The smallest variations in the price of rude and simple labour have ever been justly considered as serious calamities. In classes of somewhat superior wealth, and talents, which are, in fact, a species of personal wealth, a diminution in the rate of profits entails only a reduction of expense, or, at most, but trenches, in some measure, upon the capital those classes generally have at their disposal. But to those, whose whole income is a bare subsistence, a fall of wages is an absolute death-warrant, if not to the labourer himself, to part of his family at least.

Wherefore, all governments, pretending to the smallest paternal solicitude for their subjects' welfare, have evinced a readiness to aid the indigent class, wherever any unexpected event has accidentally reduced the wages of common labour below the level of the labourer's subsistence. Yet the benevolent intentions of the government have too often failed in their efficacy, for want of judgment in the choice of a remedy. To render it effective, it is necessary first to explore the cause of depression in the price of labour. If that depression be of a permanent nature, pecuniary and temporary aid is of no possible avail, and merely defers the pressure of the mischief. Of this nature are the discovery of new processes, the introduction of new articles of import, or the emigration of a considerable number of consumers. (a) In such emergencies, a remedy must be sought in the discovery of some new and permanent occupation for the hands thrown out of employ, in the encouragement of new channels of industry, in the setting on foot of distant enterprises, the planting of colonies, &c.

If the depression be not of a permanent nature, if it be the mere result of good or bad crops, the temporary assistance should be limited to the unfortunate sufferers by the oscillation.

Governments or individuals, who attempt indiscriminate beneficence, will have the frequent mortification of finding their bounty unavailing. This may be more convincingly demonstrated by example than by argument.

Suppose in a vine district the quantity of casks to be so abundant, as to make it impossible to use them all. A war, or a statute levelled against the production of wine, may, perhaps, have caused many proprietors of vineyards to adopt a

(a) The second and last of these circumstances are neither of them necessarily, universally, or permanently, followed by the depression of the rate of wages. When a new object of import does not supersede one of either home or foreign production, it must tend to raise the rate of wages, as it can only be procured by enlarged home production. The emigration of consumers, continuing to draw subsistence from the country they desert, leaves in activity an equal mass of human labour, though possibly with some variation of employment. Besides, it may be temporary only, as that of the English to the continent, and of the Irish both to England and to the continent; who possibly might be brought back by an improvement of domestic finance or of domestic security and comfort. T.

different cultivation of their lands; this is a permanent cause of surplus cooperage in the market. In ignorance of this cause, a general effort is made to assist the labouring coopers, either by purchasing their casks without wanting them, or by making up, in the shape of alms, the loss they have sustained in the diminution of their profits. Useless purchases, or eleemosynary aid, however, can not last for ever; and, the moment they cease, the poor coopers will find themselves precisely in the same distressful situation, from which it was attempted to extricate them. All the sacrifice and expense will have been incurred with no advantage, other than that of a little delay in the date of their hopeless sufferings and privations.

Suppose, on the contrary, the cause of the superabundance of casks to be but temporary; to be nothing more, than the failure of the annual crop. If, instead of affording temporary relief to the working coopers, they be encouraged to remove to other districts, or to enter upon some other branch of industry, it will follow, that the next year, when wine may be abundant, there will be a scarcity of casks to receive it; the price will become exorbitant, and be settled at the suggestion of avarice and speculation; which, being unable themselves to manufacture casks, after the means of producing them have been thus destroyed, part of the wine will probably be spoiled for want of casks to hold it. It will require a second shock and derangement of the rate of wages, before the manufacture of the article can be brought again to a level with the demand.

Whence it is evident, that the remedy must be adapted to the particular cause of the mischief; consequently, the cause must be ascertained, before the remedy is devised.

Necessary subsistence, then, may be taken to be the standard of the wages of common rough labour; but this standard is itself extremely fluctuating; for habit has great influence upon the extent of human wants. It is by no means certain, that the labourers of some cantons of France could exist under a total privation of wine. In London, beer is considered indispensable; that beverage is there so much an article of necessity, that beggars ask for money to buy a pot of beer, (a) as commonly as in France for the purchase of a morsel of bread; and this latter object of solicitation, which appears to us so very natural, may seem impertinent to foreigners just arrived from a country, where the poor subsist on potatoes, manioc, or other still coarser diet.

What is necessary subsistence, depends, therefore, partly on the habits of the nation, to which the labourer may happen to belong. In proportion as the value he consumes is small,

(a) The present depression of the labouring classes in England has lowered the tone of mendicity, if indeed it ever was raised to so high a key. T.

his ordinary wages may be low, and the product of his labour cheap. If his condition be improved, and his wages raised, either his product becomes dearer to the consumer, or the share of his fellow producers is diminished.

The disadvantages of their position are an effectual barrier against any great extension of the consumption of the labouring classes. Humanity, indeed, would rejoice to see them and their families dressed in clothing suitable to the climate and season; housed in roomy, warm, airy, and healthy habitations, and fed with wholesome and plentiful diet, with perhaps occasional delicacy and variety; but there are very few countries, where wants, apparently so moderate, are not considered far beyond the limits of strict necessity, and therefore not to be gratified by the customary wages of the mere labouring class.

The limit of strict necessity varies, not only according to the more or less comfortable condition of the labourer and his family, but likewise according to the several items of expense reputed unavoidable in the country he inhabits. Among these is the one we have just adverted to; namely, the rearing of children; there are others less urgent and imperative in their nature, though equally enforced by feeling and natural sentiments; such as the care of the aged, to which unhappily the labouring class are far too inattentive. Nature could entrust the perpetuation of the human species to no impulse less strong, than the vehemence of appetite and desire, and the anxiety of paternal love; but has abandoned the aged, whom she no longer wants, to the slow workings of filial gratitude, or, what is even less to be depended upon, to the providence of their younger years. Did the habitual practice of society imperatively subject every family to the obligation of laying by some provision for age, as it commonly does for infancy, our ideas of necessity would be somewhat enlarged, and the minimum of wages somewhat raised.

It must appear shocking to the eye of philanthropy, that such is not always the case. It is lamentable to think of the little providence of the labouring classes against the season of casual misfortune, infirmity, and sickness, as well as against the certain helplessness of old age. Such considerations afford most powerful reasons for forwarding and encouraging provident associations of the labouring class, for the daily deposit of a trifling saving, as a fund in reserve for that period, when age, or unexpected calamity, shall cut off the resource of their industry.* But such institutions can not be expected to succeed, unless the labourer be taught to consider these

Saving banks have succeeded in several districts of England, Holland, and Germany; particularly where the government has been wise enough to withhold its interference. The Insurance Company of Paris has set one on foot upon the most liberal principles and with the most substantial guaranIt is to be hoped, that the labouring classes in general will see the wisdom of placing their little savings in such an establishment, in prefer

tee.

means of precaution as a matter of duty and necessity, and hold to the obligation to carry his savings to such places of deposite, as equally indispensable with the payment of his rent or taxes: this new duty would doubtless tend in a slight degree to raise the scale of wages so as to allow of such frugality, but for that very reason it is desirable. How can such establishments thrive in countries where habit and the interested views of the government conspire to make the labourer spend in the public-house not only what he might lay by, but frequently the very subsistence of his family, in which all his comforts and pleasures should be centered. The vain and costly amusements of the rich are not always justifiable in the eye of reason; but how much more disastrous is the senseless dissipation of the poor! The mirth of the indigent is invariably seasoned with tears; and the orgies of the populace are days of mourning to the philosopher.

Besides the reasons advanced in this and the preceding sections, to explain why the wages of the adventurer, even if he

ence to the hazardous investments they have often been decoyed into. There is besides a further national advantage in such a practice; viz. that of augmenting the general mass of productive capital, and consequently extending the demand for human agency.(1)

(1) [In the principal cities of the United States, Saving Banks have also recently been established, and have been attended with so much benefit, that we expect soon to hear of their spreading through every part of the Union. To the Friendly or Beneficial Societies there are strong objections, to which the Saving Banks are not liable. The Friendly Societies have, undoubtedly, done some good; but attended with a certain portion of evil. The following extract from a report of the Committee of the Highland Society, places these latter societies in a very proper light.

"During the last century, a number of Friendly Societies have been established by the labourers in different parts of Great Britain, to enable them to make provision against want. The principle of these societies usually is, that the members pay a certain stated sum periodically, from which an allowance is made to them upon sickness or old age, and to their families upon their death. These societies have done much good; but they are attended with some disadvantages. In particular, the frequent meetings of the members occasion the loss of much time, and frequently of a good deal of money spent in entertainments: The stated payments must be regularly made; otherwise, after a certain time, the member (necessarily from its being in fact an insurance) loses the benefit of all that he has formerly paid. Nothing more than the stated payments can be made, however easily the member might be able at the moment to add a little to his store. Frequently the value of the chances on which the societies are formed, is ill calculated; in which case either the contributors do not receive an equivalent for their payments, or too large an allowance is given at first, which brings on the bankruptcy of the institution. Frequently the sums are embezzled by artful men, who, by imposing on the inexperience of the members, get themselves elected into offices of trust. The benefit is distant and contingent; each member not having benefit from his contributions in every case, but only in the case of his falling into the situa tions of distress provided for by the society. And the whole concern is so complicated, that many have hesitation in embarking in it their hard earned savings."] AMERICAN EDITOR.

derive no profit as a capitalist, are generally higher than those of the mere labourer, there are others, not so solid or well founded indeed, but such as nevertheless must not be overlooked.

The wages of the labourer are a matter of adjustment and compact between the conflicting interests of master and workman; the latter endeavouring to get as much, the former to give as little, as he possibly can; but, in a contest of this kind, there is on the side of the master an advantage, over and above what is given him by the nature of his occupation. The master and the workman are no doubt equally necessary to each other; for one gains nothing but with the other's assistance; the wants of the master are, however, of the two, less urgent and less immediate. There are few masters, but what could exist several months or even years, without employing a single labourer; and few labourers that can remain out of work for many weeks, without being reduced to the extremity of distress. And this circumstance must have its weight in striking the bargain for wages between them.

Sismondi, in a late work published since the appearance of my third edition, has suggested some legislative provisions, for the avowed purpose of bettering the condition of the labouring classes. He sets out with the position, that the low rate of their wages accrues to the benefit of the adventurers and masters who employ them; and thence infers, that, in the moment of calamity, their claim for relief is upon the masters, and not upon society at large. Wherefore, he proposes to make it obligatory upon the proprietors and farmers of land at all times to feed the agricultural, and upon the manufacturers to provide subsistence for the manufacturing labourer. On the other hand, to prevent the probable excess of population, consequent upon the certain prospect of subsistence to themselves and their families, he would give to their respective masters the right of preventing or permitting marriage amongst their people.

This scheme, however entitled to favourable consideration by the motive of humanity in which it originated, seems to me altogether impracticable. It would be a gross violation of the right of property, to saddle one class of society with the compulsory maintenance of another; and it would be a violation still more gross, to give to one set of men a personal control over another; for the freedom of personal action is the most sacred of all the objects of property. The arbitrary prohibition of marriage to one class is a premium to the procreation of all the rest. Besides, there is no truth in the position, that the low rate of wages redounds exclusively to the profit of the master. Their reduction, followed up by the constant action of competition, is sure to bring about a fall of the price of products; so that it is the class of consumers, in other words, the

• Nouveaux Prin. d'Econ. Pol. liv. vii. c. 9.