CHAPTER VI.

Different Employments of Capital and Labour—Agriculture, Manufactures, and Commerce, equally advantageous—The investment of Capital in different Businesses determined by the Rate of Profit which they respectively yield—Manufactures not productive of increased Mortality, nor unfavourable to the Intelligence of the Workpeople—Dangers incident to the excessive growth of Manufactures—Influence of Commerce on Public Spirit.

In treating of capital, it was shown, that its augmentation is equivalent to an augmentation of the means of supporting and employing labour, and its diminution to a diminution of these means, that is, to a diminution of the comforts and enjoyments, and perhaps also of the necessaries, of the labouring classes; and it was also shown, that the increase or diminution of profits is the great cause of the increase or diminution of capital. Now, this being the case, it seems difficult to resist coming to the conclusion, that those employments which yield the greatest profit, or in which industry is most productive, are at the same time most advantageous. But Adam Smith, Malthus, and others have objected to this standard. They admit, that when capitals yield equal profits, the employments in which they are engaged are equally beneficial for those who carry them on. They contend, however, that if one of these capitals be employed in agriculture, it will be productive of greater public advantage. But this opinion rests on no good foundation, and it may easily be shown that the average rate of profit which different businesses yield, is, under all circumstances, the best test by which to judge of their comparative advantageousness.

A capital may be employed in four different ways; viz., first, in the production of raw produce; second in manufacturing and preparing that produce for use and consumption; Edition: current; Page: [118]third, in transporting raw and manufactured products from the places where they are produced to the great centres of demand; and, fourth, in dividing such products into parcels, suited to the convenience of those who want them, and bringing them, as it were, within their grasp. The capital of those who undertake the improvement or cultivation of lands, mines, or fisheries, is employed in the first of these ways; that of master-manufacturers in the second; that of wholesale merchants in the third; and that of retailers in the fourth. It is difficult to conceive in what way a capital can be employed which may not be classed under one or other of these heads.

The importance of the raw produce of the soil, including therein the produce of mines and fisheries, is too obvious to require illustration. It comprises the elements or material of our food and clothes, and of whatever, in fact, administers physically to our necessities, our comforts, and our enjoyments. Hence the industry which appropriates the products of the earth, as they are offered to us by nature, preceded every other. But the most useful of these are, in their natural state, seldom found except in very limited quantities; and it is by agriculture only, or by the application of labour, capital and skill, to the cultivation of the ground, that large supplies of that produce, which forms the principal part of the food of man, is obtained. It is not quite certain that any variety of grain, as wheat, barley, rye, or oats, has ever been discovered growing spontaneously; and though this must originally have been the case, the extreme scarcity of such spontaneous productions, and the labour required to raise them in considerable quantities, prove that we are almost exclusively indebted for them to agriculture. The transition from the pastoral to the agricultural mode of life is decidedly the most important step in the progress of society. Whenever, indeed, we compare the quantities of food, and of other articles obtained from a given surface of a well-cultivated country, with those obtained from the like surface of an equally fertile country occupied by Edition: current; Page: [119] hunters or shepherds, the powers of agricultural industry in increasing useful productions appear so extraordinary, that we cease to feel surprise at the preference so early and generally given to agriculture over manufactures and commerce; and are disposed to subscribe, without hesitation, to the panegyric of Cicero, when he says, “Omnium autem rerum ex quibus aliquid acquiritur, nihil est agriculturâ melius, nihil uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine libero dignius.”

But are there any just grounds for this preference? Are manufactures and commerce really less advantageous than agriculture? Without the latter we should be comparatively destitute of the materials of which food and clothes are made; but were we unacquainted with the arts by which these materials, when procured, are converted into food and clothes, the largest supply of them would be of little or no service. The miller who grinds the corn, and the baker who bakes it, are as necessary to the production of bread, as the husbandman who tills the ground. It is the business of the agriculturist to raise flax and wool; but did not the spinner and weaver give them utility, and fit them for being made into a comfortable dress, they would be nearly, if not entirely worthless. But for the miner who digs the mineral from the bowels of the earth, we should not be supplied either with the precious or the useful metals, nor with the matter out of which many of our most important implements and splendid articles of furniture are made: those, however, who compare the ore when dug from the mine with the finished articles, will, most likely, be convinced that the services of the purifiers and refiners of the ore, and of the artisans who have converted the metal to useful purposes, have been as indispensable as those of the miners.

Not only, however, are manufactures requisite to render raw products of any considerable value; but it is farther evident, that without their assistance these products could not be obtained in any considerable quantity. The mechanic who fabricates the plough contributes as efficaciously to the production Edition: current; Page: [120] of corn as the husbandman who guides it. But the plough-wright, the mill-wright, the smith, and all the artisans by whom tools and machines are prepared for the husbandman, are really manufacturers, and differ in no respect from those employed to give utility to wool and cotton, except that they work on harder materials. Tools and machines are the result of the labour and ingenuity of the tool and engine manufacturer; and without their aid, it is impossible that any sort of labour should ever become considerably productive.

There is not at bottom any real distinction between agricultural and manufacturing industry. It is, as already seen, a vulgar error to suppose that the operations of husbandry add anything to the stock of matter in existence. Man merely gives to matter that particular form which fits it for his use. But it was contended by Quesnay and the Economists, and their opinions have in this instance been espoused by Adam Smith, that the husbandman is powerfully assisted in adapting matter to useful purposes by the vegetative powers of nature, whereas the manufacturer has to perform everything himself, without any such co-operation.—“No equal quantity of productive labour or capital employed in manufactures,” says Smith, “can ever occasion so great a reproduction as if it were employed in agriculture. In them nature doesnothingman doesall; and the reproduction must always be proportioned to the strength of the agents that occasion it. The capital employed in agriculture, therefore, not only puts into motion a greater quantity of productive labour than any equal capital employed in manufactures, but in proportion, too, to the quantity of productive labour which it employs, it adds a much greater value to the annual produce of the land and labour of the country, to the real wealth and revenue of its inhabitants. Of all the ways in which a capital can be employed it is by far the most advantageous to the society.”1

Edition: current; Page: [121]

This is perhaps the most objectionable passage in the “Wealth of Nations;” and it is astonishing that so cool and wary a reasoner as Smith should have maintained a doctrine so manifestly erroneous. Nature, no doubt, powerfully assists the efforts of man in agriculture. The husbandman prepares the ground for the seed and deposits it therein; but nature unfolds the germ, feeds and ripens the growing plant, and brings it to maturity. But are we less indebted to her all-powerful aid in other departments of industry? The powers of water and of wind which move our machinery, support our ships and impel them over the deep, the pressure of the atmosphere and the elasticity of steam, which enable us to work the most stupendous engines, are they not spontaneous gifts of nature? Machinery is advantageous only because by its agency we press some of the powers of nature into our service, and make them perform the whole or a large part of what we must otherwise have entirely performed ourselves. In navigation, is it possible to doubt that the powers of nature—the buoyancy of the water, the impulse of the wind, and the polarity of the magnet, contribute quite as much as the labour of the sailor to waft ships from one hemisphere to another? In bleaching and fermentation, the whole processes are carried on by natural agents. And it is to the influence of heat in softening and melting metals, preparing food, and warming houses, that we owe many of our most powerful and convenient instruments, and that these northern climates have been made to afford a comfortable habitation. So far, indeed, is it from being true that nature does much for man in agriculture, and nothing in manufactures, that the fact is more nearly the reverse. There are no limits to the bounty of nature in manufactures; but there are limits, and those not very remote, to her bounty in agriculture. The greatest amount of capital might be expended in the construction of steam-engines, or any other sort of machines; and after they had been multiplied indefinitely, the last would be as powerful and efficient in producing commodities and Edition: current; Page: [122] saving labour as the first. Such, however, is not the case with the soil. Lands of the first quality are speedily exhausted; and, notwithstanding the powerful influence of improvements, it is found to be impossible to apply capital indefinitely even to the best soils, without, in the long run, obtaining from them a diminished return. The rent of the landlord is not, as Adam Smith conceived it to be, the recompence of the work of nature remaining, after all that part of the product is deducted which can be regarded as the recompence of the work of man. It is merely the excess of the return obtained from the best soils in cultivation, over that which is obtained from the worst: it is a consequence not of the increase, but of the gradual diminution of the productive powers of the land to which recourse must be had in the progress of society. (See chapter on Rent.)

If, however, the giving of utility to matter be, as it really is, the object of every variety of industry, those who are employed in carrying commodities from where they are produced to where they are to be consumed, and in dividing them into portions suited to the wants of the consumers, are obviously as productive as those employed in agriculture or manufactures. The miner gives value to matter—to coal for example—by bringing it from the bowels of the earth to its surface; and the merchant or carrier who transports this coal from the mine whence it has been dug to the city, or place, where it is to be burned, gives it a further and perhaps a more considerable value. We do not owe our fires exclusively to the miner, or exclusively to the coal-merchant. They are the result of the conjoined operations of both, as well as of the various parties who furnished them with the tools and implements used in their respective employments.

It is probably unnecessary to do more than refer to what has been previously stated with respect to the utility of retail dealers. But the following extract from the “Wealth of Nations” sets it in a somewhat different point of view:—“If Edition: current; Page: [123] there was no such trade as a butcher, every man would be obliged to purchase a whole ox or a whole sheep at a time. This would generally be inconvenient to the rich, and much more so to the poor. If a poor workman was obliged to purchase a month’s or six months’ provisions at a time, a great part of the stock which he employs as a capital in the instruments of his trade, or in the furniture of his shop, and which yields him a revenue, he would be forced to place in that part of his stock which is reserved for immediate consumption, and which yields him no revenue. Nothing can be more convenient for such a person than to be able to purchase his subsistence from day to day, or even from hour to hour, as he wants it. He is thereby enabled to employ almost his whole stock as a capital. He is thus enabled to furnish work to a greater value; and the profit which he makes by it in this way much more than compensates the additional price which the profit of the retailer imposes upon the goods. The prejudices of some political writers against shopkeepers and tradesmen are altogether without foundation. So far is it from being necessary either to tax them, or to restrict their numbers, that they can never be multiplied so as to hurt the public interests, though they may so as to hurt one another. The quantity of grocery goods, for example, which can be sold in a particular town, is limited by the demand of that town and its neighbourhood. The capital, therefore, which can be employed in the grocery trade, cannot exceed what is sufficient to purchase that quantity. If this capital is divided between two different grocers, their competition will tend to make both of them sell cheaper than if it were in the hands of one only; and if it were divided among twenty, their competition would be just so much the greater, and the chance of their combining together in order to raise the price just so much the less. Their competition might, perhaps, ruin some of themselves; but to take care of this is the business of the parties concerned, and it may safely be trusted to their discretion. It can never hurt either the consumer or the producer; Edition: current; Page: [124] on the contrary, it must tend to make the retailers both sell cheaper and buy dearer, than if the whole trade was monopolized by one or two persons. Some of them, perhaps, may occasionally decoy a weak customer to buy what he has no occasion for. This evil is, however, of too little importance to deserve the public attention, nor would it necessarily be prevented by restricting their number.”1

It appears, therefore, that all the great varieties of industrial occupations, that is, the raising of raw produce, the fashioning of that produce into useful and desirable articles, the carrying of the raw and manufactured products from place to place, and their distribution in portions suitable to the public demand, are equally advantageous; the industry employed in any one of these departments contributing equally with that employed in the others, to increase the mass of necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries. Without supplies of raw produce, there could be no manufactures; and without manufactures and commercial industry, the greater part of these supplies would be entirely worthless. Manufacturers and merchants are to the body politic what the digestive powers are to the human body. We could not exist without food; but the largest supplies of food cannot lengthen our days, should the machinery by which it is adapted to our use, and incorporated with our body, become vitiated and deranged. Nothing, therefore, can be more silly and childish than the estimates, so frequently put forth, of the comparative advantageousness of agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial industry. They are inseparably connected, and depend upon, and grow out of each other. Agriculturists raise raw produce for manufacturers and merchants, while the latter manufacture and import necessary, convenient, and ornamental articles for the use of the former. Whatever, consequently, contributes to promote or depress the industry and enterprize of one class, must have a beneficial or injurious influence over the others. Edition: current; Page: [125] “Land and trade,” to borrow the just and forcible expressions of Sir Josiah Child, “are twins, and have always, and ever will, wax and wane together. It cannot be ill with trade but land will fall, nor ill with land but trade will feel it.”1 Hence the absurdity of attempting to exalt one species of industry, by giving it factitious advantages, at the expense of the rest. Every preference given to agriculturists over manufacturers and merchants, or to the latter over the former, is sure to occasion mischievous consequences. When individuals are left to be guided by their sense of what is best for themselves in the employment of their stock and industry, their interests are identified with those of the public; and those who are most successful in increasing their own wealth, necessarily, also, contribute most effectually to increase the wealth of the state to which they belong.

The dependence of the different branches of industry on each other, and the necessity of their co-operation to the progress of civilization, have been well illustrated in one of the early numbers of the “Edinburgh Review.” “It may safely be concluded, that all those occupations which tend to supply the necessary wants, or to multiply the comforts and pleasures of human life, are equally productive in the strict sense of the word, and tend to augment the mass of human riches; meaning, by riches, all those things which are necessary, or convenient, or delightful to man. The progress of society has been productive of a complete separation of employments originally united. At first, every man provided, as well as he could, for his necessities as well as his pleasures, and for all his wants, as well as all his enjoyments. By degrees a division of these cares was introduced; the subsistence of the community became the province of one class, its comforts of another, and its gratifications of a third. The different operations subservient to the attainment of each of these objects were then intrusted to different hands; and the universal establishment Edition: current; Page: [126] of barter connected the whole of these divisions and subdivisions together—enabled one man to manufacture for all, without danger of starving by not ploughing or hunting, and another to plough or hunt for all, without the risk of wanting tools or clothes by not manufacturing. It has thus become as impossible to say exactly who feeds, clothes, or entertains the community, as it would be to say which of the many workmen employed in the manufacture of pins is the actual pin-maker, or which of the farm servants produces the crop. All the branches of useful industry work together to the common end, as all the parts of each branch co-operate to its particular object. If you say that the farmer feeds the community, and produces all the raw materials which the other classes work upon, we answer, that unless those other classes worked up the raw materials and supplied the farmer’s necessities, he would be forced to allot part of his labour to his employment, whilst he forced others to assist in raising raw produce. In such a complicated system it is clear that all labour has the same effect, and equally increases the whole mass of wealth. Nor can any attempt be more vain than theirs who would define the particular parts of the machine that produce the motion, which is necessarily the result of the whole powers combined, and depends on each particular one of the mutually connected members.”1

Besides underrating the importance of manufactures in promoting the increase of national wealth, it has been said that they are most unfavourable to the health of the people. But this statement, though in accordance with popular prejudice, does not appear to have any good foundation. That some peculiar processes, in a few branches of manufacture, are unhealthy, is no doubt true; but that such is not the general character of manufacturing industry is evinced by the fact, that the period during which manufactures have made the Edition: current; Page: [127] most astonishing progress, has been marked by an extraordinary diminution of the rate of mortality. The number of burials, estimated by averages of five years, did not differ considerably during the entire period from 1780 to 1815, though the population increased about 3,300,000 in the interval.1 Neither was this increase occasioned by any increase in the number of births as compared with the bearing women, but by the increased number of children that were reared, and passed through the different stages of life. “About 100 years back,” says Mr. Griffith Davies, “if any dependence can be placed on the registers, the number of annual births did not exceed the number of annual burials, so that the population could not then have been on the increase. The increase since that period must, therefore, be attributed to an increased fruitfulness of the female sex, to immigration, to a diminution in the rate of mortality, or to two or more of these causes combined. But it does not appear that the first of these causes has had any sensible operation, and the second can have had none, otherwise the number of burials must have increased in comparison with the number of births, which is contrary to the fact: the increase of population must, therefore, be entirely attributed to a diminution in the rate of mortality.”2 The improvement began about the middle of last century, and has, doubtless, been owing partly to the greater prevalence of habits of cleanliness and sobriety amongst the poor, and to meliorations of their diet, dress, and houses; partly to the improvement of the climate, resulting from the drainage of bogs and marshes; and partly, and since 1800 chiefly, perhaps, to discoveries in medical science, and the extirpation of the smallpox. But to whatever causes this increased healthiness may be ascribed, there is conclusive evidence to show that they have not been countervailed by the extension of manufactures. Had such been the case, the improvement would have been greater in the country than in the towns, whereas it has, Edition: current; Page: [128] speaking generally, been decidedly less. The mortality in London, during the first half of last century is supposed to have been as high as 5 per cent.; while notwithstanding its extraordinary increase, it only amounted in 1860 to 2·25, and in 1861 to 2·3 per cent. The rate of mortality in Manchester in 1770, as deduced from the careful observations made by Dr. Percival, was 1 in 28; whereas, notwithstanding the prodigious increase of manufacturing establishments that has taken place in the interval, the mortality does not exceed, at this moment, 1 in 34. According to Dr. Enfield, the population of Liverpool, in 1773, was found, by actual enumeration to be 32,450; and dividing this number by 1,191, the annual burials at that period, we have the proportion of deaths to the whole population as 1 to 27¼. But though still high, the rate of mortality has been greatly reduced in the interval; and in Glasgow, Birmingham, and other great towns, there has been a corresponding improvement.

It must, however, be admitted, that the mortality in Lancashire very considerably exceeds its ratio in most counties of England, and that generally the mortality is greatest in the manufacturing counties. This excess cannot, however, be fairly ascribed to the nature of their principal employments, unless in so far as they may be injurious from their having to be principally carried on in-doors. Most probably it is mainly ascribable to other circumstances; such, for example, as the influx of Irish and other labourers, many of whom are in a state of all but utter destitution, and the bad and overcrowded state of the lodgings occupied by the poor. Until recently, indeed, great carelessness was evinced in devising and enforcing police and statutory regulations with regard to the construction of the inferior buildings in large towns, and the mortality in them was in consequence comparatively great. In Manchester and Liverpool, for example, a large portion of the work-people resided in under-ground cellars, which were at once damp, dark, and ill ventilated; and, in all the great manufacturing towns, the lodging-houses were crammed with Edition: current; Page: [129] occupants; and entire streets of cottages were built without any provision being made for their drainage or for furnishing them with adequate supplies of water. But the public attention having been called to these abuses, a great deal has been done within the last few years for their amendment. Comparatively few of the cellars in Liverpool and Manchester are now occupied by families. Great efforts have been made in most large towns to furnish adequate supplies of fresh water at low rates to the poorer classes. The drainage also of such towns has been rendered much more efficient, and while the streets and houses formerly occupied by the poor have been greatly improved, new streets and new houses on a superior plan have been constructed for their accommodation. Much, no doubt, still remains to be done; but the advantages of the improvements already made, and the attention that is now everywhere given to the subject, will ensure the continuance and diffusion of the new and amended system. The health of the workpeople must, also, be improved by the greater cleanliness and better ventilation that are now enforced in factories.

Hence, notwithstanding the great increase of population, and more especially of the manufacturing towns, during the last thirty years, the average rate of mortality in England has undergone but little variation, and may now (1863) be taken at about 1 in 45 of the existing population.

But, notwithstanding these statements be more than sufficient to show the groundless nature of the allegations respecting the general unhealthiness of manufacturing employments, it is not to be denied that some very serious abuses formerly existed in many factories. Owing to the lightness of the labour in various departments of the cotton, woollen, silk, and linen trades, but especially the first, children have been largely employed in them; and there can unhappily be no doubt that they were frequently employed at too early an age, and were sometimes tasked beyond what their strength could fairly bear. It was, however, objected to any interference in such matters, that the parents of the children Edition: current; Page: [130] knew best what was for their advantage, and that it would be inexpedient to interfere with the arrangements they had sanctioned. But though parental affection may, speaking generally, be trusted to for the kindly treatment of children, it is not always, nor under all circumstances, to be depended on. In this particular case, the parents, whose wages were frequently very low, were sometimes tempted or driven by necessity, to eke out their scanty means by employing their children in subordinate departments; and after the practice had once begun, it was alike easy to extend it, and difficult (notwithstanding the interference of the legislature on one or two occasions) to guard against its abuse. It has, indeed, been shown, over and over again, that many of the statements embodied in the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons, of 1832, in regard to the mischievous consequences resulting from the employment of children in factories, were either false or very much exaggerated; but still enough was established, in that Report, and in the Report of the Commission subsequently appointed to inquire into the same subject, to show that very great inattention to cleanliness, and some revolting abuses, prevailed in various factories, especially those of the smaller class. To obviate these, and other abuses, an Act was passed (3 & 4 William IV. cap. 103.) which, among other regulations, prohibited the employment of children under nine years of age in factories; and besides limiting the hours of labour of young persons between nine and eighteen years of age, forbade their being employed by night. This Act also authorized the appointment of Inspectors, under whose superintendence its provisions have been carried into effect; and though, perhaps, it may not, in some respects, have gone far enough, its operation has been, on the whole, highly beneficial.

It was attempted to ingraft on the above act some sort of provision for the education of the children employed in factories; but it is admitted that its provisions, in this respect, have not been very successful. It were, however, much to be Edition: current; Page: [131] wished that this important matter should not be neglected. Most girls brought up in factories are singularly ill-fitted for becoming mistresses of families; being, for the most part, extremely ignorant of most matters connected with domestic economy. This defect might be partially, at least, obviated by giving them instruction in the arts fitted to make them useful housewives. The acquisition of some such knowledge, though hitherto strangely neglected, would be of the greatest importance to themselves and their families.

Besides, supposing that the health of the population is injured by the extension of manufactures, it has been supposed that the extreme subdivision of labour in manufacturing establishments, and the undivided attention which those employed in them must give to the operations in which they are engaged, have a pernicious influence over the mental faculties. The genius of the master is said to be cultivated, while that of the workman is condemned to perpetual neglect. “Many mechanical arts,” says Ferguson, “require no capacity; they succeed best under a total suppression of sentiment and reason; and ignorance is the mother of industry as well as of superstition. Reflection and fancy are subject to err; but a habit of moving the hand or the foot is independent of either. Manufactures, accordingly, prosper most where the head is least consulted, and where the workshop may, without any great effort of imagination, be considered as an engine, the parts of which are men.”1 Similar statements have been made by others. Even Adam Smith, who has given so interesting an exposition of the benefits derived from the division and combination of employments, has, in this instance, concurred with the popular opinion, and has not hesitated to affirm, that constant application to a particular occupation in a large manufactory, “necessarily renders the workman as stupid and ignorant as it is possible to make a human being.” Edition: current; Page: [132] Nothing, however, can be more marvellously incorrect than these representations. Instead of the work-people in manufacturing establishments being less intelligent and acute than those employed in agriculture, the fact is distinctly the reverse. The spinners, weavers, smiths, and other mechanics of Glasgow, Manchester, and Birmingham, are cleverer and better informed than the agricultural labourers of any part of the empire. And this is really what a less prejudiced consideration of the subject would have led us to anticipate. The various occupations in which the husbandman successively engages, their liability to be affected by so variable a power as the weather, and the perpetual change in the appearance of the objects which daily meet his eyes, and with which he is conversant, occupy his attention, and render him a stranger to that ennui and desire for adventitious excitement which must ever be felt by those who are constantly engaged in burnishing the point of a pin, or in performing the same endless routine of precisely similar operations. This want of excitement cannot, however, be so cheaply or effectually gratified in any way as it may be by cultivating or stimulating the mental powers. Most workmen have no time for dissipation; and though they had, the wages of labour are too low, and the propensity to save too powerful, to allow of their generally seeking to divert themselves by indulging in riot and excess. The majority are in this way compelled, as it were, to resort for recreation to mental excitement; for the enjoyment of which their situation affords every facility. Agricultural labourers, spread over a wide extent of country, are without the means of assembling, except on rare occasions, either for amusement or instruction; but, by working together, the people employed in factories have constant opportunities of discussing all topics of interest and importance. They are thus unconsciously trained to habits of thinking and reflection; their intellects are sharpened by the collision of conflicting opinions; and a small contribution from each enables them to establish lectureships and libraries, and to Edition: current; Page: [133] obtain supplies of newspapers and periodical publications. But whatever doubts may exist respecting the cause, whether it be ascribed to the better elementary instruction of the lower classes in towns and villages, or to the circumstances under which they are placed in after life, there can be none of the fact, that the intelligence of manufacturing workmen has increased according as their numbers have increased, and as their employments have been more and more subdivided. There is not, we apprehend, any real ground for supposing that they were ever less intelligent than the agriculturists; though, whatever may have been the case formerly, none will now venture to affirm that they are inferior to them in intellectual acquirements, or that they are mere machines without sentiment or reason.

But assuming, what, indeed, can no longer be denied, the superior intelligence of the manufacturing population, we are not thence to conclude that it will be in general orderly, and disposed to respect and support the right of property and the established institutions of the country. The acquisition of information is valuable for the direct gratification it brings along with it, and for the assistance it affords to those who are improving, or seeking to improve, their condition; but it is by no means clear that it is at all fitted to reconcile the labouring classes to their lot. A stupid or an ignorant individual most commonly regards the privations incident to his situation as the effect of circumstances beyond human control, and submits to them as to the dispensations of Providence, without reflection or murmur; but he who is instructed, who is acquainted with the constitution of society, and with the privileges and advantages enjoyed by other classes, may not be so apathetic, nor, probably, so resigned to his fate. We are not, we confess, of the number of those who can contemplate the condition and prospects of the labourers in our great manufacturing towns without grave apprehensions. Owing to the greater scale on which employments are now mostly Edition: current; Page: [134] carried on, workmen have less chance than formerly of advancing themselves or their families to any higher situation, or of exchanging the character of labourers for that of masters. But, under these circumstances, can any thing be more natural, than that instructed workmen, who are thus condemned as it were to perpetual helotism, to continued poverty and hard labour, should become discontented? It would, in fact, be extraordinary were such not the case. It is all very well for those who are at ease in their possessions, or who can by industry and exertion raise themselves to an improved situation, to profess their attachment to the existing order of things, and their determination to support it at all hazards. But, if called upon, such persons would, perhaps, be not a little puzzled to show that a poor collier, cotton-spinner, or handloom weaver, has any very papable interest in its support; or that he would be seriously injured by its overthrow. Something, no doubt, may be done to strengthen the existing institutions of the country, by improving the education of the poor, and showing them in how great a degree their condition must always depend upon themselves, and how closely their interests are identified with those of their employers, and with the preservation of tranquillity and good order. But, after all, it would not be safe to lay much stress on education. A man must have a lively and grateful sense of the advantages he derives, or may derive, from established institutions before any species of training will make him anxious for their preservation. But a poor manufacturing workman, who contrasts his abject and hopeless condition, and that of his family and class, with the boundless wealth, luxury, and varied enjoyments of other portions of the community, will be very apt to conclude that there is something radically wrong in a system productive of such results, and may be disposed to lend a willing ear to those dangerous counsellors, who tell him that he is the victim of vicious political and social arrangements, and that he must look to a change in them for an improvement of his situation. We incline to think that there Edition: current; Page: [135] is at all times a good deal of deep-seated discontent among the manufacturing population. But when trade is good, prices moderate, and the country prosperous, this discontent, like latent heat, rarely manifests itself. It is otherwise, however, in periods of public distress or calamity; under such circumstances it makes itself both heard and felt; and all sorts of projects for the reform or rather overthrow of the constitution are then sure to be put forward.

It should be kept in mind that a population dependent, in so great a degree as that of Great Britain, on the wages of manufacturing labour, is especially liable to have its interests deeply compromised, not merely by the occurrence of scarcities and pecuniary derangements at home, but also by whatever may affect the sale of its products in those foreign countries to which they are largely exported. It is not to be denied that a large population so situated is in a perilous position. So long as the population dependent on manufacturing industry is not very large as compared with the rest of the population, the occurrence of the vicissitudes alluded to is of comparatively little importance. But when manufacturing work-people become so very numerous as in Great Britain, and increase with such extraordinary rapidity, as they have done here during the last fifty years, the occurrence of any circumstance that tends to reduce the wages of labour, to raise the prices of provisions, or to throw any considerable number of persons out of employment, becomes an evil of the greatest magnitude, and is not only productive of much immediate distress to those directly affected by it, but is very likely seriously to endanger the public tranquillity. Demagogues, and the workshop agitators so frequently met with in the manufacturing districts, never fail to take advantage of the excitement produced by the occurrence of distress, to instil their poisonous nostrums into the public mind; to vilify the institutions of the country; and to represent the privations of the work-people which, in the vast majority of cases, spring from accidental and uncontrollable causes, as the necessary Edition: current; Page: [136] consequence of a defective system of domestic economy, having regard alone to the interests of the higher classes.

It would be useless to refer to particular instances in confirmation of what is now stated. These, unhappily, are too numerous and too recent not to have forced themselves on the attention of every one. And yet, critical as is the condition of society from the vast increase of manufacturing labourers, it would really seem as if we had done little more than enter on this new and hazardous career. At present, notwithstanding the vicissitudes and revulsions that occasionally recur, and the check given to the cotton trade, manufacturing employments are extending on all sides, and it may be estimated, that an addition of above 230,000 individuals is annually made to the population of Great Britain.

In such a novel and unprecedented state of things the rules and inferences drawn from the contemplation of society in antiquity, or in more modern times, are wholly inapplicable; and we are left with little or no light from experience to speculate on the probable course and results of this new state of society. We doubt whether the prospect be very flattering, either as regards the tranquillity of the country, or the well-being of the bulk of the people. There may, however, be principles at work, which have not yet developed themselves, capable of educing good out of seeming evil, and of neutralising those circumstances which threaten to be prolific of mischief. We may be permitted to hope, that a system which at its outset was productive of so great an increase of wealth, prosperity, and enjoyment, may not end in national ruin and disgrace.

Perhaps it may, in the end, be found that it was unwise to allow the manufacturing system to gain so great an ascendancy as it has done in this country, and that measures should have been early adopted to check and moderate its growth. At present, however, nothing of this sort can be thought of. Whether for good or for evil, we are now too far advanced to think of retreating. We have no resource but to give it full scope, taking care, however, to do all that is possible by judicious Edition: current; Page: [137] legislation to avert and modify revulsions. In this respect the measures introduced by Sir Robert Peel, for giving full freedom to our intercourse with foreigners and improving our monetary system have been of the greatest importance. And if, in addition to these wise and salutary measures, tranquillity be maintained at home and abroad, objectionable imposts modified or abolished, and public charity be so administered as to relieve the distresses without insulting the feelings or lessening the industry of the labouring classes, all, perhaps, will be done to give stability to industry and good order of which legislation is capable. But that these things will be done, or that, if done, they will be adequate to meet the exigencies of the case, is more than any man of sense would choose to affirm. They, however, are things which government may endeavour to accomplish; and provided it succeed in its efforts, the event may be, or rather must be, left to time and Providence.

In estimating the influence of manufactures over the prosperity and happiness of nations, it would seem that they are, if at all, injurious or hazardous only in their excess, or when a very large proportion of the population has been, through their agency, rendered dependent on foreign demand and on the caprices and mutations of fashion. Down to a certain point, the progress of manufactures is productive, if not of unalloyed advantage, at all events of a great preponderance thereof. It is to their progress and that of commerce that we owe the growth of cities; and mankind are mainly indebted to the latter, not only for the rapid advances they have made in civilization, but also for the diffusion of just notions of government and of liberal principles. Men seldom entertain a just sense of their own importance, or acquire a knowledge of their rights, or are able to defend them with courage and success, till they have been congregated into cities. An agricultural population, thinly distributed over an extensive country, and without any point of reunion, rarely opposes any very vigorous Edition: current; Page: [138] resistance to the most arbitrary and oppressive measures. But such is not the case with the inhabitants of towns; they are actuated by the same spirit, and derive courage from their numbers and union; the bold animate the timid; the resolute confirm the wavering; the redress of an injury done to one citizen becomes the business of all; they take their measures in common, and prosecute them with a vigour and resolution, that generally makes the boldest minister pause in an unpopular career. The most superficial, as well as the most profound reader of history must acknowledge the truth of this statement; the establishment of extensive manufactures and commerce having everywhere been consentaneous with the rise of public freedom, and with the introduction of an improved system of government.1

If we be right in the previous statements, it will appear that the beneficial influence of manufactures depends, in great measure, on their being subordinate, in point of extent, to agriculture and other more stable businesses; and there is reason to fear that their influence is of a much less salutary description, when they constitute the paramount interest. We have noticed the tendency, so apparent in the progress of manufactures, to the increase of great establishments, where a few individuals superintend great numbers of work-people. But we doubt whether any country, how wealthy soever, should be looked upon as being in a healthy and really sound state, where the leading interest consists of a small number of great capitalists, and of vast numbers of work-people in their employment, but unconnected with them by any ties of gratitude, sympathy, or affection. This estrangement is occasioned by the great scale on which labour is now carried on in most businesses; and by the consequent impossibility of the masters becoming acquainted, even if they desired it, with the great bulk of their work-people. Generally, indeed, they do not so Edition: current; Page: [139] much as know their names; they look only to their conduct when in the mill or factory; and are wholly ignorant of their mode of life when out of it, and of the condition of their families. The kindlier feelings have no share in an intercourse of this description; speaking generally, every thing is regulated on both sides by the narrowest and most selfish views and considerations; a man and a machine being treated with about the same sympathy and regard. A population of this sort can hardly fail to be extremely prone to discontent. Work-people who have little or nothing to lose, and who care little for, or, it may be, hate those who have, are easily misled, and will be exceedingly apt, in periods of distress, to adopt violent resolutions, destructive of the interests of others, and probably, also, of their own. If these results have not been so strongly manifested in this country as might have been anticipated, the result is mainly owing to the operation of the poor laws. They have provided a resource for the work-people in periods of distress; and have hindered them from feeling anything like the full influence of the privations, and consequently of the temptations to outrage to which they would otherwise have been exposed.

We have not made these statements because we entertain any doubts of the advantages resulting from the progressive improvement of the arts. What we have stated has reference only to the excessive growth of manufactures in particular countries, and not to improvements of any kind. The facilities for the production of cottons, woollens, and hardware, for example, cannot assuredly be too much increased; but it does not, therefore, follow that the cotton, woollen, and hardware manufactures of England may not be disproportionally extended, or rather that they may not be so increased as to place a large proportion of our people, and with them the best interests of the country, in a very hazardous situation; in the same way that the safety of the largest and best built ship may be endangered by crowding too much sail. Supposing, however, that this were admitted, it might be asked, Edition: current; Page: [140] would you then propose, when a business is rapidly increasing, and when that very circumstance shows that it is, at the time, the best suited to the country, that its progress should be checked by artificial means? Practically, it is abundantly certain that all questions of this sort, supposing them to be put, will, for a lengthened period, be decided in the negative. But looking at it in a scientific point of view, everything, it is plain, would depend on our being able to form a correct estimate of the character of the business referred to, and of the contingent circumstances connected therewith. Certainly, however, our experience is at present far too limited to enable anyone to cast the horoscope of any great department of industry; and, notwithstanding its vast importance, the solution of this class of questions must be left to the economists of some future age.

That hostility to commercial pursuits so generally entertained by the philosophers of antiquity, and which has been inherited by many of their successors in modern times, seems to have originated principally in the idea that commerce is unfavourable to the patriotic virtues, and that those who are familiar with foreign countries cease to entertain any very peculiar regard for their own. That there is some foundation for this statement is true; but it is not true that commerce tends to weaken that love of country which is founded upon just grounds. It merely moderates that excessive preference of ourselves to every other people, which is a sure proof of ignorance and barbarism: and in this respect it differs nothing from the acquaintance with foreigners obtained through the medium of books. The traveller who visits a foreign country, and the individual who reads an account of it, naturally compares its institutions with those of his own country. There is, however, no reason for supposing that this will make him unjustly depreciate the latter, though it may satisfy him that they are not quite so super-excellent as he previously imagined: and if it should appear, on a careful Edition: current; Page: [141] comparison, that any of our laws or practices are not so well suited as those of some foreign states to promote the public interests, what can be more desirable than to have the means of rectifying and amending them, not upon speculative or doubtful grounds, but according to the experience of other nations? A Turk, or a Spaniard, may be as patriotic as an Englishman; but the patriotism of the former is a blind indiscriminating passion, which prompts him to admire and support the very abuses that depress and degrade himself and his country; whereas the patriotism of the latter is comparatively sober and rational. He prefers his country, not merely because of its being the place of his birth, and of the many ennobling recollections connected with its history, but because, in addition to these circumstances, he finds, upon contrasting it with others, that though not faultless, its institutions are comparatively excellent.

The idea that the patriotism of those engaged in commercial pursuits is less ardent than that of agriculturists, never could have been entertained by any one acquainted with history, unless he were, at the same time, blinded by prejudice. Were the Athenians or Corinthians less patriotic than the Spartans or Thebans? Alexander the Great had more difficulty in conquering Tyre than in subduing the whole Persian empire; and Carthage had nearly arrested the Romans in their progress to universal dominion. But it is needless to go back to antiquity for examples to prove the beneficial influence of commerce on the patriotic virtues. The Hollanders and the English have been less distinguished among the nations of Europe for their vast commerce and wealth, than for the extraordinary sacrifices and exertions they have made for the sake of private freedom and national independence.

Edition: current; Page: [142]