OCR Text |
Show 270 OF THE WAGES OF LABOUR. [ CH.. IV. real wages of labour. But it is of great in1portance to inquire \Vhether the prices from vvhich they fell are not as extraordinary as the prices to 'vhich they sunk ; and here I think we shall find that the prices the most difficult to be accounted for are the high prices of the 15th century, rather than the lo\v prices of the 16th. If \Ve revert to the rniddle of the 14th century, at the tirne when the first general statute was passed to regulate \vages, the condition of the labourer will appear to be very inferior to \Vhat it was during the greatest part of the 15th century. 'fhis fact n1ay be established on unexceptionable evidence. Statutes or regulations to fix the price of labour, though they do not always succeed in their in1n1ediate object, (which is generally the unjust one, of preventing labour from rising,) may be considered as undeniable testin1onies of what the p_rices ~f Ia?our h~,d been ~1ot long previous to the t1n1e of the1r passing. No leo·islature in the n1ost . b 1gnorant age could ever be so rash as arbitrarily to fix the prices of labour without reference to some past experience. Consequently, though the prices 111 such statutes cannot be depended upon with reg: ard t~ the future, they appear to be quite conclu~ Ive \VI~h. regard to the past. In the present case, Indeed, It Is expressly observed, that servants should be contented with such liveries and waO'es as they received in the 20th year of the King': reign, and two or three years before. * * Eden's State of the Poor, vol. i. p. 32. SEC. IV.] OF THE 'V AGES OF LABOUR. 271 From this statute, \vhich was enacted in 1350, the ~5th of the l(ing, for the 1nost unjust and in1- politic purpose of preventin·g the price of labour from rising after the great pestilence, we n1ay infer that the price of day labour had been about lfd. or 2d. Common agricultural labour, indeed, is not specifically mentioned; but the servants of artificers are appointed to take ltd., con1n1on carpenters 2d., and a reaper, the first week in August, also 2d., all \Vithout diet; from \Vhich \Ve n1ay conclude that the wages of common day labour must have been as often 1 fd. as ~d.* Sir F. M. Eden has collected notices of the prices of ,,vheat in sixteen out of the twenty-five years of Ed ward III. prevjous to the time of the passing of the statute. 1'ak1ng an average as before, the price of vv heat appears to have been about Ss. 4d. the quarter, which is Sd. the bushel, and 2d. the peck. At this price of \vheat, if the labourer earned 1 td. a day, he could only purchase by a day's labour t of a peck of \V heat ; if he earned 2d. he could purchase just a peck. In the former case, he 'vould earn less than half of the corn earned by the labourer of Henry VII.; and in the latter case, very little 1nore than half. But in the subsequent period of Edward III.'s reign, the labourer appears to have been much 'NOrse off. The statute of labourers was renewed, and, it is said, enforced very rigidly, not-, * Eden's State of the Poor, vol. i. p. 33. |