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

every drunkard, exercises neither a very agreeable nor a very

creditable business. But there is scarce any common trade in which a small stock yields so

great a profit.

 

Secondly, the wages of labour vary with the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and

expense, of learning the business.

 

When any expensive machine is erected, the extraordinary work to be performed by it before

it is worn out, it must be expected, will replace the capital laid out upon it, with at least the

ordinary profits. A man educated at the expense of much labour and time to any of those

employments which require extraordinary dexterity and skill, may be compared to one of

those expensive machines. The work which he learns to perform, it must be expected, over

and above the usual wages of common labour, will replace to him the whole expense of his

education, with at least the ordinary profits of an equally valuable capital. It must do this too

in a reasonable time, regard being had to the very uncertain duration of human life, in the

same manner as to the more certain duration of the machine.

 

The difference between the wages of skilled labour and those of common labour, is founded

upon this principle.

 

The policy of Europe considers the labour of all mechanics, artificers, and manufacturers, as

skilled labour ; and that of all country labourers us common labour. It seems to suppose that

of the former to be of a more nice and delicate nature than that of the latter. It is so perhaps in

some cases ; but in the greater part it is quite otherwise, as I shall endeavour to shew by and

by. The laws and customs of Europe, therefore, in order to qualify any person for exercising

the one species of labour, impose the necessity of an apprenticeship, though with different

degrees of rigour in different places. They leave the other free and open to every body. During

the continuance of the apprenticeship, the whole labour of the apprentice belongs to his

master. In the meantime he must, in many cases, be maintained by his parents or relations,

and, in almost all cases, must be clothed by them. Some money, too, is commonly given to the

master for teaching him his trade. They who cannot give money, give time, or become bound

for more than the usual number of years ; a consideration which, though it is not always

advantageous to the master, on account of the usual idleness of apprentices, is always

disadvantageous to the apprentice. In country labour, on the contrary, the labourer, while he is

employed about the easier, learns the more difficult parts of his business, and his own labour

maintains him through all the different stages of his employment. It is reasonable, therefore,

that in Europe the wages of mechanics, artificers, and manufacturers, should be somewhat

higher than those of common labourers. They are so accordingly, and their superior gains

make them, in most places, be considered as a superior rank of people. This superiority,

however, is generally very small: the daily or weekly earnings of journeymen in the more

common sorts of manufactures, such as those of plain linen and woollen cloth, computed at an

average, are, in most places, very little more than the day-wages of common labourers. Their

employment, indeed, is more steady and uniform, and the superiority of their earnings, taking

the whole year together, may be somewhat greater. It seems evidently, however, to be no

greater than what is sufficient to compensate the superior expense of their education.

Education in the ingenious arts, and in the liberal professions, is still more tedious and

expensive. The pecuniary recompence, therefore, of painters and sculptors, of lawyers and

physicians, ought to be much more liberal; and it is so accordingly.

 

The profits of stock seem to be very little affected by the easiness or difficulty of learning the

trade in which it is employed. All the different ways in which stock is commonly employed in

great towns seem, in reality, to be almost equally easy and equally difficult to learn. One

branch, either of foreign or domestic trade, cannot well be a much more intricate business than

another.

 

Thirdly, the wages of labour in different occupations vary with the constancy or inconstancy

of employment.

 

Employment is much more constant in some trades than in others. In the greater part of

manufactures, a journeyman maybe pretty sure of employment almost every day in the year

that he is able to work. A mason or bricklayer, on the contrary, can work neither in hard frost

nor in foul weather, and his employment at all other times depends upon the occasional calls

of his customers. He is liable, in consequence, to be frequently without any. What he earns,

therefore, while he is employed, must not only maintain him while he is idle, but make him

some compensation for those anxious and desponding moments which the thought of so

precarious a situation must sometimes occasion. Where the computed earnings of the greater

part of manufacturers, accordingly, are nearly upon a level with the day-wages of common

labourers, those of masons and bricklayers are generally from one-half more to double those

wages. Where common labourers earn four or five shillings a-week, masons and bricklayers

frequently earn seven and eight; where the former earn six, the latter often earn nine and ten ;

and where the former earn nine and ten, as in London, the latter commonly earn fifteen and

eighteen. No species of skilled labour, however, seems more easy to learn than that of masons

and bricklayers. Chairmen in London, during the summer season, are said sometimes to be

employed as bricklayers. The high wages of those workmen, therefore, are not so much the

recompence of their skill, as the compensation for the inconstancy of their employment.

 

A house-carpenter seems to exercise rather a nicer and a more ingenious trade than a mason.

In most places, however, for it is not universally so, his day-wages are somewhat lower. His

employment, though it depends much, does not depend so entirely upon the occasional calls

of his customers; and it is not liable to be interrupted by the weather.

 

When the trades which generally afford constant employment, happen in a particular place not

to do so, the wages of the workmen always rise a good deal above their ordinary proportion to

those of common labour. In London, almost all journeymen artificers are liable to be called

upon and dismissed by their masters from day to day, and from week to week, in the same

manner as daylabourers in other places. The lowest order of artificers, journeymen tailors,

accordingly, earn their half-a-crown a-day, though eighteen pence may be reckoned the wages

of common labour. In small towns and country villages, the wages of journeymen tailors

frequently scarce equal those of common labour ; but in London they are often many weeks

without employment, particularly during the summer.

 

When the inconstancy of employment is combined with the hardship, disagreeableness, and

dirtiness of the work, it sometimes raises the wages of the most common labour above those

of the most skilful artificers. A collier working by the piece is supposed, at Newcastle, to earn

commonly about double, and, in many parts of Scotland, about three times, the wages of

common labour. His high wages arise altogether from the hardship, disagreeableness, and

dirtiness of his work. His employment may, upon most occasions, be as constant as he

pleases. The coal-heavers in London exercise a trade which, in hardship, dirtiness, and

disagreeableness, almost equals that of colliers ; and, from the unavoidable irregularity in the

arrivals of coal-ships, the employment of the greater part of them is necessarily very

inconstant. If colliers, therefore, commonly earn double and triple the wages of common

labour, it ought not to seem unreasonable that coal-heavers should sometimes earn four and

five times those wages. In the inquiry made into their condition a few years ago, it was found

that, at the rate at which they were then paid, they could earn from six to ten shillings a-day.

Six shillings are about four times the wages of common labour in London; and, in every

particular trade, the lowest common earnings may always be considered as those of the far

greater number. How extravagant soever those earnings may appear, if they were more than

sufficient to compensate all the disagreeable circumstances of the business, there would soon

be so great a number of competitors, as, in a trade which has no exclusive privilege, would

quickly reduce them to a lower rate.

 

The constancy or inconstancy of employment cannot affect the ordinary profits of stock in any

particular trade. Whether the stock is or is not constantly employed, depends, not upon the

trade, but the trader.

 

Fourthly, the wages of labour vary according to the small or great trust which must be reposed

in the workmen.

 

The wages of goldsmiths and jewellers are everywhere superior to those of many other

workmen, not only of equal, but of much superior ingenuity, on account of the precious

materials with which they are entrusted. We trust our health to the physician, our fortune, and

sometimes our life and reputation, to the lawyer and attorney. Such confidence could not

safely be reposed in people of a very mean or low condition. Their reward must be such,

therefore, as may give them that rank in the society which so important a trust requires. The

long time and the great expense which must be laid out in their education, when combined

with this circumstance, necessarily enhance still further the price of their labour.

 

When a person employs only his own stock in trade, there is no trust; and the credit which he

may get from other people, depends, not upon the nature of the trade, but upon their opinion

of his fortune, probity and prudence. The different rates of profit, therefore, in the different

branches of trade, cannot arise from the different degrees of trust reposed in the traders.

 

Fifthly, the wages of labour in different employments vary according to the probability or

improbability of success in them.

 

The probability that any particular person shall ever be qualified for the employments to

which he is educated, is very different in different occupations. In the greatest part of

mechanic trades success is almost certain; but very uncertain in the liberal professions. Put

your son apprentice to a shoemaker, there is little doubt of his learning to make a pair of

shoes; but send him to study the law, it as at least twenty to one if he ever makes such

proficiency as will enable him to live by the business. In a perfectly fair lottery, those who

draw the prizes ought to gain all that is lost by those who draw the blanks. In a profession,

where twenty fail for one that succeeds, that one ought to gain all that should have been

gained by the unsuccessful twenty. The counsellor at law, who, perhaps, at near forty years of

age, begins to make something by his profession, ought to receive the retribution, not only of

his own so tedious and expensive education, but of that of more than twenty others, who are

never likely to make any thing by it. How extravagant soever the fees of counsellors at law

may sometimes appear, their real retribution is never equal to this. Compute, in any particular

place, what is likely to be annually gained, and what is likely to be annually spent, by all the

different workmen in any common trade, such as that of shoemakers or weavers, and you will

find that the former sum will generally exceed the latter. But make the same computation with

regard to all the counsellors and students of law, in all the different Inns of Court, and