but is just as likely to lose one by two
or three unsuccessful ones. This trade can
be carried on nowhere but in great towns. It
is only in places of the most extensive commerce
and correspondence that the intelligence
requisite for it can he had.
The five circumstances above mentioned,
though they occasion considerable inequalities
in the wages of labour and profits of stock,
occasion none in the whole of the advantages
and disadvantages, real or imaginary, of the
different employments of either. The nature
of those circumstances is such, that they make
up for a small pecuniary gain in some, and
counterbalance a great one in others.
In order, however, that this equality may
take place in the whole of their advantages or
disadvantages, three things are requisite, even
where there is the most perfect freedom.
First, the employments must be well known
and long established in the neighbourhood;
secondly, they must be in their ordinary, or
what may be called their natural state; and,
thirdly, they must be the sole or principal employments
of those who occupy them.
First, This equality can lake place only in
those employments which are well known,
and have been long established in the neighbourhood.
Where all other circumstances are equal,
wages are generally higher in new than in old
trades. When a projector attempts to establish
a new manufacture, he must at first entice
his workmen from other employments, by
higher wages than they can either earn in their
own trades, or than the nature of his work
would otherwise require; and a considerable
time must pass away before he can venture to
reduce them to the common level. Manufactures
for which the demand arises altogether
from fashion and fancy, are continually changing,
and seldom last long enough to be considered
as old established manufactures. Those,
on the contrary, for which the demand arises
chiefly from use or necessity, are less liable to
change, and the same form of fabric may continue
in demand for whole centuries together.
The wages of labour, therefore, are likely to
be higher in manufactures of the former, than
in those of the latter kind. Birmingham
deals chiefly in manufactures of the former
kind; Sheffield in those of the latter; and the
wages of labour in those two different places
are said to be suitable to this difference in the
nature of their manufactures.
The establishment of any new manufacture,
of any new branch of commerce, or of any
new practice in agriculture, is always a speculation
from which the projector promises himself
extraordinary profits. These profits sometimes
are very great, and sometimes, more
frequently, perhaps, they are quite otherwise;
but, in general, they bear no regular proportion
to those of other old trades in the neighbourhood.
If the project succeeds, they are
commonly at first very high. When the trade
or practice becomes thoroughly established
and well known, the competition reduces
them to the level of other trades.
Secondly, this equality in the whole of the
advantages and disadvantages of the different
employments of labour and stock, can take
place only in the ordinary, or what may be
called the natural state of those employments.
The demand for almost every different
species of labour is sometimes greater, and
sometimes less than usual. In the one case,
the advantages of the employment rise above,
in the other they fall below the common level.
The demand for country labour is greater at
hay-time and harvest than during the greater
part of the year; and wages rise with the demand.
In time of war, when forty or fifty
thousand sailors are forced from the merchant
service into that of the king, the demand for
sailors to merchant ships necessarily rises with
their scarcity; and their wages, upon such
occasions, commonly rise from a guinea and
seven-and-twenty shillings to forty shillings
and three pounds a-month. In a decaying
manufacture, on the contrary, many workmen,
rather than quit their own trade, are
contented with smaller wages than would
be suitable to the nature of their
employment.
The profits of stock vary with the price of
the commodities in which it is employed. As
the price of any commodity rises above the
ordinary or average rate, the profits of at
least some part of the stock that is employed
in bringing it to market, rise above their proper
level, and as it falls they sink below it.
All commodities are more or less liable to variations
of price, but some are much more so
than others. In all commodities which are
produced by human industry, the quantity of
industry annually employed is necessarily regulated
by the annual demand, in such a manner
that the average annual produce may, as
nearly as possible, be equal to the average annual
consumption. In some employments, it
has already been observed, the same quantity
of industry will always produce the same, or
very nearly the same quantity of commodities.
In the linen or woollen manufactures, for example,
the same number of hands will annually
work up very nearly the same quantity
of linen and woollen cloth. The variations
in the market price of such commodities,
therefore, can arise only from some accidental
variation in the demand. A public mourning
raises the price of black cloth. But as the
demand for most sorts of plain linen and
woollen cloth is pretty uniform, so is likewise
the price. But there are other employments
in which the same quantity of industry will
not always produce the same quantity of commodities.
The same quantity of industry, for
example, will, in different years, produce very
different quantities of corn, wine, hops, sugar,