AND ON THE CONTINENT.

7

a capable workman 2s. 6d. per day than to employ a bad one for6d. The high wages of the richer country had, further, the resultof attracting the most able workers from the countries paying lesswages. Thus high wages were in no wise a disadvantage for anation’s economy, but were rather a sign of a higher stage ofdevelopment (15).

III. But the writers mentioned represent by no means the pre-dominating opinion until the time of Adam Smith . On thecontrary, they evoked a violent opposition. Several anonymousarticles appeared against Postlethwait; for instance, the “ Essayson Trade and.Commerce ” (London, 1770), and “ Considerations onTaxes” (London, 1765). The most ordinary knowledge of man-kind taught that English workmen only worked for a bare liveli-hood. High prices alone impelled them to continuous labour.With low prices hours of labour were shorter, and still theworkers were less industrious than with higher prices and longerhours, because in dear times the workmen were obliged to applythemselves to satisfy their masters. The French workman accom-plished more, although he neither ate meat nor drank beer, towhich the English workman believed he had a birthright. Thelatter was the laziest workman in the world. In order to improvehim, the main point was to so raise the prices of food by legislativemeasures that he could not earn more by six days’ continuouslabour than a bare living. In addition, this writer demandsauthoritative fixing of wages and working hours—therefore, inother words, a normal wage and a normal working day, but inexactly the opposite interest to that in which these demands areput forward to-day ; a maximum rate of remuneration which mightnot be exceeded, and a minimum time of labour (14 hours, includ-ing meal-times) (16) below which might not be worked.

A. Young takes up the same position, also opposing the otherview (17). He learned during his travels that business men andmanufacturers in Manchester preferred high to low prices of

15. Compare Josiah Tucker: “ Four Tracts on Political and CommercialObjects ”( Gloucester, 3rd edition, 17741, especially pp. 30 and 40.

1G. “ The poor work only for the hare necessaries of life and for the meansof a low debauch. When this is obtained they cease to labour till rousedagain by necessity. ”—The second of the works quoted in note 10.

17. “ A Farmer's Letters to the People of England ” ("London, 1768),pp. 34-40, 201-210; further, “Political Arithmetic,” pp. 110-111; further,“Six Months’ Tour in the North of England” (1770), vol. III., pp. 242-50.