An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith [e book reader pdf TXT] 📗
- Author: Adam Smith
- Performer: 0226763749
Book online «An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith [e book reader pdf TXT] 📗». Author Adam Smith
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
Comments (0)