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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OK

half-a-crown a day, though eighteen-pence may be reckonedthe wages of common labour. In small towns and country vil-lages, the wages of journeymen tailors frequently scarce equalthose of common labour; but in London they are often manyweeks without employment, particularly during the summer.

When the inconstancy of employment is combined withthe hardship, disagreeableness, and dirtiness of the work, itsometimes raises the wages of the most common labour abovethose of the most skilful artificers. A collier working by thepiece is supposed, at Newcastle, to earn commonly aboutdouble, and in many parts of Scotland about three times thewages of common labour. His high wages arise altogetherfrom the hardship, disagreeableness, and dirtiness of his work.His employment may, upon most occasions, be as constantas he pleases. The coal-heavers in London exercise a tradewhich in hardship, dirtiness, and disagreeableness, almostequals that of colliers; and from the unavoidable irregularityin the arrivals of coal-ships, the employment of the greaterpart of them is necessarily very inconstant. If colliers, there-fore, commonly earn double and triple the wages of commonlabour, it ought not to seem unreasonable that coal-heaversshould sometimes earn four and five times those wages. Inthe inquiry made into their condition a few years ago, it wasfound that at the rate at which they were then paid, theycould earn from six to ten shillings a day. Six shillings areabout four times the wages of common labour in London ,and in every particular trade, the lowest common earningsmay always be considered as those of the far greater number.How extravagant soever those earnings may appear, if theywere more than sufficient, to compensate all the disagreeablecircumstances of the business, there would soon be so greata number of competitors, as, in a trade which has no exclusiveprivilege, would quickly reduce them to a lower rate.

The constancy or inconstancy of employment cannot af-fect the ordinary profits of stock in any particular trade.Whether the stock is or is not constantly employed depends,not upon the trade, but the trader.

Fourthly, the wages of labour vary according to the smallor great trust which must be reposed in the workmen.

The wages of goldsmiths and jewellers are everywheresuperior to those of many other workmen, not only of equal,but of much superior ingenuity; on account of the preciousmaterials with which they are intrusted.