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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

one species of labour, impose the necessity of an apprentice-ship, though with different degrees of rigour in differentplaces. They leave the other free and open to every body.During the continuance of the apprenticeship, the whole la-bour of the. apprentice belongs to his master. In the meantime he must, in many cases, be maintained by his parents orrelations, and in almost all cases must be clothed by them.Some money too is commonly given to the master for teach-ing him his trade. They who cannot give money give time,or become bound for more than the usual number of years;a consideration which, though it is not always advantageousto the master, on account of the usual idleness of apprentices,is always disadvantageous to the apprentice. In countrylabour, on the contrary, the labourer, while he is employedabout the easier, learns the more difficult parts of his busi-ness, and his own labour maintains him through all the dif-ferent stages of his employment. It is reasonable, therefore,that in Europe the wages of mechanics, artificers, and ma-nufacturers, should be somewhat higher than those of com-mon labourers. They are so accordingly, and their superiorgains make them in most places be considered as a superiorrank of people. This superiority, however, is generally verysmall; the daily or weekly earnings of journeymen in themore common sorts of manufactures, such as those of plainlinen and woollen cloth, computed at an average, are, in mostplaces, very little more than the day-wages of common labour-ers. Their employment, indeed, is more steady and uniform,and the superiority of their earnings, taking the whole yeartogether, may be somewhat greater. It seems evidently,however, to be no greater than what is suflicient to compen-sate the superior expense of their education.

Education in the ingenious arts and in the liberal profes-sions is still more tedious and expensive. The pecuniary re-compense, therefore, of painters ancLsculptors, of lawyers andphysicians, ought to be much more liberal: and it is so ac-cordingly.

The profits of stock seem to be very little affected by theeasiness or difficulty of learning the trade in which it is em-ployed. All the different ways in which stock is commonlyemployed in great towns seem, in reality, to he almost equallyeasy and equally difficult to learn. One branch either offoreign or domestic trade cannot well be a piuch more intri-cate business than another.