An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📖

much less than that of a slave. The fund destined for

replacing or repairing, if I may say so, the wear and tear of the slave, is

commonly managed by a negligent master or careless overseer. That destined

for performing the same office with regard to the freeman is managed by the

freeman himself. The disorders which generally prevail in the economy of the

rich, naturally introduce themselves into the management of the former; the

strict frugality and parsimonious attention of the poor as naturally

establish themselves in that of the latter. Under such different management,

the same purpose must require very different degrees of expense to execute

it. It appears, accordingly, from the experience of all ages and nations, I

believe, that the work done by freemen comes cheaper in the end than that

performed by slaves. It is found to do so even at Boston, New-York, and

Philadelphia, where the wages of common labour are so very high.

 

The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the effect of increasing

wealth, so it is the cause of increasing population. To complain of it, is

to lament over the necessary cause and effect of the greatest public

prosperity.

 

It deserves to be remarked, perhaps, that it is in the progressive state,

while the society is advancing to the further acquisition, rather than when

it has acquired its full complement of riches, that the condition of the

labouring poor, of the great body of the people, seems to be the happiest

and the most comfortable. It is hard in the stationary, and miserable in the

declining state. The progressive state is, in reality, the cheerful and the

hearty state to all the different orders of the society; the stationary is

dull ; the declining melancholy.

 

The liberal reward of labour, as it encourages the propagation, so it

increases the industry of the common people. The wages of labour are the

encouragement of industry, which, like every other human quality, improves

in proportion to the encouragement it receives. A plentiful subsistence

increases the bodily strength of the labourer, and the comfortable hope of

bettering his condition, and of ending his days, perhaps, in ease and

plenty, animates him to exert that strength to the utmost. Where wages are

high, accordingly, we shall always find the workmen more active, diligent,

and expeditious, than where they are low ; in England, for example, than in

Scotland; in the neighbourhood of great towns, than in remote country

places. Some workmen, indeed, when they can earn in four days what will

maintain them through the week, will be idle the other three. This, however,

is by no means the case with the greater part. Workmen, on the contrary,

when they are liberally paid by the piece, are very apt to overwork

themselves, and to ruin their health and constitution in a few years. A

carpenter in London, and in some other places, is not supposed to last in

his utmost vigour above eight years. Something of the same kind happens in

many other trades, in which the workmen are paid by the piece; as they

generally are in manufactures, and even in country labour, wherever wages

are higher than ordinary. Almost every class of artificers is subject to

some peculiar infirmity occasioned by excessive application to their

peculiar species of work. Ramuzzini, an eminent Italian physician, has

written a particular book concerning such diseases. We do not reckon our

soldiers the most industrious set of people among us; yet when soldiers have

been employed in some particular sorts of work, and liberally paid by the

piece, their officers have frequently been obliged to stipulate with the

undertaker, that they should not be allowed to earn above a certain sum

every day, according to the rate at which they were paid. Till this

stipulation was made, mutual emulation, and the desire of greater gain,

frequently prompted them to overwork themselves, and to hurt their health by

excessive labour. Excessive application, during four days of the week, is

frequently the real cause of the idleness of the other three, so much and so

loudly complained of. Great labour, either of mind or body, continued for

several days together is, in most men, naturally followed by a great desire

of relaxation, which, if not restrained by force, or by some strong

necessity, is almost irresistible. It is the call of nature, which requires

to be relieved by some indulgence, sometimes of ease only, but sometimes too

of dissipation and diversion. If it is not complied with, the consequences

are often dangerous and sometimes fatal, and such as almost always, sooner

or later, bring on the peculiar infirmity of the trade. If masters would

always listen to the dictates of reason and humanity, they have frequently

occasion rather to moderate, than to animate the application of many of

their workmen. It will be found, I believe, in every sort of trade, that the

man who works so moderately, as to be able to work constantly, not only

preserves his health the longest, but, in the course of the year, executes

the greatest quantity of work.

 

In cheap years it is pretended, workmen are generally more idle, and in dear

times more industrious than ordinary. A plentiful subsistence, therefore, it

has been concluded, relaxes, and a scanty one quickens their industry. That

a little more plenty than ordinary may render some workmen idle, cannot be

well doubted; but that it should have this effect upon the greater part, or

that men in general should work better when they are ill fed, than when they

are well fed, when they are disheartened than when they are in good spirits,

when they are frequently sick than when they are generally in good health,

seems not very probable. Years of dearth, it is to be observed, are

generally among the common people years of sickness and mortality, which

cannot fail to diminish the produce of their industry.

 

In years of plenty, servants frequently leave their masters, and trust their

subsistence to what they can make by their own industry. But the same

cheapness of provisions, by increasing the fund which is destined for the

maintenance of servants, encourages masters, farmers especially, to employ a

greater number. Farmers, upon such occasions, expect more profit from their

corn by maintaining a few more labouring servants, than by selling it at a

low price in the market. The demand for servants increases, while the number

of those who offer to supply that demand diminishes. The price of labour,

therefore, frequently rises in cheap years.

 

In years of scarcity, the difficulty and uncertainty of subsistence make all

such people eager to return to service. But the high price of provisions, by

diminishing the funds destined for the maintenance of servants, disposes

masters rather to diminish than to increase the number of those they have.

In dear years, too, poor independent workmen frequently consume the little

stock with which they had used to supply themselves with the materials of

their work, and are obliged to become journeymen for subsistence. More

people want employment than easily get it ; many are willing to take it upon

lower terms than ordinary ; and the wages of both servants and journeymen

frequently sink in dear years.

 

Masters of all sorts, therefore, frequently make better bargains with their

servants in dear than in cheap years, and find them more humble and

dependent in the former than in the latter. They naturally, therefore,

commend the former as more favourable to industry. Landlords and farmers,

besides, two of the largest classes of masters, have another reason for

being pleased with dear years. The rents of the one, and the profits of the

other, depend very much upon the price of provisions. Nothing can be more

absurd, however, than to imagine that men in general should work less when

they work for themselves, than when they work for other people. A poor

independent workman will generally be more industrious than even a

journeyman who works by the piece. The one enjoys the whole produce of his

own industry, the other shares it with his master. The one, in his separate

independent state, is less liable to the temptations of bad company, which,

in large manufactories, so frequently ruin the morals of the other. The

superiority of the independent workman over those servants who are hired by

the month or by the year, and whose wages and maintenance are the same,

whether they do much or do little, is likely to be still greater. Cheap

years tend to increase the proportion of independent workmen to journeymen

and servants of all kinds, and dear years to diminish it.

 

A French author of great knowledge and ingenuity, Mr Messance, receiver of

the taillies in the election of St Etienne, endeavours to shew that the poor

do more work in cheap than in dear years, by comparing the quantity and

value of the goods made upon those different occasions in three different

manufactures; one of coarse woollens, carried on at Elbeuf; one of linen,

and another of silk, both which extend through the whole generality of

Rouen. It appears from his account, which is copied from the registers of

the public offices, that the quantity and value of the goods made in all

those three manufactories has generally been greater in cheap than in dear

years, and that it has always been; greatest in the cheapest, and least in

the dearest years. All the three seem to be stationary manufactures, or

which, though their produce may vary somewhat from year to year, are, upon

the whole, neither going backwards nor forwards.

 

The manufacture of linen in Scotland, and that of coarse woollens in the

West Riding of Yorkshire, are growing manufactures, of which the produce is

generally, though with some variations, increasing both in quantity and

value. Upon examining, however, the accounts which have been published of

their annual produce, I have not been able to observe that its variations

have had any sensible connection with the dearness or cheapness of the

seasons. In 1740, a year of great scarcity, both manufactures, indeed,

appear to have declined very considerably. But in 1756, another year or

great scarcity, the Scotch manufactures made more than ordinary advances.

The Yorkshire manufacture, indeed, declined, and its produce did not rise to

what it had been in 1755, till 1766, after the repeal of the American stamp

act. In that and the following year, it greatly exceeded what it had ever

been before, and it has continued to advance ever since.

 

The produce of all great manufactures for distant sale must necessarily

depend, not so much upon the dearness or cheapness of the seasons in the

countries where they are carried on, as upon the circumstances which affect

the demand in the countries where they are consumed; upon peace or war, upon

the prosperity or declension of other rival manufactures and upon the good

or bad humour of their principal customers. A great part of the

extraordinary work, besides, which is probably done in cheap years, never

enters the public registers of manufactures. The men-servants, who leave

their masters, become independent labourers. The women return to their

parents, and commonly spin, in order to make clothes for themselves and

their families. Even the independent workmen do not always, work for public

sale, but are employed by some of their neighbours in manufactures for

family use. The produce of their labour, therefore, frequently makes no

figure in those public registers, of which the records are sometimes

published with so much parade, and from which our merchants and

manufacturers would often vainly pretend to announce the prosperity or

declension of the greatest empires.

 

Through the variations in the price of labour not only do not always

correspond with those in the price of provisions, but are frequently quite

opposite, we must not, upon this