of industry. The price of this production may be very moderate, while the laborer may receive good wages, that is, the means of procuring a comfortable subsistence. The labor necessary to gather or prepare the article to be sold may be cheap, and the wages of the workman good. Although the workmen of Manchester and Norwich, and those of Amiens and Abbeville, are employed in the same kind of labor, the former receive considerably higher wages than the latter; and yet the woollen fabrics of Manchester and Norwich, of the same quality, are not so dear as those of Amiens and Abbeville.

It would occupy too much time fully to develope this principle. I will only observe here, that it results in a great measure from the fact, that the price of labor in the arts, and even in agriculture, is wonderfully diminished by the perfection of the machinery employed in them, by the intelligence and activity of the workmen, and by the judicious division of labor. Now these methods of reducing the price of manufactured articles have nothing to do with the low wages of the workman. In a large manufactory, where animals are employed instead of men, and machinery instead of animal power, and where that judicious division of labor is made, which doubles, nay, increases tenfold, both power and time, the article can be manufactured and sold at a much lower rate, than in those establishments, which do not enjoy the same advantages; and yet the workmen in the former may receive twice as much as in the latter.

It is, undoubtedly, an advantage for a manufactory to obtain workmen at a moderate price; and excessively high wages are an obstacle to the foundation of large manufacturing establishments. This high price of wages, as I shall presently explain, is one reason for the opinion which is entertained, that it will be many years

before the manufactures of the United States of America can rival those of Europe. But we must not conclude from this, that manufactures cannot prosper, unless the wages of the workmen are reduced as low as we find them in Europe. And, moreover, the insufficiency of wages occasions the decline of a manufactory, as its prosperity is promoted by a high rate of wages.

High wages attract the most skilful and most industrious workmen. Thus the article is better made; it sells better; and, in this way, the employer makes a greater profit, than he could do by diminishing the pay of the workmen. A good workman spoils fewer tools, wastes less material, and works faster, than one of inferior skill; and thus the profits of the manufacturer are increased still more.

The perfection of machinery in all the arts is owing, in a great degree, to the workmen. There is no important manufacture, in which they have not invented some useful process, which saves time and materials, or improves the workmanship. If common articles of manufacture, the only ones worthy to interest the statesman, if woollen, cotton, and even silk stuffs, articles made of iron, steel, copper, skins, leather, and various other things, are generally of better quality, at the same price, in England than in other countries, it is because workmen are there better paid.

The low rate of wages, then, is not the real cause of the advantages of commerce between one nation and another; but it is one of the greatest evils of political communities.

Let us now inquire what is the situation of the United States in this respect. The condition of the daylaborer, in these states, is infinitely better than in the wealthiest countries in the old world, and particularly England, where, however, wages are higher than in any

other part of Europe. In the state of New York, the lowest class of workmen and those employed in the most ordinary kinds of labor usually gain "three shillings and sixpence currency, equal to two shillings sterling, a day; ship-carpenters, ten shillings and sixpence currency, with a pint of rum, equal in all to five 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 ten pence sterling."

These prices, much higher than those of London, are quite as high in other parts of the United States as in New York. I have taken them from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.*

An intelligent observer, who travelled through a part of the United States in 1780, gives us a still more favorable idea of the price that is paid there for work.

"At Farmington," says he, "I saw them weaving a kind of camblet, and also a blue and white striped woollen cloth, for women's clothing. These fabrics are all sold at three shillings and sixpence per ell, † in the currency of the country, equal to about forty-five sous tournois. The sons and the grandsons of the master of the

*Book I. chap. 3. This was written in the year 1773. The money price of wages has since that time risen very much in the United States. At present (1835) in Boston, the rate of wages in the same trades is about as follows, viz. common labor per diem, sixty-eight and cents, equal to five shillings and sixpence of the New York currency in shillings and pence; ship-carpenters $2, equal to sixteen shillings New York; housewrights $1,75, equal to fourteen shillings New York; bricklayers $2,25, equal to twenty shillings New York; tailors $1,50 equal to twelve shillings New York. This is the rate of wages for journeymen in each of the above trades. The rate in the principal towns in the northern and middle States generally does not vary materially from that in Boston. The laborer is supposed to support himself at the above rate of wages; and fortunately the pint of rum is not now so generally a part of his requisite supplies, as it was at the time when Adam Smith wrote his work. W. PHILLIPS.

About thirty-three inches.

house were working at the business. One workman can easily make five ells of this cloth a day; and as the original material costs but a shilling, he can earn ten or twelve shillings by his day's labor."

. But this fact is so well known, that it is superfluous to attempt to prove it by further examples.

The causes of the high price of labor in our American States must then continue to operate more and more powerfully; since agriculture and population advance there with such rapidity, that labor of every description is increased in proportion.

Nor is this all. The high rate of wages paid them in money proves, that they are even better than one would suppose them at first view; and, in order to estimate them correctly, an important circumstance should be known. In every part of North America, the necessaries of life are cheaper than in England. Scarcity is unknown there. In the least productive seasons, the harvest is always sufficient for the supply of the inhabitants, and they are only obliged to diminish the exportation of their produce. Now, the price of labor in money being higher there than in England, and provisions cheaper, the actual wages, that is, the amount of necessary articles, which the day laborer can buy, is so much the greater.

It remains for me to show how the high rate of wages in America will increase their rate in Europe.

Two distinct causes will unite in producing this effect. The first is the greater quantity of labor, that Europe will have to perform, in consequence of the existence of another great nation in the commercial world, and of its continual increase; and the second, the emigration of European workmen, or the mere possibility of their emigrating, in order to go to America, where labor is better paid.

It is certain, that the amount of labor in the various branches of agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation, must be augmented in Europe, by the addition of several millions of men to the commercial world. Now, the amount of annual labor being increased, labor will be somewhat better paid, and the rate of daily wages received by the workman will be raised by this concurrence of circumstances. For example, if the additional supply of one hundred thousand pieces of cloth, twenty thousand casks of wine, and ten thousand casks of brandy, is to be furnished to the Americans, not only will the persons necessarily employed in the production or manufacture of these commodities receive higher wages, but the price of all other kinds of labor will be augmented.

The rate of wages in Europe will be raised by yet another circumstance, with which it is important to be acquainted. I have already said, that the value of wages ought not to be estimated solely by the amount of money, nor even by the quantity of subsistence, which the workman receives per day, but also by the number of days in which he is employed; for it is by such a calculation alone, that we can find out what he has for each day. Is it not evident, that he who should be paid at the rate of forty pence a day, and should fail of obtaining work half the year, would really have but twenty pence to subsist upon, and that he would be less advantageously situated than the man, who, receiving but thirty pence, could yet be supplied with work every day? Thus the Americans, occasioning in Europe an increased demand and necessity for labor, would also necessarily cause there an augmentation of wages, even supposing the price of the day's work to remain at the same rate.

Perhaps it will be objected to what I have said, that