expensive. The pecuniary recompence, therefore,
of painters and sculptors, of lawyers and
physicians, ought to be much more liberal;
and it is so accordingly.
The profits of stock seem to be very little
affected by the easiness or difficulty of learning
the trade in which it is employed. All
the different ways in which stock is commonly
employed in great towns seem, in reality,
to be almost equally easy and equally difficult
to learn. One branch, either of foreign or
domestic trade, cannot well be a much more
intricate business than another.
Thirdly, the wages of labour in different
occupations vary with the constancy or inconstancy
of employment.
Employment is much more constant in
some trades than in others. In the greater
part of manufactures, a journeyman may be
pretty sure of employment almost every day
in the year that he is able to work. A mason
or bricklayer, on the contrary, can work
neither in hard frost nor in foul weather, and
his employment at all other times depends upon
the occasional calls of his customers. He is
liable, in consequence, to be frequently without
any. What he earns, therefore, while he
is employed, must not only maintain him
while he is idle, but make him some compensation
for those anxious and desponding moments
which the thought of so precarious a
situation must sometimes occasion. Where
the computed earnings of the greater part of
manufacturers, accordingly, are nearly upon a
level with the day-wages of common labourers,
those of masons and bricklayers are generally
from one-half more to double those
wages. Where common labourers earn four
of five shillings a week, masons and bricklayers
frequently earn seven and eight; where
the former earn six, the latter often earn nine
and ten; and where the former earn nine and
ten, as in London, the latter commonly earn
fifteen and eighteen. No species of skilled
labour, however, seems more easy to learn
than that of masons and bricklayers. Chairmen
in London, during the summer season,
are said sometimes to be employed as bricklayers.
The high wages of those workmen,
therefore, are not so much the recompence of
their skill, as the compensation for the inconstancy
of their employment.
A house-carpenter seems to exercise rather
a nicer and a more ingenious trade than a
mason. In most places, however, for it is not
universally so, his day-wages are somewhat
lower. His employment, though it depends
much, does not depend so entirely upon the
occasional calls of his customers; and it is
not liable to be interrupted by the weather.
When the trades which generally afford
constant employment, happen in a particular
place not to do so, the wages of the workmen
always rise a good deal above their ordinary
proportion to those of common labour. In
London, almost all journeymen artificers are
liable to be called upon and dismissed by their
masters from day to day, and from week to
week, in the same manner as day-labourers in
other places. The lowest order of artificers,
journeymen tailors, accordingly, earn their
half-a-crown a-day, though eighteen pence
may be reckoned the wages of common labour.
In small towns and country villages,
the wages of journeymen tailors frequently
scarce equal those of common labour; but in
London they are often many weeks without
employment, particularly during the summer.
When the inconstancy of employment is
combined with the hardship, disagreeableness,
and dirtiness of the work, it sometimes raises
the wages of the most common labour above
those of the most skilful artificers. A collier
working by the piece is supposed, at Newcastle,
to earn commonly about double, and,
in many parts of Scotland, about three times,
the wages of common labour. His high wages
arise altogether from the hardship, disagreeableness,
and dirtiness of his work. His employment
may, upon most occasions, be as
constant as he pleases. The coal-heavers in
London exercise a trade which, in hardship,
dirtiness, and disagreeableness, almost equals
that of colliers; and, from the unavoidable irregularity
in the arrivals of coal-ships, the
employment of the greater part of them is necessarily
very inconstant. If colliers, therefore,
commonly earn double and triple the
wages of common labour, it ought not to seem
unreasonable that coal-heavers should sometimes
earn four and five times those wages.
In the inquiry made into their condition a few
years ago, it was found that, at the rate at
which they were paid, they could earn
from six to ten shillings a-day. Six shillings
are about four times the wages of common labour
in London; and, in every particular
trade, the lowest common earnings may always
be considered as those of the far greater
number. How extravagant soever those earnings
may appear, if they were more than sufficient
to compensate all the disagreeable circumstances
of the business, there would soon
be so great a number of competitors, as, in a
a trade which has no exclusive privilege, would
quickly reduce them to a lower rate.
The constancy or inconstancy of employment
cannot affect the ordinary profits of
stock in any particular trade. Whether the
stock is or is not constantly employed, depends,
not upon the trade, but the trader.
Fourthly, the wages of labour vary according
to the small or great trust which must be
reposed in the workmen.
The wages of goldsmiths and jewellers are
everywhere superior to those of many other
workmen, not only of equal, but of much superior
ingenuity, on account of the precious
materials with which they are entrusted.
We trust our health to the physician, our