PART III.: DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.

The inhabitants of countries which have made any considerable progress in civilisation and the arts, may be divided into the three classes of labourers, landlords, and capitalists; and whatever be the condition of any society—whether rude or refined, rich or poor—every person belonging to it, who is not a pauper, or does not subsist on the bounty of others, may be reckoned in one or other of these classes. They divide amongst them all the wealth of the community. Public functionaries of all sorts, and the various individuals engaged in what are called liberal or learned professions, exchange their services for valuable considerations. The whole subsistence of such persons, so far as they depend upon their employments, is derived from wages; and they are as evidently labourers as if they handled a spade or held a plough. “Every man,” says Paley, “has his work. The kind of work varies, and that is all the difference there is. A great deal of labour exists besides Edition: current; Page: [299] that of the hands; many species of industry besides bodily operation—equally necessary, requiring equal assiduity, more attention, more anxiety. It is not true, therefore, that men of elevated stations are exempted from work; it is only true that there is assigned to them work of a different kind: whether more easy or more pleasant may be questioned; but certainly not less wanted, nor less essential to the common good.”1 Hence it is that the inquiry into the distribution of wealth among the different orders of the society, resolves itself into an investigation of the laws which regulate wages, rent, and profit, and of the best methods of providing for the exigencies of the poor, or of those who are unable to provide for themselves. We shall begin by endeavouring to lay before the reader a view of the circumstances which determine the wages of labour in different employments.

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