THE WEALTH OK NATIONS.

135

for new hands: the other is in a declining state, and the super-abundance of hands is continually increasing. Those twomanufactures may sometimes be in the same time, and some-times in the same neighbourhood, without being able to lendthe least assistance to one another. The statute of appren-ticeship may oppose it in the one case, and both that and anexclusive corporation in the other. In many different ma-nufactures, however, the operations are so much alike, that theworkmen could easily change trades with one another, ifthose absurd laws did not hinder them. The arts of weaving-plain linen and plain silk, for example, are almost entirely thesame. That of weaving plain woollen is somewhat different,but the difference is so insignificant, that either a linen or asilk weaver might become a tolerable workman in a very fewdays. If any of those three capital manufactures, therefore,were decaying, the workmen might find a resource in one ofthe other two which was in a more prosperous condition;and their wages would neither rise too high in the thriving,nor sink too low in the decaying manufacture. The linenmanufacture indeed is, in England, by a particular statuteopen to every body ; but as it is not much cultivated throughthe greater part of the country, it can afford no general re-source to the workmen of other decaying manufactures, whowherever the statute'of apprenticeship takes place have noother choice but either to come upon the parish, or to work ascommon labourers, for which, by their habits, they are muchworse qualified than for any sort of manufacture that bearsany resemblance to their own. They generally, therefore,choose to come upon the parish.

Whatever obstructs the free circulation of labour from oneemployment to another, obstructs that of stock likewise; thequantity of stock which can be employed in any branch ofbusiness depending very much upon that of the labour whichcan be employed in it. Corporation laws, however, give lessobstruction to the free circulation of stock from one place toanother, than to that of labour. It is everywhere much easierfor a wealthy merchant to obtain the privilege of trading ina town corporate, than for a poor artificer to obtain that ofworking in it.

The obstruction which corporation laws give to the freecirculation of labour is common, I believe, to every part ofEurope . That which is given to it by the poor laws is, so faras I know, peculiar to England. It consists in the difficulty