第157页 / 共2651页

The same statutes of apprenticeship and other corporation laws,

indeed, which, when a manufacture is in prosperity, enable the

workman to raise his wages a good deal above their natural rate,

sometimes oblige him, when it decays, to let them down a good

deal below it. As in the one case they exclude many people from

his employment, so in the other they exclude him from many

employments. The effect of such regulations, however, is not near

so durable in sinking the workman's wages below, as in raising

them above their natural rate. Their operation in the one way may

endure for many centuries, but in the other it can last no longer

than the lives of some of the workmen who were bred to the

business in the time of its prosperity. When they are gone, the

number of those who are afterwards educated to the trade will

naturally suit itself to the effectual demand.