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 tallies
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 of
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