Legislative acts attempting to regulate this part of
economy do, at least as much as any other, require the exactest detail
of circumstances, guided by the surest general principles that are
necessary to direct experiment and inquiry, in order again from those
details to elicit principles, firm and luminous general principles, to
direct a practical legislative proceeding.
First, then, I deny that it is in this case, as in any other, of
necessary implication that contracting parties should originally have
had different interests. By accident it may be so, undoubtedly, at the
outset: but then the contract is of the nature of a compromise; and
compromise is founded on circumstances that suppose it the interest of
the parties to be reconciled in some medium. The principle of compromise
adopted, of consequence the interests cease to be different.
But in the case of the farmer and the laborer, their interests are
always the same, and it is absolutely impossible that their free
contracts can be onerous to either party. It is the interest of the
farmer that his work should be done with effect and celerity; and that
cannot be, unless the laborer is well fed, and otherwise found with such
necessaries of animal life, according to its habitudes, as may keep the
body in full force, and the mind gay and cheerful. For of all the
instruments of his trade, the labor of man (what the ancient writers
have called the _instrumentum vocale_) is that on which he is most to
rely for the repayment of his capital.
Pages:
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149