Chapter XIII: Part II: Inequalities occasioned by the Policy of Europe

Such 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.

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.

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.

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 expense 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. No master hatter can have more than two
apprentices anywhere 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. 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. 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.

Seven years seem anciently to have been, all over Europe, the usual 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
tailors, etc. are expressions which we commonly meet with in the old
charters of ancient towns. 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
synonymous), in the liberal arts, and to have scholars or apprentices
(words likewise originally synonymous) to study under him.

By the 5th of Elizabeth, commonly called the Statute of Apprenticeship, 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. 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. 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. But a
wheel-wright, though he has never served an apprenticeship to a
coachmaker, may either himself make or employ journeymen to make coaches;
the trade of a coachmaker not being within the statute, because not
exercised in England at the time when it was made. 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 different 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 companion of his
master, and the term itself is called his companionship.

In Scotland, there is no general law which regulates universally the
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, etc. may
exercise their trades in any town-corporate without paying any fine. In
all towns-corporate, all persons are free to sell butchers’ 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 the original
foundation of all other property, 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 lawgiver, lest they should employ an improper
person, is evidently as impertinent as it is oppressive.

The institution of long apprenticeships can give no security that
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 linen and woollen cloth,
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 workman had served a seven years
apprenticeship.

The 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 altogether unknown to the ancients. The reciprocal
duties of master and apprentice make a considerable article in every
modern code. 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 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 practice 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 workmen. The trades, the crafts, the mysteries, 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 wages 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 {See Madox
Firma Burgi p. 26 etc.}. 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.

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 overstocked, as they commonly
express it, with their own particular species of industry; which is in
reality to keep it always understocked. 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 consist the whole trade which
supports and enriches every town.

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 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 materials
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, everywhere in 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. 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 easily
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.

The inhabitants of the country, dispersed in distant places, cannot easily
combine together. They have not only never been incorporated, but the
incorporation 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,
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.

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.
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 everywhere, if
corporation laws and the corporation spirit did not prevent it.

The superiority which the industry of the towns has everywhere in 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
undersold 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 everywhere 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 over 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 stocks
accumulated in them come 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 my say so, over
the face of the land, and, by being employed in agriculture, is in part
restored to the country, at the expense of which, in a great measure, it
had originally been accumulated in the town. That everywhere in Europe the
greatest improvements of the country have been owing to such over flowings
of the stock originally accumulated in the towns, I shall endeavour to
shew hereafter, 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.

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.

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.

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,
and it cannot last longer than every single trader continues of the same
mind. 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 government 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 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 proper 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, etc. 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 expense.
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 or
a stipendiary parish priest, as we find it regulated by the decrees of
several different national councils. At the same period, fourpence 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 threepence
a-day, equal to ninepence of our present money, that of a journeyman
mason. {See the Statute of Labourers, 25, Ed. III.} 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”. 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 the 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, if
an equal proportion of people were educated at the public expense, 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 expense. 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, are 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 expense; and their numbers are
everywhere so great, as commonly to reduce the price of their labour to a
very paltry recompence.

Before the invention of the art of printing, the only employment by which
a man of letters could make any thing by his talents, was that of a public
or private 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 expense; whereas those of the other two are encumbered 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.

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 paltry reward of four or five
minae.” “They who teach wisdom,” continues he, “ought certainly to be wise
themselves; but if any man were to sell such a bargain for such a price,
he would be convicted of the most evident folly.” 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 minae were equal to thirteen pounds six
shillings and eightpence; five minae to sixteen pounds thirteen shillings
and fourpence. 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 minae, or £ 33:6:8 from
each scholar. When he taught at Athens, he is said to have had a 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 minae, or £ 3335:6:8. A thousand minae, accordingly,
is said by Plutarch, in another place, to have been his didactron, or
usual price of teaching. Many other eminent teachers in those times appear
to have acquired great fortunes. Georgias made a present to the temple of
Delphi of his own statue in solid gold. 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. 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, 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.

Carneades, too, was a Babylonian by birth; 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 advantageous 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 overbalances 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.

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.

The statute of apprenticeship 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
superabundance 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. 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, 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 work men 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 employment 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 the
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 circulation 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, 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 deprived 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
church-wardens, should raise, by a parish rate, competent sums for this
purpose.

By this statute, the necessity of providing for their own poor was
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. 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 church-wardens or overseers of the poor, to remove
any new inhabitant to the parish where he was last legally settled; 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.

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. 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 church-wardens or overseers of the parish where he
came to dwell.

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 3rd of William
III. 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 removable 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.”

This statute, therefore, rendered it almost impracticable for a poor man
to gain a new settlement in the old way, by forty days inhabitancy. 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. Nobody can gain
a settlement by either of the two first ways, but by 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 two 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. 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, 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. But this is a security
which scarce any man who lives by labour can give; and much greater
security is frequently demanded.

In order to restore, in some measure, that free circulation of labour
which those different statutes had almost entirely taken away, the
invention of certificates was fallen upon. By the 8th and 9th of William
III. it was enacted that if any person should bring a certificate from the
parish where he was last legally settled, subscribed by the church-wardens
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
removable 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 expense 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, 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.

How far this invention has restored that free circulation of labour, 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.” 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 purposes 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 himself by
living elsewhere.”

Though a certificate carries along with it no testimonial of good
behaviour, 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 church-wardens and overseers to sign
a certificate; but the Court of King’s Bench rejected the motion as a very
strange attempt.

The very unequal price of labour which we frequently find 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. The scarcity of hands in one parish, therefore, cannot always be
relieved by their superabundance 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.

To remove a man who has committed no misdemeanour, from the parish where
he chooses 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 oppressed by this ill-contrived law of
settlements.

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.”

Particular acts of parliament, however, still attempt sometimes to
regulate wages in particular trades, and in particular places. Thus the
8th of George III. prohibits, under heavy penalties, all master tailors 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. 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.

In ancient times, too, it was usual to attempt to regulate the profits of
merchants and other dealers, by regulating the price of provisions and
ether 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. 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 third of George III. 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 in Scotland, however, there is an incorporation
of bakers, who claim exclusive privileges, though they are not very
strictly guarded. 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, 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.