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The constancy or inconstancy of employment cannot affect the

ordinary profits of stock in any particular trade. Whether the

stock is or is not constantly employed, depends, not upon the

trade, but the trader.

Fourthly, the wages of labour vary according to the small or

great trust which must be reposed in the workmen.

The wages of goldsmiths and jewellers are everywhere superior to

those of many other workmen, not only of equal, but of much

superior ingenuity, on account of the precious materials with

which they are entrusted. We trust our health to the physician,

our fortune, and sometimes our life and reputation, to the lawyer

and attorney. Such confidence could not safely be reposed in

people of a very mean or low condition. Their reward must be

such, therefore, as may give them that rank in the society which

so important a trust requires. The long time and the great

expense which must be laid out in their education, when combined

with this circumstance, necessarily enhance still further the

price of their labour.