no doubt have been the work of deep thought
and long time, and may justly be considered
as among the happiest efforts of human ingenuity.
But when both have been fairly invented,
and are well understood, to explain
to any young man, in the completest manner,
how to apply the instruments, and how to
construct the machines, cannot well require
more than the lessons of a few weeks; perhaps
those of a few days might be sufficient.
In the common mechanic trades, those of a
few days might certainly be sufficient. The
dexterity of hand, indeed, even in common
trades, cannot be acquired without much practice
and experience. But a young man would
practice with much more diligence and attention,
if from the beginning he wrought as a
journeyman, being paid in proportion to the
little work which he could execute, and paying
in his turn for the materials which he
might sometimes spoil through awkwardness
and inexperience. His education would generally
in this way be more effectual, and always
less tedious and expensive. The master,
indeed, would be a loser. He would lose
all the wages of the apprentice, which he now
saves, for seven years together. In the end,
perhaps, the apprentice himself would be a
loser. In a trade so easily learnt he would
have more competitors, and his wages, when
he came to be a complete workman, would be
much less than at present. The same increase
of competition would reduce the profits of the
masters, as well as the wages of workmen.
The trades, the crafts, the mysteries, would
all be losers. But the public would be a
gainer, the work of all artificers coming in
this way much cheaper to market.
It is to prevent this reduction of price, and
consequently of wages and profit, by restraining
that free competition which would most
certainly occasion it, that all corporations,
and the greater part of corporation laws, have
been established. In order to erect a corporation,
no other authority in ancient times was
requisite, in many parts of Europe, but that
of the town-corporate in which it was established.
In England, indeed, a charter from
the king was likewise necessary. But this
prerogative of the crown seems to have been
reserved rather for extorting money from the
subject, than for the defence of the common
liberty against such oppressive monopolies.
Upon paying a fine to the king, the charter
seems generally to have been readily granted;
and when any particular class of artificers or
traders thought proper to act as a corporation,
without a charter, such adulterine guilds, as
they were called, were not always disfranchised
upon that account, but obliged to fine annually
to the king, for permission to exercise
their usurped privileges[12]. The immediate
inspection of all corporations, and of the bye-laws
which they might think proper to enact
for their own government, belonged to the
town-corporate in which they were established;
and whatever discipline was exercised
over them, proceeded commonly, not from the
king, but from that greater incorporation of
which those subordinate ones were only parts
or members.
The government of towns-corporate was altogether
in the hands of traders and artificers,
and it was the manifest interest of every particular
class of them, to prevent the market
from being overstocked, as they commonly express
it, with their own particular species of
industry; which is in reality to keep it always
understocked. Each class was eager
to establish regulations proper for this purpose,
and, provided it was allowed to do so,
was willing to consent that every other class
should do the same. In consequence of such
regulations, indeed, each class was obliged to
buy the goods they had occasion for from
every other within the town, somewhat dearer
than they otherwise might have done. But,
in recompence, they were enabled to sell their
own just as much dearer; so that, so far it
was as broad as long, as they say; and in the
dealings of the different classes within the
town with one another, none of them were
losers by these regulations. But in their
dealings with the country they were all great
gainers; and in these latter dealings consist
the whole trade which supports and enriches
every town.
Every town draws its whole subsistence,
and all the materials of its industry, from the
country. It pays for these chiefly in two
ways. First, by sending back to the country
a part of those materials wrought up and manufactured;
in which case, their price is augmented
by the wages of the workmen, and the
profits of their masters or immediate employers;
secondly, by sending to it a part both of the
rude and manufactured produce, either of
other countries, or of distant parts
of the same country, imported into the town; in
which case, too, the original price of those
goods is augmented by the wages of the carriers
or sailors, and by the profits of the
merchants who employ them. In what is
gained upon the first of those branches of
commerce, consists the advantage which the
town makes by its manufactures; in what is
gained upon the second, the advantage of its
inland and foreign trade. The wages of the
workmen, and the profits of their different
employers, make up the whole of what is
gained upon both. Whatever regulations,
therefore, tend to increase those wages and
profits beyond what they otherwise would be,
tend to enable the town to purchase, with a
smaller quantity of its labour, the produce of
a greater quantity of the labour of the country.
They give the traders and artificers in the
town an advantage over the landlords,
farmers, and labourers, in the country, and