An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of

62

The Wealth of Nations

able-bodied slave. Thus far at least seems certain, that, in order to

bring up a family, the labour of the husband and wife together

must, even in the lowest species of common labour, be able to

earn something more than what is precisely necessary for their

own maintenance; but in what proportion, whether in that above-

mentioned, or many other, I shall not take upon me to determine.

There are certain circumstances, however, which sometimes give

the labourers an advantage, and enable them to raise their wages

considerably above this rate, evidently the lowest which is consis-

tent with common humanity.

When in any country the demand for those who live by wages,

labourers, journeymen, servants of every kind, is continually in-

creasing; when every year furnishes employment for a greater num-

ber than had been employed the year before, the workmen have

no occasion to combine in order to raise their wages. The scarcity

of hands occasions a competition among masters, who bid against

one another in order to get workmen, and thus voluntarily break

through the natural combination of masters not to raise wages.

The demand for those who live by wages, it is evident, cannot

increase but in proportion to the increase of the funds which are

destined to the payment of wages. These funds are of two kinds,

first, the revenue which is over and above what is necessary for the

maintenance; and, secondly, the stock which is over and above

what is necessary for the employment of their masters.

When the landlord, annuitant, or monied man, has a greater

revenue than what he judges sufficient to maintain his own fam-

ily, he employs either the whole or a part of the surplus in main-

taining one or more menial servants. Increase this surplus, and he

will naturally increase the number of those servants.

When an independent workman, such as a weaver or shoemaker,

has got more stock than what is sufficient to purchase the materi-

als of his own work, and to maintain himself till he can dispose of

it, he naturally employs one or more journeymen with the sur-

plus, in order to make a profit by their work. Increase this surplus,

and he will naturally increase the number of his journeymen.

The demand for those who live by wages, therefore, necessarily

increases with the increase of the revenue and stock of every coun-

try, and cannot possibly increase without it. The increase of revenue

and stock is the increase of national wealth. The demand for those

who live by wages, therefore, naturally increases with the increase of

national wealth, and cannot possibly increase without it.

It is not the actual greatness of national wealth, but its con-

tinual increase, which occasions a rise in the wages of labour. It is

not, accordingly, in the richest countries, but in the most thriving,

or in those which are growing rich the fastest, that the wages of

labour are highest. England is certainly, in the present times, a

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63

Adam Smith

much richer country than any part of North America. The wages

of labour, however, are much higher in North America than in

any part of England. In the province of New York, common

labourers earned in 1773, before the commencement of the late

disturbances, three shillings and sixpence currency, equal to two

shillings sterling, a-day; ship-carpenters, ten shillings and sixpence

currency, with a pint of rum, worth sixpence sterling, equal in all

to six shillings and sixpence sterling; house-carpenters and brick-

layers, eight shillings currency, equal to four shillings and sixpence

sterling; journeymen tailors, five shillings currency, equal to about

two shillings and tenpence sterling. These prices are all above the

London price; and wages are said to be as high in the other colo-

nies as in New York. The price of provisions is everywhere in North

America much lower than in England. A dearth has never been

known there. In the worst seasons they have always had a suffi-

ciency for themselves, though less for exportation. If the money

price of labour, therefore, be higher than it is anywhere in the

mother-country, its real price, the real command of the neces-

saries and conveniencies of life which it conveys to the labourer,

must be higher in a still greater proportion.

But though North America is not yet so rich as England, it is

much more thriving, and advancing with much greater rapidity

to the further acquisition of riches. The most decisive mark of the

prosperity of any country is the increase of the number of its in-

habitants. In Great Britain, and most other European countries,

they are not supposed to double in less than five hundred years. In

the British colonies in North America, it has been found that they

double in twenty or five-and-twenty years. Nor in the present times

is this increase principally owing to the continual importation of

new inhabitants, but to the great multiplication of the species.

Those who live to old age, it is said, frequently see there from fifty

to a hundred, and sometimes many more, descendants from their

own body. Labour is there so well rewarded, that a numerous fam-

ily of children, instead of being a burden, is a source of opulence

and prosperity to the parents. The labour of each child, before it

can leave their house, is computed to be worth a hundred pounds

clear gain to them. A young widow with four or five young chil-

dren, who, among the middling or inferior ranks of people in

Europe, would have so little chance for a second husband, is there

frequently courted as a sort of fortune. The value of children is the

greatest of all encouragements to marriage. We cannot, therefore,

wonder that the people in North America should generally marry

very young. Notwithstanding the great increase occasioned by such

early marriages, there is a continual complaint of the scarcity of

hands in North America. The demand for labourers, the funds

destined for maintaining them increase, it seems, still faster than

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