quantities of the necessaries and conveniences of life which are given to the labourer, has increased considerably during the course of the present century (i. e., the 18th). The rise in its money price seems to have been the effect, not of any diminution in the value of silver in the general market of Europe, but of a rise in the real price of labour in the particular market of Great Britain, owing to the peculiarly happy circumstances of the country;" and "The money price of labour in Great Britain has indeed risen during the course of the present century. This, however, seems to be the effect, not so much of any diminution in the value of silver in the European market, as of an increase in the demand for labour in Great Britain arising from the great and almost universal prosperity of the country." In the latter part of the century, the price of wheat rose enormously in consequence of a long succession of bad harvests, but there was no corresponding rise in wages.

30. It is no doubt true that there is a limit below which the wages of labour cannot fall for any permanent time, and which is determined by the price of food, but this only relates to the very lowest, rudest, and most unskilled species of labour, and even that limit has happily never yet been reached in England, because it depends upon the lowest, cheapest, and worst kind of food capable of supporting man. The poorest labourer in England has now wheaten bread to eat, such as probably, in the Mediaval Ages, for which there has been lately such a ridiculous enthusiasm, a nobleman could not obtain. If such bread as is usually consumed in many a nobleman's house on the continent were given to the inmates of an English workhouse, it would infallibly cause a riot. The lowest class of labourers have fortunately never been reduced to such a point continuously, though it may sometimes happen that when work is scarce, they can earn very little, and then they may be driven to receive relief from public or private charity, which takes them out of the operation of the law of supply and demand. It is also universally observed that when the price of bread rises very high, the wages of the lowest class of labourers never rise in any like proportion. The way of raising the wages of labour, then, is not by raising the price of food, but by diminishing the number of competitors for it, for it is the number of competitors compared with the quantity of work to be 1 Wealth of Nations, B. I., ch. 11.

done, that influences the price of labour, and not the variation in the price of food.

31. J. B. Say has also remarked the erroneousness of the doctrine that the price of food regulates wages" Experience also contradicts another assertion of Ricardo's. He says that while the price of labour regulates the value of products, it is the price of provisions of first necessity (in Europe, for example, corn) which regulates the price of labour, and that a rise in the price of corn diminishes the rate of profit and raises wages. Well, I am informed by the principal manufacturers of England and France, especially MM. Ternaux and Sons, who have mills at Liege, Louviers, Sedan, Reims, and Paris, it is exactly the contrary which happens. When corn becomes dearer wages go down. This result is not accidental; the same cause is always followed by the same effect; and the effect lasts as long as the cause. The explanation is not difficult; when corn is very high, the labouring classes are obliged to devote to purchasing grain a part of their wages which they would have employed in superior clothing, or rent, or furniture, or more succulent and various food in a word, they reduce all their consumption: and the want of consumption reduced the required quantity of nearly all other products. Hence the reduction of the demand lowers profits of all sorts as well of masters as workmen."

In fact, the doctrine that the price of food regulates wages is so utterly scouted by every person of practical knowledge that we should not have said so much about it if Ricardo had not still some believers, and his works are still recommended by official sanction in the Universities and the Civil Service. We shall say something more on this point further on.

32. The greater part of Smith's chapter on "Wages and Profits in different employments," is a curious example of the same inversion of cause and effect, and a consideration of the phenomena detailed in it, will afford a further indication of the truth of the preceding principles. He says that there are five principal circumstances which make up for a small pecuniary gain in some employment, and counter-balance a great one in others:1 Euvres diverses, p. 273.

2 Wealth of Nations, B. I., ch. 10.

1. The agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employments themselves.

2. The easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense, of learning them.

3. The constancy or inconstancy of employment in them. 4. The small or great trust which must be reposed in those who exercise them.

5. The probability or improbability of success in them. These considerations of Smith have been very generally approved of, and have acquired some celebrity; yet it is quite easy to show that they are are reducible to the general law we have arrived at, and that in some of them Smith has most manifestly inverted cause and effect.

When he says that the wages of the most agreeable trades are lower than the disagreeable ones, the reason is very plain. Persons in general prefer the more agreeable trades, consequently there are more competitors for employment in them; but there is also a necessity for disagreeable trades as well, and higher wages in them must be offered to tempt workmen to embark in them. These causes are manifestly to be referred to the law of supply and demand, the various degrees of desirability of the different trades being merely the circumstances which influence the relation of supply and demand.

33. In the second place Smith has most manifestly inverted cause and effect, and his ideas are pervaded with the radical error of his system. After enumerating several species of business, he says " Education in the ingenious arts, and in the liberal professions, is still more tedious and expensive. The pecuniary recompense, therefore, of painters and sculptors, of lawyers and physicians, ought to be much more liberal, and it is so accordingly." A very slight consideration will shew that it is exactly the reverse of what Smith says. The rewards of lawyers, doctors, &c., are not high because their education is expensive, but they expend much on education because the rewards are high. There is no better example of the truth of the principle we are contending for, and of the fallacy of the one we are combating, than these cases. There is, probably, no difference whatever in the expense of the education of the most able, and the least able, doctor or lawyer; but there is a prodigious difference in the result, owing

chiefly to the differences in the innate capacities of men, and the success or the contrary will in general depend upon the qualifications of each man; the quality of the result, and not upon the cost of its production. We shall, however, consider these more fully under the last case.

34. The third case is also manifestly reducible to the law of supply and demand, just as the first is, because men naturally seek for constant employment rather than precarious employment, consequently they will crowd into one more than into the other. And the employers in the trade in which work is less constant must necessarily give higher wages than those in which it is more constant, to attract persons to it. Exactly in the same way, in places of trust, the qualities which fit persons for such employments are comparatively rare, and unless a high price be offered, it is not likely that the employers will find a suitable person.

35. The last cause which, according to Smith, influences the wages of labour is the probability or improbability of success in the employment. In considering this case, this celebrated author has suffered himself to be led away by one of the most curious instances of misanology anywhere to be met with. People speak figuratively of life being a "lottery," and of the uncertainty of success in it. Smith, seizing upon the word lottery, has been led away into a most curious fancy, which has also deceived some later writers. "The probability that any particular person shall ever be qualified for the employment to which he is educated, is very different in different occupations. In the greater part of the mechanic trades success is almost certain, but very uncertain in the liberal professions. Put your son apprentice to a shoemaker, there is little doubt of his learning to make a pair of shoes; but send him to study the law, it is at least twenty to one if he ever makes such proficiency as will enable him to live by the business. In a perfectly fair lottery, those who draw the prizes ought to gain all that is lost by those who draw the blanks. In a profession where twenty fail for one who succeeds, that one ought to gain all that should have been gained by the unsuccessful twenty. The counsellor-at-law, who perhaps at near forty years of age, begins to make something by his profession, ought to receive the retribution, not only of his

own so tedious and expensive education, but that of more than twenty others who are never likely to make anything of it. How extravagant so ever the fees of counsellors-at-law may sometimes appear, their real retribution is never equal to this. Compute in any particular place what is likely to be annually gained, and what is likely to be annually spent by all the different workmen in any common trade, such as that of shoemakers or weavers, and you will find that the former sum will generally exceed the latter; but make the same computation with regard to all the counsellors and students of law in all the different inns of court, and you will find that their annual gains bear but a very small proportion to their annual expenses, even though you rate the former as high and the latter as low as can well be done. The lottery of the law is, therefore, very far from being a perfectly fair lottery, and that, as well as many other liberal and honorable professions, is, in point of pecuniary gain, evidently under-recompensed."

36. No one who really examines the foregoing ideas can fail to see their utter incongruity. In a lottery the chances of each individual who ventures in it are absolutely equal; no personal qualification can influence his chance in any way whatever; the greatest simpleton may draw the greatest prize, the wisest man may draw a blank. In many cases it may certainly be predicated of an individual who adopts a profession, whether he will succeed or fail, and success in all cases is the result of personal qualifications. In a lottery it is perfectly well known that only a certain number can by any possibility succeed, and all the rest must necessarily fail. In a profession it is quite a matter of possibility that all may attain success, and it is also a matter of possibility that none may attain success sufficient to enable them to live. To carry out Smith's analogy, we might just as well say that poetry is a lottery, and that the sum paid to the good poets should recom pense all the waste of time by the bad poets.

counsel are simply exNothing can be more

37. It is quite evident that the fees of amples of the law of supply and demand. erroneous than the idea that the fees are high, because the education is high. The truth is, that people spend much money upon a professional education because the rewards are so high; and the rewards are so high because they are of so great importance to