3. Limitation of apprentices in skilled trades; as a means of
preventing the undue increase of particular occupations. This, however,
is advocated not by economists, but generally by operatives.
4. Prevention of family work; or the discouragement of the labour of
the wives and children of operatives. This, again, cannot be said to be
an “economist” remedy.
B. _Increase of the circulating capital, or sum set aside for the
payment of the labourers._
1. By government imposts. “Governments,” says Mr. Mill, “can create
additional industry by creating capital. They may lay on taxes, and
employ the amount productively.” This was the object of the original
Poor Law (43 Eliz.), which empowered the overseers of the poor to
“raise weekly, or otherwise, by taxation of every inhabitant, &c.,
such sums of money as they shall require for providing a sufficient
stock of flax, hemp, wool, and other ware or stuff, to set the poor on
work.”
2. By the issue of paper money. The proposition of Mr. Jonathan
Duncan is, that the government should issue notes equivalent to
the taxation of the country, with the view of affording increased
employment to the poor; the people being set to work as it were upon
credit, in the same manner as the labourers were employed to build the
market-house at Guernsey.
C. _The extension of the markets of the country_; by the abolition
of all restrictions on commerce, and the encouragement of the free
interchange of commodities, so that, by increasing the demand for our
products, we may be able to afford employment to an extra number of
producers.
The above constitute what, with a few exceptions, may be termed, more
particularly, the “economist” remedies for low wages.
D. _The regulation of the quantity of work done by each workman, or
the prevention of the undue economizing of labour._ For this end,
several means have been put forward.