WAGES. 401 



likewise became landholders. Thus there was a constant 

 progression in society, by the prudent and industrious labour 

 ers rising into wealth, and receding from the first point of 

 settlement on becoming landholders. These movements con 

 tinue up to the present time with the existing cause abun 

 dance and cheapness of land, to which many of the peculiari 

 ties of the country and its inhabitants may be traced. 



Good land being sold by the United States government at 

 SlJ per acre, people will not permanently hire themselves for 

 a less reward than can be obtained by cultivating on their 

 own account. When competition depresses wages, operatives 

 commence farming, and wages rise. Thus the wages of labour 

 are regulated by the profits of farming, and will continue to 

 be so until all the good land is occupied. 



The profits of farming do not regulate the wages of labour 

 in the Canadas, because land is there held by monopolists, or 

 sold at a monopoly price. And the late rise in the price of 

 land in Upper Canada not only renders the ultimate prospect 

 of labourers becoming landholders more distant, but also 

 lowers the wages of operatives through competition, by tending 

 to confine them to their professions. But supposing land to 

 be equally abundant and cheap in the Canadas and United 

 States, and the wages of labour to be regulated in both coun 

 tries by the profits of farming, wages would necessarily be 

 higher in the United States, from possessing superiority of 

 climate. Nature performs more towards the manufacture of 

 agricultural produce in the United States than in the Canadas, 

 and the reward of industry, which is divided between the land 

 holder and labourer, is consequently greater. 



This view of the wages of labour in the different parts of 

 North America which I visited, is supported by facts, wages 

 being generally considerably higher in the United States than 

 in the Canadas. During the summer of 1833 the carpenters 

 of New York struck work when getting 5s. sterling per day, 

 and by doing so obtained 6s. per day. The future prospects 

 of operatives appear to be good, a vast portion of the best 

 land of the country being still unoccupied, a subject which 

 will be afterwards noticed. 



The profits of capital employed in farming do not seem 



2 c 



