Increase the rate of wages to the laborer, say the
regulators,--as if labor was but one thing, and of one value. But this
very broad, generic term, _labor_, admits, at least, of two or three
specific descriptions: and these will suffice, at least, to let
gentlemen discern a little the necessity of proceeding with caution in
their coercive guidance of those whose existence depends upon the
observance of still nicer distinctions and subdivisions than commonly
they resort to in forming their judgments on this very enlarged part of
economy.
The laborers in husbandry may be divided,--First, Into those who are
able to perform the full work of a man,--that is, what can be done by a
person from twenty-one years of age to fifty. I know no husbandry work
(mowing hardly excepted) that is not equally within the power of all
persons within those ages, the more advanced fully compensating by knack
and habit what they lose in activity. Unquestionably, there is a good
deal of difference between the value of one man's labor and that of
another, from strength, dexterity, and honest application. But I am
quite sure, from my best observation, that any given five men will, in
their total, afford a proportion of labor equal to any other five within
the periods of life I have stated: that is, that among such five men
there will be one possessing all the qualifications of a good workman,
one bad, and the other three middling, and approximating to the first
and the last.
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