Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/453

Rh consist of children, women, and men, earning wages varying from three or four shillings up to five pounds per week. Those who point the needles gain about two pounds. The man who hardens and tempers the needles earns from five to six pounds per week. It ought also to be observed that one man is sufficient to temper the needles for a large factory; consequently the time spent on each needle by the most expensive operative is excessively small.

But if a manufacturer insist on employing one man to make the whole needle, he must pay at the rate of five pounds a week for every portion of the labour bestowed upon it.

Besides the usual elements which contribute to constitute the price of any thing, there exists another which varies greatly in different articles. It is this—

The cost and difficulty of verifying the fact that the article is exactly what it professes to be.

This is in some cases very small; but in many instances it is scarcely possible for the purchaser to verify the genuineness of certain articles. In these cases the public pay a larger price than they otherwise would do to those tradesmen whose character and integrity are well established.

In a pamphlet printed in 1848, I published my views of taxation, especially with reference to an Income Tax.

The principle there supported was entertained and examined by the French Minister of Finance, M. Passy. The pamphlet itself was subsequently translated into Italian and published at Turin, under the auspices of the Sardinian Finance Minister.