The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith [english novels to improve english .TXT] 📗

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

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

C. 29. ↩

C. 6. The preamble relates the defect. ↩

Above, here. ↩

“By” appears first in ed. 3. ↩

Eds. 1 and 2 read “The rent of land varies with its fertility, whatever be its produce, and with its situation, whatever be its fertility.” ↩

Above, here through here. ↩

Vol. i, p. 532, in the French translation of Juan and Ulloa’s work, Voyage historique de l’Amérique méridionale par don George Juan et don Antoine de Ulloa, 1752. The statement is repeated in almost the same words, substituting “three or four hundred” for “two or three hundred,” below, p. 186. ↩

See below, here and here. ↩

Cicero, De officiis, lib. ii. ad fin. Quoted in Lectures, p. 229. ↩

See below, here. ↩

The Life of Henry Prince of Wales, by Thomas Birch, D.D., 1760, p. 346. ↩

The Life of Henry Prince of Wales, p. 271. ↩

A Report from the Committee Who, Upon the 8th Day of February, 1764, Were Appointed to Inquire Into the Causes of the High Price of Provisions with the Proceedings of the House Thereupon. Published by order of the House of Commons, 1764, paragraph 4, where, however, there is no definite statement to the effect that the Virginia merchant, Mr. Capel Hanbury, considered 24s. or 25s. as the ordinary price. ↩

Report from the Committee, paragraph 3 almost verbatim. The Committee resolved “that the high price of provisions of late has been occasioned partly by circumstances peculiar to the season and the year, and partly by the defect of the laws in force for convicting and punishing all persons concerned in forestalling cattle in their passage to market.” ↩

These prices are deduced from the tables at the end of the chapter. ↩

Only if the extra risk deters people from entering the business, and according to pp. 112, 113 above it would not. ↩

Ed. 1 reads “thorns.” ↩

Columella, De re rustica, xi, 3, but the recommendation of the fence is “Et haec quidem claudendi horti ratio maxime est antiquis probata.” ↩

Gesnerus’ edition of Columella in Scriptores rei rusticae in Adam Smith’s library (see Bonar’s Catalogue, s.v. Gesnerus), commenting on the passage referred to above, quotes the opinions of Varro, De re rustica, i, 14, and Palladius, De re rustica, i, 34. ↩

De re rustica, iii, 3. ↩

Ed. 1 reads “their.” ↩

Voyages d’un Philosophe —⁠Smith

Ou observations sur les mœurs et les arts des peuples de l’Afrique, de l’Asie, et de l’Amérique, 1768, pp. 92, 93. The note appears first in ed. 2 —⁠Cannan ↩

The French original says the Cochin-China quintal “équivaut à £150 200 de nos livres, poids de marc,” which cannot possibly bear the meaning ascribed to it in the text. Probably the £150 are pounds equal to 1⅓ of the pounds poids de marc. This would make the cwt. English worth only about seven shillings. ↩

Tobacco growing in England, Ireland, and the Channel Islands was prohibited by 12 Car. II, c. 34, the preamble of which alleges that the lords and commons have considered “of how great concern and importance it is that the colonies and plantations of this kingdom in America be defended, maintained and kept up, and that all due and possible encouragement be given unto them, and that not only in regard great and considerable dominions and countries have been thereby gained and added to the imperial crown of this realm, but for that the strength and welfare of this kingdom do very much depend upon them in regard of the employment of a very considerable part of its shipping and seamen, and of the vent of very great quantities of its native commodities and manufactures as also of its supply with several considerable commodities which it was wont formerly to have only from foreigners and at far dearer rates, and forasmuch as tobacco is one of the main products of several of those plantations and upon which their welfare and subsistence and the navigation of this