A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts on Money
Mechanics earn more than labourers, &c.
19th Century John Ramsay McCulloch (ed.) English- To bring up a child to a trade, there is not only an expence in fitting him out, and during his apprenticeship, but also a risque of his dying before he is out of his time; from which considerations a mechanic is entitled to better wages than a common labourer: And as any given trade is attended with greater risques of any sort, requires more skill, more trust, more expence in setting up, &c. the artificer will be entitled to still better wages. In like manner those professions that require genius, great confidence, a liberal education, &c. have a right to be rewarded proportionably. And thus, the prices of labour and services of different sorts, have a considerable difference founded in the nature of them: But the wages of the lower class, wherein is to be included, as well the common artificers as the husbandmen, seems to be the main and ultimate standard that regulates the values of all commodities: and if those wages be regulated by and paid in bullion, that specific bullion will be the true and real money of the country where it is so applied, notwithstanding what else may pass in greater transactions.