MODE OF ADJUSTING LABOR AND WAGES. 343 



own account, it secures their industry, fidelity, and contentment. 

 No human arrangements are perfect, and no human laws can be 

 framed which the ingenuity of men will not contrive to evade ; 

 but as there appears in this plan every motive to good faith, good 

 faith on both sides would seem to be all that is necessary to its 

 successful operation. 



First, from the products of the place, the customary rent is 

 paid, and the wages of the labor employed. The surplus 

 remaining is then divided into five equal parts. Two of these 

 parts are claimed by the proprietor for his skill, intelligence, and 

 care, in the superintendence and management of the property ; 

 one part is retained as an insurance upon that part of the property 

 which is liable to loss or destruction ; one part is devoted to 

 actual improvements upon the place ; and one is divided among 

 the laborers themselves, according to the rate of wages which 

 they receive for their work. Whether these proportions are 

 properly adjusted or not, I shall leave to the judgment of my 

 readers. It is obvious that any others might be adopted which 

 should be deemed more just. It is certainly an approach to an 

 equitable arrangement ; and my friend assures me that it works 

 well. He says, he leaves his estate at any time with a perfect 

 confidence that his interests will be cared for and protected, and 

 that there will be no waste of time, and no squandering of 

 property, and no neglect of duty. Success is, in proportion, as 



much the interest of the laborers as of the proprietor. 



i 



2. CLAIMS OF LABOR, AND DUTIES OF WEALTH. This has al 

 ways impressed my mind as only an equitable adjustment, and 

 must be equally as soothing to a good man s conscience as to a 

 poor man s stomach. Contradicted, as I have often, and severely 

 reproached, as I have sometimes, been for the assertion, I never 

 theless maintain as my sober conviction, that in all business 

 where success depends on labor, whether it be in the case of 

 manufacturing industry, in agricultural labor, or in the toils and 

 hardships of a seafaring life, the person who does the work, 

 who endures the hardships, who encounters the exposures, has 

 the first claim upon the proceeds, and should come in for an 

 equitable share of the profits. I admit that there is much labor 

 and anxiety in mental application, and in the active enterprise 

 and care on the part of the manager of such concerns, which are 



