410 DISTORT OF ENGLAND.

CHA p . present the pay and beer money of a private in a regiment ofthe line amount to seven shillings and sevenpence a week.This stipend, coupled with the hope of a pension, does notattract the English youth in sufficient numbers; and it is foundnecessary to supply the deficiency by enlisting largely fromamong the poorer population of Munster and Connaught.The pay of the private foot soldier in 1685 was only fourshillings and eightpence a week; yet it is certain that thegovernment in that year found no difficulty in obtaining manythousands of English recruits at very short notice. The payof the private foot soldier in the army of the Commonwealthhad been seven shillings a week, that is to say, as much as acorporal received under Charles the Second;* and sevenshillings a week had been found sufficient to fill the rankswith men decidedly superior to the generality of the people.On the whole, therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that,in the reign of Charles the Second, the ordinary wages of thepeasant did not exceed four shillings a week; but that, insome parts of the kingdom, five shillings, six shillings, and,during the summer months, even seven shillings were paid.At present a district where a labouring man earns only sevenshillings a week is thought to be in a state shocking tohumanity. The average is very much higher; and, in pro-sperous counties, the weekly wages of husbandmen amount totwelve, fourteen, and even sixteen shillings.

wages of The remuneration of workmen employed in manufactures

manufac- "

turers. has always been higher than that of the tillers of the soil. In

the year 1680, a member of the House of Commons remarkedthat the high wages paid in this country made it impossiblefor our textures to maintain a competition with the produce ofthe Indian looms. An English mechanic, he said, instead ofslaving like a native of Bengal for a piece of copper, exacted

' See, in Thurloe’s Slate Papers, the memorandum of the Dutch De-puties, dated August . 1653 .