to explain to any young man, in the completest manner, how to apply the instruments and how to construct the machines, cannot well require more than the lessons of a few weeks: perhaps those of a few days might be sufficient. In the common mechanic trades, those of a few days might certainly be sufficient. The dexterity of hand, indeed, even in common trades, cannot be acquired without much practice and experience. But a young man would practise with much more diligence and attention, if from the beginning he wrought as a journeyman, being paid in proportion to the little work which he could execute, and paying in his turn for the materials which he might sometimes spoil through awkwardness and inexperience. His education would generally in this way be more effectual, and always less tedious and expensive. The master, indeed, would be a loser. He would lose all the wages of the apprentice, which he now saves, for seven years together. In the end, perhaps, the apprentice himself would be a loser. In a trade so easily learnt he would have more competitors, and his wages, when he came to be a complete workman, would be much less than at present. The same increase of competition would reduce the profits of the masters as well as the wages of the workmen. The trades, the crafts, the mysteries,1 would all be losers. But the public would be a gainer, the work of all artificers coming in this way much cheaper to market.

It is to prevent this reduction of price, and consequently of wagesCorporations were established to keep up prices and consequently wages and profit; and profit, by restraining that free competition which would most certainly occasion it, that all corporations, and the greater part of corporation laws, have been established. In order to erect a corporation, no other authority in ancient times was requisite in many parts of Europe, but that of the town corporate in which it was established. In England, indeed, a charter from the king was likewise necessary. But this prerogative of the crown seems to have been reserved rather for extorting money from the subject, than for the defence of the common liberty against such oppressive monopolies. Upon paying a fine to the king, the charter seems generally to have been readily granted; and when any particular class of artificers or traders thought proper to act as a corporation without a charter, such adulterine guilds, as they were called, were not always disfranchised upon that account, but obliged to fine annually to the king for permission to exercise their usurped privileges.2 The immediate inspection of all corporations, and of the bye-laws which they might think proper to enact for their own government, belonged to the town corporate in which they were established; and whatever discipline was exercised over them, proceeded commonly, not from the king, but from that greater incorporation of which those subordinate ones were only parts or members.1

by means of which the towns gained at the expense of the country,The government of towns corporate was altogether in the hands of traders and artificers; and it was the manifest interest of every particular class of them, to prevent the market from being over-stocked, as they commonly express it, with their own particular species of industry; which is in reality to keep it always under-stocked. Each class was eager to establish regulations proper for this purpose, and, provided it was allowed to do so, was willing to consent that every other class should do the same. In consequence of such regulations, indeed, each class was obliged to buy the goods they had occasion for from every other within the town, somewhat dearer than they otherwise might have done. But in recompence, they were enabled to sell their own just as much dearer; so that so far it was as broad as long, as they say; and in the dealings of the different classes within the town with one another, none of them were losers by these regulations. But in their dealings with the country they were all great gainers; and in these latter dealings consists the whole trade which supports and enriches every town.

being enabled to get the produce of a larger quantity of country labour in exchange for the produce of a smaller quantity of their own,Every town draws its whole subsistence, and all the materials of its industry, from the country. It pays for these chiefly in two ways: first, by sending back to the country a part of those materials wrought up and manufactured; in which case their price is augmented by the wages of the workmen, and the profits of their masters or immediate employers: secondly, by sending to it a part both of the rude and manufactured produce, either of other countries, or of distant parts of the same country, imported into the town; in which case too the original price of those goods is augmented by the wages of the carriers or sailors, and by the profits of the merchants who employ them. In what is gained upon the first of those two branches of commerce, consists the advantage which the town makes by its manufactures; in what is gained upon the second, the advantage of its inland and foreign trade. The wages of the workmen, and the profits of their different employers, make up the whole of what is gained upon both. Whatever regulations, therefore, tend to increase those wages and profits beyond what they otherwise would be, tend to enable the town to purchase, with a smaller quantity of its labour, the produce of a greater quantity of the labour of the country. They give the traders and artificers in the town an advantage over the landlords, farmers, and labourers in the country, and break down that natural equality which would otherwise take place in the commerce which is carried on between them. The whole annual produce of the labour of the society is annually divided between those two different sets of people. By means of those regulations a greater share of it is given to the inhabitants of the town than would otherwise fall to them; and a less to those of the country.

The price which the town really pays for the provisions and materialsas the exports of a town are the real price of its imports. 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 less advantageous.

That the industry which is carried on in towns is, every-where inThat town industry is better paid is shown by the large fortunes made in it. 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 of labour and the profits of stock must evidently be greater in the one situation than in the other.1 But stock and labour naturally seek the most advantageous employment. They naturally, therefore, resort as much as they can to the town, and desert the country.

The inhabitants of a town, being collected into one place, can easilyCombination is easy to the inhabitants of a town, combine together. The most insignificant trades carried on in towns have accordingly, in some place or other, been incorporated; and even where they have never been incorporated, yet the corporation spirit, the jealousy of strangers, the aversion to take apprentices, or to communicate the secret of their trade, generally prevail in them, and often teach them, by voluntary associations and agreements, to prevent that free competition which they cannot prohibit by bye-laws. The trades which employ but a small number of hands, run most easily into such combinations. Half a dozen wool-combers, perhaps, are necessary to keep a thousand spinners and weavers at work. By combining not to take apprentices they can not only engross the employment, but reduce the whole manufacture into a sort of slavery to themselves, and raise the price of their labour much above what is due to the nature of their work.

and difficult to those of the country, who are dispersed and not governed by the corporation spirit. No apprenticeship is prescribed for farming, though a difficult art,The inhabitants of the country, dispersed in distant places, cannot easily combine together.1 They have not only never been incorporated, but the corporation spirit never has prevailed among them. No apprenticeship has ever been thought necessary to qualify for husbandry, the great trade of the country. After what are called the fine arts, and the liberal professions, however, there is perhaps no trade which requires so great a variety of knowledge and experience. The innumerable volumes which have been written upon it in all languages, may satisfy us, that among 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 very contemptible authors of some of them 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 possible for words illustrated by figures to explain them. In the history of the arts, now publishing by the French academy of sciences,2 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.

or for the inferior branches of country labour, which require more skill than most mechanic trades.Not only the art of the farmer, the general direction of the operations of husbandry, but many inferior branches of country labour, require much more skill and experience than the greater part of mechanic trades. The man who works upon brass and iron, works with instruments and upon materials of which the temper is always the same, or very nearly the same. But the man who ploughs the ground with a team of horses or oxen, works with instruments of which the health, strength, and temper, are very different upon different occasions. The condition of the materials which he works upon too is as variable as that of the instruments which he works with, and both require to be managed with much judgment and discretion. The common ploughman, though generally regarded as the pattern of stupidity and ignorance, is seldom defective in this judgment and discretion. He is less accustomed, indeed, to social intercourse than the mechanic who lives in a town. His voice and language are more uncouth and more difficult to be understood by those who are not used to them. His understanding, however, being accustomed to consider a greater variety of objects, is generally much superior to that of the other, whose whole attention from morning till night is commonly occupied in performing one or two very simple operations. How much the lower ranks of people in the country are really superior to those of the town, is well known to every man whom either business or curiosity has led to converse much with both.1 In China and Indostan accordingly both the rank and the wages of country labourers are said to be superior to those of the greater part of artificers and manufacturers. They would probably be so every-where, if corporation laws and the corporation spirit did not prevent it.

The superiority which the industry of the towns has every-where inThe superiority of town industry is enhanced by other regulations, such as high duties on foreign manufactures. Europe over that of the country, is not altogether owing to corporations and corporation laws. It is supported by many other regulations. The high duties upon foreign manufactures and upon all goods imported by alien merchants, all tend to the same purpose. Corporation laws enable the inhabitants of towns to raise their prices, without fearing to be under-sold by the free competition of their own countrymen. Those other regulations secure them equally against that of foreigners. The enhancement of price occasioned by both is every-where finally paid by the landlords, farmers, and labourers of the country, who have seldom opposed the establishment of such monopolies. They have commonly neither inclination nor fitness to enter into combinations; and the clamour and sophistry of merchants and manufacturers easily persuade them that the private interest of a part, and of a subordinate part of the society, is the general interest of the whole.

In Great Britain the superiority of the industry of the towns overThe superiority has declined in Great Britain. that of the country, seems to have been greater formerly than in the present times. The wages of country labour approach nearer to those of manufacturing labour, and the profits of stock employed in agriculture to those of trading and manufacturing stock, than they are said to have done in the last century, or in the beginning of the present. This change may be regarded as the necessary, though very late consequence of the extraordinary encouragement given to the industry of the towns. The stock accumulated in them comes in time to be so great, that it can no longer be employed with the ancient profit in that species of industry which is peculiar to them. That industry has its limits like every other; and the increase of stock, by increasing the competition, necessarily reduces the profit. The lowering of profit in the town forces out stock to the country, where, by creating a new demand for country labour, it necessarily raises its wages. It then spreads itself, if I may say so, over the face of the land, and by being employed in agriculture is in part restored to the country, at the expence of which, in a great measure, it had originally been accumulated in the town. That every-where in Europe the greatest improvements of the country have been owing to such overflowings of the stock originally accumulated in the towns, I shall endeavour to show hereafter;1 and at the same time to demonstrate, that though some countries have by this course attained to a considerable degree of opulence, it is in itself necessarily slow, uncertain, liable to be disturbed and interrupted by innumerable accidents, and in every respect contrary to the order of nature and of reason. The interests, prejudices, laws and customs which have given occasion to it, I shall endeavour to explain as fully and distinctly as I can in the third and fourth books of this inquiry.

Meetings of people in the same trade ought not to be facilitated,People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.

as by registration of traders,A regulation which obliges all those of the same trade in a particular town to enter their names and places of abode in a public register, facilitates such assemblies. It connects individuals who might never otherwise be known to one another, and gives every man of the trade a direction where to find every other man of it.

by the establishment of funds for the sick, widows and orphans,A regulation which enables those of the same trade to tax themselves in order to provide for their poor, their sick, their widows and orphans, by giving them a common interest to manage, renders such assemblies necessary.

An incorporation not only renders them necessary, but makes the act of the majority binding upon the whole. In a free trade an effectual combination cannot be established but by the unanimous consent of every single trader,2 and it cannot last longer than every single trader continues of the same mind.or by incorporation. The majority of a corporation can enact a bye-law with proper penalties, which will limit the competition more effectually and more durably than any voluntary combination whatever.

The pretence that corporations are necessary for the better governmentCorporations are unnecessary, and corrupt the workmen. of the trade, is without any foundation. The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman, is not that of his corporation, but that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence. An exclusive corporation necessarily weakens the force of this discipline. A particular set of workmen must then be employed, let them behave well or ill. It is upon this account, that in many large incorporated towns no tolerable workmen are to be found, even in some of the most necessary trades. If you would have your work tolerably executed, it must be done in the suburbs, where the workmen, having no exclusive privilege, have nothing but their character 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 the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock.

Secondly, The policy of Europe, by increasing the competition in(2) The policy of Europe increases competition in some trades. some employments beyond what it naturally would be, occasions another inequality of an opposite kind in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock.

It has been considered as of so much importance that a properIt cheapens the education of the clergy and thereby reduces their earnings; number of young people should be educated for certain professions, that, sometimes the public, and sometimes the piety of private founders have established many pensions, scholarships, exhibitions, bursaries, &c. for this purpose, which draw many more people into those trades than could otherwise pretend to follow them. In all christian countries, I believe, the education of the greater part of churchmen is paid for in this manner. Very few of them are educated altogether at their own expence. The long, tedious, and expensive education, therefore, of those who are, will not always procure them a suitable reward, the church being crowded with people who, in order to get employment, are willing to accept of a much smaller recompence than what such an education would otherwise have entitled them to; and in this manner the competition of the poor takes away the reward of the rich. It would be indecent, no doubt, to compare either a curate or a chaplain with a journeyman in any common trade. The pay of a curate or chaplain, however, may very properly be considered as of the same nature with the wages of a journeyman. They are, all three, paid for their work according to the contract which they may happen to make with their respective superiors. Till after the middle of the fourteenth century, five merks, containing about as much silver as ten pounds of our present money, was in England the usual pay of a curate or1 stipendiary parish priest, as we find it regulated by the decrees of several different national councils.2 At the same period four pence a day, containing the same quantity of silver as a shilling of our present money, was declared to be the pay of a master mason, and three pence a day, equal to nine pence of our present money, that of a journeyman mason.3 The wages of both these labourers, therefore, supposing them to have been constantly employed, were much superior to those of the curate. The wages of the master mason, supposing him to have been without employment one third of the 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 supplied, the bishop is, therefore, empowered to appoint by writing under his hand and seal a sufficient certain stipend or allowance, not exceeding fifty and not less than twenty pounds a year.”4 Forty pounds a year is reckoned at present very good pay for a curate, and notwithstanding this act of parliament, there are many curacies under twenty pounds a year. There are journeymen shoemakers in London who earn forty pounds a year, and there is scarce an industrious workman of any kind in that metropolis who does not earn more than twenty. This last sum indeed does not exceed what is frequently earned by common labourers in many country parishes. Whenever the law has attempted to regulate the wages of workmen, it has always been rather to lower them than to raise them. But the law has upon many occasions attempted to raise the wages of curates, and for the dignity of the church, to oblige the rectors of parishes to give them more than the wretched maintenance which they themselves might be willing to accept of. And in both cases the law seems to have been equally ineffectual, and has never either been able to raise the wages of curates, or to sink those of labourers to the degree that was intended; because it has never been able to hinder either the one from being willing to accept of less than the legal allowance, on account of the indigence of their situation and the multitude of their competitors; or the other from receiving more, on account of the contrary competition of those who expected to derive either profit or pleasure from employing them.

The great benefices and other ecclesiastical dignities support theso that it is only the great benefices, etc., which support the honour of the English and Roman Catholic Churches. honour of the church, notwithstanding the mean circumstances of some of its inferior members. The respect paid to the profession too makes some compensation even to them for the meanness of their pecuniary recompence. In England, and in all Roman Catholic countries, the lottery of the church is in reality much more advantageous than is necessary. The example of the churches of Scotland, of Geneva, and of several other protestant churches, may satisfy us, that in so creditable a profession, in which education is so easily procured, the hopes of much more moderate benefices will draw a sufficient number of learned, decent, and respectable men into holy orders.

In professions in which there are no benefices, such as law and physic,The same cause, if present, would lower the reward of lawyers and physicians, if an equal proportion of people were educated at the public expence, the competition would soon be so great, as to sink very much their pecuniary reward. It might then not be worth any man’s while to educate his son to either of those professions at his own expence. They would be entirely abandoned to such as had been educated by those public charities, whose numbers and necessities would oblige them in general to content themselves with a very miserable recompence, to the entire degradation of the now respectable professions of law and physic.

That unprosperous race of men commonly called men of letters, areas it has done that of men of letters, pretty much in the situation which lawyers and physicians probably would be in upon the foregoing supposition. In every part of Europe the greater part of them have been educated for the church, but have been hindered by different reasons from entering into holy orders. They have generally, therefore, been educated at the public expence, and their numbers are every-where so great as commonly to reduce the price of their labour to a very paultry recompence.

Before the invention of the art of printing, the only employment byand that of teachers, which a man of letters could make any thing by his talents, was that of a public or private1 teacher, or by communicating to other people the curious and useful knowledge which he had acquired himself: And this is still surely a more honourable, a more useful, and in general even a more profitable employment than that other of writing for a bookseller, to which the art of printing has given occasion. The time and study, the genius, knowledge, and application 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 expence; whereas those of the other two are incumbered with very few who have not been educated at their own. The usual recompence, however, of public and private teachers, 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.1

who were much better paid in ancient times.In ancient times, before any charities of this kind had been established for the education of indigent people to the learned professions, the rewards of eminent teachers appear to have been much more considerable. Isocrates, in what is called his discourse against the sophists, reproaches the teachers of his own times with inconsistency. “They make the most magnificent promises to their scholars, says he, and undertake to teach them to be wise, to be happy, and to be just, and in return for so important a service they stipulate the paultry reward of four or five minæ. They who teach wisdom, continues he, ought certainly to be wise themselves; but if any man were2 to sell such a bargain for such a price, he would be convicted of the most evident folly.”3 He certainly does not mean here to exaggerate the reward, and we may be assured that it was not less than he represents it. Four minæ were equal to thirteen pounds six shillings and eight pence: five minæ to sixteen pounds thirteen shillings and four pence. Something not less than the largest of those two sums, therefore, must at that time have been usually paid to the most eminent teachers at Athens. Isocrates himself demanded ten minæ,4 or thirty-three pounds six shillings and eight pence, from each scholar. When he taught at Athens, he is said to have had an hundred scholars. I understand this to be the number whom he taught at one time, or who attended what we would call one course of lectures, a number which will not appear extraordinary from so great a city to so famous a teacher, who taught too what was at that time the most fashionable of all sciences, rhetoric. He must have made, therefore, by each course of lectures, a thousand minæ, or 3,333l. 6s. 8d. A thousand minæ, accordingly, is said by Plutarch in another place, to have been his Didactron, or usual price of teaching.1 Many other eminent teachers in those times appear to have acquired great fortunes. Gorgias made a present to the temple of Delphi of his own statue in solid gold.2 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.3 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,4 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 consideration much superior to any of the like profession in the present times. The Athenians sent Carneades the academic, and Diogenes the stoic, upon a solemn embassy to Rome; and though their city had then declined from its former grandeur, it was still an independent and considerable republic. Carneads too was a Babylonian by birth,5 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.

This inequality is upon the whole, perhaps, rather advantageousPerhaps this cheapness of teaching is no disadvantage to the public. than hurtful to the public. It may somewhat degrade the profession of a public teacher; but the cheapness of literary education is surely an advantage which greatly over-balances 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.1

(3) The policy of Europe obstructs the free circulation of labour.Thirdly, The policy of Europe, by obstructing 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.

Apprenticeship and corporation privileges obstruct circulation from employment to employment and from place to place.The statute of apprenticeship2 obstructs the free circulation of labour from one employment to another, even in the same place. The exclusive privileges of corporations obstruct it from one place to another, even in the same employment.

It frequently happens that while high wages are given to the workmen in one manufacture, those in another are obliged to content themselves with bare subsistence. The one is in an advancing state, and has, therefore, a continual demand for new hands: The other is in a declining state, and the super-abundance of hands is continually increasing. Those two manufactures may sometimes be in the same town, and sometimes in the same neighbourhood, without being able to lend the least assistance to one another.So that the changes of employment necessary to equalise wages are prevented. The statute of apprenticeship may oppose it in the one case, and both that and an exclusive corporation in the other. In many different manufactures, however, the operations are so much alike, that the workmen could easily change trades with one another, if those absurd laws did not hinder them. The arts of weaving plain linen and plain silk, for example, are almost entirely the same. That of weaving plain woollen is somewhat different; but the difference is so insignificant, that either a linen or a silk weaver might become a tolerable workman in a very few days. If any of those three capital manufactures, therefore, were decaying, the workmen might find a resource in one of the other two which was in a more prosperous condition; and their wages would neither rise too high in the thriving, nor sink too low in the decaying manufacture. The linen manufacture indeed is, in England, by a particular statute,3 open to every body; but as it is not much cultivated through the greater part of the country, it can afford no general resource to the workmen 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 much worse qualified than for any sort of manufacture that bears any resemblance to their own. They generally, therefore, chuse to come upon the parish.

Whatever obstructs the free circulation of labour from one employmentWhat obstructs the circulation of labour also obstructs that of stock. 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 the1 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 give to the free circulationIn England the circulation of labour is further obstructed by the poor law. of labour is common, I believe, to every part of Europe. That which is given to it by the poor laws is, so far as I know,2 peculiar to England. It consists in the difficulty which a poor man finds in obtaining a settlement, or even in being allowed to exercise his industry in any parish but that to which he belongs. It is the labour of artificers and manufacturers only of which the free circulation is obstructed by corporation laws. The difficulty of obtaining settlements obstructs even that of common labour. It may be worth while to give some account of the rise, progress, and present state of this disorder, the greatest perhaps of any in the police of England.

When by the destruction of monasteries the poor had been deprivedEach parish was to support its own poor under 43 Eliz., c. 2, of the charity of those religious houses, after some other ineffectual attempts for their relief, it was enacted by the 43d of Elizabeth, c. 2. that every parish should be bound to provide for its own poor; and that overseers of the poor should be annually appointed, who, with the churchwardens, should raise, by a parish rate, competent sums for this purpose.

By this statute the necessity of providing for their own poor wasthese were determined by 13 and 14 Car. II. to be such as had resided forty days, within which time, however, a new inhabitant might be removed. indispensably imposed upon every parish. Who were to be considered as the poor of each parish, became, therefore, a question of some importance. This question, after some variation, was at last determined by the 13th and 14th of Charles II.3 when it was enacted, that forty days undisturbed residence should gain any person a settlement in any parish; but that within that time it should be lawful for two justices of the peace, upon complaint made by the churchwardens or overseers of the poor, to remove any new inhabitant to the parish where he was last legally settled;4 unless he either rented a tenement of ten pounds a year, or could give such security for the discharge of the parish where he was then living, as those justices should judge sufficient.

Notice in writing was required from the new inhabitant by 1 James II.Some frauds, it is said, were committed in consequence of this statute; parish officers sometimes bribing their own poor to go clandestinely to another parish, and by keeping themselves concealed for forty days to gain a settlement there, to the discharge of that to which they properly belonged. It was enacted, therefore, by the 1st of James II.1 that the forty days undisturbed residence of any person necessary to gain a settlement, should be accounted only from the time of his delivering notice in writing, of the place of his abode and the number of his family, to one of the churchwardens or overseers of the parish where he came to dwell.

Such notice was to be published in church under 3 W III.But parish officers, it seems, were not always more honest with regard to their own, than they had been with regard to other parishes, and sometimes connived at such intrusions, receiving the notice, and taking no proper steps in consequence of it. As every person in a parish, therefore, was supposed to have an interest to prevent as much as possible their being burdened by such intruders, it was further enacted by the 3d of William III.2 that the forty days residence should be accounted only from the publication of such notice in writing on Sunday in the church, immediately after divine service.

“After all,” says Doctor Burn, “this kind of settlement, by continuing forty days after publication of notice in writing, is very seldom obtained; and the design of the acts is not so much for gaining of settlements, as for the avoiding of them by persons coming into a parish clandestinely: for the giving of notice is only putting a force upon the parish to remove. But if a person’s situation is such, that it is doubtful whether he is actually removeable or not, he shall by giving of notice compel the parish either to allow him a settlement uncontested, by suffering him to continue forty days; or, by removing him, to try the right.”3

This statute, therefore, rendered it almost impracticable for a poor man to gain a new settlement in the old way, by forty days inhabitancy.There were four other ways of gaining a settlement, But that it might not appear to preclude altogether the common people of one parish from ever establishing themselves with security in another, it appointed four other ways by which a settlement might be gained without any notice delivered or published. The first was, by being taxed to parish rates and paying them; the second, by being elected into an annual parish office, and serving in it a year; the third, by serving an apprenticeship in the parish; the fourth, by being hired into service there for a year, and continuing in the same service during the whole of it.1

Nobody can gain a settlement by either of the two first ways, but bytwo of which were impossible to all poor men, the public deed of the whole parish, who are too well aware of the consequences to adopt any new-comer who has nothing but his labour to support him, either by taxing him to parish rates, or by electing him into a parish office.

No married man can well gain any settlement in either of the twoand the other two to all married men. last ways. An apprentice is scarce ever married; and it is expressly enacted, that no married servant shall gain any settlement by being hired for a year.2 The principal effect of introducing settlement by service, has been to put out in a great measure the old fashion of hiring for a year, which before had been so customary in England, that even at this day, if no particular term is agreed upon, the law intends that every servant is hired for a year. But masters are not always willing to give their servants a settlement by hiring them in this manner; and servants are not always willing to be so hired, because, as every last settlement discharges all the foregoing, they might thereby lose their original settlement in the places of their nativity, the habitation of their parents and relations.

No independent workman, it is evident, whether labourer or artificer,and to all independent workmen is likely to gain any new settlement either by apprenticeship or by service. When such a person, therefore, carried his industry to a new parish, he was liable to be removed, how healthy and industrious soever, at the caprice of any churchwarden or overseer, unless he either rented a tenement of ten pounds a year, a thing impossible for one who has nothing but his labour to live by; or could give such security for the discharge of the parish as two justices of the peace should judge sufficient. What security they shall require, indeed, is left altogether to their discretion; but they cannot well require less than thirty pounds, it having been enacted, that the purchase even of a freehold estate of less than thirty pounds value, shall not gain any person a settlement, as not being sufficient for the discharge of the parish.1 But this is a security which scarce any man who lives by labour can give; and much greater security is frequently demanded.

Certificates were invented to enable persons to reside in a parish without being immediately removable and without gaining a settlement.In order to restore in some measure that free circulation of labour which those different statutes had almost entirely taken away,2 the invention of certificates was fallen upon. By the 8th and 9th of William III.3 it was enacted, that if any person should bring a certificate from the parish where he was last legally settled, subscribed by the churchwardens and overseers of the poor, and allowed by two justices of the peace, that every other parish should be obliged to receive him; that he should not be removeable merely upon account of his being likely to become chargeable, but only upon his becoming actually chargeable, and that then the parish which granted the certificate should be obliged to pay the expence both of his maintenance and of his removal. And in order to give the most perfect security to the parish where such certificated man should come to reside, it was further enacted by the same statute,4 that he should gain no settlement there by any means whatever, except either by renting a tenement of ten pounds a year, or by serving upon his own account in an annual parish office for one whole year; and consequently neither by notice, nor by service, nor by apprenticeship, nor by paying parish rates. By the 12th of Queen Anne too, stat. 1. c. 18. it was further enacted, that neither the servants nor apprentices of such certificated man should gain any settlement in the parish where he resided under such certificate.5

How far this invention has restored that free circulation of labourCertificates were required by the new parish but refused by the old. which the preceding statutes had almost entirely taken away, we may learn from the following very judicious observation of Doctor Burn. “It is obvious,” says he, “that there are divers good reasons for requiring certificates with persons coming to settle in any place; namely, that persons residing under them can gain no settlement, neither by apprenticeship, nor by service, nor by giving notice, nor by paying parish rates; that they can settle neither apprentices nor servants; that if they become chargeable, it is certainly known whither to remove them, and the parish shall be paid for the removal, and for their maintenance in the mean time; and that if they fall sick, and cannot be removed, the parish which gave the certificate must maintain them: none of all which can be without a certificate. Which reasons will hold proportionably for parishes not granting certificates in ordinary cases; for it is far more than an equal chance, but that they will have the certificated persons again, and in a worse condition.”1 The moral of this observation seems to be, that certificates ought always to be required by the parish where any poor man comes to reside, and that they ought very seldom to be granted by that which he proposes to leave. “There is somewhat of hardship in this matter of certificates,” says the same very intelligent Author, in his History of the Poor Laws, “by putting it in the power of a parish officer, to imprison a man as it were for life; however inconvenient it may be for him to continue at that place where he has had the misfortune to acquire what is called a settlement, or whatever advantage he may propose to himself by living elsewhere.”2

Though a certificate carries along with it no testimonial of good behaviour,The courts declined to force overseers to give a certificate. and certifies nothing but that the person belongs to the parish to which he really does belong, it is altogether discretionary in the parish officers either to grant or to refuse it. A mandamus was once moved for, says Doctor Burn, to compel the churchwardens and overseers to sign a certificate; but the court of King’s Bench rejected the motion as a very strange attempt.3

The very unequal price of labour which we frequently find in EnglandThis law is the cause of the very unequal price of labour in England, in places at no great distance from one another, is probably owing to the obstruction which the law of settlements gives to a poor man who would carry his industry from one parish to another without a certificate. A single man, indeed, who is healthy and industrious, may sometimes reside by sufferance without one; but a man with a wife and family who should attempt to do so, would in most parishes be sure of being removed, and if the single man should afterwards marry, he would generally be removed likewise.1 The scarcity of hands in one parish, therefore, cannot always be relieved by their super-abundance in another, as it is constantly in Scotland, and, I believe, in all other countries where there is no difficulty of settlement. In such countries, though wages may sometimes rise a little in the neighbourhood of a great town, or wherever else there is an extraordinary demand for labour, and sink gradually as the distance from such places increases, till they fall back to the common rate of the country; yet we never meet with those sudden and unaccountable differences in the wages of neighbouring places which we sometimes find in England, where it is often more difficult for a poor man to pass the artificial boundary of a parish, than an arm of the sea or a ridge of high mountains, natural boundaries which sometimes separate very distinctly different rates of wages in other countries.

and an evident violation of natural liberty, though tamely submitted toTo remove a man who has committed no misdemeanour from the parish where he chuses to reside, is an evident violation of natural liberty and justice. The common people of England, however, so jealous of their liberty, but like the common people of most other countries never rightly understanding wherein it consists, have now for more than a century together suffered themselves to be exposed to this oppression without a remedy. Though men of reflection too have sometimes complained of the law of settlements as a public grievance; yet it has never been the object of any general popular clamour, such as that against general warrants, an abusive practice undoubtedly, but such a one as was not likely to occasion any general oppression. There is scarce a poor man in England of forty years of age, I will venture to say, who has not in some part of his life felt himself most cruelly oppressed2 by this ill-contrived law of settlements.

Wages were anciently rated by law or by justices of peace.I shall conclude this long chapter with observing, that though anciently it was usual to rate wages, first by general laws extending over the whole kingdom, and afterwards by particular orders of the justices of peace in every particular county, both these practices have now gone entirely into disuse. “By the experience of above four hundred years,” says Doctor Burn, “it seems time to lay aside all endeavours to bring under strict regulations, what in its own nature seems incapable of minute limitation: for if all persons in the same kind of work were to receive equal wages, there would be no emulation, and no room left for industry or ingenuity.”1

Particular acts of parliament, however, still attempt sometimes toLondon tailors’ wages are still rated by law. regulate wages in particular trades and in particular places. Thus the 8th of George III.2 prohibits under heavy penalties all master taylors in London, and five miles round it, from giving, and their workmen from accepting, more than two shillings and sevenpence halfpenny a day, except in the case of a general mourning. Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters. Thus the law which obliges the masters in several different trades to pay their workmen in money and not in goods, is quite just and equitable.3 It imposes no real hardship upon the masters. It only obliges them to pay that value in money, which they pretended to pay, but did not always really pay, in goods. This law is in favour of the workmen; but the 8th of George III. is in favour of the masters. When masters combine together in order to reduce the wages of their workmen, they commonly enter into a private bond or agreement, not to give more than a certain wage under a certain penalty. Were the workmen to enter into a contrary combination of the same kind, not to accept of a certain wage under a certain penalty, the law would punish them very severely; and if it dealt impartially, it would treat the masters in the same manner. But the 8th of George III. enforces by law that very regulation which masters sometimes attempt to establish by such combinations. The complaint of the workmen, that it puts the ablest and most industrious upon the same footing with an ordinary workman, seems perfectly well founded.

Attempts were also made to regulate profits by fixing prices, and the assize of bread still remains.In ancient times too it was usual to attempt to regulate the profits of merchants and other dealers, by rating the price both of provisions and other goods. The assize of bread is, so far as I know, the only remnant of this ancient usage. Where there is an exclusive corporation, it may perhaps be proper to regulate the price of the first necessary of life. But where there is none, the competition will regulate it much better than any assize. The method of fixing the assize of bread established by the 31st of George II.1 could not be put in practice in Scotland, on account of a defect in the law; its execution depending upon the office of clerk of the market, which does not exist there. This defect was not remedied till the 3d of George III.2 The want of an assize occasioned no sensible inconveniency, and the establishment of one in the few places where it has yet taken place, has produced no sensible advantage. In the greater part of the towns of Scotland, however, there is an incorporation of bakers who claim exclusive privileges, though they are not very strictly guarded.

The inequalities of wages and profits are not much affected by the advancing or declining state of the society.The proportion between the different rates both of wages and profit in the different employments of labour and stock, seems not to be much affected, as has already been observed,3 by the riches or poverty, the advancing, stationary, or declining state of the society. Such revolutions in the public welfare, though they affect the general rates both of wages and profit, must in the end affect them equally in all different employments. The proportion between them, therefore, must remain the same, and cannot well be altered, at least for any considerable time, by any such revolutions.

CHAPTER XI

OF THE RENT OF LAND

RENT, considered as the price paid for the use of land, is naturallyRent is the produce which is over what is necessary to pay the farmer ordinary profit. the highest which the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances of the land. In adjusting the terms of the lease, the landlord endeavours to leave him no greater share of the produce than what is sufficient to keep up the stock from which he furnishes the seed, pays the labour, and purchases and maintains the cattle and other instruments of husbandry, together with the ordinary profits of farming stock in the neighbourhood. This is evidently the smallest share with which the tenant can content himself without being a loser, and the landlord seldom means to leave him any more. Whatever part of the produce, or, what is the same thing, whatever part of its price, is over and above this share, he naturally endeavours to reserve to himself as the rent of his land, which is evidently the highest the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances of the land. Sometimes, indeed, the liberality, more frequently the ignorance, of the landlord, makes him accept of somewhat less than this portion; and sometimes too, though more rarely, the ignorance of the tenant makes him undertake to pay somewhat more, or to content himself with somewhat less, than the ordinary profits of farming stock in the neighbourhood. This portion, however, may still be considered as the natural rent of land, or the rent for which it is naturally meant that land should for the most part be let.

The rent of land, it may be thought, is frequently no more than aIt is not merely interest on stock laid out in improvements, reasonable profit or interest for the stock laid out by the landlord upon its improvement. This, no doubt, may be partly the case upon some occasions; for it can scarce ever be more than partly the case. The landlord demands a rent even for unimproved land, and the supposed interest or profit upon the expence of improvement is generally an addition to this original rent. Those improvements, besides, are not always made by the stock of the landlord, but sometimes by that of the tenant. When the lease comes to be renewed, however, the landlord commonly demands the same augmentation of rent, as if they had been all made by his own.

and is sometimes obtained for land incapable of improvement, such as rocks where kelp grows,He sometimes demands rent for what is altogether incapable of human improvement. Kelp is a species of sea-weed, which, when burnt, yields an alkaline salt, useful for making glass, soap, and for several other purposes. It grows in several parts of Great Britain, particularly in Scotland, upon such rocks only as lie within the high water mark, which are twice every day covered with the sea, and of which the produce, therefore, was never augmented by human industry. The landlord, however, whose estate is bounded by a kelp shore of this kind, demands a rent for it as much as for his corn fields.

and for the opportunity to fish.The sea in the neighbourhood of the islands of Shetland is more than commonly abundant in fish, which make a great part of the subsistence of their inhabitants. But in order to profit by the produce of the water, they must have a habitation upon the neighbouring land. The rent of the landlord is in proportion, not to what the farmer can make by the land, but to what he can make both by the land and by1 the water. It is partly paid in sea-fish; and one of the very few instances in which rent makes a part of the price of that commodity, is to be found in that country.

It is therefore a monopoly priceThe rent of land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land, or to what he can afford to take; but to what the farmer can afford to give.

Whether particular parts of produce fetch a price sufficient to yield a rent depends on the demand.Such parts only of the produce of land can commonly be brought to market of which the ordinary price is sufficient to replace the stock which must be employed in bringing them thither, together with its ordinary profits. If the ordinary price is more than this, the surplus part of it will naturally go to the rent of the land. If it is not more, though the commodity may be brought to market, it can afford no rent to the landlord. Whether the price is, or is not more, depends upon the demand.

Some parts are always in sufficient demand: others sometimes are and sometimes are not.There are some parts of the produce of land for which the demand must always be such as to afford a greater price than what is sufficient to bring them to market; and there are others for which it either may or may not be such as to afford this greater price. The former must always afford a rent to the landlord. The latter sometimes may, and sometimes may not, according to different circumstances.

Rent, it is to be observed, therefore, enters into the composition ofWages and profit are causes of price; rent is an effect. the price of commodities in a different way from wages and profit. High or low wages and profit, are the causes of high or low price; high or low rent is the effect of it. It is because high or low wages and profit must be paid, in order to bring a particular commodity to market, that its price is high or low. But it is because its price is high or low; a great deal more, or very little more, or no more, than what is sufficient to pay those wages and profit, that it affords a high rent, or a low rent, or no rent at all.

The particular consideration, first, of those parts of the produce ofThe chapter is divided into three parts. land which always afford some rent; secondly, of those which sometimes may and sometimes may not afford rent; and, thirdly, of the variations which, in the different periods of improvement, naturally take place, in the relative value of those two different sorts of rude produce, when compared both with one another and with manufactured commodities, will divide this chapter into three parts.

[1 ] [Under 13 and 14 Car. II., c. 5, § 18.]

[2 ] [8 Eliz., c. 11, § 8; 1 Jac. I., c. 17, § 3; 5 Geo. II., c. 22.]

[3 ] [But 8 Eliz., c. 11, was enacted ‘at the lamentable suit and complaint’ not of the hatters but of the cap-makers, who alleged that they were being impoverished by the excessive use of hats, which were made of foreign wool, and the extension to the colonies of the restriction on apprentices by 5 Geo. II., c. 22, was doubtless suggested by the English hatters’ jealousy of the American hatters, so that this regulation was not dictated by quite the same spirit as the Sheffield by-law.]

[4 ] [The preamble of 13 and 14 Car. II., c. 15, says that the company of silk throwers in London were incorporated in 1629, and the preamble of 20 Car. II., c. 6, says that the trade had lately been obstructed because the company had endeavoured to put into execution a certain by-law made by them nearly forty years since, restricting the freemen to 160 spindles and the assistants to 240. The act 20 Car. II., c. 6, accordingly declares this by-law void. It also enacts that ‘no by-law already made or hereafter to be made by the said company shall limit the number of apprentices to less than three’.]

[5 ] [‘In Italy a mestiere or company of artisans and tradesmen was sometimes styled an ars or universitas. . . . The company of mercers of Rome are styled universitas merciariorum, and the company of bakers there universitas pistorum.’—Madox, Firma Burgi, 1726, p. 32.]

[1 ] [C. 4, § 31.]

[2 ] [‘It hath been held that this statute doth not restrain a man from using several trades, so as he had been an apprentice to all; wherefore it indemnifies all petty chapmen in little towns and villages because their masters kept the same mixed trades before.’—Matthew Bacon, New Abridgement of the Law, 3rd ed., 1768, vol. iii., p. 553, s.v. Master and servant.]

[3 ] [Ibid., vol. iii., p. 552.]

[4 ] [Ibid., vol. i., p. 553.]

[5 ] [Bacon (ibid., iii., 553), however, says distinctly: ‘A coachmaker is within this statute,’ on the authority of Ventris’ Reports, p. 346.]

[1 ] [Compagnon.]

[2 ] [Compagnonnage.]

[3 ] [Contrast with this the account of the origin of property in the Lectures, pp. 107-127.]

[1 ] [Of Scotch manufacture, 10 Ann., c. 21; 13 Geo. I., c. 26.]

[2 ] [39 Eliz., c. 20; 43 Eliz., c. 10, § 7.]

[3 ] [The article on apprentices occupies twenty-four pages in Richard Burn’s Justice of the Peace, 1764.]

[1 ] [The last two terms seem to be used rather contemptuously. Probably Smith had fresh in his recollection the passage in which Madox ridicules as a ‘piece of puerility’ the use of the English word ‘misterie,’ derived from ‘the Gallick word mestera, mistera and misteria,’ as if it ‘signified something μυστηριω̑δες, mysterious.’—Firma Burgi, 1726, pp. 33-35.]

[2 ] See Madox Firma Burgi, p. 26, &c. [This note appears first in ed. 2.]

[1 ] [‘Peradventure from these secular gilds or in imitation of them sprang the method or practice of gildating and embodying whole towns.’—Madox, Firma Burgi, p. 27.]

[1 ] [The argument is unsound in the absence of any proof that the more numerous successes are not counterbalanced by equally numerous failures; cp. above p. 113, note.]

[1 ] [Below, vol. ii., pp. 153, 154.]

[2 ] [Descriptions des Arts et Métiers faites ou approuvées par Messieurs de l’Académie Royale des Sciences, 1761-88.]

[1 ] [Lectures, p. 255.]

[1 ] [Below, pp. 382-394.]

[2 ] [Ed. 1 reads ‘single member of it’ here and in the next line.]

[1 ] [Eds. 4 and 5 erroneously insert ‘a’ here.]

[2 ] [According to Richard Burn’s Ecclesiastical Law, 1763, s.v. Curates, six marks was the pay ordered by a constitution of Archbishop Islip till 1378, when it was raised to eight.]

[3 ] See the Statute of labourers, 25 Ed. III. [Below, p. 177. The note is not in ed. 1.]

[4 ] [The quotation is not intended to be verbatim, in spite of the inverted commas.]

[1 ] [Ed. 1 does not contain ‘or private’.]

[1 ] [Hume, History, ed. of 1773, vol, iii., p. 403, quotes 11 Hen. VII., c. 22, which forbids students to beg without permission from the chancellor.]

[2 ] [Eds. 1-3 read ‘was’.]

[3 ] [§§ 3, 4. A very free but not incorrect translation. Arbuthnot, Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights and Measures, 2nd ed., 1754, p. 198, refers to but does not quote the passage as his authority for stating the reward of a sophist at four or five minæ. He treats the mina as equal to £3 4s. 7d., which at the rate of 62s. to the pound troy is considerably too low.]

[4 ] [Plutarch, Demosthenes, c. v., § 3; Isocrates, § 30.]

[1 ] [Arbuthnot, Tables of Ancient Coins, p. 198, says, ‘Isocrates had from his disciples a didactron or reward of 1,000 minæ, £3,229 3s. 4d.,’ and quotes ‘Plut. in Isocrate,’ which says nothing about a ‘didactron,’ but only that Isocrates charged ten minæ and had 100 pupils.—§§ 9, 12, 30.]

[2 ] [This story is from Pliny, H. N., xxxiii., cap. iv., who remarks, ‘Tantus erat docendae oratoriae quaestus,’ but the commentators point out that earlier authorities ascribe the erection of the statue not to Gorgias, but to the whole of Greece.]

[3 ] [It is difficult to discover on what passage this statement is based.]

[4 ] [Plutarch, Alexander.]

[5 ] [This is a slip. Carneades was a native of Cyrene, and it was his colleague Diogenes who was a Babylonian by birth.]

[1 ] [Below, vol. ii., pp. 249-261.]

[2 ] [Above, p. 122.]

[3 ] [15 Car. II., c. 15.]

[1 ] [Ed. 1 does not contain ‘the’.]

[2 ] [Ed. 1 places the ‘is’ here.]

[3 ] [C. 12.]

[4 ] [This account of the provisions of the Acts regarding settlement, though not incorrect, inverts the order of the ideas which prompted them. The preamble complains that owing to defects in the law ‘poor people are not restrained from going from one parish to another, and therefore do endeavour to settle themselves in those parishes where there is the best stock,’ and so forth, and the Act therefore gives the justices power, ‘within forty days after any such person or persons coming so to settle as aforesaid,’ to remove them ‘to such parish where he or they were last legally settled either as a native, householder, sojourner, apprentice or servant for the space of forty days at the least’. The use of the term ‘settlement’ seems to have originated with this Act.]

[1 ] [C. 17, ‘An act for reviving and continuance of several acts’. The reason given is that ‘such poor persons at their first coming to a parish do commonly conceal themselves’. Nothing is said either here or in Burn’s Poor Law or Justice of the Peace about parish officers bribing their poor to go to another parish.]

[2 ] [3 W. and M., c. 11, § 3.]

[3 ] [Richard Burn, Justice of the Peace, 1764, vol. ii., p. 253.]

[1 ] [§§ 6, 8.]

[2 ] [§ 7 confines settlement by service to unmarried persons without children.]

[1 ] [By 9 Geo. I., c. 7.]

[2 ] [The Act, 13 & 14 Car. II., c. 12, giving the justices power to remove the immigrant within forty days was certainly obstructive to the free circulation of labour, but the other statutes referred to in the text, by making the attainment of a settlement more difficult, would appear to have made it less necessary for a parish to put in force the power of removal, and therefore to have assisted rather than obstructed the free circulation of labour. The poor law commissioners of 1834, long after the power of removal had been abolished in 1795, found the law of settlement a great obstruction to the free circulation of labour, because men were afraid of gaining a new settlement, not because a new settlement was denied them.]

[3 ] [C. 30, ‘An act for supplying some defects in the laws for the relief of the poor of this kingdom’. The preamble recites, ‘Forasmuch as many poor persons chargeable to the parish, township or place where they live, merely for want of work, would in any other place when sufficient employment is to be had maintain themselves and families without being burdensome to any parish, township or place’. But certificates were invented long before this. The Act 13 & 14 Car. II., c. 12, provides for their issue to persons going into another parish for harvest or any other kind of work, and the preamble of 8 & 9 W. III., c. 30, shows that they were commonly given. Only temporary employment, however, was contemplated, and, on the expiration of the job, the certificated person became removable.]

[4 ] [Rather by the explanatory Act, 9 & 10 W. III., c. 11.]

[5 ] [All these statutes are conveniently collected in Richard Burn’s History of the Poor Laws, 1764, pp. 94-100.]

[1 ] [Burn, Justice of the Peace, 1764, vol. ii., p. 274.]

[2 ] [Burn, History of the Poor Laws, 1764, pp. 235, 236, where it is observed that ‘it was the easy method of obtaining a settlement by a residency of forty days that brought parishes into a state of war against the poor and against one another,’ and that if settlement were reduced to the place of birth or of inhabitancy for one or more years, certificates would be got rid of.]

[3 ] [Burn, Justice, vol. ii., p. 209. The date given is 1730.]

[1 ] [Since the fact of the father having no settlement would not free the parish from the danger of having at some future time to support the children.]

[2 ] [Some evidence in support of this assertion would have been acceptable. Sir Frederic M. Eden, State of the Poor, 1797, vol. i., pp. 296-298, may be consulted on the other side. William Hay’s Remarks on the Laws Relating to the Poor, 1735, which Eden regards as giving a very exaggerated view of the obstruction caused by the law of settlement, was in the Edinburgh Advocates’ Library in 1776, and Adam Smith may have seen it.]

[1 ] [History of the Poor Laws, p. 130, loosely quoted. After ‘limitation’ the passage runs, ‘as thereby it leaves no room for industry or ingenuity; for if all persons in the same kind of work were to receive equal wages there would be no emulation.’]

[2 ] [7 Geo. I., stat. 1, c. 13, was passed, according to its preamble, because journeymen tailors had lately departed from their service without just cause, and had entered into ‘combinations to advance their wages to unreasonable prices, and lessen their usual hours of work, which is of evil example, and manifestly tends to the prejudice of trade, to the encouragement of idleness, and to the great increase of the poor’. It prescribed hours, 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., and wages, 2s. a day in the second quarter and 1s. 8d. for the rest of the year. Quarter sessions might alter the rates. This Act was amended by 8 Geo. III., c. 17, under which the hours were to be 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., and wages a maximum of 2s. 7½d. a day. Masters inside the area were forbidden to pay more to workers outside the area than was allowed by the Act within it.]

[3 ] [1 Ann., stat. 2, c. 18, applied to workmen in the woollen, linen, fustian, cotton and iron manufacture; 13 Geo. II., c. 8, to manufacturers of gloves, boots, shoes and other leather wares. The second of these Acts only prohibits truck payments when made without the request and consent of the workmen.]

[1 ] [C. 29.]

[2 ] [C. 6. The preamble relates the defect.]

[3 ] [Above, p. 65.]

[1 ] [‘By’ appears first in ed. 3.]