TIIE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

141

rants, an abusive practice undoubtedly, but such a one aswas not likely to occasion any general oppression. Thereis scarce a poor man in England of forty years of age, I willventure to say, who has not in some part of his life felt him-self most cruelly oppressed by this ill-contrived law of set-tlements.

I shall conclude this long chapter with observing, thatthough anciently it was usual to rate wages, first by generallaws extending over the whole kingdom, and afterward byparticular orders of the justices of peace in every particularcountry, both these practices have now gone entirely intodisuse. “ By the experience of above four hundred years,”says Doctor Burn, “ it seems time to lay aside all endeavoursto bring under strict regulations, what in its own natureseems incapable of minute limitation : for if all persons inthe same kind of work were to receive equal wages, therewould be no emulation, and no room left for industry or in-genuity.”

Particular acts of parliament, however, still attemptedsometimes to regulate wages in particular trades and in par-ticular places. Thus the 8th of George III . prohibits, underheavy penalties, all master tailors in London , and five milesround it, from giving, and their workmen from accepting,more than two shillings and seven-pence halfpenny a day,except in the case of a general mourning. Whenever thelegislature attempts to regulate the differences between mas-ters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the mas*tors. When the regulation, therefore, is in favour of theworkmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimesotherwise when in favour of the masters. Thus the lawwhich obliges the masters in several different trades to paytheir workmen in money and not in goods, is quite just andequitable. It imposes no real hardship upon the masters.It only obliges them to pay that value in money, which theypretended to pay, but did not always really pay, in goods.This law is in favour of the workmen; but the 8th of George III. is in favour of the masters. When masters combine to-gether in order to reduce the wages of their workmen, theycommonly enter into a private bond or agreement, not to givemore than a certain wage under a certain penalty. Werethe workmen to enter into a contrary combination of the samekind, not to accept of a certain wage under a certain penalty,the law would punish them very severely; and if it dealt