Of the five circumstances, therefore, which vary the wages of labour, two only affect the profits of stock; the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the business, and the risk or security with which it is attended.In point of agreeableness, there is little or no difference in the far greater part of the different employments of stock; but a great deal in those of labour; and the ordinary profit of stock, though it rises with the risk, does not always seem to rise in proportion to it.It should follow from all this, that, in the same society or neighbourhood, the average and ordinary rates of profit in the different employments of stock should be more nearly upon a level than the pecuniary wages of the different sorts of labour.They are so accordingly.The difference between the earnings of a common labourer and those of a well employed lawyer or physician, is evidently much greater than that between the ordinary profits in any two different branches of trade.The apparent difference, besides, in the profits of different trades, is generally a deception arising from our not always distinguishing what ought to be considered as wages, from what ought to be considered as profit.
Apothecaries' profit is become a bye-word, denoting something uncommonly extravagant.This great apparent profit, however, is frequently no more than the reasonable wages of labour.The skill of an apothecary is a much nicer and more delicate matter than that of any artificer whatever; and the trust which is reposed in him is of much greater importance.He is the physician of the poor in all cases, and of the rich when the distress or danger is not very great.His reward, therefore, ought to be suitable to his skill and his trust, and it arises generally from the price at which he sells his drugs.But the whole drugs which the best employed apothecary, in a large market town, will sell in a year, may not perhaps cost him above thirty or forty pounds.Though he should sell them, therefore, for three or four hundred, or at a thousand per cent profit, this may frequently be no more than the reasonable wages of his labour charged, in the only way in which he can charge them, upon the price of his drugs.The greater part of the apparent profit is real wages disguised in the garb of profit.
In a small seaport town, a little grocer will make forty or fifty per cent upon a stock of a single hundred pounds, while a considerable wholesale merchant in the same place will scarce make eight or ten per cent upon a stock of ten thousand.The trade of the grocer may be necessary for the conveniency of the inhabitants, and the narrowness of the market may not admit the employment of a larger capital in the business.The man, however, must not only live by his trade, but live by it suitably to the qualifications which it requires.Besides possessing a little capital, he must be able to read, write, and account, and must be a tolerable judge too of, perhaps, fifty or sixty different sorts of goods, their prices, qualities, and the markets where they are to be had cheapest.He must have all the knowledge, in short, that is necessary for a great merchant, which nothing hinders him from becoming but the want of a sufficient capital.Thirty or forty pounds a year cannot be considered as too great a recompense for the labour of a person so Accomplished.Deduct this from the seemingly great profits of his capital, and little more will remain, perhaps, than the ordinary profits of stock.
The greater part of the apparent profit is, in this case too, real wages.
The difference between the apparent profit of the retail and that of the wholesale trade, is much less in the capital than in small towns and country villages.Where ten thousand pounds can be employed in the grocery trade, the wages of the grocer's labour make but a very trifling addition to the real profits of so great a stock.The apparent profits of the wealthy retailer, therefore, are there more nearly upon a level with those of the wholesale merchant.It is upon this account that goods sold by retail are generally as cheap and frequently much cheaper in the capital than in small towns and country villages.Grocery goods, for example, are generally much cheaper; bread and butcher's meat frequently as cheap.It costs no more to bring grocery goods to the great town than to the country village; but it costs a great deal more to bring corn and cattle, as the greater part of them must be brought from a much greater distance.The prime cost of grocery goods, therefore, being the same in both places, they are cheapest where the least profit is charged upon them.The prime cost of bread and butcher's meat is greater in the great town than in the country village; and though the profit is less, therefore, they are not always cheaper there, but often equally cheap.In such articles as bread and butcher's meat, the same cause, which diminishes apparent profit, increases prime cost.
The extent of the market, by giving employment to greater stocks, diminishes apparent profit; but by requiring supplies from a greater distance, it increases prime cost.This diminution of the one and increase of the other seem, in most cases, nearly to counterbalance one another, which is probably the reason that, though the prices of corn and cattle are commonly very different in different parts of the kingdom, those of bread and butcher's meat are generally very nearly the same through the greater part of it.