Page:The wealth of nations, volume 1.djvu/143

 quantity and supposed value of the work. A laborer, it may be said, indeed, ought to save part of his summer wages in order to defray his winter expense; and that through the whole year they do not exceed what is necessary to maintain his family through the whole year. A slave, however, or one absolutely dependent on us for immediate subsistence, would not be treated in this manner. His daily subsistence would be proportioned to his daily necessities.

Secondly, the wages of labor do not in Great Britain fluctuate with the price of provisions. These vary everywhere from year to year, frequently from month to month. But in many places the money price of labor remains uniformly the same sometimes for half a century together. If in these places, therefore, the laboring poor can maintain their families in dear years, they must be at their ease in times of moderate plenty, and in affluence in those of extraordinary cheapness. The high price of provisions during these ten years past has not in many parts of the kingdom been accompanied with any sensible rise in the money price of labor. It has, indeed, in some; owing, probably, more to the increase of the demand for labor than to that of the price of provisions.

Thirdly, as the price of provisions varies more from year to year than the wages of labor, so, on the other hand, the wages of labor vary more from place to place than the price of provisions. The prices of bread and butcher's meat are generally the same, or very nearly the same, through the greater part of the United Kingdom. These and most other things which are sold by retail, the way in which the laboring poor buy all things, are generally fully as cheap or cheaper in great towns than in the