Page:Manual of Political Economy.djvu/98

Rh of wealth which is produced depends jointly upon the productiveness of land and the productiveness of the labour employed; but as remarks have already been made upon the productiveness of land, we shall now proceed to consider some of the causes upon which, under any assumed set of circumstances, depends the productiveness of labour.

Energy and intelligence are two of the most valuable qualities which a labourer can possess. It does not, as has been previously observed, appertain to our subject to attempt a full explanation of the causes which determine differences of national character. The Irish labourer, for instance, does not possess that steadiness and dogged determination which distinguish the English labourer. Lord Brassey's book, called Work and Wages, gives many striking examples of the different industrial qualities possessed by workmen of different nations. He gives the palm to the English labourer; and states that although wages are higher in this country than in any other European country, yet bridges, viaducts, tunnels, and all engineering works, can be executed at a cheaper rate in England than in any other country in the world.

Labourers have generally been so imperfectly educated that the economic advantage of intelligence to the labourer has been, and is still, most inadequately appreciated. Almost every industrial operation will be better and more expeditiously effected by the intelligent workman. The agricultural labourer is very generally looked upon as requiring no special skill or intelligence; but an experienced English land-agent has stated that in his opinion the reason why the land in the Lothians lets at a higher rent than equally fertile land in England, is that the Scotch labourers and farmers are, as a general rule, better educated and consequently more intelligent than labourers and farmers in England. This opinion has been confirmed by a large landowner and practical agriculturist, the late Marquis of Aylesbury, who in a speech to his tenantry, in November 1874, said that he found that the farms that were the best cultivated were in those counties where wages were the highest, and he attributed this to the circumstance that in these counties Rh