It is therefore highly desirable to assist them in comprehending
the position in which they are placed, by rendering all the
relations in which they stand to each other, and to their
employers, as simple as possible. Workmen should be paid entirely
in money; their work should be measured by some unbiassed, some
unerring piece of mechanism; the time during which they are
employed should be defined, and punctually adhered to. The
payments they make to their benefit societies should be fixed on
such just principles, as not to require extraordinary
contributions. In short, the object of all who wish to promote
their happiness should be, to give them, in the simplest form,
the means of knowing beforehand, the sum they are likely to
acquire by their labour, and the money they will be obliged to
expend for their support: thus putting before them, in the
clearest light, the certain result of persevering industry.
375. The cruelty which is inflicted on the workman by the
payment of his wages in goods, is often very severe. The little
purchases necessary for the comfort of his wife and children,
perhaps the medicines he occasionally requires for them in
illness, must all be made through the medium of barter; and he is
obliged to waste his time in arranging an exchange, in which the
goods which he has been compelled to accept for his labour are
invariably taken at a lower price than that at which his master
charged them to him.
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