Christmas Stories

If it be said that their wages are too low, and that they ought to be better paid for their labour, I heartily wish that any means could be fallen upon to do it consistent with their interest and happiness; but as the cheapness of other things is owing to the plenty of those things, so the cheapness of labour is in most cases owing to the multitude of labourers, and to their underworking one another in order to obtain employment. How is this to be remedied? A law might be made to raise their wages; but if our manufactures are too dear, they will not vend abroad, and all that part of employment will fail, unless, by fighting and conquering, we compel other nations to buy our goods, whether they will or no, which some have been mad enough at times to propose. Among ourselves, unless we give our working people less employment, how can we, for what they do, pay them higher than we do? Out of what fund is the additional price of labour to be paid, when all our present incomes are, as it were, mortgaged to them? Should they get higher wages, would that make them less poor, if in consequence they worked fewer days of the week proportionably? I have said, a law might be made to raise their wages; but I doubt much, whether it could be executed to any purpose, unless another law, now indeed almost obsolete, could at the same time be revived and enforced; a law, I mean, that I have often heard and repeated, but few have ever duly considered, Six days shalt thou labour. This is as positive a part of the Commandment, as that which says, The seventh day thou shalt rest: but we remember well to observe the indulgent part, and never think of the other. Saint Monday[r] is generally as duly kept by our working people as Sunday: the only difference is, that instead of employing it cheaply at church, they are wasting it expensively at the alehouse.

I am, Sir, your's, &c.

[r] This applies not so much to farmers' workmen as to manufacturers' labourers.

Extract from Dr. Franklin's remarks on Luxury, Idleness, and Industry.

Some of those who grow rich will be prudent, live within bounds, and preserve what they have gained for their posterity: others, fond of shewing their wealth, will be extravagant, and ruin themselves. Laws cannot prevent this; and perhaps it is not always an evil to the public. A shilling spent idly by a fool, may be picked up by a wiser person, who knows better what to do with it. It is therefore not lost. A vain silly fellow builds a fine house, furnishes it richly, lives in it expensively, and in a few years ruins himself: but the masons, carpenters, smiths, and other honest tradesmen, have been by his employ assisted in maintaining and raising their families: the farmer has been paid for his labour, and encouraged, and the estate is now in better hands. In some cases, indeed, certain modes of luxury may be a public evil, in the same manner as it is a private one.

THE END