Principles of Political EconomyPerry, Arthur Latham
General
Principles of Political Economy
Perry, Arthur Latham
Economics
In Europe, on the other hand, the laborers as a class are far less
mobile than here; and in Asia still less so. There is said to be no
country in Europe in which the proportion of foreigners to the native
population exceeds _three per centum_. In England, which is a small
country, the difference in Wages between the northern and southern
counties is very remarkable. Professor Fawcett is authority for the
statement, that an ordinary agricultural laborer in Yorkshire during
the winter months earns 13 shillings a week, while a Wiltshire or
Dorsetshire laborer doing similar work during the same number of hours
earns but 9 shillings. The contrast in general between the Wages of
English agricultural laborers and those paid in mills and mines and
furnaces is still more striking. And so more or less, in respect to
the Value of Commodities: competition is yet by no means perfect in
distributing these so as to make their price uniform in the same
country or even in the same county; but the immobility of laborers for
an obvious reason is much greater than the immobility of goods. While
laborers should certainly be free to go wherever their services may be
in greater Demand, the natural reluctance of most men to leave their
native haunts, enables each of the nations to work out its freely
chosen ends without wholesale interference from abroad. If China
should precipitate itself upon the United States, or India upon
England, as the mere _economical_ impulse might indicate, it would be
disastrous to the western nations; but men are everywhere under other
influences besides the economical one, although this is strong and
distinct and pervasive; Political Economy deals with men as they _are_
all things considered, and with Buying and Selling as this actually
takes place over the world, or rather as it would take place if
factitious economical restraints were removed; and Providence has
other great ends in view besides commercial prosperity, vital as that
is to all other progress, and often holds one impulse in check by a
stronger one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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