Chapter Inequalities occasioned by the Policy of Europe.

PART II.—Inequalities occasioned by the Policy of Europe.

  Such are the inequalities in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages
  of the different employments of labour and stock, which the defect of any
  of the three requisites above mentioned must occasion, even where there is
  the most perfect liberty. But the policy of Europe, by not leaving things
  at perfect liberty, occasions other inequalities of much greater
  importance.

  It does this chiefly in the three following ways. First, by restraining
  the competition in some employments to a smaller number than would
  otherwise be disposed to enter into them; secondly, by increasing it in
  others beyond what it naturally would be; and, thirdly, by obstructing the
  free circulation of labour and stock, both from employment to employment,
  and from place to place.

  First, The policy of Europe occasions a very important inequality in the
  whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of
  labour and stock, by restraining the competition in some employments to a
  smaller number than might otherwise be disposed to enter into them.

  The exclusive privileges of corporations are the principal means it makes
  use of for this purpose.

  The exclusive privilege of an incorporated trade necessarily restrains the
  competition, in the town where it is established, to those who are free of
  the trade. To have served an apprenticeship in the town, under a master
  properly qualified, is commonly the necessary requisite for obtaining this
  freedom. The bye-laws of the corporation regulate sometimes the number of
  apprentices which any master is allowed to have, and almost always the
  number of years which each apprentice is obliged to serve. The intention
  of both regulations is to restrain the competition to a much smaller
  number than might otherwise be disposed to enter into the trade. The
  limitation of the number of apprentices restrains it directly. A long term
  of apprenticeship restrains it more indirectly, but as effectually, by
  increasing the expense of education.

  In Sheffield, no master cutler can have more than one apprentice at a
  time, by a bye-law of the corporation. In Norfolk and Norwich, no master
  weaver can have more than two apprentices, under pain of forfeiting five
  pounds a-month to the king. No master hatter can have more than two
  apprentices anywhere in England, or in the English plantations, under pain
  of forfeiting; five pounds a-month, half to the king, and half to him who
  shall sue in any court of record. Both these regulations, though they have
  been confirmed by a public law of the kingdom, are evidently dictated by
  the same corporation-spirit which enacted the bye-law of Sheffield. The
  silk-weavers in London had scarce been incorporated a year, when they
  enacted a bye-law, restraining any master from having more than two
  apprentices at a time. It required a particular act of parliament to
  rescind this bye-law.

  Seven years seem anciently to have been, all over Europe, the usual term
  established for the duration of apprenticeships in the greater part of
  incorporated trades. All such incorporations were anciently called
  universities, which, indeed, is the proper Latin name for any
  incorporation whatever. The university of smiths, the university of
  tailors, etc. are expressions which we commonly meet with in the old
  charters of ancient towns. When those particular incorporations, which are
  now peculiarly called universities, were first established, the term of
  years which it was necessary to study, in order to obtain the degree of
  master of arts, appears evidently to have been copied from the term of
  apprenticeship in common trades, of which the incorporations were much
  more ancient. As to have wrought seven years under a master properly
  qualified, was necessary, in order to entitle any person to become a
  master, and to have himself apprentices in a common trade; so to have
  studied seven years under a master properly qualified, was necessary to
  entitle him to become a master, teacher, or doctor (words anciently
  synonymous), in the liberal arts, and to have scholars or apprentices
  (words likewise originally synonymous) to study under him.

  By the 5th of Elizabeth, commonly called the Statute of Apprenticeship, it
  was enacted, that no person should, for the future, exercise any trade,
  craft, or mystery, at that time exercised in England, unless he had
  previously served to it an apprenticeship of seven years at least; and
  what before had been the bye-law of many particular corporations, became
  in England the general and public law of all trades carried on in market
  towns. For though the words of the statute are very general, and seem
  plainly to include the whole kingdom, by interpretation its operation has
  been limited to market towns; it having been held that, in country
  villages, a person may exercise several different trades, though he has
  not served a seven years apprenticeship to each, they being necessary for
  the conveniency of the inhabitants, and the number of people frequently
  not being sufficient to supply each with a particular set of hands. By a
  strict interpretation of the words, too, the operation of this statute has
  been limited to those trades which were established in England before the
  5th of Elizabeth, and has never been extended to such as have been
  introduced since that time. This limitation has given occasion to several
  distinctions, which, considered as rules of police, appear as foolish as
  can well be imagined. It has been adjudged, for example, that a
  coach-maker can neither himself make nor employ journeymen to make his
  coach-wheels, but must buy them of a master wheel-wright; this latter
  trade having been exercised in England before the 5th of Elizabeth. But a
  wheel-wright, though he has never served an apprenticeship to a
  coachmaker, may either himself make or employ journeymen to make coaches;
  the trade of a coachmaker not being within the statute, because not
  exercised in England at the time when it was made. The manufactures of
  Manchester, Birmingham, and Wolverhampton, are many of them, upon this
  account, not within the statute, not having been exercised in England
  before the 5th of Elizabeth.

  In France, the duration of apprenticeships is different in different towns
  and in different trades. In Paris, five years is the term required in a
  great number; but, before any person can be qualified to exercise the
  trade as a master, he must, in many of them, serve five years more as a
  journeyman. During this latter term, he is called the companion of his
  master, and the term itself is called his companionship.

  In Scotland, there is no general law which regulates universally the
  duration of apprenticeships. The term is different in different
  corporations. Where it is long, a part of it may generally be redeemed by
  paying a small fine. In most towns, too, a very small fine is sufficient
  to purchase the freedom of any corporation. The weavers of linen and
  hempen cloth, the principal manufactures of the country, as well as all
  other artificers subservient to them, wheel-makers, reel-makers, etc. may
  exercise their trades in any town-corporate without paying any fine. In
  all towns-corporate, all persons are free to sell butchers’ meat upon any
  lawful day of the week. Three years is, in Scotland, a common term of
  apprenticeship, even in some very nice trades; and, in general, I know of
  no country in Europe, in which corporation laws are so little oppressive.

  The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original
  foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.
  The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his
  hands; and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in
  what manner he thinks proper, without injury to his neighbour, is a plain
  violation of this most sacred property. It is a manifest encroachment upon
  the just liberty, both of the workman, and of those who might be disposed
  to employ him. As it hinders the one from working at what he thinks
  proper, so it hinders the others from employing whom they think proper. To
  judge whether he is fit to be employed, may surely be trusted to the
  discretion of the employers, whose interest it so much concerns. The
  affected anxiety of the lawgiver, lest they should employ an improper
  person, is evidently as impertinent as it is oppressive.

  The institution of long apprenticeships can give no security that
  insufficient workmanship shall not frequently be exposed to public sale.
  When this is done, it is generally the effect of fraud, and not of
  inability; and the longest apprenticeship can give no security against
  fraud. Quite different regulations are necessary to prevent this abuse.
  The sterling mark upon plate, and the stamps upon linen and woollen cloth,
  give the purchaser much greater security than any statute of
  apprenticeship. He generally looks at these, but never thinks it worth
  while to enquire whether the workman had served a seven years
  apprenticeship.

  The institution of long apprenticeships has no tendency to form young
  people to industry. A journeyman who works by the piece is likely to be
  industrious, because he derives a benefit from every exertion of his
  industry. An apprentice is likely to be idle, and almost always is so,
  because he has no immediate interest to be otherwise. In the inferior
  employments, the sweets of labour consist altogether in the recompence of
  labour. They who are soonest in a condition to enjoy the sweets of it, are
  likely soonest to conceive a relish for it, and to acquire the early habit
  of industry. A young man naturally conceives an aversion to labour, when
  for a long time he receives no benefit from it. The boys who are put out
  apprentices from public charities are generally bound for more than the
  usual number of years, and they generally turn out very idle and
  worthless.

  Apprenticeships were altogether unknown to the ancients. The reciprocal
  duties of master and apprentice make a considerable article in every
  modern code. The Roman law is perfectly silent with regard to them. I know
  no Greek or Latin word (I might venture, I believe, to assert that there
  is none) which expresses the idea we now annex to the word apprentice, a
  servant bound to work at a particular trade for the benefit of a master,
  during a term of years, upon condition that the master shall teach him
  that trade.

  Long apprenticeships are altogether unnecessary. The arts, which are much
  superior to common trades, such as those of making clocks and watches,
  contain no such mystery as to require a long course of instruction. The
  first invention of such beautiful machines, indeed, and even that of some
  of the instruments employed in making them, must 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 {See Madox
  Firma Burgi p. 26 etc.}. 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 break down that natural equality which
  would otherwise take place in the commerce which is carried on between
  them. The whole annual produce of the labour of the society is annually
  divided between those two different sets of people. By means of those
  regulations, a greater share of it is given to the inhabitants of the town
  than would otherwise fall to them, and a less to those of the country.

  The price which the town really pays for the provisions and materials
  annually imported into it, is the quantity of manufactures and other goods
  annually exported from it. The dearer the latter are sold, the cheaper the
  former are bought. The industry of the town becomes more, and that of the
  country less advantageous.

  That the industry which is carried on in towns is, everywhere in Europe,
  more advantageous than that which is carried on in the country, without
  entering into any very nice computations, we may satisfy ourselves by one
  very simple and obvious observation. In every country of Europe, we find
  at least a hundred people who have acquired great fortunes, from small
  beginnings, by trade and manufactures, the industry which properly belongs
  to towns, for one who has done so by that which properly belongs to the
  country, the raising of rude produce by the improvement and cultivation of
  land. Industry, therefore, must be better rewarded, the wages of labour
  and the profits of stock must evidently be greater, in the one situation
  than in the other. But stock and labour naturally seek the most
  advantageous employment. They naturally, therefore, resort as much as they
  can to the town, and desert the country.

  The inhabitants of a town being collected into one place, can easily
  combine together. The most insignificant trades carried on in towns have,
  accordingly, in some place or other, been incorporated; and even where
  they have never been incorporated, yet the corporation-spirit, the
  jealousy of strangers, the aversion to take apprentices, or to communicate
  the secret of their trade, generally prevail in them, and often teach
  them, by voluntary associations and agreements, to prevent that free
  competition which they cannot prohibit by bye-laws. The trades which
  employ but a small number of hands, run most easily into such
  combinations. Half-a-dozen wool-combers, perhaps, are necessary to keep a
  thousand spinners and weavers at work. By combining not to take
  apprentices, they can not only engross the employment, but reduce the
  whole manufacture into a sort of slavery to themselves, and raise the
  price of their labour much above what is due to the nature of their work.

  The inhabitants of the country, dispersed in distant places, cannot easily
  combine together. They have not only never been incorporated, but the
  incorporation spirit never has prevailed among them. No apprenticeship has
  ever been thought necessary to qualify for husbandry, the great trade of
  the country. After what are called the fine arts, and the liberal
  professions, however, there is perhaps no trade which requires so great a
  variety of knowledge and experience. The innumerable volumes which have
  been written upon it in all languages, may satisfy us, that among the
  wisest and most learned nations, it has never been regarded as a matter
  very easily understood. And from all those volumes we shall in vain
  attempt to collect that knowledge of its various and complicated
  operations which is commonly possessed even by the common farmer; how
  contemptuously soever the very contemptible authors of some of them may
  sometimes affect to speak of him. There is scarce any common mechanic
  trade, on the contrary, of which all the operations may not be as
  completely and distinctly explained in a pamphlet of a very few pages, as
  it is possible for words illustrated by figures to explain them. In the
  history of the arts, now publishing by the French Academy of Sciences,
  several of them are actually explained in this manner. The direction of
  operations, besides, which must be varied with every change of the
  weather, as well as with many other accidents, requires much more judgment
  and discretion, than that of those which are always the same, or very
  nearly the same.

  Not only the art of the farmer, the general direction of the operations of
  husbandry, but many inferior branches of country labour require much more
  skill and experience than the greater part of mechanic trades. The man who
  works upon brass and iron, works with instruments, and upon materials of
  which the temper is always the same, or very nearly the same. But the man
  who ploughs the ground with a team of horses or oxen, works with
  instruments of which the health, strength, and temper, are very different
  upon different occasions. The condition of the materials which he works
  upon, too, is as variable as that of the instruments which he works with,
  and both require to be managed with much judgment and discretion. The
  common ploughman, though generally regarded as the pattern of stupidity
  and ignorance, is seldom defective in this judgment and discretion. He is
  less accustomed, indeed, to social intercourse, than the mechanic who
  lives in a town. His voice and language are more uncouth, and more
  difficult to be understood by those who are not used to them. His
  understanding, however, being accustomed to consider a greater variety of
  objects, is generally much superior to that of the other, whose whole
  attention, from morning till night, is commonly occupied in performing one
  or two very simple operations. How much the lower ranks of people in the
  country are really superior to those of the town, is well known to every
  man whom either business or curiosity has led to converse much with both.
  In China and Indostan, accordingly, both the rank and the wages of country
  labourers are said to be superior to those of the greater part of
  artificers and manufacturers. They would probably be so everywhere, if
  corporation laws and the corporation spirit did not prevent it.

  The superiority which the industry of the towns has everywhere in Europe
  over that of the country, is not altogether owing to corporations and
  corporation laws. It is supported by many other regulations. The high
  duties upon foreign manufactures, and upon all goods imported by alien
  merchants, all tend to the same purpose. Corporation laws enable the
  inhabitants of towns to raise their prices, without fearing to be
  undersold by the free competition of their own countrymen. Those other
  regulations secure them equally against that of foreigners. The
  enhancement of price occasioned by both is everywhere finally paid by the
  landlords, farmers, and labourers, of the country, who have seldom opposed
  the establishment of such monopolies. They have commonly neither
  inclination nor fitness to enter into combinations; and the clamour and
  sophistry of merchants and manufacturers easily persuade them, that the
  private interest of a part, and of a subordinate part, of the society, is
  the general interest of the whole.

  In Great Britain, the superiority of the industry of the towns over that
  of the country seems to have been greater formerly than in the present
  times. The wages of country labour approach nearer to those of
  manufacturing labour, and the profits of stock employed in agriculture to
  those of trading and manufacturing stock, than they are said to have done
  in the last century, or in the beginning of the present. This change may
  be regarded as the necessary, though very late consequence of the
  extraordinary encouragement given to the industry of the towns. The stocks
  accumulated in them come in time to be so great, that it can no longer be
  employed with the ancient profit in that species of industry which is
  peculiar to them. That industry has its limits like every other; and the
  increase of stock, by increasing the competition, necessarily reduces the
  profit. The lowering of profit in the town forces out stock to the
  country, where, by creating a new demand for country labour, it
  necessarily raises its wages. It then spreads itself, if I my say so, over
  the face of the land, and, by being employed in agriculture, is in part
  restored to the country, at the expense of which, in a great measure, it
  had originally been accumulated in the town. That everywhere in Europe the
  greatest improvements of the country have been owing to such over flowings
  of the stock originally accumulated in the towns, I shall endeavour to
  shew hereafter, and at the same time to demonstrate, that though some
  countries have, by this course, attained to a considerable degree of
  opulence, it is in itself necessarily slow, uncertain, liable to be
  disturbed and interrupted by innumerable accidents, and, in every respect,
  contrary to the order of nature and of reason. The interests, prejudices,
  laws, and customs, which have given occasion to it, I shall endeavour to
  explain as fully and distinctly as I can in the third and fourth books of
  this Inquiry.

  People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and
  diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public,
  or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible, indeed, to
  prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would
  be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder
  people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to
  do nothing to facilitate such assemblies, much less to render them
  necessary.

  A regulation which obliges all those of the same trade in a particular
  town to enter their names and places of abode in a public register,
  facilitates such assemblies. It connects individuals who might never
  otherwise be known to one another, and gives every man of the trade a
  direction where to find every other man of it.

  A regulation which enables those of the same trade to tax themselves, in
  order to provide for their poor, their sick, their widows and orphans, by
  giving them a common interest to manage, renders such assemblies
  necessary.

  An incorporation not only renders them necessary, but makes the act of the
  majority binding upon the whole. In a free trade, an effectual combination
  cannot be established but by the unanimous consent of every single trader,
  and it cannot last longer than every single trader continues of the same
  mind. The majority of a corporation can enact a bye-law, with proper
  penalties, which will limit the competition more effectually and more
  durably than any voluntary combination whatever.

  The pretence that corporations are necessary for the better government of
  the trade, is without any foundation. The real and effectual discipline
  which is exercised over a workman, is not that of his corporation, but
  that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which
  restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence. An exclusive corporation
  necessarily weakens the force of this discipline. A particular set of
  workmen must then be employed, let them behave well or ill. It is upon
  this account that, in many large incorporated towns, no tolerable workmen
  are to be found, even in some of the most necessary trades. If you would
  have your work tolerably executed, it must be done in the suburbs, where
  the workmen, having no exclusive privilege, have nothing but their
  character to depend upon, and you must then smuggle it into the town as
  well as you can.

  It is in this manner that the policy of Europe, by restraining the
  competition in some employments to a smaller number than would otherwise
  be disposed to enter into them, occasions a very important inequality in
  the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments
  of labour and stock.

  Secondly, the policy of Europe, by increasing the competition in some
  employments beyond what it naturally would be, occasions another
  inequality, of an opposite kind, in the whole of the advantages and
  disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock.

  It has been considered as of so much importance that a proper number of
  young people should be educated for certain professions, that sometimes
  the public, and sometimes the piety of private founders, have established
  many pensions, scholarships, exhibitions, bursaries, etc. for this
  purpose, which draw many more people into those trades than could
  otherwise pretend to follow them. In all Christian countries, I believe,
  the education of the greater part of churchmen is paid for in this
  manner. Very few of them are educated altogether at their own expense.
  The long, tedious, and expensive education, therefore, of those who are,
  will not always procure them a suitable reward, the church being crowded
  with people, who, in order to get employment, are willing to accept of a
  much smaller recompence than what such an education would otherwise have
  entitled them to; and in this manner the competition of the poor takes
  away the reward of the rich. It would be indecent, no doubt, to compare
  either a curate or a chaplain with a journeyman in any common trade. The
  pay of a curate or chaplain, however, may very properly be considered as
  of the same nature with the wages of a journeyman. They are all three
  paid for their work according to the contract which they may happen to
  make with their respective superiors. Till after the middle of the
  fourteenth century, five merks, containing about as much silver as ten
  pounds of our present money, was in England the usual pay of a curate or
  a stipendiary parish priest, as we find it regulated by the decrees of
  several different national councils. At the same period, fourpence a-day,
  containing the same quantity of silver as a shilling of our present
  money, was declared to be the pay of a master mason; and threepence
  a-day, equal to ninepence of our present money, that of a journeyman
  mason. {See the Statute of Labourers, 25, Ed. III.} The wages of both
  these labourers, therefore, supposing them to have been constantly
  employed, were much superior to those of the curate. The wages of the
  master mason, supposing him to have been without employment one-third of
  the year, would have fully equalled them. By the 12th of Queen Anne, c.
  12. it is declared, “That whereas, for want of sufficient
  maintenance and encouragement to curates, the cures have, in several
  places, been meanly supplied, the bishop is, therefore, empowered to
  appoint, by writing under his hand and seal, a sufficient certain stipend
  or allowance, not exceeding fifty, and not less than twenty pounds
  a-year”. Forty pounds a-year is reckoned at present very good pay
  for a curate; and, notwithstanding this act of parliament, there are many
  curacies under twenty pounds a-year. There are journeymen shoemakers in
  London who earn forty pounds a-year, and there is scarce an industrious
  workman of any kind in that metropolis who does not earn more than
  twenty. This last sum, indeed, does not exceed what is frequently earned
  by common labourers in many country parishes. Whenever the law has
  attempted to regulate the wages of workmen, it has always been rather to
  lower them than to raise them. But the law has, upon many occasions,
  attempted to raise the wages of curates, and, for the dignity of the
  church, to oblige the rectors of parishes to give them more than the
  wretched maintenance which they themselves might be willing to accept of.
  And, in both cases, the law seems to have been equally ineffectual, and
  has never either been able to raise the wages of curates, or to sink
  those of labourers to the degree that was intended; because it has never
  been able to hinder either the one from being willing to accept of less
  than the legal allowance, on account of the indigence of their situation
  and the multitude of their competitors, or the other from receiving more,
  on account of the contrary competition of those who expected to derive
  either profit or pleasure from employing them.

  The great benefices and other ecclesiastical dignities support the honour
  of the church, notwithstanding the mean circumstances of some of its
  inferior members. The respect paid to the profession, too, makes some
  compensation even to them for the meanness of their pecuniary recompence.
  In England, and in all Roman catholic countries, the lottery of the church
  is in reality much more advantageous than is necessary. The example of the
  churches of Scotland, of Geneva, and of several other protestant churches,
  may satisfy us, that in so creditable a profession, in which education is
  so easily procured, the hopes of much more moderate benefices will draw a
  sufficient number of learned, decent, and respectable men into holy
  orders.

  In professions in which there are no benefices, such as law and physic, if
  an equal proportion of people were educated at the public expense, the
  competition would soon be so great as to sink very much their pecuniary
  reward. It might then not be worth any man’s while to educate his son to
  either of those professions at his own expense. They would be entirely
  abandoned to such as had been educated by those public charities, whose
  numbers and necessities would oblige them in general to content themselves
  with a very miserable recompence, to the entire degradation of the now
  respectable professions of law and physic.

  That unprosperous race of men, commonly called men of letters, are pretty
  much in the situation which lawyers and physicians probably would be in,
  upon the foregoing supposition. In every part of Europe, the greater part
  of them have been educated for the church, but have been hindered by
  different reasons from entering into holy orders. They have generally,
  therefore, been educated at the public expense; and their numbers are
  everywhere so great, as commonly to reduce the price of their labour to a
  very paltry recompence.

  Before the invention of the art of printing, the only employment by which
  a man of letters could make any thing by his talents, was that of a public
  or private teacher, or by communicating to other people the curious and
  useful knowledge which he had acquired himself; and this is still surely a
  more honourable, a more useful, and, in general, even a more profitable
  employment than that other of writing for a bookseller, to which the art
  of printing has given occasion. The time and study, the genius, knowledge,
  and application requisite to qualify an eminent teacher of the sciences,
  are at least equal to what is necessary for the greatest practitioners in
  law and physic. But the usual reward of the eminent teacher bears no
  proportion to that of the lawyer or physician, because the trade of the
  one is crowded with indigent people, who have been brought up to it at the
  public expense; whereas those of the other two are encumbered with very
  few who have not been educated at their own. The usual recompence,
  however, of public and private teachers, small as it may appear, would
  undoubtedly be less than it is, if the competition of those yet more
  indigent men of letters, who write for bread, was not taken out of the
  market. Before the invention of the art of printing, a scholar and a
  beggar seem to have been terms very nearly synonymous. The different
  governors of the universities, before that time, appear to have often
  granted licences to their scholars to beg.

  In ancient times, before any charities of this kind had been established
  for the education of indigent people to the learned professions, the
  rewards of eminent teachers appear to have been much more considerable.
  Isocrates, in what is called his discourse against the sophists,
  reproaches the teachers of his own times with inconsistency. “They make
  the most magnificent promises to their scholars,” says he, “and undertake
  to teach them to be wise, to be happy, and to be just; and, in return for
  so important a service, they stipulate the paltry reward of four or five
  minae.” “They who teach wisdom,” continues he, “ought certainly to be wise
  themselves; but if any man were to sell such a bargain for such a price,
  he would be convicted of the most evident folly.” He certainly does not
  mean here to exaggerate the reward, and we may be assured that it was not
  less than he represents it. Four minae were equal to thirteen pounds six
  shillings and eightpence; five minae to sixteen pounds thirteen shillings
  and fourpence. Something not less than the largest of those two sums,
  therefore, must at that time have been usually paid to the most eminent
  teachers at Athens. Isocrates himself demanded ten minae, or £ 33:6:8 from
  each scholar. When he taught at Athens, he is said to have had a hundred
  scholars. I understand this to be the number whom he taught at one time,
  or who attended what we would call one course of lectures; a number which
  will not appear extraordinary from so great a city to so famous a teacher,
  who taught, too, what was at that time the most fashionable of all
  sciences, rhetoric. He must have made, therefore, by each course of
  lectures, a thousand minae, or £ 3335:6:8. A thousand minae, accordingly,
  is said by Plutarch, in another place, to have been his didactron, or
  usual price of teaching. Many other eminent teachers in those times appear
  to have acquired great fortunes. Georgias made a present to the temple of
  Delphi of his own statue in solid gold. We must not, I presume, suppose
  that it was as large as the life. His way of living, as well as that of
  Hippias and Protagoras, two other eminent teachers of those times, is
  represented by Plato as splendid, even to ostentation. Plato himself is
  said to have lived with a good deal of magnificence. Aristotle, after
  having been tutor to Alexander, and most munificently rewarded, as it is
  universally agreed, both by him and his father, Philip, thought it worth
  while, notwithstanding, to return to Athens, in order to resume the
  teaching of his school. Teachers of the sciences were probably in those
  times less common than they came to be in an age or two afterwards, when
  the competition had probably somewhat reduced both the price of their
  labour and the admiration for their persons. The most eminent of them,
  however, appear always to have enjoyed a degree of consideration much
  superior to any of the like profession in the present times. The Athenians
  sent Carneades the academic, and Diogenes the stoic, upon a solemn embassy
  to Rome; and though their city had then declined from its former grandeur,
  it was still an independent and considerable republic.

  Carneades, too, was a Babylonian by birth; and as there never was a people
  more jealous of admitting foreigners to public offices than the Athenians,
  their consideration for him must have been very great.

  This inequality is, upon the whole, perhaps rather advantageous than
  hurtful to the public. It may somewhat degrade the profession of a public
  teacher; but the cheapness of literary education is surely an advantage
  which greatly overbalances this trifling inconveniency. The public, too,
  might derive still greater benefit from it, if the constitution of those
  schools and colleges, in which education is carried on, was more
  reasonable than it is at present through the greater part of Europe.

  Thirdly, the policy of Europe, by obstructing the free circulation of
  labour and stock, both from employment to employment, and from place to
  place, occasions, in some cases, a very inconvenient inequality in the
  whole of the advantages and disadvantages of their different employments.

  The statute of apprenticeship obstructs the free circulation of labour
  from one employment to another, even in the same place. The exclusive
  privileges of corporations obstruct it from one place to another, even in
  the same employment.

  It frequently happens, that while high wages are given to the workmen in
  one manufacture, those in another are obliged to content themselves with
  bare subsistence. The one is in an advancing state, and has therefore a
  continual demand for new hands; the other is in a declining state, and the
  superabundance of hands is continually increasing. Those two manufactures
  may sometimes be in the same town, and sometimes in the same
  neighbourhood, without being able to lend the least assistance to one
  another. The statute of apprenticeship may oppose it in the one case, and
  both that and an exclusive corporation in the other. In many different
  manufactures, however, the operations are so much alike, that the workmen
  could easily change trades with one another, if those absurd laws did not
  hinder them. The arts of weaving plain linen and plain silk, for example,
  are almost entirely the same. That of weaving plain woollen is somewhat
  different; but the difference is so insignificant, that either a linen or
  a silk weaver might become a tolerable workman in a very few days. If any
  of those three capital manufactures, therefore, were decaying, the workmen
  might find a resource in one of the other two which was in a more
  prosperous condition; and their wages would neither rise too high in the
  thriving,

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