An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of

88

The Wealth of Nations

not in a much better condition. The natural taste for those em-

ployments makes more people follow them, than can live com-

fortably by them; and the produce of their labour, in proportion

to its quantity, comes always too cheap to market, to afford any

thing but the most scanty subsistence to the labourers.

Disagreeableness and disgrace affect the profits of stock in the

same manner as the wages of labour. The keeper of an inn or

tavern, who is never master of his own house, and who is exposed

to the brutality of every drunkard, exercises neither a very agree-

able nor a very creditable business. But there is scarce any com-

mon trade in which a small stock yields so great a profit.

Secondly, the wages of labour vary with the easiness and cheap-

ness, or the difficulty and expense, of learning the business.

When any expensive machine is erected, the extraordinary work

to be performed by it before it is worn out, it must be expected,

will replace the capital laid out upon it, with at least the ordinary

profits. A man educated at the expense of much labour and time

to any of those employments which require extraordinary dexter-

ity and skill, may be compared to one of those expensive ma-

chines. The work which he learns to perform, it must be expected,

over and above the usual wages of common labour, will replace to

him the whole expense of his education, with at least the ordinary

profits of an equally valuable capital. It must do this too in a rea-

sonable time, regard being had to the very uncertain duration of

human life, in the same manner as to the more certain duration of

the machine.

The difference between the wages of skilled labour and those of

common labour, is founded upon this principle.

The policy of Europe considers the labour of all mechanics,

artificers, and manufacturers, as skilled labour; and that of all coun-

try labourers us common labour. It seems to suppose that of the

former to be of a more nice and delicate nature than that of the

latter. It is so perhaps in some cases; but in the greater part it is

quite otherwise, as I shall endeavour to shew by and by. The laws

and customs of Europe, therefore, in order to qualify any person

for exercising the one species of labour, impose the necessity of an

apprenticeship, though with different degrees of rigour in differ-

ent places. They leave the other free and open to every body. Dur-

ing the continuance of the apprenticeship, the whole labour of the

apprentice belongs to his master. In the meantime he must, in

many cases, be maintained by his parents or relations, and, in

almost all cases, must be clothed by them. Some money, too, is

commonly given to the master for teaching 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 advantageous to the master, on account of the usual

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89

Adam Smith

idleness of apprentices, is always disadvantageous to the appren-

tice. In country labour, on the contrary, the labourer, while he is

employed about the easier, learns the more difficult parts of his

business, 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 manufacturers,

should be somewhat higher than those of common labourers. They

are so accordingly, and their superior gains make them, in most

places, be considered as a superior rank of people. This superior-

ity, however, is generally very small: the daily or weekly earnings

of journeymen in the more common sorts of manufactures, such

as those of plain linen and woollen cloth, computed at an average,

are, in most places, very little more than the day-wages of com-

mon labourers. Their employment, indeed, is more steady and

uniform, and the superiority of their earnings, taking the whole

year together, may be somewhat greater. It seems evidently, how-

ever, to be no greater than what is sufficient to compensate the

superior expense of their education. Education in the ingenious

arts, and in the liberal professions, is still more tedious and expen-

sive. The pecuniary recompence, therefore, of painters and sculp-

tors, of lawyers and physicians, ought to be much more liberal;

and it is so accordingly.

The profits of stock seem to be very little affected by the easi-

ness or difficulty of learning the trade in which it is employed. All

the different ways in which stock is commonly employed in great

towns seem, in reality, to be almost equally easy and equally diffi-

cult to learn. One branch, either of foreign or domestic trade,

cannot well be a much more intricate business than another.

Thirdly, the wages of labour in different occupations vary with

the constancy or inconstancy of employment.

Employment is much more constant in some trades than in

others. In the greater part of manufactures, a journeyman maybe

pretty sure of employment almost every day in the year that he is

able to work. A mason or bricklayer, on the contrary, can work

neither in hard frost nor in foul weather, and his employment at

all other times depends upon the occasional calls of his customers.

He is liable, in consequence, to be frequently without any. What

he earns, therefore, while he is employed, must not only maintain

him while he is idle, but make him some compensation for those

anxious and desponding moments which the thought of so pre-

carious a situation must sometimes occasion. Where the computed

earnings of the greater part of manufacturers, accordingly, are nearly

upon a level with the day-wages of common labourers, those of

masons and bricklayers are generally from one-half more to double

those wages. Where common labourers earn four or five shillings

a-week, masons and bricklayers frequently earn seven and eight;

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