The following Lectures contain little that is not well known to many of my readers, and still less that is peculiarly andexclusively appropriate to the present emergency. They were written and delivered in a period of profound tranquillity; butwe are now in a state which may require the exertions of every individual among the educated classes, and many may haveto assist in executing, or even in originating measures for the relief of the labouring population, who are not yet sufficientlyfamiliar with the principles according to which that relief is to be afforded.
Under such circumstances, it has appeared to me that advantage might be derived from a short explanation of theambiguities and fallacies which most obscure the subject of wages -- the most difficult and the most important of all thebranches of political economy.
My principal object, however, has been to draw attention to the elementary proposition, that the rate of wages depends onthe extent of the fund for the maintenance of labourers, compared with the number of labourers to be maintained . Thisproposition is so nearly self-evident, that it may appear scarcely to deserve a formal statement; still less to be dwelt on as ifit were a discovery. It is true that it is obvious and trite; but, perhaps, on that very account, its practical consequences havebeen neglected. In the first place, if this proposition be admitted, many prevalent opinions respecting the effects ofunproductive consumption, of machinery, and of free-trade, must be abandoned; and to show this, is the object of thesecond and third of the following Lectures. And in the second place, it must also follow that the rate of wages can beraised, or, what is nearly the same, the condition of the labouring classes improved, only by either increasing the fund fortheir maintenance, or diminishing the number to be maintained.
The principal means by which-the fund for the maintenance of labourers can be increased, is by increasing theproductiveness of labour. And this may be done, --First, By allowing every man to exert himself in the way which, from experience, he finds most beneficial; by freeingindustry from the mass of restrictions, prohibitions, and protecting duties, with which the Legislature, sometimes inwell-meaning. ignorance, sometimes in pity, and sometimes in national jealousy, has laboured to crush or misdirect herefforts; and, Secondly, By putting an end to that unhappy system which, in the southern counties, has dissociated labour fromsubsistence--has madd wades not a matter of contract between the master and the workman, but a right in the one, and atax on the other; and, by removing the motives for exertion, has rendered, as far as it has been possible, the labourerunworthy of his hire.
The only effectual and permanent means of preventing the undue increase of the number to be maintained, is to raise themoral and intellectual character of the labouring population; to improve, or, I fear we must say, to create habits ofprudence, of self-respect, and of self-restraint; to equalize, as by nature they are equal, the wages of the single and themarried, and no longer to make a family the passport to allowance. But these are necessarily gradual measures -- they arepreventive, not remedial. The only immediate remedy for an actual excess in one class of the population, is the ancient andapproved one, coloniam deducere .
It is of great importance to keep in mind, that not only is emigration the sole immediate remedy, but that it is a remedypreparatory to the adoption and necessary to the safety of every other.
The principal cause the calamities that we are witnessing, has been the disturbance which the poor-laws, as at presentadministered in the south of England, have created in the most extensive and the most important of all political relations,the relation between the employer and the labourer.
The slave (using that word in its strict sense) cannot choose his owner, his employment, or his residence; his whole servicesare the property of another, and their value, however high, gives him no additional claim. On the other hand, he is entitledto subsistence for himself and his family: clothing, lodging, food, medical attendance -- everything, in short, which isnecessary to keep him in health and strength is provided for him, from the same motives, and with the same liberality, thatthey are provided for the other domestic animals of his master. He is bound to labour, and has a right to be maintained.
Extreme idleness may subject him to the lash, but extraordinary diligence cannot better his condition. He is equallyincapable of being benefited by self-restraint, or injured by improvidence. While single, he receives a bare subsistence; if hehave a family, his maintenance rises in precise proportion to his wants: the prudential check to population does not exist --it is kept down, if at all, by oppression on the part of the master, or vice on that of the slave. This, notwithstanding thevarious degrees of mitigation which have been introduced by custom or by law, is in substance the condition of slaves,wherever slavery exists.
