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.In country labour, on the contrary, the labourer, whilehe is employed about the easier, learns the more difficult parts ofhis business, and his own labour maintains him through all thedifferent stages of his employment.It is reasonable, therefore, thatin Europe the wages of mechanics, artificers, and manufacturers,should be somewhat higher than those of common labourers.Theyare so accordingly, and their superior gains make them in mostplaces be considered as a superior rank of people.This superiority, however, is generally very small; the daily orweekly earnings of journeymen in the more common sorts ofmanufactures, such as those of plain linen and woollen cloth,computed at an average, are, in most places, very little more thanthe day wages of common labourers.Their employment, indeed, ismore steady and uniform, and the superiority of their earnings,taking the whole year together, may be somewhat greater.Itseems evidently, however, to be no greater than what is sufficientto compensate the superior expense of their education.Education in the ingenious arts and in the liberal professions isstill more tedious and expensive.The pecuniary recompense,therefore, of painters and sculptors, 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 theeasiness or difficulty of learning the trade in which it is employed.Adam Smith ElecBook Classics The Wealth of Nations: Book 1 147All the different ways in which stock is commonly employed ingreat towns seem, in reality, to be almost equally easy and equallydifficult to learn.One branch either of foreign or domestic tradecannot well be a much more intricate business than another.Thirdly, the wages of labour in different occupations vary withthe constancy or inconstancy of employment.Employment is much more constant in some trades than inothers.In the greater part of manufacturers, a journeyman may bepretty sure of employment almost every day in the year that he isable to work.A mason or bricklayer, on the contrary, can work neither inhard frost nor in foul weather, and his employment at all othertimes depends upon the occasional calls of his customers.He isliable, in consequence, to be frequently without any.What heearns, therefore, while he is employed, must not only maintainhim while he is idle, but make him some compensation for thoseanxious and desponding moments which the thought of soprecarious a situation must sometimes occasion.Where thecomputed earnings of the greater part of manufacturers,accordingly, are nearly upon a level with the day wages ofcommon labourers, those of masons and bricklayers are generallyfrom one half more to double those wages.Where commonlabourers earn four and five shillings a week, masons andbricklayers frequently earn seven and eight; where the formerearn six, the latter often earn nine and ten; and where the formerearn nine and ten, as in London, the latter commonly earn fifteenand eighteen.No species of skilled labour, however, seems moreeasy to learn than that of masons and bricklayers.Chairmen inLondon, during the summer season, are said sometimes to beAdam Smith ElecBook Classics The Wealth of Nations: Book 1 148employed as bricklayers.The high wages of those workmen,therefore, are not so much the recompense of their skill, as thecompensation for the inconstancy of their employment.A house carpenter seems to exercise rather a nicer and moreingenious trade than a mason.In most places, however, for it isnot universally so, his day-wages are somewhat lower.Hisemployment, though it depends much, does not depend so entirelyupon the occasional calls of his customers; and it is not liable to beinterrupted by the weather.When the trades which generally afford constant employmenthappen in a particular place not to do so, the wages of theworkmen always rise a good deal above their ordinary proportionto those of common labour.In London almost all journeymenartificers are liable to be called upon and dismissed by theirmasters from day to day, and from week to week, in the samemanner as day-labourers in other places.The lowest order ofartificers, journeymen tailors, accordingly, earn there half a crowna-day, though eighteenpence may be reckoned the wages ofcommon labour.In small towns and country villages, the wages ofjourneymen tailors frequently scarce equal those of commonlabour; but in London they are often many weeks withoutemployment, particularly during the summer.When the inconstancy of employment is combined with thehardship, disagreeableness and dirtiness of the work, it sometimesraises the wages of the most common labour above those of themost skilful artificers.A collier working by the piece is supposed,at Newcastle, to earn commonly about double, and in many partsof Scotland about three times the wages of common labour.Hishigh wages arise altogether from the hardship, disagreeableness,Adam Smith ElecBook Classics The Wealth of Nations: Book 1 149and dirtiness of his work.His employment may, upon mostoccasions, be as constant as he pleases [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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