468 WAGES, LABOUR AND TRADES** UNION. 



VI. Cheapness in the cost of a commodity does not necessarily incur 

 low wages to the producer of it. 



We will grant, for the present, that in some branches of industry a 

 combination among the labouring hands may tend to keep up their 

 wages ; that is, they will not work for less than a certain price ; 

 well, nobody can force them to work for a less price than they 

 choose, and if the manufacturer cannot get other hands to work for a 

 less price than they demand, he must give them what they demand, 

 or, mark the alternative, leave the ^ork undone. In a land of liberty 

 no man can be obliged to work for less money than he chooses to 

 take. Very true. But also in a land of liberty no man is forced to 

 buy what he thinks too dear, or dearer than his means will afford. 

 Let not the labourer in any particular trade suppose, that by refus- 

 ing to work for less than a certain sum, he obliges the public to pay 

 him that sum. No; the public will, if not wholly, at least partially, 

 dispense with that particular kind of service, and the labourer will 

 go unemployed, and unpaid. It has been fallaciously supposed that 

 the cheapness of a manufactured article necessarily incurs the conse- 

 quence of low wages to the artisan. That such is not the case hardly 

 needs proof in the present enlightened age. The cheapness of the 

 article certainly depends in great measure upon the cost of the labour 

 bestowed upon it ; but that price of labour depends not immediately 

 upon the price paid to the individual labourer for his day's services, 

 but to the quantity of that day's labour bestowed upon the particular 

 article in question. If, by means of mechanical contrivance, a day's 

 labour be made to produce twelve times as many of a particular 

 description of article as heretofore, without the use of such machinery, 

 it is evident that the expense of manufacturing one of those articles 

 may be reduced twelve-fold, and yet the actual wages of the labourer 

 remain the same. Thus the public is benefited by being able to 

 purchase five or six times as many of that article as before, and the 

 labourer may still be adequately remunerated for the hand he has 

 had in its production. But the benefit of cheapness does not end 

 here; it is a system of reciprocity which spreads its branches and 

 their fruits throughout all the relations of society. If the stocking 

 weaver is enabled to sell half-a-dozen pair of stockings for the price 

 he formerly got for one pair ; and the hatter to sell two hats for the 

 former price of one; of course the stocking weaver can afford to wear 

 t\vo hats in the year instead of one; whilst the hatter walks about in 

 uu darned hose, having a dozen pair instead of a couple in his ward- 

 robe. Moreover, he will perhaps be able to purchase commodities of 

 a more luxurious kind, which he never could before. 



But what become of those trades who refuse to join this general 

 union of interests, and who jealously hold themselves aloof from the 

 march of production ? They refuse to sell their labour and their com- 

 modities cheaper, and consequently there are fewer of their commodi- 

 ties purchased and fewer of their hands employed. . The rest of their 

 body, we will suppose, are supplied with the mere necessaries of life 

 from the general fund; and the question arises, whether a hundred 

 men are better off, each employed, and receiving twenty shillings a 



