Master. True; and yet many a young journeyman will think little of spending 3d. every evening at the public-house. Even that sum, saved in the way I have just mentioned, would, at the end of five years, amount to 247. 38. 3d. I am supposing that you intend to be very careful, that you may soon be able to start for yourself; but you may perhaps have sickness, or be out of employment for a time, or some other accident may happen which you cannot foresee. If, however, you have the blessing of general good health, and are successful in getting work, I think you will see that it is not at all unlikely you may at the end of five years have saved 507., and this will go some way towards enabling you to make your first start.

Harry. But might I not borrow the money and begin at once?

Master. You would scarcely find any one ready to lend it to you, because no one can tell whether you will be careful and saving; but if you go on steadily and prudently for five years, people will say, "Harry is a good workman, and a steady honest man; he is sure to find employment, and he has shown himself to be careful and prudent; he saved money while he was a journeyman, and so there can be no risk in lending him money."

It may be necessary for you sometimes to borrow money

-as, for instance, if you have a large order, which will not be paid for till the work is done. You may want more wood and other things than you can pay for with ready money, and you will probably be compelled to employ labour, which must be paid for as it goes on; so you will either have to get credit from the timbermerchant and others, or to borrow money. You should, however, borrow as little as you can. Everything may be got cheaper by paying for it at once, and for all money borrowed interest must be paid. You should never borrow more than you have every reason to believe you can easily repay, and you should make a practice

of paying back a certain part of the debt every year, and above all, of never incurring a new debt till the old one is paid off.

I once knew two journeymen who were considered to be equally good workmen, and received the same wages. They were both steady men; but Richard, who never thought of saving, spent all his spare money in little indulgences which were not wrong in themselves, though he might have done very well without them. So, when he married, he was no better off than when he began to work as a journeyman. He found that his wages, which had been more than enough for a single man, was rather a scanty allowance for him with a wife and children. When sickness came, he was obliged to run into debt for the common necessaries of life, and it often took him many months after the sickness was over to repay these debts.

However, as he had generally very good health, and was an honest, hardworking man, he managed to get on tolerably well; but he had often many hardships to encounter, and never rose above what he was at first. I do not know what would have become of him when he was old and unfit for work (for he had saved nothing), had not one of his sons, who had got on very well in the world, made his father an allowance in his old age.

The other journeyman-William-went on a different plan. He was extremely careful for the first few years; he regularly laid by a certain portion of his wages; and, when once he got a little fund in the savings-bank, he was often able to add a few shillings to his stock by denying himself some little indulgence. At the end of five or six years, he had money enough to start for himself, and shortly after setting up in business he married; but he was still very careful, and strove hard to replace the money which he had laid out in establishing himself. In this way he managed always to have a little

sum of money in the bank, to provide against accidents. His family and himself had their share of sickness; but he belonged to a medical club, and so was saved a heavy doctor's bill. In times of sickness he would draw some of the money from the bank, and thus when health was restored he was free from debt. He had once a heavy loss in consequence of an employer becoming bankrupt, and then the money he had in the bank was invaluable. He was able with it to conclude the purchase of a quantity of timber, which he could only have had for ready money, and for this had calculated upon the sum which the bankrupt owed him. The purchase turned out remarkably well; for by means of it he undertook a very profitable contract, and at the end of two more years he was comparatively a rich man. Having now more capital, he enlarged his business, and was able to find money to start each of his sons in life; and in his old age he had enough for himself and his wife to live comfortably upon, in a house of his own building.

Harry. But will not all this saving and prudence in money-matters be likely to make one a miser?

Master. A miser is one who never uses his money. My plan is quite opposed to this. It is your duty to be careful and prudent, but you must not set your heart upon riches; you must be ready to help those poorer than yourself. You must be willing to assist your near relatives and above all your parents, if they need it, for they have a claim to the utmost help you can afford. William, of whom I have just spoken, was a good example in this respect. His aged father lived and died under his roof, and was not the less cared for because William had a large family to support. William was very kind to his neighbours, too. Richard, to do him justice, was not unwilling to give, and in his earlier days did many a little act of charity; but after his marriage, he had, as we have seen, enough to do to

support his family; and as he never had money in hand, he never seemed to have it in his power to do anything for others. You need not be illiberal because you are careful and saving; but if you are thoughtless and imprudent, it is impossible that you should ever have anything to give.

CHAPTER X.

WAGES.

SOME labourers are paid higher Wages than others. A carpenter earns more than a ploughman, and a watchmaker more than either; and yet this is not because one works harder than the other.

It is the same with the labour of the mind as with that of the body. A banker's clerk, though he has to work hard at keeping accounts, is not paid so high as a lawyer or a physician.

Thus the rate of wages does not depend on the hardness of the labour, but on the value of the work done.

But on what does the value of the work depend?

The value of each kind of work is regulated in the same way as the value of all other things; it is greater or less, according to the limitation of the supply-or, in other words, the difficulty of procuring it. If there were no more expense, time, and trouble required to procure a pound of gold than a pound of copper, then gold would be of no more value than copper.

But why should the supply of watchmakers and surgeons be more limited than that of carpenters and ploughmen?-that is, why is it more difficult to make a man a watchmaker than a ploughman ?

One reason is, that the education required costs a great deal more. A long time must be spent in learning

the business of a watchmaker, or a surgeon, before a man can acquire enough skill to practise; so that unless he has enough to support him all the time, and also to pay his master for teaching him the art, a man cannot become a watchmaker or a surgeon; and no father would go to the expense of bringing up a son as a surgeon or watchmaker, even though he could well afford it, if he did not expect him to earn more than a carpenter, whose education costs much less. But sometimes a father is disappointed in his expectation. If the son should turn out stupid or idle, he would not acquire skill enough to maintain himself by his business, and then the expense of his education would be lost: for it is not the expensive education of a surgeon that causes him to be paid more for setting a man's leg, than a carpenter is paid for mending the leg of a table; but the expensive education causes fewer people to become surgeons; it causes the supply of surgeons to be more limited-that is, confined to a few; and it is this limitation that is the cause of their being better paid.

So that the value of each kind of labour is, like that of all other things, higher or lower, according as the supply is limited or not.

Natural genius will often have the effect of causing one man to be better paid than another. For instance, one who has a natural genius for painting may become a very fine painter, though his education may not have cost more than that of an ordinary painter; and he will earn, perhaps, ten times as much, without working any harder at his pictures than the other. However, the reason why a man of natural genius is paid higher for his work than another is still the same. Men of genius are scarce, and their work, therefore, is of the more value, from being more limited in supply.

Some kinds of labour, again, command higher pay from their supply being limited by other causes, and