important vegetable productions come to maturity in temperate climates, and on that account has generally been adopted by political economists as the average period for which capital is sup posed to be advanced.

I should observe that I include, as part of the wages of the married labourer, those of his wife and unemancipated children. To omit them would lead to inaccurate estimates of the comparative situation of the labourers in different countries, or in different occupations. In those employments which are carried on under shelter, and with the assistance of that machinery which affords power; and requires human aid only for its direction, the industry of a woman, or a child, approaches in efficiency to that of a full-grown man. A girl of fourteen can manage a power-loom nearly as well d as her father; but where strength, or exposure to the seasons, are required, little can be done by the wife, or the girls, or even by the boys, until they approach the age at which they usually quit their father's house. The earnings of the wife and children of many a Manchester weaver or spinner exceed, or equal, those of himself. Those of the wife and children of an agricultural labourer, or

1

1

of a carpenter, or a coal-heaver, are generally unimportant while the husband, Din each case, receives 15s.la week; the one family may be 30s., only 178. or 18s.

weekly income of the

and that of the other

A

"

...It must be admitted, however, that the workman does not retain the whole of this apparent pecuniary advantage. The wife is taken from her household labours, and a part of the increased wages is employed in purchasing what might, otherwise, be produced at home. The moral inconveniences are still greater. The infant chil-" dren suffer from the want of maternal attention, and those who are older from the deficiency of religious, moral, and intellectual education, and childish relaxation and amusement. The esta blishment of infant and Sunday schools, and laws regulating the number of hours during which" children may labour, are palliatives of these evils, but they must exist, to a certain degree, whenever the labour of the wife and children is the subje subject of sale; and, though not, perhaps, strictly within the province of political economy, must never be omitted in any estimate of the causes affecting the welfare of the labouring classes. A 15% din

The last preliminary point to which I have tocall your attention is, the difference between the rate of wages and the price of labours

If men were the only labourers, and if every man worked equally hard, and for the samé number of hours, during the year, these two expressions would be synonymous. If each man, for instance, worked three hundred days during each year, and ten hours during each day, one-threethousandth part of each man's yearly wages would be the price of an hour's labour. But neither of these propositions is true. The yearly wages of a family often include, as we have seen, the results of the labour of the wife and children. And few things are less uniform than the number of working days during the year, or of working hours during the day, or the degree of exertion undergone during those hours.

The established annual holidays, in Protestant countries, are between fifty and sixty. In many Catholic countries they exceed one hundred. Among the Hindoos, they are said to occupy nearly half the year. But these holidays are con fined to a certain portion of the population; the labour of a sailor, or a soldier, or a menial

servant, admits of scarcely any distinction Tof days.noowlod gonordlab oli et not sits roz lin

Again, in northern and southern latitudes, the hours of out-door labour are limited by the duration of light ; and in all climates by the weather. When the labourer works under shelter, the daily hours of labour may be uniform throughout the year. And, independently of natural causes, the daily hours of labour vary in different countries, and in different employments in the same country. The daily hours of labour are, perhaps, longer in France than in England, and, certainly, are longer in England than in Hindostan. In Man chester, the manufacturer generally works twelve hours a day; in Birmingham, ten: a London shopman is seldom employed more than eight or nine.

There is still more discrepancy between the exertions made by different labourers in a given period. They are often, indeed, unsusceptible of comparison. There is no common measure of the toils undergone by a miner and a tailor, or of those of a shopman and an ironfounder. And labour which is the same in kind, may vary indefinitely in intensity. Many of the witnesses

examined by the Committee on Artisans and Machinery (Session of 1824) were English ma nufacturers, who had worked in France. They agree as to the comparative indolence of the French labourer, even during his hours of employment. One of the witnesses, Adam Young, had been two years in one of the best manufactories in Alsace. He is asked, "Did you find the spin ners there as industrious as the spinners in Eng landi?' and replies, No; a spinner in England will do twice as much as a Frenchman. They get up at four in the morning, and work till ten at night; but our spinners will do as much in six hours as they will in tengah resulq burrie ten.uz q

'Had you any Frenchmen employed under you? Yes; eight, at two francs a day.

What had you a day?' Twelve francs.Uu Supposing you had had eight English carders under you, how much more work could you have done? With one Englishman, I could have done more than I did with those eight Frenchmen. It cannot be called work they do it is only looking at it, and wishing it done.

Do the French make their yarn at a greater expense ?' 5 Yes though they have their!