258 on schoolmaster’s salaries. ° June Zo» 
“* I know it will be alleged, that the smallnefs of the 
schoolmasters salaries, would, at the best, be such as to be 
no temptation for any person to look after them with this 
view; but though they could not be very great, yet it 
will not be denied, that even a small addition to a man’s 
living, when it brings no trouble along with it, is a very 
desirable acquisition. And as we know that there are al- 
ways abundance of persons to be found, who would be glad to 
perform the office of schoolmaster for much lefs than the 
salaries at present allowed in Scotland*; it is plain, that 
if these salaries were augmented, they would become 
more desirable than they now are, by those who meant 
only to teach by proxy; and consequently the evil, as 
has been said, would be augmented in proportion to.the 
wisé of the salary. 
* Meny attempts were made by our forefathers, while the knowledge 
of political economy was in its infancy, to regulate the price of labour by 
the power of the civil magistrate. Experience has now taught us, that these 
attempts have ever proved inefficacious, and are therefore now in general 
laid aside. I might add, that they have proved the unobserved source of 
many of those political disorders, that now distrefs the community; and 
therefore fhould be guarded against as pernicious. ‘The present applica- 
tion is en attempt of this kind; and, if it fhould be inadvertently com- 
plied with, would, like all others of this sort, prove the source of new 
-disorders in the state. The just price of every kind of labour, as well as 
of every other commodity, is best ascertained by that which it will bring in 
a free market. If the wages, inany kind of businefs, be higher than that 
of others, ia the estimation of those who are at perfect liberty to choose for 
itbemselves, many men will be desirous to be employed init; and there- 
fore a superabundance of hands will ever be found, in case of a vacancy » 
in it; but if the wages are too low, a scarcity of hands will be experien- 
eed, and every one will fhow a backwardnefs to engage in that employ- 
ment. {In this last case, if the businefs must be carried on, a rise of wa- 
ges becomes inevitable; and, in the first case, if the competition for em- 
ployment be great, it indicates that the wages are too high, and that in 
sound policy they ought to be diminifhed. ‘This is the mode that nature 
Points out, fot regulating, with the strictest justice, the price of al] kinds 
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