THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

G9

a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon ^the stocks which they have already acquired. Many work-men could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, andscarce any a year, without employment. In the long runthe workman may be as necessary to his master as his masteris to him; but the necessity is not so immediate.

We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations ofmasters, though frequently of those of workmen. But who-ever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely com-bine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Mastersare always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constantand uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labourabove their actual rate. To violate this combination is every-where a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to amaster among his neighbours and equals. We seldom, in-deed, hear of this combination, because it is the usual, andone may say, the natural state of things which nobody everhears of. Masters too sometimes enter into particular com-binations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate.These are always conducted with the utmost silence and se-crcsy, till the moment of execution, and when the workmenyield, as they sometimes do, without resistance, though se-verely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people.Such combinations, however, are frequently resisted by acontrary defensive combination of the workmen; who some-times too, without any provocation of this kind, combine oftheir own accord to raise the price of their labour. Theirusual pretences are, sometimes the high price of provisions ;sometimes the great profit which their masters make by theirwork. But whether their combinations be offensive or de-fensive, they are always abundantly heard of. In order tobring the point to a speedy decision, they have always re-course to the loudest clamour, and sometimes to the mostshocking violence and outrage. They are desperate, aud actwith the folly and extravagance of desperate men, who musteither starve, or frighten their masters into an immediatecompliance with their demands. The masters upon theseoccasions are just as clamorous upon the other side, andnever cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil ma-gistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which havebeen enacted with so much severity against the combinationsof servants, labourers, and journeymen. The workmen, ac-cordingly, very seldom derive any advantage from the vio-