An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of

122

The Wealth of Nations

selves to be exposed to this oppression without a remedy. Though

men of reflection, too, have some. times complained of the law of

settlements as a public grievance; yet it has never been the object

of any general popular clamour, such as that against general war-

rants, an abusive practice undoubtedly, but such a one as was not

likely to occasion any general oppression. There is scarce a poor

man in England, of forty years of age, I will venture to say, who

has not, in some part of his life, felt himself most cruelly oppressed

by this ill-contrived law of settlements.

I shall conclude this long chapter with observing, that though

anciently it was usual to rate wages, first by general laws extending

over the whole kingdom, and afterwards by particular orders of the

justices of peace in every particular county, both these practices have

now gone entirely into disuse. “By the experience of above four

hundred years,” says Doctor Burn, “it seems time to lay aside all

endeavours to bring under strict regulations, what in its own nature

seems incapable of minute limitation; for if all persons in the same

kind of work were to receive equal wages, there would be no emula-

tion, and no room left for industry or ingenuity.”

Particular acts of parliament, however, still attempt sometimes

to regulate wages in particular trades, and in particular places.

Thus the 8th of George III. prohibits, under heavy penalties, all

master tailors in London, and five miles round it, from giving,

and their workmen from accepting, more than two shillings and

sevenpence halfpenny a-day, except in the case of a general mourn-

ing. Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences

between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the

masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the work-

men, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise

when in favour of the masters. Thus the law which obliges the

masters in several different trades to pay their workmen in money,

and not in goods, is quite just and equitable. It imposes no real

hardship upon the masters. It only obliges them to pay that value

in money, which they pretended 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

together, in order to reduce the wages of their workmen, they

commonly enter into a private bond or agreement, not to give

more than a certain wage, under a certain penalty. Were the work-

men to enter into a contrary combination of the same kind, not to

accept of a certain wage, under a certain penalty, the law would

punish them very severely; and, if it dealt impartially, it would

treat the masters in the same manner. But the 8th of George III.

enforces by law that very regulation which masters sometimes at-

tempt to establish by such combinations. The complaint of the

workmen, that it puts the ablest and most industrious upon the

---

123

Adam Smith

same footing with an ordinary workman, seems perfectly well

founded.

In ancient times, too, it was usual to attempt to regulate the

profits of merchants and other dealers, by regulating the price of

provisions and ether goods. The assize of bread is, so far as I know,

the only remnant of this ancient usage. Where there is an exclu-

sive corporation, it may, perhaps, be proper to regulate the price

of the first necessary of life; but, where there is none, the compe-

tition will regulate it much better than any assize. The method of

fixing the assize of bread, established by the 31st of George II.

could not be put in practice in Scotland, on account of a defect in

the law, its execution depending upon the office of clerk of the

market, which does not exist there. This defect was not remedied

till the third of George III. The want of an assize occasioned no

sensible inconveniency; and the establishment of one in the few

places where it has yet taken place has produced no sensible ad-

vantage. In the greater part of the towns in Scotland, however,

there is an incorporation of bakers, who claim exclusive privileges,

though they are not very strictly guarded. The proportion between

the different rates, both of wages and profit, in the different em-

ployments of labour and stock, seems not to be much affected, as

has already been observed, by the riches or poverty, the advancing,

stationary, or declining state of the society. Such revolutions in the

public welfare, though they affect the general rates both of wages

and profit, must, in the end, affect them equally in all different

employments. The proportion between them, therefore, must re-

main the same, and cannot well be altered, at least for any consid-

erable time, by any such revolutions.

---

124

The Wealth of Nations

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XI

OF 

OF 

OF 

OF 

OF THE RENT OF L

THE RENT OF L

THE RENT OF L

THE RENT OF L

THE RENT OF LAND

AND

AND

AND

AND

R

ENT

, 

CONSIDERED

 as the price paid for the use of land, is naturally

the highest which the tenant can afford to pay in the actual cir-

cumstances of the land. In adjusting the terms of the lease, the

landlord endeavours to leave him no greater share of the produce

than what is sufficient to keep up the stock from which he fur-

nishes the seed, pays the labour, and purchases and maintains the

cattle and other instruments of husbandry, together with the ordi-

nary profits of farming stock in the neighbourhood. This is evi-

dently the smallest share with which the tenant can content him-

self, without being a loser, and the landlord seldom means to leave

him any more. Whatever part of the produce, or, what is the same

thing, whatever part of its price, is over and above this share, he

naturally endeavours to reserve to himself as the rent of his land,

which is evidently the highest the tenant can afford to pay in the

actual circumstances of the land. Sometimes, indeed, the liberal-

ity, more frequently the ignorance, of the landlord, makes him

accept of somewhat less than this portion; and sometimes, too,

though more rarely, the ignorance of the tenant makes him un-

dertake to pay somewhat more, or to content himself with some-

what less, than the ordinary profits of farming stock in the

neighbourhood. This portion, however, may still be considered as

the natural rent of land, or the rent at which it is naturally meant

that land should, for the most part, be let.

The rent of land, it may be thought, is frequently no more than a

reasonable profit or interest for the stock laid out by the landlord

upon its improvement. This, no doubt, may be partly the case upon

some occasions; for it can scarce ever be more than partly the case.

The landlord demands a rent even for unimproved land, and the

supposed interest or profit upon the expense of improvement is

generally an addition to this original rent. Those improvements,

besides, are not always made by the stock of the landlord, but some-

times by that of the tenant. When the lease comes to be renewed,

however, the landlord commonly demands the same augmentation

of rent as if they had been all made by his own.

He sometimes demands rent for what is altogether incapable of

human improvements. Kelp is a species of sea-weed, which, when

burnt, yields an alkaline salt, useful for making glass, soap, and for

several other purposes. It grows in several parts of Great Britain,

particularly in Scotland, upon such rocks only as lie within the

high-water mark, which are twice every day covered with the sea,

and of which the produce, therefore, was never augmented by

human industry. The landlord, however, whose estate is bounded

---