There is still more discrepancy between the exertions made by different labours 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 ashopman and an iron founder. And labour which is the same in kind, may vary indefinitely in intensity. Man of the witnessesexamined by the Committee on Artisans and Machinery (Session of 1824) were English manufacturers, who had worked inFrance. They agree as to the comparative indolence of the French labourer, even during his hours of employment. One ofthe witnesses, Adam Young, had been two years in one of the best manufactories in Alsace. He is asked, ' Did you find thespinners there as industrious as tile spinners in England?' and replies, 'No; a spinner in England will do twice as much as aFrenchman. They get up at four in the morning, and work till ten at night; but our spinners will do as much in six hours asthey will in ten.'
'Had you any Frenchmen employed under you?' -- 'Yes; eight, at two francs a day.'
'What had you a day?' -- 'Twelve francs.'
'Supposing you had had eight English carders under you, how much more work could you have done?' -- 'With oneEnglishman, I could have done more than 1 did with those eight Frenchmen. It cannot be called work they do: it is onlylooking at it, and wishing it done.'
'Do the French make their yarn at a greater expense?' -- 'Yes; though they have their hands for much less wages than inEngland.' -- pp. 590, 582.
Even in the same country, and in the same employments, similar inequalities are constantly observed. Every one is awarethat much more exertion is undergone by the labourer by task-work than by the day-labourer; by the independentday-labourer than by the pauper; and even by the pauper than by the convict.
It is obvious that the rate of wages is less likely to be uniform than the pride of labour, as the amount of wages will beaffected, in the first place, by any variations in the price, and, in the second place, by any variations in the amount, of thelabour exerted.
The average annual wages of labour in England, are three times as high as in Ireland; but as the labourer in Ireland is saidnot to do more than one-third of what is done by the labourer in England, the price of labour may, in both countries, beabout equal. In England, the labourer by task-work earns much more than the day-labourer; but as it is certainly asprofitable to employ him, the price of his labour cannot be higher. It may be supposed, indeed, that the price of labour iseverywhere, and at all times, the same; and, if there were no disturbing causes, -- if all persons knew perfectly well theirown interest, and strictly followed it, and there were no difficulties in moving capital and labour from place to place, andfrom employment to employment, -- the price of labour, at the same time, would be everywhere the same. But thesedifficulties occasion the price of labour to vary materially, even at the same time and place; and variations, both in theamount of wages and in the price of labour at different times, and in different places, are occasioned, not only by thesecauses, but by others which will be considered in a subsequent course.
