An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of

66

The Wealth of Nations

The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the necessary

effect, so it is the natural symptom of increasing national wealth.

The scanty maintenance of the labouring poor, on the other hand,

is the natural symptom that things are at a stand, and their starv-

ing condition, that they are going fast backwards.

In Great Britain, the wages of labour seem, in the present times,

to be evidently more than what is precisely necessary to enable the

labourer to bring up a family. In order to satisfy ourselves upon

this point, it will not be necessary to enter into any tedious or

doubtful calculation of what may be the lowest sum upon winch

it is possible to do this. There are many plain symptoms, that the

wages of labour are nowhere in this country regulated by this low-

est rate, which is consistent with common humanity.

First, in almost every part of Great Britain there is a distinction,

even in the lowest species of labour, between summer and winter

wages. Summer wages are always highest. But, on account of the

extraordinary expense of fuel, the maintenance of a family is most

expensive in winter. Wages, therefore, being highest when this ex-

pense is lowest, it seems evident that they are not regulated by

what is necessary for this expense, but by the quantity and sup-

posed value of the work. A labourer, it may be said, indeed, ought

to save part of his summer wages, in order to defray his winter

expense; and that, through the whole year, they do not exceed

what is necessary to maintain his family through the whole year. A

slave, however, or one absolutely dependent on us for immediate

subsistence, would not be treated in this manner. His daily subsis-

tence would be proportioned to his daily necessities.

Secondly, the wages of labour do not, in Great Britain, fluctuate

with the price of provisions. These vary everywhere from year to

year, frequently from month to month. But in many places, the

money price of labour remains uniformly the same, sometimes

for half a century together. If, in these places, therefore, the

labouring poor can maintain their families in dear years, they must

be at their ease in times of moderate plenty, and in affluence in

those of extraordinary cheapness. The high price of provisions

during these ten years past, has not, in many parts of the king-

dom, been accompanied with any sensible rise in the money price

of labour. It has, indeed, in some; owing, probably, more to the

increase of the demand for labour, than to that of the price of

provisions.

Thirdly, as the price of provisions varies more from year to year

than the wages of labour, so, on the other hand, the wages of

labour vary more from place to place than the price of provisions.

The prices of bread and butchers’ meat are generally the same, or

very nearly the same, through the greater part of the united king-

dom. These, and most other things which are sold by retail, the

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67

Adam Smith

way in which the labouring poor buy all things, are generally fully

as cheap, or cheaper, in great towns than in the remoter parts of

the country, for reasons which I shall have occasion to explain

hereafter. But the wages of labour in a great town and its

neighbourhood, are frequently a fourth or a fifth part, twenty or

five-and—twenty per cent. higher than at a few miles distance.

Eighteen pence a day may be reckoned the common price of labour

in London and its neighbourhood. At a few miles distance, it falls

to fourteen and fifteen pence. Tenpence may be reckoned its price

in Edinburgh and its neighbourhood. At a few miles distance, it

falls to eightpence, the usual price of common labour through the

greater part of the low country of Scotland, where it varies a good

deal less than in England. Such a difference of prices, which, it

seems, is not always sufficient to transport a man from one parish

to another, would necessarily occasion so great a transportation of

the most bulky commodities, not only from one parish to an-

other, but from one end of the kingdom, almost from one end of

the world to the other, as would soon reduce them more nearly to

a level. After all that has been said of the levity and inconstancy of

human nature, it appears evidently from experience, that man is,

of all sorts of luggage, the most difficult to be transported. If the

labouring poor, therefore, can maintain their families in those parts

of the kingdom where the price of labour is lowest, they must be

in affluence where it is highest.

Fourthly, the variations in the price of labour not only do not

correspond, either in place or time, with those in the price of pro-

visions, but they are frequently quite opposite.

Grain, the food of the common people, is dearer in Scotland

than in England, whence Scotland receives almost every year very

large supplies. But English corn must be sold dearer in Scotland,

the country to which it is brought, than in England, the country

from which it comes; and in proportion to its quality it cannot be

sold dearer in Scotland than the Scotch corn that comes to the

same market in competition with it. The quality of grain depends

chiefly upon the quantity of flour or meal which it yields at the

mill; and, in this respect, English grain is so much superior to the

Scotch, that though often dearer in appearance, or in proportion

to the measure of its bulk, it is generally cheaper in reality, or in

proportion to its quality, or even to the measure of its weight. The

price of labour, on the contrary, is dearer in England than in Scot-

land. If the labouring poor, therefore, can maintain their families

in the one part of the united kingdom, they must be in affluence

in the other. Oatmeal, indeed, supplies the common people in

Scotland with the greatest and the best part of their food, which

is, in general, much inferior to that of their neighbours of the

same rank in England. This difference, however, in the mode of

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