Pagina 155 de 2651

The exclusive privileges of corporations, statutes of

apprenticeship, and all those laws which restrain in particular

employments, the competition to a smaller number than might

otherwise go into them, have the same tendency, though in a less

degree. They are a sort of enlarged monopolies, and may

frequently, for ages together, and in whole classes of

employments, keep up the market price of particular commodities

above the natural price, and maintain both the wages of the

labour and the profits of the stock employed about them somewhat

above their natural rate.

Such enhancements of the market price may last as long as the

regulations of policy which give occasion to them.