Even this conclusion will be too general, if every combination be taken in. Manufacturers there are, who work hard, and live soberly six days of the week, and who at the end find little superfluity, notwithstanding the high price of labour. Alas! they have many mouths to feed, and only two hands to supply the necessaries. This is the fatal competition so much insisted on in the first book, and by which a door is opened to great distress. Either the unmarried gain what the married should, and become extravagant, or the married gain no more than the unmarried can do, and become miserable.
The average between the two ought to determine the rate of wages in every modern society.
The remedies for this unequal competition, flowing from the happy liberty we enjoy, have been considered in another place.
The inconvenience here under examination will not be removed by an abolition of taxes; nor will it increase by the augmentation of them, as long as manufacturers, upon an average, enjoy superfluity and idle days.
Under these circumstances I conclude, that if foreign trade suffers by the high prices of commodities in our markets, the vice does not proceed from our taxes, but from our domestic luxury, which swells demand at home. Were we less luxurious, and more frugal in our management in general, all classes of the industrious, from the retailer down to the lowest manufacturer, would be satisfied with more moderate profits. Let not, therefore, a statesman regulate his conduct upon suppositions, nor conclude any thing from theory, nor from arguments à priori, drawn from the supposed effects of taxes; but let him have recourse to information and experience concerning the real state of the matter.
Let him inquire what are the prices abroad; what are the prices at home; how those who work in exportable commodities live; what superfluities they enjoy; and what days of idleness they indulge in.
If he finds that goods are not exported, because of high prices, while manufacturers are enjoying superfluity, and indulging themselves in idleness, let him multiply hands, and he will reduce them all to their physical-necessary; and by thus augmenting the supply, he will also reduce the prices in his markets at home.
If he wants to reduce prices still lower, in favour of exportation, but finds that he has occasion for the amount of certain taxes, which enhance the value of this physical-necessary, to which he has reduced his industrious classes, then let him grant a bounty upon the quantity exported, more than equivalent to all the taxes paid by those who provide it; and let the people at home continue to pay dearer than strangers, in favour of the state. If you only want to promote exportation by lowering prices, there will be no occasion to lower them universally, any more than there is occasion to put a large plaister over the whole body, to cure a small pimple on a particular part of it.
I have said, that while the rate of the market remains the same, so will the prices of every part of labour and industry, which enters into the composition of the thing brought to market. This is consistent with reason, and experience proves the truth of it; because we do not see wages fluctuate with the price of living. If they do not fluctuate in that proportion, how can we conclude that a rise in the price of subsistence, occasioned by taxes, should raise wages more than when the price is raised by a natural scarcity. It may be answered, that the imposition of a tax gives a general alarm; the effect it must have upon prices is immediately felt; and manufacturers then insist upon an augmentation: whereas, when nature either produces the same, or even a greater effect, people submit to what they think comes from the hand of God, and content themselves with the hopes of better times. I shall allow this argument all its force. But I must observe, that when manufacturers can thus capitulate with their employers, and insist upon an augmentation of their wages, the demand of the market must be greater than the supply from their work. This is the circumstance which raises the price of labour. Let the demand of the market fall, the prices of labour will fall, in spite of all the reasons which ought naturally to make them rise. The workmen will then enter into a hurtful competition, and starve one another, as has been often observed. Let the demand of the market rise, manufacturers may raise their wages in proportion to the rise of the market; they may, in the cheapest years, enjoy the highest wages; drink one half of the week, and laugh at their employer, when he expects they should work for less, in order to swell his profits in the rising market.
I have endeavoured to throw this question into different shapes, the better to apply different principles to it; and upon the whole, I must determine that proportional taxes will,