five or six. But if Englishmen are to be eternal drudges, 'tis to be feared they will degenerate below the Frenchmen. As our people are famed for bravery in war, do we not say that it is owing to good English roast beef and pudding in their bellies, as well as their constitutional spirit of liberty? And why may not the superior ingenuity and dexterity of our artists and manufactures, be owing to that freedom and liberty to direct themselves in their own way, and I hope we shall never have them deprived of such privileges and that good living from whence their ingenuity no less than their courage may proceed."[1] Thereupon the author of the "Essay on Trade and Commerce" replies: "If the making of every seventh day an holiday is supposed to be of divine institution, as it implies the appropriating the other six days to labour" (he means capital as we shall soon see) "surely it will not be thought cruel to enforce it.… That mankind in general, are naturally inclined to ease and indolence, we fatally experience to be true, from the conduct of our manufacturing populace, who do not labour, upon an average, above four days in a week, unless provisions happen to be very dear.… Put all the necessaries of the poor under one denomination; for instance, call them all wheat, or suppose that … the bushel of wheat shall cost five shillings and that he (a manufacturer) earns a shilling by his labour, he then would be obliged to work five days only in a week. If the bushel of wheat should cost but four shillings, he would be obliged to work but four days; but as wages in this kingdom are much higher in proportion to the price of necessaries … the manufacturer, who labours four days, has a surplus of money to live idle with the rest of the week … I hope I have said enough to make it appear that the moderate labour of six days in a week is no slavery. Our labouring people do this, and to all appearance are the happiest of all our labouring poor,[2] but the Dutch do this in manufactures, and appear to be a very happy people. The French do so, when holidays
- ↑ Postlethwayt, l. c., "First Preliminary Discourse," p. 14.
- ↑ "An Essay," &c. He himself relates on p. 96 wherein the "happiness" of the English agricultural labour already in 1770 consisted. "Their powers are always upon the stretch, they cannot live cheaper than they do, nor work harder."
