ABSTRACT
ACCORDING to the principles of political economy, which no one has ever successfully gainsayed, labour is a commodity which, like anything else, commands a price in the market, as is determined by the well-known law of supply and demand. When the demand for workmen is great, and the supply limited, wages rise; when the supply is greater than the demand, wages naturally decline. Such, as a general rule, are the tendencies of the labour-market. Employers of labour, pressed on by the competition of other employers, or feeling that they must govern their expenditure according to the public demand for the articles in which they deal, are always desirous of getting their work as economically executed as possible; while, on the other hand, the workmen quite as reasonably endeavour on all occasions to secure the highest current rate of wages for their labour. The relative position of employer and employed is that of buyer and seller, and can be satisfactorily adjusted only on considerations of freedom on both sides. This degree of freedom infers the most liberal interpretation. The workman is to be at liberty to carry his labour for sale to any country or market he pleases, and offer it on such terms as he pleases. He may work as long or as short a time, or as fast or as slow, as he can bargain for. No law, no individual, is to interfere between him as the seller and the party who is inclined to be the purchaser of his labour. In like manner, the employer must be left at liberty to hire whom he pleases, and to offer such terms as he pleases; he may reject the offers of one, and accept those of another; he may lay down such rules as to methods and times of working as he thinks fit; and, in short, he must have the same kind of free agency as the workman.
