An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of

112

The Wealth of Nations

from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to

facilitate such assemblies, much less to render them necessary.

A regulation which obliges all those of the same trade in a par-

ticular town to enter their names and places of abode in a public

register, facilitates such assemblies. It connects individuals who

might never otherwise be known to one another, and gives every

man of the trade a direction where to find every other man of it.

A regulation which enables those of the same trade to tax them-

selves, in order to provide for their poor, their sick, their widows

and orphans, by giving them a common interest to manage, ren-

ders such assemblies necessary.

An incorporation not only renders them necessary, but makes

the act of the majority binding upon the whole. In a free trade, an

effectual combination cannot be established but by the unani-

mous consent of every single trader, and it cannot last longer than

every single trader continues of the same mind. The majority of a

corporation can enact a bye-law, with proper penalties, which will

limit the competition more effectually and more durably than any

voluntary combination whatever.

The pretence that corporations are necessary for the better gov-

ernment of the trade, is without any foundation. The real and

effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman, is not that

of his corporation, but that of his customers. It is the fear of losing

their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his neg-

ligence. An exclusive corporation necessarily weakens the force of

this discipline. A particular set of workmen must then be em-

ployed, let them behave well or ill. It is upon this account that, in

many large incorporated towns, no tolerable workmen are to be

found, even in some of the most necessary trades. If you would

have your work tolerably executed, it must be done in the sub-

urbs, where the workmen, having no exclusive privilege, have noth-

ing but their character to depend upon, and you must then smuggle

it into the town as well as you can.

It is in this manner that the policy of Europe, by restraining the

competition in some employments to a smaller number than would

otherwise be disposed to enter into them, occasions a very impor-

tant inequality in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages

of the different employments of labour and stock.

Secondly, The policy of Europe, by increasing the competition

in some employments beyond what it naturally would be, occa-

sions another inequality, of an opposite kind, in the whole of the

advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of

labour and stock.

It has been considered as of so much importance that a proper

number of young people should be educated for certain profes-

sions, that sometimes the public, and sometimes the piety of pri-

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113

Adam Smith

vate founders, have established many pensions, scholarships, ex-

hibitions, bursaries, etc. for this purpose, which draw many more

people into those trades than could otherwise pretend to follow

them. In all Christian countries, I believe, the education of the

greater part of churchmen is paid for in this manner. Very few of

them are educated altogether at their own expense. The long, te-

dious, and expensive education, therefore, of those who are, will

not always procure them a suitable reward, the church being

crowded with people, who, in order to get employment, are will-

ing to accept of a much smaller recompence than what such an

education would otherwise have entitled them to; and in this

manner the competition of the poor takes away the reward of the

rich. It would be indecent, no doubt, to compare either a curate

or a chaplain with a journeyman in any common trade. The pay

of a curate or chaplain, however, may very properly be considered

as of the same nature with the wages of a journeyman. They are all

three paid for their work according to the contract which they

may happen to make with their respective superiors. Till after the

middle of the fourteenth century, five merks, containing about as

much silver as ten pounds of our present money, was in England

the usual pay of a curate or a stipendiary parish priest, as we find

it regulated by the decrees of several different national councils.

At the same period, fourpence a-day, containing the same quan-

tity of silver as a shilling of our present money, was declared to be

the pay of a master mason; and threepence a-day, equal to

ninepence of our present money, that of a journeyman mason.

{See the Statute of Labourers, 25, Ed. III.} The wages of both

these labourer’s, therefore, supposing them to have been constantly

employed, were much superior to those of the curate. The wages

of the master mason, supposing him to have been without em-

ployment one-third of the year, would have fully equalled them.

By the 12th of Queen Anne, c. 12. it is declared, “That whereas,

for want of sufficient maintenance and encouragement to curates,

the cures have, in several places, been meanly supplied, the bishop

is, therefore, empowered to appoint, by writing under his hand

and seal, a sufficient certain stipend or allowance, not exceeding

fifty, and not less than twenty pounds a-year”. Forty pounds a-

year is reckoned at present very good pay for a curate; and, not-

withstanding this act of parliament, there are many curacies un-

der twenty pounds a-year. There are journeymen shoemakers in

London who earn forty pounds a-year, and there is scarce an in-

dustrious workman of any kind in that metropolis who does not

earn more than twenty. This last sum, indeed, does not exceed

what frequently earned by common labourers in many country

parishes. Whenever the law has attempted to regulate the wages of

workmen, it has always been rather to lower them than to raise

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