easier. A journeyman weaver earns less than
a journeyman smith. His work is not always
easier, but it is much cleanlier. A journeyman
blacksmith, though an artificer, seldom
earns so much in twelve hours, as a collier,
who is only a labourer, does in eight. His
work is not quite so dirty, is less dangerous,
and is carried on in day-light, and above
ground. Honour makes a great part of the
reward of all honourable professions. In point
of pecuniary gain, all things considered, they
are generally under-recompensed, as I shall
endeavour to shew by and by. Disgrace has
the contrary effect. The trade of a butcher
is a brutal and an odious business; but it is
in most places more profitable than the greater
part of common trades. The most detestable
of all employments, that of public executioner,
is, in proportion to the quantity of
work done, better paid than any common trade
whatever.
Hunting and fishing, the most important
employments of mankind in the rude state of
society, become, in its advanced state, their
most agreeable amusements, and they pursue
for pleasure what they once followed from necessity.
In the advanced state of society,
therefore, they are all very poor people who
follow as a trade, what other people pursue as
a pastime. Fishermen have been so since the
time of Theocritus[11]. A poacher is everywhere
a very poor man in Great Britain. In
countries where the rigour of the law suffers
no poachers, the licensed hunter is not in a
much better condition. The natural taste for
those employments makes more people follow
them, than can live comfortably by them; and
the produce of their labour, in proportion to
its quantity, comes always too cheap to market,
to afford any thing but the most scanty
subsistence to the labourers.
Disagreeableness and disgrace affect the
profits of stock in the same manner as the
wages of labour. The keeper of an inn or
tavern, who is never master of his own house,
and who is exposed to the brutality of every
drunkard, exercises neither a very agreeable
nor a very creditable business. But there is
scarce any common trade in which a small
stock yields so great a profit.
Secondly, the wages of labour vary with the
easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and
expense, of learning the business.
When any expensive machine is erected,
the extraordinary work to be performed by it
before it is worn out, it must be expected, will
replace the capital laid out upon it, with at
least the ordinary profits. A man educated
at the expense of much labour and time to any
of those employments which require extraordinary
dexterity and skill, may be compared
to one of those expensive machines. The
work which he learns to perform, it must be
expected, over and above the usual wages of
common labour, will replace to him the whole
expense of his education, with at least the ordinary
profits of an equally valuable capital.
It must do this too in a reasonable time, regard
being had to the very uncertain duration
of human life, in the same manner as to the
more certain duration of the machine.
The difference between the wages of skilled
labour and those of common labour, is founded
upon this principle.
The policy of Europe considers the labour
of all mechanics, artificers, and manufacturers,
as skilled labour; and that of all country labourers
as common labour. It seems to suppose
that of the former to be of a more nice
and delicate nature than that of the latter. It
is so perhaps in some cases; but in the greater
part it is quite otherwise, as I shall endeavour
to shew by and by. The laws and customs
of Europe, therefore, in order to qualify
any person for exercising the one species of
labour, impose the necessity of an apprenticeship,
though with different degrees of rigour
in different places. They leave the other free
and open to every body. During the continuance
of the apprenticeship, the whole labour
of the apprentice belongs to the master. In
the meantime he must, in many cases, be
maintained by his parents or relations, and, in
almost all cases, must be clothed by them.
Some money, too, is commonly given to the
master for teaching him his trade. They who
cannot give money, give time, or become bound
for more than the usual number of years; a
consideration which, though it is not always
advantageous to the master, on account of the
usual idleness of apprentices, is always disadvantageous
to the apprentice. In country labour,
on the contrary, the labourer, while he
is employed about the easier, learns the more
difficult parts of his business, and his own labour
maintains him through all the different
stages of his employment. It is reasonable,
therefore, that in Europe the wages of mechanics,
artificers, and manufacturers, should
be somewhat higher than those of common labourers.
They are so accordingly, and their
superior gains make them, in most places, be
considered as a superior rank of people. This
superiority, however, is generally very small:
the daily or weekly earnings of journeymen
in the more common sorts of manufactures,
such as those of plain linen and woollen cloth,
computed at an average, are, in most places,
very little more than the day-wages of common
labourers. Their employment, indeed,
is more steady and uniform, and the superiority
of their earnings, taking the whole year
together, may be somewhat greater. It seems
evidently, however, to be no greater than what
is sufficient to compensate the superior expense
of their education.
Education in the ingenious arts, and in the
liberal professions, is still more tedious and