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removed likewise. The scarcity of hands in one CHAP.

x. parish, therefore, cannot always be relieved by

their super-abundance in another, as it is constantly in Scotland, and, I believe, in all other countries where there is no difficulty of settlement. In such countries, though wages may sometimes rife a little in the neighbourhood of a great town, or wherever else there is an extraordinary demand for labour, and sink gradually as the distance from such places increases, till they fall back to the common rate of the country; yet we never meet with those sudden and unaccountable differences in the wages of neighbouring places which we sometimes find in England, where it is often more difficult for a poor man to pass the artificial boundary of a parish, than an arm of the sea, or a ridge of high mountains, natural boundaries which sometimes separate very distinctly different rates of wages in other countries.

To remove a man who has committed no misdemeanour from the parish where he chuses to reside, is an evident violation of natural liberty and justice. The common people of England, however, so jealous of their liberty, but like the common people of most other countries never rightly understanding wherein it consists, have now for more than a century together suffered themselves to be exposed to this oppression without a remedy. Though men of reflexion too have sometimes complained of the law of settlements as a public grievance; yet it has never been the object of any general popular clamour,

such

BOOK mch as ^iat against general warrants, an abusive '. practice undoubtedly, but such a one as was not likely to occasion any general oppreflion. There is scarce a poor man in England of forty years of age, I will venture to fay, who has not in some part of his life felt himself most cruelly oppressed by this ill-contrived law of settlements.

I shall conclude this long chapter with observing, that though anciently it was usual to rate wages, sirst by general laws extending over the whole kingdom, and afterwards by particular orders of the justices of peace in every particular county, both these practices have now gone entirely into disuse. "By the experience of above "four hundred years," fays Doctor Burn, «* it "seems time to lay aside all endeavours to bring "under strict regulations, what in its own na*' ture seems incapable of minute limitation; for "if all persons in the fame kind of work were "to receive equal wages, there would be no "emulation, and no room left for industry or ** ingenuity."

Particular acts of parliament, however, still attempt sometimes to regulate wages in particular trades and in particular places. Thus the 8th of George III. prohibits under heavy penalties all master taylors in London, and five miles round it, from giving, and their workmen from accepting, more than two (shillings and sevenpence halfpenny a day, except in the case of a general mourning. Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are

always

always the masters. When the regulation, there- CHAR fore, is in savour of the workmen, it is always x" just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters. Thus the law which obliges the masters in several different trades to pay their workmen in money and not in goods, is quite just and equitable. It imposes no real hardship upon the masters. It only obliges them to pay that value in money, which they pretended to pay, but did not always really pay, in goods. This law is in favour of the workmen; but the 8th of George III. is in favour of the masters. When masters combine together in order to reduce the wages of their workmen, they commonly enter into a private bond or agreement, not to give more than a certain wage under a certain penalty. Were the workmen to enter into a contrary combination of the fame kind, not to accept of a certain wage under a certain penalty, the law would punish them very severely; and if it dealt impartially, it would treat the masters in the fame manner. But the 8th of George III. enforces by law that very regulation which masters sometimes attempt ! to establish by such combinations. The complaint of the workmen, that it puts the ablest and most industrious upon the fame footing with an ordinary workman, seems persectly well founded.

In ancient times too it was usual to attempt to regulate the profits of merchants and other dealers, by rating the price both of provisions and other goods. The assize of bread is, so far

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B O O K as I know, the only remnant of this ancierifc L ufage. Where there is an exclusive corporation, it may perhaps be proper to regulate the price of the first necessary of life. But where there is none, the competition will regulate it much better than any assize. The method of fixing the assize of bread established by the 31st of George II, could not be put in practice in Scotland, on account of a desert in the law; its execution depending upon the office of clerk of the market, which does not exist there. This defect was not remedied till the third of George III. The want of an assize occasioned no sensible inconveniency, and the establishment of one in the few places where it has yet taken place, has produced no sensible advantage. In the greater part of the towns of Scotland, however, there is an incorporation of bakers who claim exclusive privileges, though they are not very strictly guarded.

The proportion between the different rates both of wages and profit in the different employments of labour and stock, seems not to be much affected, as has already been observed, by the riches or poverty, the advancing, stationary, or declining state of the society. Such revolutions in the public welfare, though they affect the general rates both of wages and profit, must in the end affect them equally in all different employments. The proportion betweenthem,therefore, must remain the fame, and cannot well jbe altered, at least for any considerable time, by any such revolutions.

CHAP.

CHAP. XI.
Q/ tfe Rent y'L<M&

REXT, considered as the price paid for the C H A P.
use of land, is naturally the highest which M«
the tenant can afford to pay in the actual cir-
cumstances of the land. In adjusting the terms
of the lease, the landlord endeavours to leave
him no greater share of the produce than what is
sufficient to keep up the stock from which he
furnishes the feed, pays the labour, and purchases
and maintains the cattle and other instruments
of husbandry, together with the ordinary profit'
of farming stock in the neighbourhood. This is
evidently the smallest share with which the tenant
can content himself without being a loser, and
the landlord seldom means to leave him any
more. Whatever part of the produce, or, what
is the fame thing, whatever part of its price, is
over and above this share, he naturally ended
vours to reserve to himself as the rent of his
land, which is evidently the highest the tenant
can afford to pay in the actual circumstances of
the land. Sometimes, indeed, the liberality,
more frequently the ignorance, of the landlord,
makes him accept of somewhat less than this por-
tion; and sometimes too, though more rarely,
the ignorance of the tenant makes him undertake
to pay somewhat more, or to content himself
with somewhat less, than the ordinary profits of
farming stock in the neighbourhood. This por-

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