In opulent countries the market is generally so extensive that any one trade is sufficient to employ the whole labour and stock of those who occupy it.Instances of people's living by one employment, and at the same time deriving some little advantage from another, occur chiefly in poor countries.The following instance, however, of something of the same kind is to be found in the capital of a very rich one.There is no city in Europe, Ibelieve, in which house-rent is dearer than in London, and yet Iknow no capital in which a furnished apartment can be hired as cheap.Lodging is not only much cheaper in London than in Paris;it is much cheaper than in Edinburgh of the same degree of goodness; and what may seem extraordinary, the dearness of house-rent is the cause of the cheapness of lodging.The dearness of house-rent in London arises not only from those causes which render it dear in all great capitals, the dearness of labour, the dearness of all the materials of building, which must generally be brought from a great distance, and above all the dearness of ground-rent, every landlord acting the part the part of a monopolist, and frequently exacting a higher rent for a single acre of bad land in a town than can be had for a hundred of the best in the country; but it arises in part from the peculiar manners and customs of the people, which oblige every master of a family to hire a whole house from top to bottom.A dwelling-house in England means everything that is contained under the same roof.In France, Scotland, and many other parts of Europe, it frequently means no more than a single story.A tradesman in London is obliged to hire a whole house in that part of the town where his customers live.His shop is upon the ground-floor, and he and his family sleep in the garret; and he endeavours to pay a part of his house-rent by letting the two middle stories to lodgers.He expects to maintain his family by his trade, and not by his lodgers.Whereas, at Paris and Edinburgh, the people who let lodgings have commonly no other means of subsistence and the price of the lodging must pay, not only the rent of the house, but the whole expense of the family.
PART 2
Inequalities by the Policy of Europe SUCH are the inequalities in the whole of advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock, which the defect of any of the three requisites above mentioned must occasion, even where there is the most perfect liberty.But the policy of Europe, by not leaving things at perfect liberty, occasions other inequalities of much greater importance.
It does this chiefly in the three following ways.First, by restraining the competition in some employments to a smaller number than would otherwise be disposed to enter into them;secondly, by increasing it in others beyond what it naturally would be; and, thirdly, by obstructing the free circulation of labour and stock, both from employment to employment and from place to place.
First, the policy of Europe occasions a very important inequality in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock, by restraining the competition in some employments to a smaller number than might otherwise be disposed to enter into them.
The exclusive privileges of corporations are the principal means it makes use of for this purpose.
The exclusive privilege of an incorporated trade necessarily restrains the competition, in the town where it is established, to those who are free of the trade.To have served an apprenticeship in the town, under a master properly qualified, is commonly the necessary requisite for obtaining this freedom.The bye laws of the corporation regulate sometimes the number of apprentices which any master is allowed to have, and almost always the number of years which each apprentice is obliged to serve.The intention of both regulations is to restrain the competition to a much smaller number than might otherwise be disposed to enter into the trade.The limitation of the number of apprentices restrains it directly.A long term of apprenticeship restrains it more indirectly, but as effectually, by increasing the expense of education.
In Sheffield no master cutler can have more than one apprentice at a time, by a bye law of the corporation.In Norfolk and Norwich no master weaver can have more than two apprentices, under pain of forfeiting five pounds a month to the king.No master hatter can have more than two apprentices anywhere in England, or in the English plantations, under pain of forfeiting five pounds a month, half to the king and half to him who shall sue in any court of record.Both these regulations, though they have been confirmed by a public law of the kingdom, are evidently dictated by the same corporation spirit which enacted the bye-law of Sheffield.The silk weavers in London had scarce been incorporated a year when they enacted a bye-law restraining any master from having more than two apprentices at a time.It required a particular Act of Parliament to rescind this bye law.
