appeared about this time; a book univerfally commended for the folidity of its principle, the clearness and accuracy of reasoning it contains, and the fair investigation of the subject which the learned author treats of. Some opinions which refpect the poor in this treatife may, therefore, with propriety, be taken as fo many aphorifms, and quoted as fuch; leaving the reader to trace the deductions this great writer has made, in his own volumes, if he doubts the principles of his judgment. As the axioms on the fubject of the poor, which can be collected from thefe volumes, are fcattered throughout the whole work, they fhall be inferted as they occur, in turning over the pages of Adam Smith's moft luminous tract on the Wealth of Nations.

"A man must always live by his work, and his wages must be at leaft fufficient to maintain him; they muft even, upon most occafions, be fomething more, otherwise it would be impoffible for him to bring up a family, and the race of fuch workmen would not laft beyond the firft generation. B. 1. c. 8.

"In

In Great Britain the. wages of labour feem to be evidently more than what is precifely neceffary to bring up a family. B. I. c. 8.

"Lord Chief Juftice Hale, who wrote in the time of Charles the Second, computes the necessary expence of a labourer's family, confifting of fix perfons, the father and mother, two children able to do fomething, and two not able, at ten fhillings a week, or twentyfix pounds a year. B. I. c. 8.

"In 1668, Mr. Gregory King, whose skill in political arithmetic is so much extolled by Dr. Davenant, computed the ordinary income of labourers and out-fervants to be fifteen pounds a year to a family, which he supposed to confift, one with another, of three and an half perfons; both fuppofe the weekly expence of fuch families to be about twentypence a head. B. 1. c. 8.

"The real recompence of labour, the real quantity of the neceffaries and conveniencies of life, which it can procure to the labourer, has, during the courfe of the present century, increased, perhaps, in a still

tion than its money price."

greater proporThe foregoing maxims,

maxims, with refpect to the wages of labour, are admirably elucidated in chapter the 8th, book the ift, of this excellent work.

"Since the time of Henry the Eighth, the wealth and revenue of the country have been continually advancing; and in the course of their progress, their pace seems rather to have been gradually accelerated than retarded. The wages of labour have been continually increasing during the fame period; and in the greater part of the differen: branches of trade and manufactures, the profits of stock have been diminishing. Book I. c. 9.

"A little grocer will make forty or fifty per cent. upon a ftock of a fingle hundred pounds, while a confiderable merchant, in the fame place, will scarce make eight or ten per cent. on a stock of ten thousand: the greater part of the apparent profit on a little stock is wages. B. 1. c. 10.

"The produce of labour which arises from the leifure particular employments allow of, comes frequently cheaper to market than would otherwise be suitable to its nature. B. I. c. 10.

"The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation

of

of all other property, fo it is the most facred and inviolable. B. I. c. 10.

"In Great Britain, the wages of country labour approach nearer to thofe of manufacturing labour, than they are faid to have done in the last century, or in the beginning of the prefent. B. 1. c. 10.

"The very unequal price of labour which we frequently find in England, in places at no great distance from one another, is probably owing to the obstruction which the law of fettlements gives to a poor man, who would carry his industry from one parish to another, without a certificate. B. I. c. IO.

"To remove a man who has committed no misdemeanor from the parish where he chufes to refide, is an evident violation of natural liberty and juftice. The common people of England, however, fo jealous of their liberty, but, like the common people of other countries, never rightly understand in what it confifts, have now, for more than a century, fuffered themselves to be exposed to this oppreffion, without a remedy. Though men of reflection also have sometimes complained of the law of fettlements, as a public grievance,

yet

yet it has never been the object of any general popular clamour, fuch as that against general warrants; an abufive practice undoubtedly, but fuch an one as was not likely to occafion any general oppreffion. B. 1. c. 10.

"The obstruction which corporation laws give to the free circulation of labour, is common to every part of Europe. That which is given to it by the poor laws, is, fo far as I know, peculiar to England; it confifts in the difficulty in which a poor man finds in obtaining a fettlement, or even in being allowed to exercise his industry in any parish but that to which he belongs. B. I. c. 10.

"The complaint of workmen, that rating of wages by act of parliament, puts the ablest and most industrious upon the fame footing with an ordinary workman, feems perfectly well founded. B. I. c. 10.

"The money price of coarfe cloth in the fifteenth century, compared with the money price at prefent, cloth is cheaper now than formerly, and probably much better.

C. II.

B. 1.

"The fame comparison is made with refpect to stockings, and to the fame effect: