Principles of Political Economy, Vol. 2Roscher, Wilhelm
General
Principles of Political Economy, Vol. 2
Roscher, Wilhelm
Economics
[Footnote 161-4: _Cantillon_, Nature du Commerce, etc.,
1755, is of opinion that a day laborer, to bring up two
children until they are grown, needs about as much as he
does for his own support; and that his wife may, as a rule,
support herself by her own work. (42 ff.) In Germany, it is
estimated that, in the case of day laborers, a woman can
earn only from 1/3 to ½ of what her husband does; mainly
because she is so frequently incapacitated for work by
pregnancy, nursing, etc. (_Rau_, Lehrbuch, I, § 190.) In
France, in 1832, a man working in the fields earned, on an
average, 1¼ francs a day, the wife ¾ of a franc (200
days to the year), the three children 38/100 francs (250
days to the year), an aggregate of 650 francs per annum.
(_Morogues._) In England, the average amount earned in the
country was for males, per annum, £27 17s.; (munications
relative to the Support and Maintenance of the Poor, 1834,
p. LXXXVIII.) The wife of an English field hand, without
children, earns 1/3 more than one with children. In the case
of mothers, a difference of fewer or more children is
unnoticeable in the effects on wages. (London Statist.
Journal, 1838, 182.) In the spinning factories in
Manchester, in 1834, children between 9 and 10 years of age
were paid, weekly, from 2s. 9d. to 2s. 10d.; between 10 and
12, from 3s. 6d. to 3s. 7d.; between 12 and 14, from 5s. 8d.
to 5s. 9d.; between 14 and 16, from 7s. 5d. to 7s. 6d.
(Report of the Poor Commissioners, 204.) Those manufactures
which require great physical strength, like carpet and
sail-cloth weaving, and those carried on in the open air and
in all kinds of weather, allow of no such family competition
and debasement of wages. (_Senior_ in the Report of the
parliamentary Committee on Hand Weavers, 1841.)]
[Footnote 161-5: Similarly, _J. Möser_, Patriot. Phant., I,
40. _Adam Smith_ infers from the following symptoms in a
country that wages are higher there than the indispensable
minimum, viz.: if wages in summer are higher than in winter,
since it is seldom that enough is saved in summer to satisfy
the more numerous wants of winter; if wages vary less from
year to year and more from place to place than the means of
subsistence, it they are high even where the means of
subsistence are cheapest. (Wealth of Nat., I, ch. 8.)]
SECTION CLXII.
COST OF PRODUCTION OF LABOR.
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