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 LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 MRS. H. RUSSELL AMORY 
 
 GIFT OF HER CHILDREN 
 R. W. AND NINA PARTRIDGE
 
 
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 CAPITAL AND LABOUR; 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 BY CHARLES KNIGHT. 
 
 LONDON: 
 CHARLES KNIGHT & Co., LUDGATE STREET. 
 
 1845.
 
 IRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND 30N3, 
 STAMFORD STREET.
 
 
 ( vii ) 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 " The Results of Machinery " was written by me 
 at a period of great national alarm, when a blind 
 rage against a power supposed to interfere with the 
 claims of Labour was generally prevalent, and led, 
 in the Southern agricultural districts especially, to 
 many acts of daring violence. That little book 
 had a most extensive sale, and is still in constant 
 demand. Fifty thousand copies have been sold 
 since its first publication. Within a year after 
 that publication I wrote a second tract, " Capital 
 and Labour," which was to form part of a Series 
 entitled '' The Rights of Industry." This Series 
 I never could find leisure to proceed with. It has 
 appeared to me that the two parts might be advan- 
 tageously incorporated. Machinery, in connexion 
 wirh Capital and Labour, is one of the great in- 
 struments of Production. In this Volume, then.
 
 Vlll ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 thus remodelled, the general subject of the Pro- 
 duction OF Wealth is fully, though popularly- 
 expounded. The original Tracts were especially 
 addressed to Working Men. This Volume is ad- 
 dressed to all. The Statistical details are brought 
 up to the present time. 
 
 Charles Knight. 
 September 20, 1845.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Let us suppose a man brought up in civilized life, cast 
 upon a desert land — without food, without clothes, with- 
 out fire, without tools. We see the human being in the 
 very lowest state of helplessness. Most of the know- 
 ledge he had acquired would be worse than useless ; for 
 it would not be applicable in any way to his new posi- 
 tion. Let the land upon which he is thrown produce 
 spontaneous fruits — let it be free from ferocious animals — 
 let the climate be most genial — still the man would be 
 exceedingly powerless and wretched. The first condi- 
 tion of his lot, to enable him to maintain existence at ail, 
 would be that he should labour. He must labour to 
 gather the berries from the trees — he must labour to ob- 
 tain water from the rivulets — he must labour to form a 
 garment of leaves, or of some equally accessible material, 
 to shield his body from the sun — he must labour to render 
 some cave or hollow tree a secure place of shelter from 
 the dews of night. There would be no intermission of 
 the labour necessary to provide a supply of food from 
 hand to mouth, even in the season when wild fruits were 
 abundant. If this labour, in the most favourable season, 
 were interrupted for a single day, or at most for two or 
 tiiree days, by sickness, he would in all probability perish. 
 But, when the autumn was past, and the wild fruits were 
 gone, he must prolong existence like some savage tribes 
 are reported to do — by raw fish and undressed roots. 
 
 B
 
 10 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 The labour of procuring these would be infinitely greater 
 than that of climbing trees for fruit. To catch fish with- 
 out nets, and scratch up roots with naked hands, is indeed 
 painful toil. The helplessness of this man's condition 
 would principally be the effect of one circumstance ; — he 
 would possess no accumulation of former labour by which 
 his present labour might be profitably directed. TJie 
 power of labour ivould in his case be in its least produce 
 five state. He would partly justify the assertion that 
 man has the feeblest natural means of any animal ; — be- 
 cause he would be utterly unpossessed of those means 
 which the reason of man has accumulated around every 
 individual in the social state. 
 
 We asked the reader to suppose a civilized man in the 
 very lowest state in which the power of labour may Ije 
 exercised, because there is no record of any civilized man 
 being for any length of time in such a state. 
 
 Ross Cox, a Hudson's Bay ti*ader, whose adventures 
 were given to the world about twelve years ago, was in 
 this state for a fortnight ; and his sufferings may furnish 
 some idea of the gi-eater miseries of a continuance in such 
 a powerless condition. Having fallen asleep in the 
 woods of the north-west of America, which he had been 
 traversing with a large party, he missed the traces of his 
 companions. The weather being very hot, he had left 
 nearly all his clothes with his horse when he rambled 
 from his friends. He had nothing to defend himself 
 against the wolves and serpents but a stick ; he had no- 
 thing of which to make his bed but long grass and rushes ; 
 he had nothing to eat but hips and wild cherries. The 
 man would doubtless have perished, unless he had met 
 with some Indians, who knew better how to avail them- 
 selves of the spontaneous productions around them. But 
 this is not an instance of the continuance of Labour in 
 the lowest state of its power. 
 
 The few individuals, also, who have been found ex- 
 })osed in forests, such as Peter the Wild Boy, and the 
 Savage of Aveyron, — who were discovered, the one 
 about a century ago, in Germany, the other about forty 
 years since, in France, — differed from the civilized man
 
 CAPlTAIi AND LABOUR. 1 1 
 
 cast naked upon a desert shore in this particular ,• their 
 ivants were of the lowest nature. Thej were not raised 
 above the desires of the most brutish animals. They 
 supplied those desires after the fashion of brutes. Peter 
 was enticed from the woods by the sight of two apples, 
 which the man who found him displayed. He did not 
 like breai, but he eagerly peeled green sticks, and 
 chewed the rind. He had, doubtless, subsisted in this 
 way in the woods. He would not, at first, w^ear shoes, 
 and delighted to throw the hat which was given him into 
 the river. He was brought to England, and lived many 
 years with a farmer in Hertfordshire. During the Scotch 
 Rebellion, in 1745, he wandered into Norfolk ; and 
 having been apprehended as a sus})icious character, was 
 sent to prison. The gaol was on fire ; and Peter was 
 found in a corner, enjoying the warmth of the flames 
 without any fear. The Savage of Aveyron, in the same 
 manner, had the lowest desires and the feeblest powers. 
 He could use his hands, for instance, for no other pur- 
 pose than to seize upon an object ; and his sense of touch 
 was so defective, that he could not distinguish a raised 
 surface, such as a carving, from a painting. This cir- 
 cumstance of the low physical and intellectual powers of 
 these unfortunate persons prevents us exhibiting them as 
 examples of the state which we asked the reader to sup- 
 pose. 
 
 Let us advance another step in our view of the power 
 of Labour. Let us take a man in one respect in the 
 same condition that we supposed — left upon a desert 
 land, without any direct social aid ; but with some help 
 to his labour by a small Accumulation of former industry. 
 We have instances on record of this next state. 
 
 In the year 1681 a Moskito Indian was left by acci- 
 dent on the island of Juan Fernandez, in the Pacific 
 Ocean ; the English ship, in which he was a sailor, 
 having been chased oft' the coast by some hostile Spanish 
 vessels. Captain Dampier describes this man's condition 
 in the following words : — 
 
 '• This Indian lived here alone above three years ; and 
 although he was several times sought after by the Spa-
 
 12 CAPITAL AND lABOUK. 
 
 niards, who knew he was left on the island, jet they 
 could never find him. He was in the woods hunting 
 for goats, when Captain Watlin drew oif his men, and 
 the ship was under sail before he came back to shore. 
 He had with him his gun, and a knife, with a small horn 
 of powder, and a few shot ; which being spent, he con- 
 trived a way, by notching his knife, to saw the barrel of 
 his gun into small pieces, wherewith he made harpoons, 
 lances, hooks, and a long knife ; heating the pieces hrst 
 in the lire, which he strack with his gun-flint, and a 
 piece of the barrel of his gun, which he hardened ; 
 having leamt to do that among the English. The hot 
 pieces of iron he would hammer out, and bend as he 
 pleased with stones, and saw them with his jagged knife, 
 or grind them to an edge by long labour, and harden 
 them to a good temper as there was occasion.* With 
 such instruments as he made in that manner, he got such 
 provisions as the island afibrded, either goats or hsh. He 
 told us that at first he was forced to eat seal, which is 
 very ordinary meat, beibre he had made hooks ; but 
 afterwards he never killed any seals but to make lines, 
 cutting their skins into thongs. He had a little house, 
 or hut, half a mile from the sea, which was lined with 
 goat's skin ; his couch, or barbecu of sticks, lying along 
 about two feet distance from the ground, was spread with 
 the same, and was all his bedding. He had no clothes 
 left ; having Avorn out those he brought from Watlin's 
 ship, but only a skin about his waist. He saw our ship 
 the day before we came to an anchor, and did believe we 
 were English ; and therefore killed three goats in the 
 morning, before we came to an anchor, and drest them 
 with cabbage, to treat us when we came ashore." 
 
 Here, indeed, is a material alteration in the wealth of 
 a man left on an uninhabited island. He had a regulsir 
 
 * It is difficult to understand how the Indian could convert 
 theiro7i gun-barrel info steel, which it appears, from Dampier's 
 account, that he did. Steel is produced by a scientific ad- 
 mixture of carbon with iron. But we assume that the state- 
 ment is correct, and that a conversion, partial doubtless, of 
 iron into steel did take place.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 13 
 
 supply of goats and fish ; he had the means of cooking 
 this food ; he had a house lined with goats' skins, and 
 bedding of the same ; his body was clothed with skins ; 
 he had provisions in abundance to offer, properly cooked, 
 when his old companions came to him after three years' 
 absence. What gave him this power to labour profitably ? 
 — to maintain existence in tolerable comfort V Simply, 
 the gun, the knife, and the flint, which he accidentally 
 had with him when the ship sailed away. The flint and 
 the bit of steel which he hardened out of the gun-barrel, 
 gave him the means of procuring fire ; the gun became 
 the material for making harpoons, lances, and hooks, with 
 which he could obtain fish and flesh. Till he had these 
 tools, he was compelled to eat seal's flesh. The instant 
 he possessed the tools, he could make a selection of what 
 was most agreeable to his taste. It is almost impossible 
 to imagine a human being with less accumulation about 
 him. His small stock of powder and shot was soon spent, 
 and he had only an iron gun-barrel and a knife left, with 
 the means of changing the form of the gun-barrel by fire. 
 Yet this single accumulation enabled him to direct his 
 labour, as all labour is directed even in its highest 
 employment, to the change of form and change of place 
 of the natural supplies by which he was surrounded. He 
 created nothing ; he only gave his natural supplies a value 
 by his labour. Until he laboured, the things about him 
 had no value, as far as he was concerned ; when he did 
 obtain them by labour, they instantly acquired a value. 
 He brought the wild goat from the mountain to his hut 
 in the valley — he changed its place ; he converted its 
 flesh into cooked food, and its skin into a lining for his 
 bed — he changed its form. Change of form and change 
 of place are the begiiming and end of all human labour ; 
 and the Moskito Indian only employed the same prin- 
 ciple for the supply of his M-ants, which directs the labour 
 of all the producers of civilized life into the channels of 
 manufactures or commerce. 
 
 But the Moskito Indian, far removed as his situation 
 was above the condition of the man without any accumu- 
 lation of former labour — that is, of the man without any
 
 14 CAPITAL A>D LABOUR. 
 
 capital about him — was only in tlie second stage in which 
 the power of labour can he exercised, and in which it is 
 comparatively still weak and powerless. He laboured — 
 he laljoured with accumulation — but he laboured without 
 that other power which gives the last and hig-hest direc- 
 tion to profitable labour. 
 
 Let us state all the conditions necessary for the pro- 
 duction of Utility, or of what is essential to the support, 
 comlbrt, and pleasure of human life : — • 
 
 1. lliat there shall he Lahour. 
 
 The man thrown upon a desert island without accu- 
 mulation, — the half-idiot boy who wandered into the 
 German forests at so early an age that he forgot all the 
 usages of mankind, — were each compelled to labour, and 
 to labour unceasingly, to maintain existence. Even 
 with an unbounded connnand of the spontaneous jjroduc- 
 tions of nature, this condition is absolute. It applies to 
 the inferior animals as well as to man. The bee wanders 
 from flower to flower, but it is to labour for the honey. 
 The sloth hangs upon the branches of a tree, but he 
 labours till he has devoured all the leaves, and then 
 climbs another tree. The condition of the support of 
 animation is labour ; and if the labour of all animals were 
 miraculously suspended for a season, very short as com- 
 j)ared with the duration of individual life, the reign of 
 animated nature upon this globe would be at an end. 
 
 The second condition in the production of utility is, — 
 
 2. That there shall he accumulation of former lahour, 
 or. Capital. 
 
 Without accumulation, as we have seen, the condition 
 of man is the Iom est in the scale of animal existence. 
 The reason is obvious. Man requires some accumulation 
 to aid his natural ix)wers of labouring ; for he is not pro- 
 vided with instiumtnts of labour to anything like the 
 perfection in which they exist amongst the inferior 
 animals. He wants the gnawing teeth, the tearing 
 claws, the sharp bills, the solid mandibles that enable 
 quadruj^eds, and birds, and insects to secure their food,
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 15 
 
 and to provide shelter in so many ingenious ways, each 
 leading us to admire and reverence the directing Pro- 
 vidence which presides over such manifold contrivances, 
 lie must, therefore, to work profitably, accumulate instru- 
 ments of work. But he nmst do more, even in tlie 
 unsocial state, where he is at perfect liberty to direct his 
 industiy as he pleases uncontrolled by the rights of other 
 men. He must accumulate stores of covering and of 
 shelter. He must have a hut, and a bed of skins, which 
 are all accumulations, or capital. He must, further, have 
 a stock of food, which stock, being the most essential for 
 human wants, is called provisions, or things provided. 
 He would require this provision against the accidents 
 which may occur to his own health, and the obstacles of 
 weather, which may prevent him from fishing or hunting. 
 The lowest savages have some stores. Many of the 
 inferior animals display an equal care to provide for the 
 exigencies of the future. But still, all such labour is 
 extremely limited. When a man is occupied only in 
 providing immediately for his own wants — doing every- 
 thing for himself, consuming nothing but what he pro- 
 duces himself, — his labour must have a very narrow 
 range. The supply of the lowest necessities of our nature 
 can only be attended to, and these must be very ill sup- 
 plied. The Moskito Indian had fish, and goats' flesh, 
 and a rude hut, and a girdle of skins ; and his power 
 of obtaining this wealth was insured to him by the 
 absence of other individuals who would have been his 
 competitors for what the island spontaneously pro- 
 duced. Had other Indians landed in numbers on the 
 island, and had each set about procuring everything for 
 himself, as the active Moskito did, they would have soon 
 approached the point of starvation ; and then each would 
 have begun to plunder from the other, unless they had 
 found out the principle that would have given them all 
 plenty. There wanted, then, another power to give the 
 labour of the Indian a profitable direction, besides that 
 of accumulation. It is a power which can only exist 
 where man is social, as it is his nature to be ; — and where 
 the principles of civilization are in a certain degree
 
 16 CAPITAL AXD LABOUR. 
 
 developed- It is, indeed, the beginning and the end of 
 all civilization. It is itself civilization, partial or com- 
 plete. It is the last and the most important condition 
 in the production of useful commodities, — 
 
 3. That there shall he Exchanges. 
 
 There can be no exchanges without accumulation — 
 there can be no accumulation without labour. Exchange 
 is that step beyond the constant labour and the partial 
 accumulation of the lower animals, which makes man the 
 iord of the world.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Society, both in its rudest form and in its most refined 
 and complicated relations, is nothing' but a system of Ex- 
 changes. An exchange is a transaction in which both 
 the parties who make the exchange are benefited ; — and, 
 consequently, society is a state presenting an uninter- 
 rupted succession of advantages for all its members. 
 Every time that we make a free exchange we have a 
 greater desire for the thing which we receive than for 
 the thing which we give ; — and the person with whom 
 we make the exchange has a greater desire for that which 
 we offer him than for that which he ofiers us. When one 
 gives his labour for wages, it is because he has a higher 
 estimation of the wages, than of the profitless ease and 
 freedom of remaining unemployed ; — and, on the con- 
 trary, the employer who purchases his labour, feels that 
 he shall be more benefited by the results of that labour, 
 than by retaining the capital which he exchanges for it. 
 In a simple state of society, when one man exchanges a 
 measure of wheat for the measure of wine which another 
 man possesses, it is evident that the one has got a greater 
 store of wheat than he desires to consume himself, and 
 that the other, in the same way, has got a greater store 
 of M'ine ; — the one exchanges something to eat for some- 
 thing to drink, and the other something to drink for 
 something to eat. In a refined state of society, when 
 money represents the value of the exchanges, the ex- 
 change between the abundance beyond the wants of the 
 possessor of one commodity, and of another, is just as 
 real as the barter of wheat for wine. The only dilfer- 
 
 B 3
 
 18 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 ence is, that the exchange is not so direct, although it is 
 incomparably more rapid. But, however the system of 
 exchange be carried on, — whether the value of the things 
 exchanged be determined by barter or by a price in 
 money, — all the exchangers are benefited, because all 
 obtain what they want, through the store which they 
 possess of what they do not want. 
 
 It has been well said, that " Man might be defined to 
 be an animal that makes exchanges."* There are other 
 animals, indeed, such as bees and ants amongst insects, 
 and beavers amongst quadrupeds, who to a certain extent 
 are social ; that is, they concur together in the execution 
 of a common work for a common good : but as to their 
 individual possessions, each labours to obtain what it de- 
 sires from sources accessible to all, or plunders the stores 
 of others. Not one insect or quadruped, however won- 
 derful may be its approaches to rationality, has the least 
 idea of making a formal exchange with another. The 
 modes by which the inferior animals communicate their 
 thoughts are probably not sufficiently determinate to 
 allow of any such agreement. The very foundation of 
 that agreement is a complicated principle, which man 
 alone can understand. It is the Security of individual 
 Property. Immediately that this principle is established, 
 labour begins to work profitably, for it works with ex- 
 change. If the principle of appropriation were not acted 
 upon at all, there could be no exchange, and consequently 
 no production. The scanty bounty of nature might be 
 scrambled for by a few miserable individuals — and the 
 strongest would obtain the best share ; but this insecurity 
 would necessarily destroy all accumulation. Each would 
 of course live from hand to mouth, when the means of 
 living were constantly exposed to the violence of the 
 more powerful. This is the state of the lowest savages, 
 and as it is an extreme state it is a rare one, — no se- 
 curity, no exchange, no capital, no labour, no production. 
 Let us apply the principle to an individual case. 
 
 The poet who has attempted to describe the feelings 
 of a man suddenly cut off from human society, in ' Verses 
 * Dr. Whalely's lectures on Political Economy.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 19 
 
 supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk during his 
 solitary abode in the island of Juan Fernandez,' repre- 
 sents him as saying, " I am monarch of all I survey."* 
 Alexander Selkirk was left upon the same island as the 
 Moskito Indian ; and his adventures there have formed 
 the groundwork of the beautiful romance of ' Robinson 
 Crusoe.' The meaning of the poet is, that the unsocial 
 man had the same right over all the natural productive 
 powers of the country in which he had taken up his 
 abode, as we each have over light and air. He was 
 alone ; and therefore he exercised an absolute, although 
 a barren sovereignty, over the wild animals by which he 
 was surrounded — over the land and over the water. Ho 
 was, in truth, the one proprietor — the one capitalist, and 
 the one labourer — of the whole island. His absolute 
 }>roperty in the soil, and his perfect freedom of action, 
 were both dependent upon one condition — that he should 
 remain alone. If the Moskito Indian, for instance, had 
 remained in the island, Selkirk's entire sovereignty must 
 have been instantly at an end. Some more definite prin- 
 ci})le of appropriation must have been established, which 
 would have given to Selkirk, as well as to the Moskito 
 Indian, the right to appropriate distinct parts of the 
 island each to his particular use. Selkirk, for example, 
 might have agreed to remain on the eastern coast, while 
 the Indian might have established himself on the west- 
 ern ; — and then the fruits, the goats, and the fish of the 
 eastern part would have been appropriated to Selkirk, as 
 distinctly as the clothes, the musket, the iron pot, the 
 can, the hatchet, the knii'e, the mathematical instruments, 
 and the Bible, which he brought on shore. f If the 
 Indian's territory had produced something which Selkirk 
 liad not, and if Selkirk's land had also something which 
 the Indian's had not, they might have become ex- 
 changers. They would have passed into that condition 
 naturally enough ; — imperfectly perhaps, but still as easily 
 
 * Cowper's Miscellaneous Poems. 
 
 f These circumstances are recorJed in Captain Woodes 
 Rogers" Cruiziii!? Vova.^e ruund the World, 1712.
 
 20 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 as any barbarous people who do not cultivate the earth, 
 but exchange her spontaneous products. 
 
 The poet goes on to make the solitary man say, " My 
 right there is none to dispute." The condition of Alex- 
 ander Selkirk was unquestionably one of absolute liberty. 
 His rights were not measured by his duties. He had all 
 rights and no duties. JSIany writers on the origin of 
 society have held that man, upon entering into union 
 with his fellow-men. and submitting, as a necessary con- 
 sequence of this union, to the restraints of law and go- 
 vernment, sacrifices a portion of his liberty, or natural 
 power, for the security of that power which remains to 
 him. No such agreement amongst mankind could ever 
 have possibly taken place ; for man is by his nature, and 
 without any agreement, a social being. He is a being 
 whose rights are balanced by the uncontrollable force of 
 their relation to the rights of others. The succour 
 which the infant man requires from its parents, to an 
 extent, and for a duration, so much exceeding that re- 
 quired for the nurture of other creatures, is the natural 
 beginning of the social state, established insensibly and 
 by degrees. The liberty which the social man is thus 
 compelled by the force of circumstances to renounce, 
 amounts only to a restraint upon his brute power of doing 
 injury to his fellow-men : and for this sacrifice, in itself 
 the cause of the highest individual and therefore general 
 good, he obtains that dominion over every other being, 
 and that control over the productive forces of nature, 
 which alone can render him the monarch of all he sur- 
 veys. The poor sailor, who for four years was cut off 
 from human aid, and left alone to struggle for the means 
 of supporting existence, was an exception, and a \ery 
 rare one, to the condition of our species all over the 
 world. His absolute rights placed him in the condition 
 of uncontrolled feebleness; if he had become social, he 
 would have put on the regulated strength of rights ba- 
 lanced by duties. 
 
 Alexander Selkirk was originally left upon the unin- 
 habited island of Juan Fernandez at his own urgent de- 
 sire. He was unhapj»y on board his ship, in consequence
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 21 
 
 of disputes with his captain ; and he resol\ed to rush 
 into a state which might probably have separated him for 
 ever from the rest of mankind. In the belief that he 
 should be so separated, he devoted all his labour and all 
 his ingenuity to the satisfaction of his own wants alone. 
 By continual exercise, he was enabled to run down tlie 
 wild goat upon the mountains ; and by persevering 
 search, he knew where to find the native roots that would 
 render his goat's flesh palatable. He never thought, 
 however, of ])roviding any store beyond the supply of his 
 own personal necessities. He had no moti\e for that 
 thought ; because there was no human being within his 
 reach with whom he might exchange that store for other 
 stores. The very instant, hovrcver, that the English 
 ships, which finally gave him back to society, touched 
 upon his shores, — before he communicated by speech 
 with any of his fellow-men, or was discovered by them, — 
 he became social. He saw that he must be an exchanger. 
 Before the boat's crew landed he had killed several goats, 
 and prepared a meal for his expected guests. He kne\v 
 that he possessed a commodity which they did not pos- 
 sess. He had fresh meat, whilst they had only salt. Of 
 course what he had to ofter was acceptable to the sailors ; 
 and he received in exchange protection, and a place 
 amongst them. He renounced his sovereignty, and be- 
 came once more a subject. It was better for him, he 
 thought, to be surrounded with the regulated power of 
 civilization, than to wield at his own will the uncertain 
 strength of solitary uncivilization. But, had he chosen 
 to remain u])on his island, as in after-years he regretted 
 he had not done, although a solitary man, he would not 
 have been altogether cut off from the hopes and the duties 
 of the social state. If he had chosen to remain after 
 that visit from his fellow-men, he would have said to 
 them, before they had left him once more alone, " I have 
 hunted for you my goats, I have dug for you my roots, 
 I have shown you the fountains which issue out of my 
 rocks ; — these are the resources of my dominion : give 
 me in exchange for them a Iresh supjdy of gunpowder 
 and shot, some of your clothes, some of the moans of re-
 
 i:'- CAPITAL Ar,X) JLABOLK. 
 
 pairing these clothes, some of your tools and implements 
 of cookery, and more of your books to divert my solitary 
 hours." Having enjoyed the benefits which he had be- 
 stowed, they v.ould, as just men, have paid the debt 
 whicli they had incurred, and the exchange would have 
 been completed. Immediately that they had quitted his 
 shores, Selkirk would have looked at his resources with a 
 new eye. His hut was rudely fashioned and wretchedly 
 furnished, lie had fashioned and furnished it as well as he 
 could by his own labour, working upon his own materials. 
 The visit Avhich he had received from his fellow-men 
 after he had abandoned every hope of again looking upon 
 their faces, would liave led him to think that other ships 
 would come, with v.hom he might make other exchanges, 
 — new clothes, new tools, new materials, received as the 
 price of his own accumulations. To make the best of his 
 ci]-cumstanccs when that day should arrive, he must re- 
 double his efforts to increase his stock of commodities, — 
 some for himsolf, and some to exchange for other com- 
 modities, if the opportunity for exchange should ever 
 come. He must therefore transplant his vegetables, so 
 as to be within instant reach when they should be 
 wanted. lie must render his goats domestic, instead of 
 chasing them u])on the hills. lie must go ibrward from 
 the hunting state, into the pastoral and agricultural. 
 
 All this particular course of improvement, however, 
 supposes that Selkirk should continue in his state of ex- 
 clusive propi'ietor — that there should be none to dispute 
 his right. If other ships had come to his shores — if 
 they had trafficked with him from time to time — ex- 
 changed clothes and household conveniences, and imple- 
 ments of cultivation, for his goats' flesh and roots — it is 
 probable that other sailors would in time have desired 
 to partake his plenty ; — that a colony would have been 
 founded — that the island would have become po{)ulous. 
 It is perfectly clear that, whether for exchange amongst 
 themselves, or for exchange with others, the members of 
 this colony could not have stirred a step in the cultiva- 
 tion of the land without approjjriating its produce ; — and 
 they could not have appropriated its produce without
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR, 23 
 
 appropriating the land itself. Cultivation of the land for 
 a common stock would have gone to the establishment 
 precisely of the same principle ; — they would still have 
 been exchangers amongst themselves, and the partner- 
 ship would not have lasted a day, unless each man's 
 share of what the partnership produced had been ren- 
 dered perfectly secure to him. Without security they 
 could not have accumulated — without accumulations they 
 could not have exchanged — without exchanges they could 
 not have carried forward their labours with any compen- 
 sating productiveness. 
 
 Imperfect appropriation — that is, an appropriation 
 which respects personal wealth, such as the tools and 
 conveniences of an individual, and even secures to him 
 the fruits of the earth when he has gathered them, but 
 which has not reached the last step of a division of land 
 — imperfect appropriation such as this raises up the same 
 invincible obstacles to the production of utility ; because, 
 with this original defect, there must necessarily be un- 
 profitable labour, small accumulation, limited exchange. 
 Let us exemplify this by another individual case. 
 
 We have seen, in the instances of the Moskito Indian 
 and of Selkirk, how little a solitary man can do for him- 
 self, although he may have the most unbounded command 
 of natural supplies — although not an atom of those natural 
 supplies, whether produced by the earth or the water, is 
 appropriated by others — when, in iact, he is monarch of 
 all he surveys. Let us trace the course of another man, 
 advanced in the ability to subdue all things to his use by 
 iissociation with his fellow-men ; but carrying on that 
 association in the rude and unproductive relations of 
 savage life ; — not desiring to " replenish the earth" by 
 cultivation, but seeking only to appropriate the means of 
 existence which it has spontaneously produced ; — labour- 
 ing, indeed, and exchanging, but not labouring and ex- 
 changing in a way that will permit the accumulation of 
 wealth, and therefore remaining poor and miserable. We 
 are not about to draw any fanciful pictuie, but merely to 
 select some facts from a real narrative.
 
 24 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Is the year 1828, there came to New York, in the 
 United States, a white man named John Tanner, who 
 had been thirty years a captive amongst the Indians in 
 the interior of North America. He was carried off by 
 a band of these people when he was a little boy, from a 
 settlement on the Ohio river, which was occupied by his 
 father, who was a clergyman. The boy was brought up 
 in all the rude habits of the Indians, and became inured 
 to the abiding: miseries and uncertain ])leasures of their 
 wandering life. He grew in time to be a most skilful 
 huntsman, and carried on large dealings with the agents 
 of the Hudson's Bay Company, in the skins of beavers 
 and other animals, which he and his associates had shot 
 or entrapped. The history of this man was altogether 
 so curious, that he was induced to furnish the materials 
 for a complete narrative of his adventures ; and, accord- 
 ingly, a book, fully descriptive of them, was prepared 
 for the press by Dr. Edwin James, and printed at New 
 York in 1830. It is of course not within the intent of 
 our little work to furnish any regular abridgment of John 
 Tanner's story ; but it is our wish to direct attention to 
 some few particulars, which appear to us strikingly to 
 illustrate some of the positions which we desire to entbrce 
 by thus exhibiting their practical operation. 
 
 The country in which this man lived so many years is 
 that immense territory belonging to the United States, 
 which is still covered by boundless forests which the pro- 
 gress of civilization has not yet cleared away. In this region 
 a number of scattered Indian tribes maintain a precarious
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 25 
 
 existence by hunting: the moose-deer and the buffalo for 
 their supply of food, and by entrapping the foxes and 
 martens of the woods and the beavers of the lakes, whose 
 skins they generally exchange with the white traders of 
 Europe for articles of urgent necessity, such as ammuni- 
 tion and guns, traps, axes, and woollen blankets ; but too 
 often for ardent spirits, equally the curse of savage and 
 of civilized life. The contact of savage man with the 
 outskirts of civilization perhaps attticts him with the vices 
 of both states. But the principle of exchange, imper- 
 fectly and irregularly as it operates amongst the Indians, 
 furnishes some excitement to their ingenuity and their 
 industry. Habits of providence are to a certain degree 
 created ; it becomes necessary to accumulate some capital 
 of the commodities which can be rendered valuable by 
 their own labour, to exchange for commodities which 
 their own labour, without exchange, is utterly unable to 
 procure. The principle of exchange, too, being recog- 
 nised amongst them in their dealings with foreigners, the 
 security of property — without which, as we have shown, 
 that principle cannot exist at all — is one of the great 
 rules of life amongst themselves. But still these poor 
 Indians, from the mode which they propose to them- 
 selves for the attainment of property, which consists only 
 in securing what nature has produced, without directing 
 the course of her productions, must be very far removed 
 from the regular attainment of those blessings which civi- 
 lized society alone offers. We shall exemplify these state- 
 ments by a few details. 
 
 The country over which these people range occupies a 
 surface that may be roughly described as five or six times 
 as large as all England. They have the unbounded com- 
 mand of all the natural resources of that country ; and yet 
 their entire numbers do not exceed a few hundred thou- 
 sands — that is, they do not equal the population of a mo- 
 derately sized English county. It may be fairly said that 
 each Indian requires a thousand acres for his maintenance. 
 The supplies of food are so scanty — a scantiness which 
 would at once cease to exist were there any cultivation — 
 that if a large number of these Indians assembled tO£:ether
 
 26 CAPITAli AND LABOUR. 
 
 to co-operate in their hunting- expeditions, they are very 
 soon dispersed by the ui'gent desire of satisfying hunger. 
 Tanner says, " We all went to hunt beavers in concert. 
 In hunts of this kind the proceeds are sometimes equally 
 divided ; but in this instance every m&n retained what he 
 had killed. In three days I collected as many skins as I 
 could carry. But in these distant and hasty hunts little 
 meat could be brought in ; and the -whole band was soon 
 suffering with hunger. Many of the hunters, and I 
 among others, for want of food became extremely weak, 
 and unable to hunt far from home." In another place ha 
 says, " I began to be dissatisfied at remaining with large 
 bands of Indians, as it was asual for theru, after having 
 remained a short time in a place, to suflier from hunger " 
 These suftierintrs were not, in many cases, of short dura- 
 tion, or of trifling intensity. Tanner describes one in- 
 stance of famine in the following words : — " The Indians 
 gathered around, one after another, until we became a 
 considerable band, and then we began to suffier fram 
 hunger. The weather was very severe, and our sutfenng 
 increased. A young w oman was the first to die of hung-er. 
 Soon after this, a young man, her brother, was taken 
 with that kind of delirium or madness which precedes 
 death in such as die of starvation. In this condition he 
 had left the lodge of his debilitated and desponiing 
 parents ; and when, at a late hour in the evening, I 
 returned from my hunt, they could not tell what had be- 
 come of him. I left the camp alx)ut the middle of the 
 night, and following his track, I found him at some dis- 
 tance, lying dead in the snow ." 
 
 This worst species of suffering equally exists at par- 
 ticular periods, whether food be sought for by large or 
 by small parties, by bands or by individuals. Tanner was 
 travelling with the family of the woman w ho had adopted 
 him. He says, " We had now a short season of plenty; 
 but soon became hungry again. It often happened that 
 for two or three days we had nothing to eat ; then a rab- 
 bit or two, or a })ird, would afford us a prospect of pro- 
 tracting the sufterings of hunger a few days longer." 
 Again he says, " Having subsisted for some time almost
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 27 
 
 entirely on the inner bark of trees, and 'particularly of a 
 climbing vine found there, our strength was much re- 
 duced." 
 
 The misery which is thus so strikingly described, pro- 
 ceeds from the circumstance that the labour of the 
 Indians does not take a profitable direction : and that 
 this waste of labour (for unprofitable applications of 
 labour are the greatest of all wastes) arises from the one 
 fact, that in certain particulars these Indians labour with- 
 out appropriation. They depend upon the chance pro- 
 ductions of nature, without compelling her to produce ; 
 and they do not compel her to produce, because there is 
 no appropriation of the soil, the most efficient natural in- 
 strument of production. If the Indians had directed the 
 productive powers of the earth to the growth of corn, 
 instead of to the growth of foxes' skins, they would have 
 become rich. But they could not have reached this 
 point without appropriation of the soil. They had learnt 
 the necessity of appropriating the products of the soil, 
 when they had bestowed labour upon obtaining them; 
 but the last step towards productiveness wtis not taken. 
 The Indians thereibre were poor ; the European settlers 
 who had taken this last step were rich. 
 
 The want of resources in the country of the Indians, 
 for the maintenance, even for a short time, of any con- 
 siderable body of persons, is so notorious a fact, that 
 when the Government of the United States, in 180*2, 
 gathered together the chiefs of the various tribes of the 
 Creek Indians in their own country, to propose to them 
 a plan for their civilization, it became necessary for the 
 Commissioners of that Government to provide for the 
 support of the people so assembled, by conveying food 
 into the forests from the stores of the American towns. 
 
 The imperfect appropriation which exists amongst the 
 Indians, preventing, as it does, the accumulation of 
 capital, prevents the application of that skill and knov/- 
 ledge which is preserved and accumulated by the Divi- 
 sion of employment. Tanner describes a poor fellow 
 who was wounded in the arm by the accidental dis- 
 charge of a gun. As there was little surgical skill
 
 28 CAPITAL, A>'D LABOUR. 
 
 amongst the community, because no one could devote 
 himself to the business of surgery, the Indian, as the 
 only chance of saving his life, resolved to cut off his own 
 arm ; " and taking two knives, the edge of one of which 
 he had hacked into a sort of saw, he with his right hand 
 and arm cut off his left, and threw it from him as far as 
 he could." The labour which an individual must go 
 through when the state of society is so rude that there 
 is scarcely any division of emjjloyment, and consequently 
 scarcely any exchanges, is exhibited m many passages of 
 Tanner's narrative. We select one. " I had no puk- 
 kavi, or mats for a lodge, and therefore had to build one 
 of poles and long grass. I dressed more skins, made my 
 own mocassins and leggings, and those for my children ; 
 cut wood and cooked for myself and family, made my 
 snow-shoes, &c. &c. All the attention and labour I had 
 to bestow about home sometimes kept me from hunting, 
 and I was occasionally distressed for want of provisions. 
 I busied myself about my lodge in the night-time. When 
 it was sufficiently light 1 would bring wood, and attend 
 to other things without ; at other times I was repairing 
 my snow-shoes, or my own or my children's clothes. 
 For nearly all the winter I slept but a very small part of 
 the night." 
 
 Tanner was thus obliged to do everything for himself, 
 and consequently to work at very great disadvantage, 
 because the principle of exchange was so imperfectly 
 acted upon by the people amongst whom he lived. This 
 principle of exchange was imperfectly acted upon, because 
 the principle of appropriation was imperfectly acted upon. 
 The occupation of all, and of each, was to hunt game, to 
 prepare skins, to sell them to the traders, to make sugar 
 from the juice of maple-trees, to build huts, and to sew 
 the skins which they dressed and the blankets which 
 they bought into rude coverings for their bodies. Every 
 one of them did all of these things for himself, and of 
 course he did them very imperfectly. The people were 
 not divided into hunters, and furriers, and dealers, and 
 sugar-makers, and builders, and tailors. Every man was 
 his own hunter, furrier, dealer, sugar-maker, builder,
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 29 
 
 and tailor ; and consequently, every man, like Tanner, 
 was so occupied by many things, that want of food and 
 want of rest were ordinary sutferings. He describes a 
 man who was so borne down and oppressed by these 
 manifold wants, that in utter despair of being able to 
 surmount them, he would lie still till he was at the point 
 of starvation, replying to those who tried to rouse him to 
 kill game, that he was too poor and sick to set about it. 
 By describing himself as poor, he meant to say that he 
 was destitute of all the necessaries and comforts whose 
 possession would encourage him to add to the store. He 
 had little capital. The skill which he possessed of hunt- 
 ing game gave him a certain command over the spon- 
 taneous productions of the forest ; but, as his powei- of 
 hunting depended upon chance supplies of game, his 
 labour necessarily took so irregular a direction, and was 
 therefore so unproductive, that he never accumulated 
 sufficient for his support in times of sickness, or for his 
 comfortable support at anytime. He became, therefore, 
 despairing ; and had that perfect apathy, that indiffer- 
 ence to the future, which is the most pitiable evidence 
 of extreme wretchedness. This man felt his powerless 
 situation more keenly than his companions ; but with all 
 savage tribes there is a want of steady and persevering 
 exertion, proceeding from the same cause. Severe labour 
 is succeeded by long fits of idleness, because their labour 
 takes a chance direction. This is a universal case. 
 Habits of idleness, of irregularity, of ferocity, are the 
 characteristics of all those who maintain existence by the 
 pursuit of the unappropriated productions of nature ; 
 while constant application, orderly arrangement of tim(?, 
 and civility to others, result from systematic industry. 
 The savage and the poacher are equally the slaves of 
 violent impulses — equally disgusted at the prospect of 
 patient application. When the support of life depends 
 upon chance supplies, the reckless spirit of a gambler is 
 sure to take possession of the whole man ; and the misery 
 which results from these chance supplies produces either 
 dejection or ferocit3^ The author of this book used to 
 observe the habits of a class of such persons, who fre-
 
 30 CAPITAL AND LABOLB 
 
 ([iient the Thames at Eton ; and he tnus described them 
 in verses of his boyhood : — 
 
 What boat is this which creeps so lazily 
 
 Up the still stream? Huw quietlj^ falls the drip 
 
 Of the slow paddle! Now it shoots along, 
 
 As if that lone man fear'd us. Well I ken 
 
 His rough and dangerous trade. He knows each hole 
 
 Where the quick-sighted eel delights to swim 
 
 When clouds obscure tlie moon ; and there he lays 
 
 His tra])S and gins; and then he sleeps awhile; 
 
 But rouses up before the prying dawn 
 
 Betrays his course ; and out he cautiously glides 
 
 To try his doubtful luck. Perchance he finds 
 
 Stores that may buy him bread ; but oft'ner still 
 
 Kis toil is fruitless, and deject he comes 
 
 Home to his emberless hearth, and sits him down, 
 
 Idle and starving tlirough the busy day. 
 
 Mungo Park describes the wretched condition of the 
 inhabitants of countries in Africa, where small particles 
 of gold are found in the rivers. Their lives were spent 
 in huntino: for the gold to exchange for useful commodi- 
 ties, instead of raising the commodities themselves ; — 
 and they were consequently poor and miserable, listless 
 and unsteady. Their fittul industry had too much of 
 chance mixed up with it to ailord a certain and general 
 j>rofit. The natives of Cape de la Hogue, in Normandy, 
 were the most wretched and ferocious people in ail 
 France, because they depended principally for support 
 on the wrecks that were irequent on their coasts. W^hen 
 there were no tempests, they made an easy transition 
 from the character of wreckers to that of robbers. A 
 benefactor of his species taught these unhappy peojjle to 
 collect a marine plant to make potash. They imme- 
 diately became profitable labourers and exchangers ; they 
 olitained a property in the general intelligence of civilized 
 life ; the capital of society raised them from misery to 
 wealth, from being destroyers to being producers. 
 
 The Indians, as we thus see, are poor and wretched, 
 because they have no a])propriation beyond articles of 
 domestic use; because they have no property in land,
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 31 
 
 and consequently no cultivation. Yet even thev are not 
 insensible to the importance of the principle, for the })re- 
 servation of the few advantages that belong to their course 
 of life. Tanner says, *' I have often known a hunter 
 leave his traps for many days in the woods, without 
 visiting them, or feeling any anxiety about their safety." 
 The Indians even carry the principle of appropriation 
 almost to a division of land ; for each tribe, and some- 
 times each individual, has an allotted hunting-ground — 
 imperfectly appropriated, indeed, by the first comer, and 
 often contested with violence by other hunters, but still 
 showing that they approached the limit which divides 
 the savage from the civilized state, and that if cultivation 
 were introduced amongst them , there would be a division 
 of land, as a matter of necessity. The security of indi- 
 vidual property is the foundation of all social improve- 
 ment. It is impossible to speak of the productive power 
 of labour in the civilized state, without viewing it in con- 
 nexion with that great principle of society which con- 
 siders all capital as appropriated. If the Indians are 
 ever civilized, their civilization will be the growth of 
 their intercourse with the settlers of America and the 
 traders of Europe. Their exchanges, in that case, will 
 become more perfect. At present, the rude industry of 
 the Indians is stimulated by the luxury of Europe into 
 an employ which w^ouid cease to exist if the people be- 
 came civilized. If agriculture were introduced amongst 
 them — if they were to grow corn and keep domestic 
 animals, — they would cease to be hunters of foxes and 
 martens, because their wants would be much better sup- 
 plied by other modes of labour, involving less suftering 
 and less uncertainty. As it is, the traders, who want 
 skins, do not think of giving the Indians tools to work 
 the ground, and seeds to put in it, and cows and sheep 
 to breed other cows and sheep. They avail themselves 
 of the uncivilized state of these ])oor tribes, to render 
 them the principal agents in the manufacture of fur, to 
 .supply the luxuries of another hemisphere. But still the 
 exchange, imperfect as it is in all cases, and unjust as it 
 is in many, is better for the Indians than -no exchange ;
 
 32 CAPITAL A>D LABOUB. 
 
 althougn we fear that ardent spirits take away from the 
 Indians the greater number of the advantages which 
 would otherwise remain with them as exchangers. If 
 the Indians had no skins to give to Europe, Europe would 
 have no blankets and ammunition to give to them. They 
 would obtain their food and clothing by the use of the 
 bow alone. They would live entirely from hand to 
 mouth. They would have no motive for accumulation, 
 because there would be no exchanges ; and they would 
 consequently be even jxtorer and more helpless than they 
 are now as exchangers of skins. They are suffering from 
 the effects of small accumulations and imperfect exchange ; 
 but these are far better than no accumulation and no ex- 
 change. If the course of their industry were to be 
 changed by perfect appropriation — if they were conse- 
 quently to become cultivators and manufacturers, instead 
 of wanderers in the woods to hunt for wild and noxious 
 animals — they would, in the course of years, have abun- 
 dance of profitable labour, because they would have 
 abundance of capital. As it is, their accumulations are 
 so small, that they cannot proceed with their own un- 
 certain labour of hunting without an advance of capital 
 on the part of the traders ; and thus, even in the rude 
 tradings of these poor Indians, credit, that complicated 
 instrument of commercial exchange, operates upon the 
 direction of their labour. Of course credit would not 
 exist at all without appropriation. Their rights of pro- 
 perty are perfect as far as they go ; but they are not 
 carried far enough to direct their labour into channels 
 which would ensure sufficient production for the labourers. 
 Their labour is unproductive because they have small 
 accumulations ; — their accumulations are small because 
 they have imperfect exchange ; — their exchange is im- 
 perfect because they have limited appropriation. We 
 may illustrate this state of imperfect production by 
 another passage from Tanner's story : — 
 
 " The Hudson's Bay Company had now no post in 
 that part of the country, and the Indians were soon made 
 conscious of the advantage which had formerly resulted 
 to them from the competition between rival trading com-
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. So 
 
 panies. INIr. Wells, at the commencement of winter, 
 called us all together, gave the Indians a ten-gallon keg 
 of rum and some tobacco, telling them at the same time 
 he would not credit one of them the value of a single 
 needle. When they brought skins he would buy them, 
 and give in exchange such articles as were necessary for 
 their comfort and subsistence during the winter. I was 
 not with the Indians when this talk was held. When it 
 was reported to me, and a share of the presents offered 
 me, I not only refused to accept anything, but reproached 
 the Indians for their pusillanimity in submitting to such 
 terms. They had been accustomed for many years to 
 receive credits in the fall ; they were now entirely desti- 
 tute not of clothing merely, but of ammunition, and 
 many of them of guns and traps. How were they, with- 
 out the accustomed aid from the traders, to subsist them- 
 selves and their families during the ensuing winter ? A 
 few days afterwards, I went to Mr. Wells, and told him 
 that I was poor, with a large family to support by my 
 own exertions ; and that I must unavoidably suffer, and 
 perhaps perish, unless he would give me such a credit as 
 I had always in the fall been accustomed to receive. 
 He would not listen to my representation, and told me 
 roughly to be gone from his house. I then took eight 
 silver beavers, such as are worn by the women as orna- 
 ments on their dress, and which I had purchased the 
 year before at just twice the price that was commonly 
 given for a capote ; * I laid them before him on the 
 table, and asked him to give me a capote for them, or 
 retain them as a pledge for the payment of the price of 
 the garment, as soon as I could procure the peltries.f He 
 took up the ornaments, threw them in my face, and told 
 me never to come inside of his house again. The cold 
 weather of the winter had not yet set in, and I went im- 
 mediately to my hunting-ground, killed a number of 
 moose, and set my wife to make the skins into such gar- 
 ments as were best adapted to the winter season, and 
 which I now saw we should be compelled to substitute 
 
 * A sort of great-coat. f Skins. 
 
 c
 
 34 ' CAPITAL AXD LABOUR. 
 
 for the blankets and woollen clothes we had been accus- 
 tomed to receive from the traders." 
 
 This incident at once shows us that the great blessmg 
 of the civilized state is its increase of the powers of pro- 
 duction. Here we see the Indians, suiTounded on all 
 sides by wild animals whose skins might be made into 
 garments, reduced to the extremity of distress because 
 the traders refused to advance them blankets and other 
 necessaries, to be used during the months when they 
 were employed in catching the animals from which they 
 might obtain the skins. It is easy to see that the Indians 
 were a long way removed from the power of making 
 blankets themselves. Before they could reach this point 
 their forests must have been converted into pasture- 
 grounds ; — they must have raised flocks of sheep, and 
 learnt all the various complicated arts, and possessed all 
 the ingenious machinery, for converting wool into cloth. 
 By their exchange of furs for blankets, they obtained a 
 share in the productiveness of civilization ; — they ob- 
 tained comfortable clothing with much less labour than 
 they could have made it out of the furs. If Tanner had 
 not considered the capote which he desired to obtain 
 from the traders, better, and less costly, than the gar- 
 ment of moose-skins, he would not have carried on any 
 exchange of the two articles with the traders. The skins 
 of martens and foxes were only valuable to the Indians, 
 without exchange, for the purpose of sewing together to 
 make covering. They had a different value in Europe 
 as articles of luxury ; and therefore the Indians by ex- 
 change obtain a greater plenty of superior clothing than 
 if they had used the skins themselves. But the very 
 nature of the trade, depending upon chance supplies, 
 rendered it impossible that they should accumulate. 
 They had such pressing need of ammunition, traps, and 
 blankets, that the produce of the labour of one hunting 
 season was not more than suflBcient to procure the com- 
 modities which they required to consume in the same 
 season. But supposing the Indians could have bred 
 foxes and martens and beavers, as we breed rabbits, for 
 the supply of the European demand for fur, doubtless
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 35 
 
 they would have then advanced many steps in the cha- 
 racter of producers. The thing is perhaps impossible ; 
 but were it possible, and were the Indians to have prac- 
 tised it, they would immediately have become capitalists, 
 to an extent that would have soon rendered them inde- 
 pendent of the credit of the traders. They must, how- 
 ever, have previously established a more perfect appro- 
 priation. Each must have enclosed his own hunting- 
 ground ; and each must have raised some food for the 
 maintenance of his own stock of beavers, foxes, and mar- 
 tens. It would be easier, doubtless, to raise the food for 
 themselves, and ultimately to exchange corn for clothing, 
 instead of furs for clothing. When this happens — and it 
 will happen sooner or later, unless the Indians are extir- 
 pated by their poverty which proceeds from their imper- 
 fect production — Europe must go without the brilliant 
 variety of skins which we procure at the cost of so much 
 labour, accompanied with so much wretchedness, because 
 the labour is so unproductive to the labourers. When 
 the ladies of London and Paris are compelled to wear 
 tippets of rabbits instead of sables, and when the hair of 
 the beaver ceases to be employed in the manufacture of 
 our hats, the woods of America Avill have been cut down 
 — corn will be growing in their place — the inhabitants 
 will be weaving cloth instead of trapping foxes ; — there 
 will be appropriation and capital, profitable labour and 
 comfort. 
 
 c 2
 
 36 CAPITAL AND LABOUE. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 There is an account in Foster's Essays (a work of great 
 merit) of a man who, having by a short career of bound- 
 less extravagance dissipated every shilHng of a large 
 estate which he inherited from his fathers, obtained pos- 
 session again of the whole property by a course which 
 the writer well describes as a singular illustration of 
 decision of character. The unfortunate prodigal, driven 
 forth from the home of his early years by his own 
 imprudence, and reduced to absolute want, wandered 
 about for some time in a state of almost unconscious 
 despair, meditating self-destruction, till he at last sat 
 down upon a hill which overlooked the fertile fields that 
 he once called his own. " He remained," says the nar- 
 rative, " fixed in thought a number of hours, at the end 
 of which he sprang from the ground with a vehement 
 exulting emotion. He had formed his resolution, which 
 was, that all these estates should be his again ; he had 
 formed his plan, too, which he instantly began to execute." 
 We shall show, by and by, how this plan worked in 
 detail ; — it will be sufficient, just now, to examine the 
 principles upon which it was founded. He looked to no 
 freak of fortune to throw into his lap by chance what he 
 had cast from him by wilfulness. He neither trusted to 
 inherit those lands from their present possessor by his 
 favour, nor to wring them from him by a course of law. 
 He was not rash and foolish enough to dream of obtain- 
 ing again by force those possessions which he had 
 exchanged for vain superfluities. But he resolved to 
 become once more their master by the operation of the 
 only principle which could give them to him in a civi-
 
 CAPITAI. AND L,ABOUB. 37 
 
 lized society. He resolved to obtain them again by the 
 same agency through which he had lost them — by ex- 
 change. But what had he to exchange ? His capital 
 was gone, even to the uttermost farthing ; he must labour 
 to obtain new capital. With a courage worthy of imita- 
 tion he resolved to accept the very first work that should 
 be offered to him, and, however low the wages of that 
 work, to spend only a part of those wages, leaving some- 
 thing for a store. The day that he made this resolution 
 he carried it into execution. He found some service to 
 be performed — irksome, doubtless, and in many eyes 
 degrading. But he had a purpose which made every 
 occupation appear honourable, as every occupation truly 
 is that is productive of utility. Incessant labour and 
 scrupulous parsimony soon accumulated for him a capital ; 
 and the store, gathered together with such energy, was 
 a rapidly increasing one. In no very great number of 
 years the once destitute labourer was again a rich pro- 
 
 {)rietor. He had earned again all that he had lost. The 
 ands of his fathers were again his. He had accomplished 
 his plan. 
 
 A man so circumstanced — one who possesses no capital, 
 and is only master of his own natural powers — if sud- 
 denly thrown down from a condition of ease, must look 
 upon the world, at the first view, with deep apprehen- 
 sion. He sees everything around him appropriated. He 
 is in the very opposite condition of Alexander Selkirk, 
 when he is made to exclaim " I am monarch of all I 
 survey." Instead of feeling that his " right there is 
 none to dispute," he knows that every blade of corn that 
 covers the fields, every animal that grazes in the pastures, 
 is equally numbered as the property of some individual 
 owner, and can only pass into his possession by exchange. 
 In the towns it is the same as in the country. The 
 dealer in bread and in clothes, — the victualler from whom 
 he would ask a cup of beer and a night's lodging, — will 
 give him nothing, although they will exchange every- 
 thing. He cannot exist, except as a beggar, unless he 
 puts himself in the condition to become an exchanger. 
 But still, with all these apparent difiiculties, his pros-
 
 38 CAPITAL A>T) LABOUB. 
 
 pects of subsisting, and of subsisting comfortably, are far 
 greater than in any other situation in which he must 
 labour to live. As we have already seen, the condition 
 of by far the greater number of the millions that consti- 
 tute the exchangers of civilized society is greatly superior 
 to that of the few thousands who exist upon the preca- 
 rious supplies of the unappropriated productions of nature 
 in the savage life. Although an exchange must always 
 be made — although in very few cases " the fowl and the 
 brute" offer themselves to the wayfaring man for his 
 daily food — although no herbs worth the gathering can 
 be found for the support of life in the few uncultivated 
 parts of a highly cultivated country — the aggregate riches 
 are so abundant, and the facilities which exist for ex- 
 changing capital for labour are therefore so manifold, that 
 the poorest man in a state of civilization has a much 
 greater certainty of supplying all his wants, and of sup- 
 plying them with considerably more ease, than the richest 
 man in a state of uncivilization. The principle upon 
 which he has to rely is, that in a highly civilized country 
 there is large production. There is large production 
 because there is profitable labour ; — there is profitable 
 labour because there is large accumulation ; — there is 
 large accumulation because there is unlimited exchange ; 
 — there is unlimited exchange because there is universal 
 appropriation. John Tanner was accounted a rich man 
 by the Indians — doubtless because he was more indus- 
 trious than the greater number of them ; but we have 
 seen what privations he often suffered. He suffered 
 privations because there was no capital, no accumulation 
 of the products of labour, in the country in which he 
 lived. Where such a store exists, the poorest man has a 
 tolerable certainty that he may obtain his share of it as 
 an exchanger ; and the greater the store the gi'eater the 
 certainty that his labour, or power of adding to the store, 
 will obtain a full proportion of what previous labour has 
 gathered together. 
 
 It may assist us in making the value of capital more 
 clear, if we take a rapid view of the most obvious features 
 of the accumulation of a highly civilized country.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 39 
 
 The first operation in a newly settled country is what 
 is termed to clear it. Look at a civilized country, such 
 as England. It is cleared. The encumbering woods 
 are cut down, the unhealthy marshes are drained. The 
 noxious animals which were once the principal inhabit- 
 ants of the land are exterminated ; and their place is 
 supplied with useful creatures, bred, nourished, and 
 domesticated by human art, and multiplied to an extent 
 exactly proportioned to the wants of the population. 
 Forests remain for the produce of timber, but they are 
 confined within the limits of their utility ; — mountains 
 *' where the nibbling flocks do stray," have ceased to be 
 barriers between nations and districts. Every vegetable 
 that the diligence of man has been able to transplant 
 from the most distant regions is raised for food. The 
 fields are producing a provision for the coming year; 
 while the stock for immediate consumption is ample, and 
 the laws of demand and supply are so perfectly in action, 
 that scarcity seldom occurs, and famine never. Rivers 
 have been narrowed to bounds which limit their inunda- 
 tions, and they have been made navigable wherever their 
 navigation could be profitable. The country is covered 
 with roads, with canals, and now, more especially, with 
 railroads, which render distant provinces as near to each 
 other for commercial purposes as neighbouring villages 
 in less advanced countries. Houses, all possessing some 
 comforts which were unknown even to the rich a few 
 centuries ago, cover the land, in scattered farm-houses 
 and mansions, in villages, in towns, in cities, in capitals. 
 These houses are filled with an almost inconceivable 
 number of conveniences and luxuries — furniture, glass, 
 porcelain, plate, linen, clothes, books, pictures. In the 
 stores of the merchants and traders, the resources of 
 human ingenuity are displayed in every variety of sub- 
 stances and forms that can exhibit the multitude of civi- 
 lized wants ; and in the manufactories are seen the 
 wonderful adaptations of science for satisfying those 
 wants at the cheapest cost. The people who inhabit 
 such a civilized land have not only the readiest commu- 
 nication with each other by the means of roads and
 
 40 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 canals, but can trade by the agency of ships with all 
 parts of the world. To carry on their intercourse amongst 
 themselves they speak one common language, reduced to 
 certain rules, and not broken into an embarrassing variety 
 of unintelligible dialects. Their written communications 
 are conveyed to the remotest comers of their own 
 country, and even to other kingdoms, with the most 
 unfailing regularity, and now with a cheapness which 
 makes the poorest and the richest equal in their power 
 to connect the distant with their thoughts by written com- 
 munication. Whatever is transacted in such a populous 
 hive, the knowledge of which can afford profit or amuse- 
 ment to the community, is recorded with a rapidity which 
 is not more astonishing than the general accuracy of the 
 record. What is more important, the discoveries of 
 science, the elegancies of literature, and all that can 
 advance the general intelligence, are preserved and 
 diffused with the utmost ease, expedition, and security, 
 so that the public stock of knowledge is constantly in- 
 creasing. Lastly, the general well-being of all is sustained 
 by laws, — sometimes indeed imperfectly devised and ex- 
 pensively administered, but on the whole of infinite value 
 to every member of the community ; and the property of 
 all is defended from external invasion and from internal 
 anarchy by the power of government, which will be 
 respected only in proportion as it advances the general 
 good of the humblest of its subjects, by securing their 
 capital from plunder and defending their industry from 
 oppression. 
 
 This capital is ready to be won by the power of the 
 working man. But he must exercise this power in com- 
 plete subjection to the natural laws by which every 
 exchange of society is regulated. These laws sometimes 
 prevent labour being instantly exchanged with capital, 
 for an exchange necessarily requires a balance to be pre- 
 served between what one man has to supply and what 
 another man has to demand ; but in their general effect 
 they secure to labour the certainty that there shall be 
 abundance of capital to exchange with ; and that if 
 prudence and diligence go together, the labourer may
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 41 
 
 Iiimself become a capitalist, and even pass out of the 
 condition of a labourer into that of a proprietor, or one 
 who lives upon accumulated produce. The experience 
 of every day shovi^s this process going forward — not in a 
 solitary instance, as in that of the ruined and restored 
 man whose tale we have just told, but in the case of 
 thriving tradesmen all around us, who were once work- 
 men. But if the labourer or the great body of labourers 
 were to imagine that they could obtain such a proportion 
 of the capital of a civilized country except as exchangers, 
 the store would instantly vanish. They might perhaps 
 divide by force the crops in the barns and the clothes in 
 warehouses — but there would be no more crops or clothes. 
 The principle upon which all accumulation depends, that 
 of security of property, being destroyed, the accumulation 
 would be destroyed. 
 
 When we look at the nature of the accumulated wealth 
 of society, it is easy to see that the poorest member of it 
 who dedicates himself to profitable labour is in a certain 
 sense rich — rich, as compared with the unproductive and 
 therefore poor individuals of any uncivilized tribe. The 
 very scafiblding, if we may so express it, of the social 
 structure, and the moral forces by which that structure 
 was reared, and is upheld, are to him riches. To be 
 rich is to possess the means of supplying our wants — to 
 be poor is to be destitute of those means. Riches do not 
 consist only of money and lands, of stores of food or 
 clothing, of machines and tools. The particular know- 
 ledge of any art, — the general understanding of the laws 
 of nature, — the habit from experience of doing any work in 
 the readiest way, — the facility of communicating ideas by 
 written language, — the enjoyment of institutions con- 
 ceived in the spirit of social improvement, — the use of 
 the general conveniences of civilized life, such as roads — 
 these advantages, which the poorest man in England 
 possesses or may possess, constitute individual property. 
 They are means for the supply of wants, which in them- 
 selves are essentially more valuable for obtaining his full 
 share of what is appropriated, than if all the productive 
 powers of nature were unappropriated, and if, conse- 
 
 c 3
 
 42 CAPITAL A^'D LABOUR. 
 
 quently, these great elements of civilization did not exist. 
 Society obtains its almost unlimited command over riches by 
 the increase and preservation of knowledge, and by the di- 
 vision of employments, including union of power. In his 
 double capacity of a consumer and a producer, the hum- 
 blest man has the full benefit of these means of wealth — 
 of these great instmments by which the productive power 
 of labour is carried to its highest point. 
 
 But if these common advantages, these public means 
 of society, offering so many important agents to the indi- 
 vidual for the gratification of his wants, alone are worth 
 more to him than all the precai'ious power of the savage 
 state, — how incomparably greater are his advantages 
 when we consider the wonderful accumulations, in the form 
 of private wealth, which are ready to be exchanged with 
 the labour of all those who are in a condition to add to 
 the store. It has been truly said, " It is a great misfor- 
 tune to be poor, but it is a much greater misfortune for 
 the poor man to be surrounded only with other poor like 
 himself."* The reason is obvious. The productive 
 power of labour can be carried but a very little way 
 without accumulation of capital. In a highly civilized 
 country, capital is heaped up on every side by ages of 
 toil and perseverance. A succession, during a long series 
 of years, of small advantages to individuals unceasingly 
 renewed and cai'ried forward by the principle of ex- 
 changes, has produced this prodigious amount of the 
 aggregate capital of a country whose civilization is of 
 ancient date. This accumulation of the means of exist- 
 ence, and of all that makes existence comfortable, is 
 principally resulting from the labours of those who have 
 gone before us. It is a stock which was beyond their 
 own immediate wants, and which was not extinguished 
 with their lives. It is our capital. It has been produced 
 by labom- alone, physical and mental. It can be kept up 
 only by the same power w hich has created it, carried to 
 the highest point of productiveness by the arrangements 
 of society. 
 
 * Say.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 43 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 There is an old proverb, that *' When two men ride on 
 one horse, one man must ride behind." Capital and 
 Labour are, as we think, destined to perform a journey 
 together to the end of time. We have shown how 
 they proceed on this journey. We have shown that 
 although Labour is the parent of all wealth, its struggles 
 for the conversion of the rude supplies of nature into 
 objects of utility, are most feeble in their effects till they 
 are assisted by accumulation. Before the joint interests 
 of Labour and Capital were at all understood, they kept 
 separate ; when they only began to be understood, as we 
 shall show, they were constantly pulling different ways, 
 instead of giving " a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull 
 altogether ;" and even now, when these interests in many 
 respects are still imperfectly understood, they occasionally 
 quarrel about the conditions upon which they will con- 
 tinue to travel in company. In the very outset of the 
 journey. Labour, doubtless, took the lead. In the dim 
 morning of society Labour was up and stirring before 
 Capital was awake. Labour did not then ride ; he tra- 
 velled slowly on foot through very dirty ways. Capital, 
 at length, as slowly followed after, through the same 
 mire, but at an humble distance from his parent. But 
 when Capital grew into strength, he saw that there were 
 quicker and more agreeable modes of travelling for both, 
 than Labour had found out. He procured that fleet and 
 untiring horse Exchange ; and when he proposed to 
 Labour that they should mount together, he claimed the 
 right, and kept it, for their mutual benefit, of taking the 
 direction of the horse. For this reason, as it appears to
 
 44 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 US, we are called upon to assign to one of the compa- 
 nions, according to the practice of the old Knights 
 Templars, the privilege of sitting before the other — 
 holding the reins, indeed, but in all respects having a 
 community of interests, and an equality of duties, as well 
 as rights, with his fellow-traveller. 
 
 Let us endeavour to advance another step in the illus- 
 tration of these positions, by going back to the prodigal 
 who had spent all his substance. Let us survey him at 
 the moment when he had made the wise, and in many 
 respects heroic, resolution to pass from the condition of 
 a consumer into that of a producer. The story says, 
 " The first thing that drew his attention was a heap of 
 coals shot out of a cart on the pavement before a house. 
 He offered himself to shovel or wheel them into the 
 place where they were to be laid, and was employed." 
 Here, then, we see that the labour of this man was 
 wholly and imperatively directed by accumulation. It 
 was directed as absolutely by the accumulation of others 
 as the labour of Dampier's Moskito Indian was directed 
 by his own accumulation. The Indian could not labour 
 profitably — he could not obtain fish and goats for his 
 food, instead of seal's flesh — till he had called into action 
 the power which he possessed in his knife and his gun- 
 barrel. The prodigal had no accumulation whatever of 
 his own. He had not even the accumulation of peculiar 
 skill in any mode of labour ; — for a continual process of 
 waste enlarges neither the mental nor physical faculties, 
 and leaves the wretcfxed being who has to pass into the 
 new condition of a producer as helpless as the weakest 
 child. He had nothing but the lowest power, of labour- 
 ing without peculiar knowledge or skill. He had, how- 
 ever, an intensity and consistency of purpose which 
 raised this humble power into real strength. He was 
 determined never to go backward — alw^ays to go on. He 
 knew, too, his duties as well as his rights ; and he saw 
 that he must wholly accommodate his power to the 
 greater power which was in action around him. When 
 he passed into the condition of a producer, he saw that 
 his powers and rights were wholly limitedand directed
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUK. 45 
 
 by the principles necessary to advance production ; and 
 that his own share of what he assisted in producing must 
 be measured by the laws which enabled him to produce 
 at all. He found himself in a position where his labour 
 was absolutely governed by the system of exchanges. 
 No other system could operate around him ; because he 
 was in a civilized country. Had he been thrown upon a 
 desert land without food and shelter, his labour must 
 have been instantly and directly applied to procuring 
 food and shelter. He was equally without food and 
 shelter in a civilized country. But the system of ex- 
 changes being in action, he did not apply his labour 
 directly to the production of food and lodging for himself. 
 He added by his labour a new value to a heap of coals ; 
 he enabled another man more readily to acquire the 
 means of warmth ; and by this service, which he ex- 
 changed for "a few pence" and '' a small gratuity of meat 
 and drink," he indirectly obtained food and lodging. He 
 conferred an additional value upon a heap of coals ; and 
 that additional value was represented by the " few pence" 
 and **a small gratuity of meat and drink." Had the 
 system of exchange Ijeen less advanced, that is, had 
 society been less civilized, he would probably have ex- 
 changed his labour for some object of utility, by another 
 and a ruder mode. He would have received a portion 
 of the coals as the price of the labour by which he gave 
 an additional value to the whole heap. But mark the 
 inconvenience of such a mode of exchange. His first 
 want was food ; his next, shelter : had he earned the 
 coals, he must have carried them about till he had found 
 some other person ready to exchange food and lodging 
 for coals. Such an occurrence might have happened, 
 but it would have been a lucky accident. He could find 
 all persons ready to exchange food and clothes for money 
 — because money was ready again to exchange for other 
 articles of utility which they might require, and which 
 they would more readily obtain by the money than by 
 the food and clothes which our labourer had received for 
 them. During the course of the unprofitable labour of 
 waiting till he had found an exchanger who wanted
 
 46 CAPITAL A>fD LABOUR. 
 
 coals, he might have perished. What then gave him 
 the means of profitable labour, and furnished him with 
 an article which every one was ready to receive in ex- 
 change for articles of immediate necessity ? Capital in 
 two forms. The heap of coals was capital. The coals 
 represented a very great and various accumulation of 
 former labour that had been employed in giving them 
 value. The coals were altogether valueless till labour 
 had been employed to raise them from the pit, and to 
 convey them to the door of the man who was about to 
 consume them. But with what various helps had this 
 labour worked ! Mere manual labour could have done 
 little or nothing with the coals in the pit. Machines 
 had raised them from the pit. Machines had transported 
 them from the pit to the door of the consumer. They 
 would have remained buried in the earth but for large 
 accumulations of knowledge, and large accumulations of 
 pecuniary wealth to set that knowledge in action by ex- 
 changing with it. The heap of coals represented all this 
 accumulation ; and it more immediately represented the 
 Circulating Capital of consumable articles of utility, 
 which had been paid in the shape of wages, at every 
 stage of the labour exercised in raising the coals from 
 the mine, and conveying them to the spot in which the 
 prodigal found them laid. The coals had almost attained 
 their highest value by a succession of labour ; but one 
 labour was still wanting to give them the highest value. 
 They were at their lowest value when they remained 
 unbroken in the coal-pit ; they were at their highest 
 value when they were deposited in the cellar of the con- 
 sumer. For that last labour there was circulating capital 
 ready to be exchanged. The man whose course of pro- 
 duction we have been tracing imparted to them this last 
 value, and for this labour he received a "few pence" 
 and a " gratuity of meat and drink." These consumable 
 commodities, and the money which might be exchanged 
 for other consumable commodities, were circulating ca- 
 pital. They supplied his most pressing wants with 
 incomparably more readiness and certainty than if he 
 had been turned loose amongst the unappropriated pro-
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 47 
 
 ductions of nature, with unlimited freedom and absolute 
 rights. In the state in which he was actually placed his 
 rights were limited by his duties, — but this balance of 
 rights and duties was the chief instrument in the satis- 
 faction of his wants. Let us examine the principle a 
 little more in detail. 
 
 An exchange was to be carried on between the owner 
 of the coals and the man who was willing to shovel them 
 into the owner's cellar. The labourer did not want any 
 distinct portion of the coals, but he wanted some articles 
 of more urgent necessity in exchange for the new value 
 which he was ready to bestow upon the coals. The ob- 
 ject of each exchanger was, that labour should be ex- 
 changed with capital. That object could not have been 
 accomplished, or it would have been accomplished slowly, 
 imperfectly, and therefore unprofitably, unless there had 
 been interchangeable freedom and security for both ex- 
 changers, — for the exchanger of capital, and the ex- 
 changer of labour. The first right of the labourer was, 
 that his labour should be free ; — the first right of the 
 capitalist was, that his capital should be free. The rights 
 of each were built upon the security of property. Could 
 this security have been violated, it might have happened, 
 either that the labourer should have been compelled to 
 shovel in the coals — or, that the capitalist should have 
 been compelled to employ the labourer to shovel them 
 in. Had the lot of the unfortunate prodigal been cast 
 in such a state of society as would have allowed this 
 violation of the natural rights of the labourer and the 
 capitalist, he would have found little accumulation to give 
 a profitable direction to his labour. He would have 
 found production suspended, or languishing. There 
 would probably have been no heap of coals v/anting his 
 labour to give them the last value ; — for the engines 
 would have been idle that raised them from the pit, and 
 the men would have been idle that directed the engines. 
 The circulating capital that found wages for the men, 
 and fuel for the engines, would have been idle, because 
 it could not have worked with security. Accumulation, 
 therefore, would have been suspended ; — and all profit-
 
 48 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 able labour would, in consequence, have been suspended. 
 It was the unquestionable right of the labourer that his 
 labour should be free ; but it was balanced by the right 
 of the capitalist that his accumulation should be secure. 
 Could the labour have seized upon the capital, or the 
 capital upon the labour, production would have been 
 stopped altogether, or in part. The mutual freedom 
 and security of labour and capital compel production to 
 go forward ; and labour and capital take their respective 
 stations, and perform their respective duties, altogether 
 with reference to the laws which govern production. 
 These laws are founded upon the natural action of the 
 system of exchange, carrying forward all its operations 
 by the natural action of the great principle of demand 
 and supply. When capital and labour know how to 
 accommodate themselves to the direction of these natural 
 laws, they are in a healthy state with respect to their 
 individual rights, and the rights of industry generally. 
 They are in that state in which each is working to the 
 greatest profit in carrying forward the business of pro- 
 duction. 
 
 The story of the prodigal goes on to say, " He then 
 looked out for the next thing that might chance to offer ; 
 and went with indefatigable industry through a succes- 
 sion of servile employments, in different places, of longer 
 and shorter duration." By following the direction which 
 capital gave to his industry, he became at length a capi- 
 talist. '* He had gained, after a considerable time, 
 money enough to purchase, in order to sell again, a few 
 cattle, of which he had taken pains to understand the 
 value. He speedily, but cautiously, turned his first gains 
 into second advantages ; retained, without a single devi- 
 ation, his extreme parsimony ; and thus advanced by 
 degrees into larger transactions and incipient wealth. 
 The final result was, that he more than recovered his 
 lost possessions, and died an inveterate miser, worth 
 60,000/."
 
 CAriTAL AND LABOUR. 49 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 If we have succeeded in making our meaning clear, by 
 stating a general truth, not in an abstract form, but as 
 brought out by various instances of the modes in which 
 it is exhibited, we shall have led the reader to the con- 
 clusion that accumulation, or capital, is absolutely essen- 
 tial to the profitable employment of labour ; and that the 
 greater the accumulation, the greater the extent of that 
 profitable employment. This truth, however, has been 
 denied altogether by some speculative writers ; — and, 
 what is more important, has been practically denied by 
 the conduct of nations and individuals in the earlier state 
 of society, — and is still denied by existing prejudices, 
 derived from the current maxims of former days of igno- 
 rance and half-knowledge. With the speculative writers 
 we have little to do. When Rousseau, for instance, ad- 
 vises governments not to secure property to its possessors, 
 but to deprive them of all means of accumulating, it is 
 sufficient to know that the same writer advocated the 
 savage state, in which there should be no property, in 
 preference to the social, which is founded on appropria- 
 tion. Knowing this, and being convinced that the 
 savage state, even with imperfect appropriation, is one 
 of extreme wretchedness, we may safely leave such opi- 
 nions to work their own cure. For it is not likel}^ that 
 any individual, however disposed to think that accumula- 
 tion is an evil, would desire, by destroying accumulation, 
 to pass into the condition, described by John Tanner, of 
 a constant encounter with hunger in its most terrific 
 forms : and seeing, therefore, the fallacy of such an 
 opinion, he will also see that if he partially destroys
 
 50 CAPITAL AND I^ABOUB. 
 
 accumulation, he equally impedes production, and equally 
 destroys his share in the productive power of capital and 
 labour working together for a common good in the social 
 state. 
 
 But, without going the length of wishing to destroy 
 capital, there are many who think that accumulation is a 
 positive evil, and that consumption is a positive benefit ; 
 and, therefore, that economy is an evil, and waste a 
 benefit. The course of a prodigal man is by many still 
 viewed with considerable admiration. He sits up all 
 night in frantic riot — he consumes whatever can stimulate 
 his satiated appetite — he is waited upon by a crowd of 
 unproductive and equally riotous retainers — he breaks 
 and destroys everything around him with an unsparing 
 hand — he rides his horses to death in the most extrava- 
 gant attempts to wrestle with time and space ; and when 
 he has spent all his substance in these excesses, and dies 
 an outcast and a beggar, he is said to have been a hearty 
 fellow, and to have " made good for trade." When, on 
 the contrary, a man of fortune economizes his revenue — 
 lives like a virtuous and reasonable being, whose first 
 duty is the cultivation of his understanding — eats and 
 drinks with a regard to his health — keeps no more re- 
 tainers than are suflicient for his proper comfort and 
 decency — breaks and destroys nothing — has respect to 
 the inferior animals, as well from motives of prudence as 
 of mercy — and dies without a mortgage on his lands ; he 
 is said to have been a stingy fellow, who did not know 
 how to " circulate his money." To " circulate money," 
 to " make good for trade," in the once common meaning 
 of the terms, is for one to consume unprofitably what, if 
 economized, would have stimulated production in a way 
 that would have enabled hundreds, instead of one, to 
 consume profitably. We will give you two historical 
 examples of these two opposite modes of making good 
 for trade, and circulating money. The Duke of Buck- 
 ingham, " having been possessed of about 50,000/. a 
 year, died in 1687, in a remote inn in Yorkshire, re- 
 duced to the utmost misery."* After a life of the most 
 * Ruffhead's Pope.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 51 
 
 wanton riot, which exhausted all his princely resources, 
 he was left at the last hour, under circumstances which 
 are well described in the following lines by Pope : — 
 " In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung, 
 The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung, 
 On once a flock bed, but repaired with straw, 
 With tape-tied curtains never meant to draw, 
 The George and Garter dangling from that bed 
 Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red ; 
 Great Villiers lies. ...» 
 
 No wit to flatter lelt of all his store, 
 No fool to laugh at, which he valued more, 
 There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends 
 And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends." 
 
 Contrast the course of this unhappy man, with that of 
 the Duke of Bridgewater, who devoted his property to 
 really " making good for trade," by constructing the 
 great canals which connect Manchester with the coal 
 countries and with Liverpool. The Duke of Bucking- 
 ham lived in a round of sensual folly : the Duke of 
 Bridgewater limited his personal expenditure to 400/. a 
 year, and devoted all the remaining portion of his reve- 
 nues to the construction of a magnificent work of the 
 highest public utility. The one supported a train of 
 cooks and valets and horse-jockeys : the other called into 
 action the labour of thousands, and employed in the 
 direction of that labour the skill of Brindley, the greatest 
 engineer that any country has produced. The one died 
 without a penny, loaded with debt, leaving no trace be- 
 hind him but the ruin which his waste had produced : 
 the other bequeathed almost the largest property in 
 Europe to his descendants, and opened a channel for 
 industry which afforded, and still affords, employment to 
 thousands. 
 
 When we hear of a mob breaking windows on an 
 illumination night, we are too apt to say they have 
 " made good for trade." Is it not evident that the 
 capital which was represented by the unbroken windows 
 is really so much destroyed of the national riches, when 
 the windows are broken ? — for if the windows had re-
 
 52 CAPITAL AND LABOUB. 
 
 mained unbroken, the capital would have remained to 
 stimulate the production of some new object of utility. 
 The glaziers, indeed, replaced the windows ; but there 
 having been a destruction of the windows, there must 
 have been a necessary retrenchment in some other out- 
 lay, that would have afforded benefit to the consumer. 
 Doubtless, when the glazier is called into activity by a 
 mob breaking windows, some other trade suffers ; for 
 the man who has to pay for the broken windows must 
 retrench somewhere, and, if he has less to lay out, some 
 other person has less to lay out. The glass-maker, pro- 
 bably, makes more glass at the moment ; but he does so 
 to exchange with the capital that would otherwise have 
 gone to the maker of clothes or of furniture : and, there 
 being an absolute destruction of the funds for the main- 
 tenance of labour, by an unnecessary destruction of what 
 former labour has produced, trade generally is injured to 
 the extent of the destruction. Some say that a fire 
 makes good for trade. The only difference of evil be- 
 tween the fire which destroys a house, and the mob 
 which breaks the windows, is, that the fire absorbs capi- 
 tal for the maintenance of trade, or labour, m the pro- 
 portion of a hundred to one, when compared with the 
 mob. Some say that war makes good for trade. The 
 only difference of pecuniary evil (the moral evils admit 
 of no comparison) between the fire and the war is, that 
 the war absorbs capital for the maintenance of trade or 
 labour, in the proportion of a million to a hundi-ed, 
 when compared with the fire. If the incessant energy 
 of production were constantly repressed by mobs, and 
 fires, and wars, the end would be that consumption 
 would altogether exceed production ; and that then the 
 producers and the consumers would both be starved into 
 wiser courses, and perceive that nothing makes good for 
 trade but profitable industry and judicious expenditure. 
 Prodigality devotes itself too much to the satisfaction of 
 present wants ; avarice postpones too much the present 
 wants to the possible wants of the future. Real economy 
 is the happy measure between the two extremes ; and 
 that only " makes good for trade," because, while it car-
 
 CAPITAI. AND LABOUR. 53 
 
 ries on a steady demand for industry, it accumulates a 
 portion of the production of a country to stimulate new 
 production. That judicious expenditure consists in 
 
 " The sense to value riches, with the art 
 T' enjoy them." 
 
 The fashion of " making good for trade " by unprofit- 
 able consumption is a relic of the barbarous ages. In 
 the twelfth century, a count of France commanded his 
 vassals to plough up the soil round his castle, and he 
 sowed the ground with coins of gold, to the amount of 
 fifteen hundred guineas, that he might have all men talk 
 of his magnificence. Piqued at the lordly prodigality of 
 his neighbour, another noble ordered thirty of his most 
 valuable horses to be tied to a stake and burnt alive, that 
 he might exhibit a more striking instance of contempt 
 for accumulation. In the latter part of the fourteenth 
 century, a Scotch noble, Colin Campbell, on receiving a 
 visit from the O'Neiles of Ireland, ostentatiously burnt 
 down his house at Inverary upon their departure ; and 
 an Earl of Athol pursued the same course in 1528, after 
 having entertained the papal Legate, upon the pretence 
 that it was " the constant habitude of the highlanders to 
 set on fire in the morning the place which had lodged 
 them the night before." When the feudal lords had so 
 little respect for their own property, it was not likely 
 that they would have much regard for the accumulation 
 of others. The Jews, who were the great capitalists of 
 the middle ages, and who really merit the gratitude of 
 Europeans for their avarice, as that almost alone enabled 
 any accumulation to go forward, and any production to 
 increase, were, as it is well known, persecuted in every 
 direction by the crown, by the nobles, by the people. 
 When a solitary farmer or abbot attempted to accumulate 
 corn, which accumulation could alone prevent the dread- 
 ful famines invariably resulting from having no stock 
 that might be available upon a bad harvest, the people 
 burnt the ricks of the provident men, by way of lessen- 
 ing the evils of scarcity. The consequence was, that no 
 pe^'son thought of accumulating at all, and that the price
 
 54 CAPITAL AND LABOUE. 
 
 of wheat often rose, just before the harvest, from five 
 shillings a quarter to five pounds. 
 
 During these dark periods the crown carried on the 
 war against capital with an industry that could not be 
 exceeded by that of the nobles or the people. Before 
 the great charter the Commons complained that King 
 Henry seized u\K)n whatever was suited to his royal 
 pleasure — horses, implements, food, anything that pre- 
 sented itself in the shape of accumulated labour. In the 
 reign of Henry III. a statute was passed to remedy ex- 
 cessive distresses ; from which it appeared that it was no 
 unfrequent practice for the king's officers to take the 
 opportunity of seizing the farmer's oxen, at the moment 
 when they were employed in ploughing, or, as the sta- 
 tute says, " winning the earth," — taking them off, and 
 starving them to death, or only restoring them with new 
 and enormous exactions for their keep. Previous to the 
 Charter of the Forest no man could dig a marl-pit on 
 his own ground, lest the king's horses should fall into it 
 when he was hunting. As late as the time of James I. 
 we find, from a speech of the great Lord Bacon, that it 
 was a pretty constant practice of the king's purveyors to 
 extort large sums of money by threatening to cut down 
 favourite trees which grew near a mansion-house or in 
 avenues. Despotism, in all ages, has depopulated the 
 finest countries, by rendering capital insecure, and there- 
 fore unproductive ; insomuch that Montesquieu lays it 
 down as a maxim, that lands are not cultivated in pro- 
 portion to their fertility, but in proportion to their free- 
 dom. In the fifteenth century, in England, we find 
 sums of money voted for the restoration of decayed 
 towns and villages. Just laws would have restored them 
 much more quickly and effectually. The state of agri- 
 culture was so low that the most absurd enactments were 
 made to compel farmers to till and sow their own lands, 
 and calling upon every man to plant at least forty beans. 
 All the laws for the regulation of labourers, at the same 
 period, assumed that they should be compelled to work, 
 and not wander about the country, — just in the same 
 way that farmers should be compelled to sow and till.
 
 CAPITAI. AND LABOUR. 55 
 
 It is perfectly clear that the towns would not have been 
 depopulated, and gone to decay, if the accumulation of 
 capital had not been obstructed by insecurity and wasted 
 by ignorance ; and that the same insecurity, and the 
 same waste, rendered it necessary to assume that the 
 farmer would not till and sow, and the labourer would 
 not la1)our, without compulsion. The natural stimulus 
 to industry was wanting, and therefore there was no 
 industry, or only unprofitable industry. The towns 
 decayed, the country was uncultivated — production lan- 
 guished — the people were all poor and wretched ; and 
 the government dreamt that acts of parliament and royal 
 ordinances could rebuild the houses and cultivate the 
 land, when the means of building and cultivation, namely, 
 the capital of the country, was exhausted by injustice pro- 
 ducing insecurity. 
 
 But if the king, the nobles, and the people of the 
 middle ages conspired together, or acted at least as if 
 they conspired, to prevent the accumulation of capital, 
 the few capitalists themselves, by their monstrous regu- 
 lations, which, unfortunately, still throw their dark sha- 
 dows over our own days, prevented that freedom of 
 industry without which capital could not accumulate. 
 Undoubtedly, the commercial privileges of corporations 
 originally offered some barriers against the injustice of 
 the crown and of the nobility ; but the good was always 
 accompanied with an evil, which rendered it, to a cer- 
 tain extent, valueless. Where these privileges gave 
 security, they were a good ; where they destroyed free- 
 dom, they were an injury. Instead of encouraging the 
 intercourse between one trade and another, they encir- 
 cled every trade with the most absurd monopolies and 
 exclusive privileges. Instead of rendering commerce 
 free between one district and another, they, even in the 
 same countiy, encompassed commerce with the most 
 harassing restrictions, which separated county from 
 county, and town from town, as if seas ran between 
 them. If a man of Coventry came to London with his 
 wares, he was encountered at every step with the privi- 
 leges of companies ; if the man of London sought to
 
 56 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 trade at Coventry, he was obstructed by the same cor- 
 porate rights, preventing either the Londoner or the 
 Coventry man trading with advantage. The revenues 
 of every city were derived from forfeitures upon trades, 
 almost all established upon the principle that, if one 
 trade became too industrious, or too clever, it would be 
 the ruin of another trade. Every trade was fenced 
 round with secrets; and the commonest trade, as we 
 know from the language of an apprentice's indenture, 
 was called an " art and mystery." All these follies 
 went upon the presumption that " one man's gain is an- 
 other man's loss," instead of vanishing before the truth, 
 that, in proportion as the industry of a]l men is free, so 
 will it be productive ; and that production on all sides 
 ensures a state of things in which every exchanger is a 
 gainer, and no one a loser. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at that, while such opinions 
 existed, the union of capital and labour should have been 
 very imperfect ; and that, while the capitalists oppressed 
 the labourers, in the same way that they oppressed each 
 other, the labourers should have thought it not unreason- 
 able to plunder the capitalists. It is stated by Harrison, 
 an old writer of credit,* that, during the single reign of 
 Henry VIII., seventy -two thousand thieves were hanged 
 in England. No fact can exhibit in a stronger light the 
 universal misery that must have existed in those days. 
 The whole kingdom did not contain half a million 
 grown-up males, so that, considering that the reign of 
 Henry VIII. extended over two generations, about one 
 man in ten must have been, to use the words of the same 
 historian, " devoured and eaten up by the gallows." In 
 the same reign the first statute against Egyptians (gip- 
 sies) was passed. These people went from place to 
 place in great companies — spoke a cant language, which 
 Harrison calls Pedlar's French — and were subdivided 
 into fifty-two different classes of thieves. The same race 
 of people prevailed throughout Europe. Cervantes, the 
 author of * Don Quixote,' says of the Egyptians, or 
 
 * Preface to the Chronicles of Holingsbed, an historian of 
 the time of Elizabeth.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 0/ 
 
 Bohemians, that they seem to have been born for no 
 other purpose than that of pillaging. While this uni- 
 versal plunder went forward, it is evident that the inse- 
 curity of property must have been so great that there 
 could have been little accumulation, and therefore little 
 production. Capital was destroyed on every side ; and, 
 because profitable labour had become so scarce by the 
 destruction of capital, one-half of the community sought 
 to possess themselves of the few goods of the other half, 
 not as exchangers, but as robbers. As the robbers dimi- 
 nished the capital, the diminution of capital increased 
 the number of robbers ; and if the unconquerable energy 
 of human industry had not gone on producing, slowly 
 and painfully indeed, but still producing, the country 
 would have soon fallen back to the state in which it was 
 a thousand years before, when wolves abounded more 
 than men. One great cause of all this plunder and 
 misery was the oppression of the labourers.
 
 58 CAPITAL AlfD LABOUB. 
 
 CHAPTER YU. 
 
 Adam Sraitli, in his gi'eat work, ' The Wealth of Na- 
 tions,' says, " The property which every man has in his 
 own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other 
 property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The 
 patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity 
 of his hands ; and to hinder him from employing this 
 strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper, 
 without injury to his neighbour, is a plain violation of this 
 most sacred property." The right of property, in gene- 
 ral, has been defined by another writer, M. Say, to be 
 *' the exclusive faculty guaranteed to a man, or body of 
 men, to dispose, at their own pleasure, of that which be- 
 longs to them." There can be no doubt that labour is 
 entitled to the same protection as a property that capital 
 is entitled to. There can be no doubt that the labourer 
 has rights over his labour which no government and no 
 individual should presume to interfere with. There can 
 be no doubt that, as an exchanger of labour for capital, 
 the labourer ought to be assured that the exchange shall 
 in all respects be as free as the exchanges of any other 
 description of property. His rights as an exchanger are, 
 that he shall not be compelled to part with his property, 
 by any arbitrary enactments, without having as ample an 
 equivalent as the general laws of exchange will afford 
 him ; that he shall be free to use every just means, either 
 by himself or by union with others, to obtain such an 
 equivalent ; that he shall be at full liberty to offer that 
 property in the best market that he can find, without 
 being limited to any paiticular market ; that he may give
 
 CAPITAL, AND LABOUE. 59 
 
 to that property every modification which it is capable of 
 receiving from his own natural or acquired skill, without 
 being narrowed to any one form of producing it. In 
 other words, natural justice demands that the working- 
 man shall work when he please, and be idle when he 
 please, always providing that if he make a contract to 
 work, he shall not violate that engagement by remaining 
 idle ; that no labour shall be forced from him, and no 
 rate of payment for that labour prescribed by statutes or 
 ordinances ; that he shall be free to obtain as high wages 
 as he can possibly get, and unite with others to obtain 
 them, always providing that in his union he does not vio- 
 late that freedom of industry in others which is the 
 foundation of his own attempts to improve his condition ; 
 that he may go from place to place to exchange his labour 
 without being interfered with by corporate rights or mo- 
 nopolies of any sort, whether of masters or workmen ; 
 and that he may turn from one employment to the other, 
 if he so think fit, without being confined to the trade he 
 originally learnt, or may strike into any line of employ- 
 ment without having regularly learnt it at all. When 
 the working-man has these rights secured to him 'by 
 the sanction of the laws, and the concurrence of the in- 
 stitutions and customs of the country in which he lives, 
 he is in the condition of a free exchanger. He has 
 the full, uninterrupted, absolute possession of his pro- 
 perty. He is upon a perfect legal equality with the 
 capitalist. He may labour cheerfully with the well- 
 founded assurance that his labour will be profitably ex- 
 changed for the goods which he desires for the satisfac- 
 tion of his wants, as far as laws and institutions can so 
 provide. In a word, he may assure himself that if he 
 possesses anything valuable to offer in exchange for 
 capital, the capital will not be fenced round with any 
 artificial barriers, or invested with any unnatural pre- 
 ponderance, to prevent the exchange being one of per- 
 fect equality, and therefore a real benefit to both ex- 
 changers. 
 
 We are approaching this desirable state in England. 
 Indeed, there is scarcely any legal restriction acted upon 
 
 d2
 
 60 
 
 CAPITAL AXD LABOUB. 
 
 which prevents the exchange of labour with capital being 
 completely unembarrassed. Yet it is only within a few- 
 centuries that the working-men of this country have 
 emerged from the condition of actual slaves into that of 
 free labourers ; it is only a few hundred years ago since 
 the cultivator of the ground, the domestic servant, and 
 sometimes even the artisan, was the absolute property of 
 another man — bought, sold, let, without any will of his 
 own, like an ox or a horse — producing nothing for him- 
 self — and transmitting the miseries of his lot to his chil- 
 dren. The progress of civilization destroyed this mon- 
 strous system, in the same way that at the present day it 
 is destroying it in Russia and other countries where 
 slavery still exists. But it was by a very slow process 
 that the English slave went forward to the complete 
 enjoyment of the legal rights of a free exchanger. The 
 transition exhibits very many years of gross injustice, of 
 bitter suffering, of absurd and ineffectual violations of the 
 natural rights of man ; and of struggles between the ca- 
 pitalist and the labourer, for exclusive advantages, per- 
 petuated by ignorant lawgivers, who could not see that 
 the interest of all classes of producers is one and the 
 same. We may not improperly devote a little space to 
 the description of this dark and evil period. We shall 
 see that while such a struggle goes forward — that is, 
 while security of property and freedom of industry arc 
 not held as the interchangeable rights of the capitalist 
 and the labourer — there can be little production and less 
 accumulation. Wherever positive slavery exists — wher- 
 ever the labourers are utterly deprived of their property 
 in their labour, and are compelled to dispose of it with- 
 out retaining any part of the character of voluntary ex- 
 changers — there are found idleness, ignorance, and un- 
 skilfulness ; industry is enfeebled — the oppressor and the 
 oppressed are both poor — there is no national accumula- 
 tion. The existence of slavery amongst the nations of 
 antiquity was a great impediment to their progress in the 
 arts of life. The community, in such nations, was divided 
 into a caste of nobles called citizens, and a caste of la- 
 boui-ers called slaves. The Romans were rich, m the
 
 CAPITAL AXD LABOUR. 61 
 
 common sense of the word, because they plundered other 
 nations ; but they could not produce largely when the 
 individual spirit to industry was wanting. The industry 
 of the freemen was rapine : the slaves were the pro- 
 ducers. No man will work willingly when he is to be 
 utterly deprived of the power of disposing at his own will 
 of the fmits of his labour ; no man will work skilfully 
 when the same scanty pittance is doled out to each and 
 all, whatever be the difference in their talents and know- 
 ledge. Wherever the freedom of industry is thus vio- 
 lated, property cannot be secure. If Rome had encou- 
 raged free labourers, instead of breeding menial slaves, it 
 could not have happened that the thieves, who were con- 
 stantly hovering round the suburbs of the city, like vul- 
 tures looking out for carrion, should have been so nume- 
 rous that, during the insurrection of Catiline, they 
 formed a large accession to his army. But Rome had to 
 encounter a worse evil than that of the swarms of high- 
 waymen, who were ready to plunder whatever had been 
 produced. Production itself was so feeble when carried 
 on by the labour of slaves, that Columella, a writer on 
 rural affairs, says the crops continued so gradually to fall 
 off that there was a general opinion that the earth was 
 growing old and losing its power of productiveness. 
 Wherever slavery exists at the present day, there we find 
 feeble production and national weakness. Poland, the most 
 prolific corn country in Europe, is unquestionably the 
 poorest country. Poland has been partitioned, over and 
 over again, by governments that knew her weakness ; and 
 she has been said to have fallen " without a crime." That 
 is not correct. Her "crime" was, and is, the slavery 
 of her labourers. There is no powerful class between 
 the noble and the serf or slave ; and whilst this state 
 of things endures, Poland can never be independent, 
 because she can never be industrious, and therefore never 
 wealthy. 
 
 England, as we have said, once gi'oaned under the 
 evils of positive slavery. The Anglo-Saxons had what 
 they called " live money," such as sheep and slaves. To 
 this c^use may be doubtless attributed the easy conquest
 
 62 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 of the country by the Norman invaders, and the oppres- 
 sion that succeeded that conquest. If the people had 
 been free, no king could have swept away the entire 
 population of a hundred thousand souls that dwelt in the 
 country between the Humber and the Tees, and con- 
 verted a district of sixty miles in length into a dreary 
 desert, which remained for years without houses and 
 without inhabitants. This the Conqueror did. In the 
 reign of Henry II, the slaves of England were exported 
 in large numbers to Ireland. These slaves, or villeins, 
 as is the case in Russia and Poland at the present day, 
 differed in the degree of the oppression which was exer- 
 cised towards them. Some, called " villeins in gross," 
 were at the absolute disposal of the lord — transferable 
 from one owner to another, like a horse or a cow. 
 Others, called "villeins regardant," were annexed to 
 parti(mlar estates, and were called upon to perform what- 
 ever agricultural offices the lord should demand from 
 them, not having the power of acquiring any property, 
 and their only privilege being that they were irremove- 
 able except with their own consent. These distinctions 
 are not of much consequence, for, by a happy combina- 
 tion of circumstances, the bondmen of every kind, in the 
 course of a century or two after the Conquest, were 
 rapidly passing into the condition of free labourers. But 
 still capital was accumulated so slowly, and labour was so 
 unproductive, that the land did not produce the tenth 
 part of a modem crop ; and the country was constantly 
 exposed to the severest inflictions of famine, whenever a 
 worse than usual harvest occurred. 
 
 In the reign of Edward III. the woollen manufacture 
 was introduced into England. It was at first carried on 
 exclusively by foreigners ; but as the trade extended, 
 new hands were wanting, and the bondmen of the vil- 
 lages began to nm away from their masters, and take 
 refuge in the to\A'ns. If the slave could conceal himself 
 successfully from the pursuit of his lord for a year and a 
 day, he was held free for ever. The constant attraction 
 of the bondmen to the towns, where they could work for 
 hire, gradually emboldened those who remained as culti-
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 63 
 
 vators to assert their own natural rights. The nobility 
 complained that the villeins refused to perform their 
 accustomed services ; and that corn remained uncut upon 
 the ground. At length, in 1351, the 25th year of Ed- 
 ward III., the class of free labourers was first recognised 
 by the legislature ; and a statute was passed, oppressive 
 indeed, and impolitic, but distinctly acknowledging the 
 right of the labourer to assume the character of a free 
 exchanger. Slavery, in England, was not wholly abo- 
 lished by statute till the time of Charles II. : it was 
 attempted in vain to be abolished in 1526. As late as 
 the year 1775, the colliers of Scotland were accounted 
 ascripti glehcB — that is, as belonging to the estate or col- 
 liery where they were born and continued to work. It 
 is not necessary for us further to notice the existence of 
 villeinage or slavery in these kingdoms. Our business 
 is with the slow progress of the establishment of the 
 rights of free labourers — and this principally to show 
 that, during the long period when a contest was going- 
 forward between the capitalists and the labourers, in- 
 dustry was comparatively unproductive. It was not so 
 miproductive, indeed, as during the period of absolute 
 slavery ; but as long as any man was compelled to work, 
 or to continue at work, or to receive a fixed price, or to 
 remain in one place, or to follow one employment, labour 
 could not be held to be free — property could not be held 
 to be secure — capital and labour could not have cordially 
 united for production — accumulation could not have been 
 certain and rapid. 
 
 In the year 1349 there was a dreadful pestilence in 
 England, which swept off large numbers of the people. 
 Those of the labourers that remained, following the na- 
 tural course of the great principle of demand and supply, 
 refused to serve, unless they were paid double the wages 
 which they had received five years before. Then came 
 the *' Statute of Labourers," of 1351, to regulate wages ; 
 and this statute enacted what should be paid to hay- 
 makers, and reapers, and thrashers ; to carpenters, and 
 masons, and tilers, and plasterers. No person was to 
 quit his own village, if he could get work at these wages ;
 
 64 CAPITAL AXD LABOUK. 
 
 and labourers and artificers flying from one district to 
 another, in consequence of these regulations, were to be 
 imprisoned. 
 
 Good laws, it has been said, execute themselves. 
 When legislators make bad laws, there requires a con- 
 stant increase of vigilance and severity, and constant 
 attempts at reconciling impossibilities, to allow such laws 
 to work at all. In 1360, the statute of labourers was 
 confirmed with new penalties, such as burning in the 
 forehead with the letter F those workmen who left their 
 usual abodes. Having controlled the wages of industry, 
 the next step was for these blind lawgivers to determine 
 how the workmen should spend their scanty pittance ; 
 and accordingly, in 1363, a statute was passed to compel 
 workmen and all persons not worth forty shillings, to 
 wear the coarsest cloth called russet, and to be served 
 once a day with meat, or fish, and the offal of other vic- 
 tuals. We were not without imitations of such absurdi- 
 ties in other nations. An ordinance of the King of 
 France, in 1461, determined that good and fat meat 
 should be sold to the rich, while the poor should b» 
 allowed only to buy the lean and stinking; 
 
 While the wages of labour were fixed by statute, the 
 price of wheat was constantly undergoing the most extra- 
 ordinary fluctuations, ranging from 25, a quarter, to 
 1/. 6s. 8d. It was perfectly impossible that any profit- 
 able industry could go forward in the face of such unjust 
 and ridiculous laws. In 1376 the Commons complained 
 that masters were obliged to give their servants higher 
 wages to prevent their running away ; and that the 
 country was covered with staf-strikers and sturdy rogues 
 who robbed in every direction. The villages were de- 
 serted by the labourers resorting to the towns, where 
 commerce knew how to evade the destroying regulations 
 of the statutes ; and to prevent the total decay of agricul- 
 ture, labourers were not allowed to move fi-om place to 
 place without letters patent: — any labourer, not pro- 
 ducing such a letter, was to be imprisoned and put in the 
 stocks. If a lad had been brought up to the plough till 
 he was twelve years of age, he was compelled to continue
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 65 
 
 in husbandry all his life ; and in 1406 it was enacted 
 that all children of parents not possessed of land should 
 be brought up in the occupation of their parents. While 
 the legislature, however, was passing these abominable 
 laws, it was most effectually preparing the means for 
 their extermination. Children were allowed to be sent 
 to school in any part of the kingdom. When the light 
 of education dawned upon the people, they could not 
 long remain in the " darkness visible" that succeeded the 
 niglit of slavery. 
 
 When the industry of the country was nearly anni- 
 hilated by the laws regulating wages, it was found out 
 that something like a balance should be preserved be- 
 tween wages and prices ; and the magistrates were there- 
 forG empowered twice a year to make proclamation, 
 according to the price of provisions, how much every 
 workman should receive. The system, hovrcver, would 
 not work well. In 1496 a new statute of wages was 
 passed, the preamble of which recited that the former 
 statutes had not been executed, because *' the remedy 
 by the said statutes is not very perfect." Then came a 
 new remedy : that is, a new scale of wages for all trades ; 
 regulations for the hours of work and of rest ; and penal- 
 ties to prevent labour being transported from one district 
 to another. As a necessary consequence of a fixed scale 
 for wages, came another fixed scale for regulating the prices 
 of provisions ; till at last, in the reign of Henry VIII., 
 lawgivers began to open their eyes to the folly of their 
 proceedings, and the preamble of a statute says "that 
 dearth, scarcity, good cheap, and plenty of cheese, 
 butter, capons, hens, chickens, and other victuals necessary 
 for man's sustenance, happeneth, riseth, and chanceth, 
 of so many and divers occasions, that it is very hard and 
 difficile to put any certain prices to any such things." 
 Yet they went on with new scales, in spite of the hard- 
 ness of the task ; till at last some of the worst of these 
 absurd laws were swept from the statute-book. The 
 justices, whose principal occupation was to balance the 
 scale of wages and labour, complained incessantly of the 
 difficulty of the attempt ; and the statute of the 5th Eli- 
 zabeth acknowledged that these old laws " could not be 
 
 d3
 
 66 CAPITAL AKD LABOUR. 
 
 carried into execution without the great grief and burden 
 of the poor labourer and hired man." Still new laws 
 were enacted to prevent the freedom of industry working 
 out plenty for capitalists as well as labourers ; and at 
 length, in 1601, a general assessment was directed for 
 the support of the impotent poor, and for setting the 
 unemployed poor to work. The capitalists at length 
 paid a grievous penalty for their two centuries of oppres- 
 sion ; and had to maintain a host of paupers, that had 
 gradually filled the land during these unnatural contests. 
 It would be perhaps incorrect to say, that these contests 
 alone produced the paupers that required this legislative 
 protection in the reign of Elizabeth ; but certainly the 
 number of those paupers would have been far less, if the 
 laws of industry had taken their healthy and natural 
 course, — if capital and labour had gone hand in hand to 
 produce abundance for all, and fairly to distribute that 
 abundance in the form of profits and wages, justly ba- 
 lanced by the steady operation of demand and supply in 
 a free and extensive market. 
 
 The whole of these absurd and iniquitous laws, which 
 had succeeded the more wicked laMS of absolute slavery, 
 proceeded from a struggle on the part of the capitalists 
 in land against the growing power and energy of free 
 labour. If the capitalists had rightly understood their 
 interests, they would have seen that the increased pro- 
 duction of a thriving and happy peasantry would have 
 amply compensated them for all the increase of wages to 
 which they were compelled to submit ; and that at every 
 step by which the condition of their labourers was im- 
 proved their own condition was also improved. If then 
 capital had worked naturally and honestly for the encou- 
 ragement of labour, there would have been no lack of 
 labourers ; and it would not have been necessary to pass 
 laws to compel artificers, under the penalty of the stocks, 
 to assist in getting in the harvest (5 Eliz.). If the 
 labourers in agriculture had been adequately paid, they 
 would not have fled to the towns ; and if they had not 
 been liable to cruel punishments for the exercise of this 
 their natural right, the country would not have been co- 
 vered with " valiant rogues and sturdy beergars."
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 67 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 It will be desirable to exhibit something like an average 
 view of the extent of the possessions of all classes of 
 society, and especially of the middling and labouring 
 classes, in this country, at a period when the mutual 
 rights of capitalists and labourers were so little under- 
 stood as in the fourteenth century. We have shown 
 how, at that time, there was a general round of oppres- 
 sion, resulting from ignorance of the proper interests of 
 the productive classes ; and it would be well also to show 
 that during this period of disunion and contest between 
 capital and labour, each plundering the other, and both 
 plundered by arbitrary power, whether of the nobles or 
 the crown, production went on very slowly and imper- 
 fectly, and that there was little to plunder and less to 
 exchange. It is difficult to find the materials for such 
 an inquiry. There is no very accurate record of the 
 condition of the various classes of society before the in- 
 vention of printing ; and even after that invention we 
 must be content to form our conclusions from a few scat- 
 tered facts not recorded for any such purpose as we have 
 in view, but to be gathered incidentally from slight 
 observations which have come down to us. Yet enough 
 remains to enable us to form a picture of tolerable accu- 
 racy ; and in some points to establish conclusions which 
 cannot be disputed. It is in the same way that our 
 knowledge of the former state of the physical world 
 must be derived from relics of that former state, to which 
 the inquiries and comparisons of the present times have 
 given an historical value. We know, for instance, that
 
 €8 CAPITAL AND LAIiOUK. 
 
 the animals of the southern countries once abounded in 
 these islands, because we occasionally find their bones in 
 quantities which could not have been accumulated unless 
 such animals had been once native to these parts ; and 
 the remains of sea-shells upon the tops of hills now under 
 the plough show us that even these heights have been 
 heaved up from the bosom of the ocean. In the same 
 way, although we have no complete picture of the state 
 of property at the period to which we allude, we have 
 evidence enough to describe that state from records 
 which may be applied to this end, although preserved 
 for a very different object. 
 
 In the reign of Edward III., Colchester, in Essex, 
 was considered the tenth city in England in point of 
 population. It then paid a poll-tax for 2955 lay persons. 
 In 1301, about half a century before, the number of in- 
 habitant housekeepers was 390 ; and the whole house- 
 liold furniture, utensils, clothes, money, cattle, corn, and 
 every other property found in the town, was valued at 
 518/. 16^. O^d. This valuation took place on occasion 
 of a subsidy or tax to the crown, to carry on a war 
 against France ; and the particulars, which are preserved 
 in the Rolls of Parliament, exhibit with great minute- 
 ness the classes of persons then inhabiting that town, and 
 the sort of pi-operty which each respectively possessed. 
 The trades exercised in Colchester were the Ibllowing : — 
 baker, barber, blacksmith, bowyer, brewer, butcher, car 
 penter, carter, cobler, cook, dyer, fisherman, fuller, fur- 
 rier, girdler, glass-seller, glover, linen-draper, mercer 
 and spice-seller, miller, mustard and vinegar seller, old 
 clothes seller, saddler, tailor, tanner, tyler, weaver, wood- 
 cutter, and wool-comber. If we look at a small town of 
 the present day, where such a variety of occupations are 
 carried on, we shall find that each tradesman has a con- 
 siderable stock of commodities, abundance of furniture 
 and utensils, clothes in plenty, some plate, books, and 
 many articles of convenience and luxury to which the 
 most wealthy dealers and mechanics of Colchester of the 
 fourteenth century were utter strangers. That many 
 places at that time were much poorer than Colchester
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUK. by 
 
 there can be no doubt ; for here we see the division of 
 labour was pretty extensive, and that is alwaj-s a proof 
 that production is going forward, however imperfectly. 
 We see, too, that the tradesmen were connected with 
 manufactures in the ordinary use of the term ; or there 
 would not have been the dyer, the glover, the linen- 
 draper, the tanner, the weaver, and the wool-comber. 
 There must have been a demand for articles of foreign 
 commerce, too, in this town, or we should not have had 
 the spice-seller. Yet, with all these various occupations, 
 indicating considerable profitable industry when com- 
 pared with earlier stages in the history of this country, 
 the whole stock of the town was valued at little more 
 than 500/. Nor let it be supposed that this sraallness of 
 capital can be accounted for by the difference in the 
 standard of money ; although that difference is consider- 
 able. We may indeed satisfy ourselves of the small 
 extent of the capital of individuals at that day, by refer- 
 ring to the inventory of the articles upon which the tax 
 we have mentioned was laid at Colchester. 
 
 The whole stock of a carpenter's tools was valued at 
 one shilling. They altogether consisted of two broad 
 axes, an adze, a square, and a navegor or spoke-shave. 
 Rough work must the carpenter have been able to per- 
 form with these humble instruments ; but then let it be 
 remembered that there was little capital to pay him for 
 finer work, and that very little fine work was conse- 
 quently required. The three hundred and ninety house- 
 keepers of Colchester then lived in mud huts, with a 
 rough door and no chimney. Harrison, speaking of the 
 manners of a century later than the period we are de- 
 scribing, says, " There were very few chimneys even in 
 capital towns: the fire was laid to the wall, and the smoke 
 issued out at the roof, or door, or window. The houses 
 were wattled, and plastered over with clay ; and all the 
 furniture and utensils were of wood. The people slept 
 on straw pallets, with a log of wood for a pillow." When 
 this old historian wrote, he mentions the erection of 
 chimneys as a modera luxury. We had improved little 
 upon our Anglo-Saxon ancestors in the article of chim-
 
 70 ' CAPITAL AKD LABOUR. 
 
 neys. In their time Alcuin, an abbot who had ten 
 thousand vassals, writes to the emperor at Rome that he 
 preferred living in his smoky house to visiting the palaces 
 of Italy. This was in the ninth centur}'. Five hundred 
 years had made little difference in the chimneys of Col- 
 chester. The nobility had hangings against the walls to 
 keep out the wind, which crept in through the crevices 
 which the builder's bungling art had left : the middle 
 orders had no hangings. Shakspere alludes to this rough 
 building of houses even in his time : — 
 
 " Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay, 
 Might stop a hole to keep the wind away." 
 
 Even the nobility went without glass to their windows in 
 the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. " Of old time," 
 says Harrison, " our country-houses, instead of glass, did 
 use much lattice, and that made either of wicker or fine 
 rifts of oak, in checkerwise." When glass was intro- 
 duced, it was for a long time so scarce that at Alnwick 
 Castle, in 1567, the glass was ordered to be taken out of 
 the windows, and laid up in safety, when the lord was 
 absent. 
 
 The mercer's stock-in-trade at Colchester was much 
 ujwn a level with the carpenter's tools. It was some- 
 what various, but very limited in quantity. The whole 
 comprised a piece of woollen cloth, some silk and fine 
 linen, flannel, silk purses, gloves, girdles, leather purses, 
 and needlework ; and it was altogether valued at 3/. 
 There appears to have been another dealer in cloth and 
 linen in the town, whose store was equally scanty. We 
 were not much improved in the use of linen a century 
 later. We learn from the Earl of Northumberland's 
 household book, whose family was large enough to con- 
 sume one hundred and sixty gallons of mustard during 
 the winter with their salt meat, that only seventy ells of 
 linen were allowed for a year's consumption. In the 
 fourteenth century none but the clergy and nobility wore 
 white linen. As industry increased, and the cleanliness 
 of the middle classes increased with it, the use of white 
 linen became more general ; but, even at the end of the
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 71 
 
 next century, when printing was invented, the paper- 
 makers had the greatest difficulty in procuring rags for 
 their manufacture ; and so careful were the people of 
 every class to preserve their linen, that night-clothes 
 were never worn. Linen was so dear that Shakspere 
 makes Falstaff's shirts eight shillings an ell. The more 
 sumptuous articles of a mercer's stock were treasured in 
 rich families from generation to generation ; and even 
 the wives of the nobility did not disdain to mention in 
 their wills a particular article of clothing, which they 
 left to the use of a daughter or a friend. The solitary 
 old coat of a baker came into the Colchester valuation ; 
 nor is this to be wondered at, when we find that even 
 the soldiers at the battle of Bannockburn, about this 
 time, were described by an old rhymer as " well near 
 all naked." 
 
 The household furniture found in use amongst the 
 families of Colchester consisted, in the more wealthy, of 
 an occasional bed, a brass pot, a brass cup, a gridiron, 
 and a rug or two, and perhaps a towel. Of chairs and 
 tables we hear nothing. We learn from the Chronicles 
 of Brantome, a French historian of these days, that even 
 the nobility sat upon chests in which they kept their 
 clothes and linen. Harrison, whose testimony Me have 
 already given to the poverty of these times, affirms, that 
 if a man in seven years after marriage could purchase a 
 flock bed, and a sack of chaff to rest his head upon, he 
 thought himself as well lodged as the lord of the town, 
 " who perad venture lay seldom on a bed entirely of 
 feathers." An old tenure in England, before these times, 
 binds the vassal to find straw even for the king's bed. 
 The beds of flock, the few articles of furniture, the ab- 
 sence of chairs and tables, would have been of less con- 
 sequence to the comfort and health of the people, if they 
 had been clean ; but cleanliness never exists without a 
 certain possession of domestic conveniences. The people 
 of England, in the days of which we are speaking, were 
 not famed for their attention to this particular. Thomas 
 a Becket was reputed extravagantly nice, because he had 
 his parlour strewed every day with clean straw. As late
 
 72 CAPITAL AXD LABOUR. 
 
 as the reign of Henry VIII., Ei-asmus, a celebrated 
 scholar of Holland, who visited England, complains that 
 the nastiness of the people was the cause of the frequent 
 plagues that destroyed them ; and he says, " their floors 
 are commonly of clay, strewed with rushes, under which 
 lie unmolested a collection of beer, grease, fragments, 
 bones, spittle, excrements of dogs and cats, and of every- 
 thing that is nauseous." The elder Scaliger, another 
 scholar who came to England, abuses the people for 
 giving him no convenience to wash his hands. Glass 
 vessels were scarce, and pottery was almost wholly un- 
 known. The Earl of Northumberland, whom we have 
 mentioned, breakfasted on trenchers and dined on pewter. 
 While such universal slovenliness prevailed as Erasmus 
 has described, it is not likely that much attention was 
 generally paid to the cultivation of the mind. Before the 
 invention of printing, at the time of the valuation of Col- 
 chester, books in manuscript, from their extreme costli- 
 ness, could be purchased only by princes. The royal 
 library of Paris, in 1378, consisted of nine hundred and 
 nine volumes, — an extraordinary number. The same 
 library now comprises upwards of four hundred thousand 
 volumes. But it may fairly be assumed that, where one 
 book could be obtained in the fourteenth century by 
 persons of the working classes, four hundred thousand 
 may be as easily obtained now. Here then was a priva- 
 tion which existed five hundred years ago, which debarred 
 our ancestors from more profit and pleasure than the want 
 of beds, and chairs, and linen ; and probably, if this 
 jjrivation had continued, and men therefore had not cul- 
 tivated their understandings, they would not have learnt 
 to give any really profitable direction to their labour, and 
 we should still have been as scantily supplied with furni- 
 ture and clothes as the good people of Colchester of 
 whom we have been speaking. 
 
 Let us see what accumulated supply, or capital, of food 
 the inhabitants of England had five centuries ago. Pos- 
 sessions in cattle are the earliest riches of most countries. 
 We have seen that cattle was called " live money ;" and 
 it is supposed that the word capital, which means stock
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 73 
 
 generally, was derived from the Latin word '' capita," or 
 heads of beasts. The law-term "chattels" is also sup- 
 posed to come from cattle. These circumstances show 
 that cattle were the ciiief property of our ancestors. 
 Vast herds of swine constituted the great provision for 
 the support of the people ; and these were principally 
 fed, as they are even now in the New Forest, upon 
 acorns and beech-mast. In Domesday Book, a valuation 
 of the time of William the Conqueror, it is always men- 
 tioned how many hogs each estate can maintain. Hume, 
 the historian, in his Essays, alluding to the great herds 
 of swine described by Polj^bius as existing in Italy and 
 Greece, concludes that the country was thinly peopled 
 and badly cultivated ; and there can be no doubt that the 
 same argument may be applied to England in the four- 
 teenth century, although many swine were maintained 
 in for(,*sts preserved for fuel. The hogs wandered about 
 the country in a half-wild state, destroying, probably, 
 more than they profitably consumed ; and they were badly 
 fed, if Me may judge from a statute of 1402, which 
 alleges the great decrease of fish in the Thames and 
 other rivers, by the practice of feeding hogs with the fry 
 caught at the wears. The hogs' flesh of England was 
 constantly salted for the winter's food. The people had 
 little fodder for cattle in the winter, and therefore they 
 only tasted fresh meat in the summer season. The 
 mustard and vinegar seller formed a business at Col- 
 chester, to furnish a relish for the pork. Stocks of salted 
 meat are mentioned in the inventory of many houses 
 there, and live hogs as commonly. But salted flesh is 
 not food to be eaten constantly, and with little vegetable 
 food, without severe injury to the health. In the early 
 part of the reign of Henry VIII., not a cabbage, carrot, 
 turnip, or other edible root, grew in England. Two or 
 three centuries before, certainly, the monasteries had 
 gardens with a variety of vegetables ; but nearly all the 
 gardens of the laity were destroyed in the wars between 
 the houses of York and Lancaster. jJHan-ison speaks of 
 wheaten bread as being chiefly used by the gentry for 
 their own tables ; and adds, that the artificer and labourer
 
 74 CAPITAL AXD LABOUR. 
 
 are '' driven to content themselves with horse-corn, beans, 
 peason, oats, tares, and lentils." There is no doubt that 
 the average duration of human life was at that period not 
 one-half as long as at the present day. The constant use 
 of salted meat, with little or no vegetable addition, doubt- 
 less contributed to the shortening of life, to say nothing 
 of the large numbers constantly swept away by pestilence 
 and famine. Till lemon-juice was used as a remedy for 
 scurvy amongst our seamen, who also are compelled to 
 cat salted meat without green vegetables, the destruction 
 of life in the navy was something incredible. Admiral 
 Hosier buried his ship's companies twice during a West 
 India voyage in 1726, partly from the unhealthiness of 
 the Spanish coast, but chiefly from the ravages of scurvy. 
 Bad food and want of cleanliness swept away the people 
 of the middle ages, by ravages upon their health that the 
 limited medical skill of those days could never resist. 
 Matthew Paris, an historian of that period, states that 
 there were in his time twenty thousand hospitals for 
 lepers in Europe. 
 
 The slow accumulation of capital in the early stages of 
 the civilization of a country is in a great measure caused 
 by the indisposition of the people to unite for a common 
 good in public works, and the inability of governments 
 to carry on these works, when their principal concern is 
 war, foreign or domestic. The foundations of the civi- 
 lization of this country were probably laid by our Roman 
 conquerors, Mho canned roads through the island, and 
 taught us how to cultivate our soil. Yet improvement 
 went on so slowly that, even a hundred years after the 
 Romans were settled here, the whole country was de- 
 scribed as marshy. For centuries after the Romans made 
 the Watling-street and a few other roads, one district 
 was separated from another by the general want of these 
 great means of communication, Bracton, a law-writer of 
 the period we have been so constantly mentioning, holds 
 that if a man being at Oxford engage to pay money the 
 same day in London, he shall be discharged of his con- 
 tract, as he undertakes a physical impossibility. We find, 
 as late as the time of Elizabeth, that her Majesty would
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 75 
 
 not stay to breakfast at Cambridge because she had to 
 travel twelve miles before she could come to the place, 
 Hinchinbrook, where she desired to sleep. Where there 
 were no roads, there could be few or no markets. An 
 act of parliament of 1272 says that the religious houses 
 should not be compelled to sell their provisions — a proof 
 that there were no considerable stores except in the reli- 
 gious houses. The difficulty of navigation was so great, 
 that William Longsword, son of Henry II., returning 
 from France, was during three months tossed upon the 
 sea before he could make a port in Cornwall. Looking, 
 therefore, to the want of commerce proceeding from the 
 want of communication — looking to the small stock of 
 property accumulated to support labour — and looking, as 
 we have previously done, to the incessant contests between 
 the small capital and the misdirected labour, both feeble, 
 because they worked without skill — we cannot be sur- 
 prised that the poverty of which we have exhibited a 
 faint picture should have endured for several centuries, 
 and that the industry of our forefathers must have had a 
 long and painful struggle before it could have bequeathed 
 to us such magnificent accumulations as we now enjoy.
 
 CAFITAI. A>T) LABOUK. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The writers who lived at the periods when Euro])e was 
 slowly emerging from ignorance and poverty, through 
 the first slight union of capital and labour as voluntary 
 exchangers, complain of the increase of comfoi*ts as indi- 
 cations of the growing luxury and effenainacy of the 
 people. Harrison says, " In times past men were con- 
 tented to dwell in houses builded of sallow, willow, 
 plum-tree, or elm ; so that the use of oak was dedicated 
 to churches, religious houses, princes' palaces, noble- 
 men's lodgings, and navigation. But now these are re- 
 jected, and nothing but oak any whit regarded. And 
 yet see the change ; for when our houses were builded 
 of willow, then had we oaken men ; but now that our 
 houses are made of oak, our men are not only become 
 willow, but many, through Persian delicacy crept in 
 among us, altogether of straw, which is a sore alteration. 
 In those days, the courage of the owner was a sufficient 
 defence to keep the house in safety ; but now the assur- 
 ance of the timber, double doors, locks, and bolts must 
 defend the man from robbing. Now have we many 
 chimneys, and our tenderlings complain of rheums, 
 catarrhs, and poses. Then had we none but rere-dosses, 
 and our heads did never ache." These complaints go 
 upon the same principle that made it a merit in Epictetus, 
 the Greek philosopher, to have had no door to his hovel. 
 We think he would have been a wiser man if h-e had 
 contrived to have had a door. A story is told of a High- 
 land chief. Sir Evan Cameron, that himself and a party 
 of his followers being benighted, and compelled to sleep
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 77 
 
 in the open air, when his son rolled up a ball of snow 
 and laid his head upon it for a pillow, the rough old man 
 kicked it away, exclaiming, " What, sir, are you turning 
 effeminate ! " We doubt whether Sir Evan Cameron 
 and his men were braver than the English officers who 
 fought at Waterloo ; and yet many of these marched from 
 the ball-room at Brussels in their holiday attire, and won 
 the battle in silk stockings. It is an old notion that 
 plenty of the necessaries and conveniences of life renders 
 a nation feeble. We are told that the Carthaginian sol- 
 diers which Hannibal carried into Italy were suddenly 
 rendered effeminate by the abundance which they found 
 around them at Capua. The commissariat of modern 
 nations goes upon another principle ; and believes that 
 unless the soldier has plenty of food and clothing he will 
 not fight with alacrity and steadiness. The half-starved 
 soldiers of Henry V. won the battle of Agincourt ; but 
 it was not because they were half-starved, but because 
 they roused their native courage to cut their way out of 
 the peril by which they were surrounded. When we 
 hear of ancient nations being enervated by abundance, we 
 may be sure that the abundance was almost entirely de- 
 voured by a few tyrants, and that the bulk of the people 
 were rendered weak by the destitution which resulted 
 from the unnatural distribution of riches. W^e read of 
 the luxury of the court of Persia — the pomp of the 
 seraglios, and of the palaces — the lights, the music, the 
 dancing, the perfumes, the silks, the gold, and the dia- 
 monds. The people are held to be effeminate. The 
 Russians, from the hardy north, can lay the Persian 
 monarchy any day at their feet. Is this national weak- 
 ness caused by the excess of production amongst the 
 people, giving them so extravagant a command over the 
 necessaries and luxuries of life that they have nothing to 
 do but drink of the full cup of enjoyment ? Mr. Eraser, 
 an English traveller, thus describes the appearance of 
 a part of the country which he visited in 1821 : — " The 
 plain of Yezid-Khaust presented a truly lamentable pic- 
 ture of the general decline of prosperity in Persia. Ruins 
 of large villages thickly scattered about with the skeleton-
 
 78 CAPITAL AND LABOUB. 
 
 like walls of caravansaries and gardens, all telling of 
 better times, stood like memento nwris (remembrances of 
 death) to kingdoms and governments ; and the whole 
 plain was dotted over with small mounds, which indicate 
 the com-se of cannauts (artificial streams for watering 
 the soil), once the source of riches and fertility, now 
 all choked up and dry ; for there is neither man nor cul- 
 tivation to require their aid." Was it the luxury of the 
 people which produced this decay — the increase of their 
 means of production — their advancement in skill and ca- 
 pital ; or some external cause which repressed produc- 
 tion, and destroyed accumulation both of outward wealth 
 and knowledge 'i " Such is the character of their rulers," 
 says Mr. Fraser, '■'■ that the only measure of their de- 
 mands is the power to extort on one hand, and the ability 
 to give or retain on the other." Where such a system 
 prevails, all accumulated labour is concealed, for it would 
 otherAvise be plundered. It does not freely and openly 
 work to encourage new labour, Burckhardt, the traveller 
 of Nubia, saw a farmer who had been plundered of every- 
 thing by the pacha, because it came to the ears of the 
 savage ruler that the unhappy man Mas in the habit of 
 eating wheaten bread; and that, he thought, was too 
 great a luxury for a subject. If such oppressions had not 
 long ago been put doMH in England, we should still have 
 been in the state of Colchester in the fourteenth century. 
 When these iniquities prevailed, and there was neither 
 freedom of industry nor security of property — when 
 capital and labour were not united — when all men conse- 
 quently worked unprofitably, because they worked with- 
 out division of labour, accumulation of knowledge, and 
 union of forces — there was universal poverty, because 
 there was feeble production. Slow and painful were the 
 steps which capital and labour had to make before they 
 could emerge, even in part, from this feeble and de- 
 graded state. But that they have made a wonderful 
 advance in five hundred years will not be difficult to 
 show. 
 
 Let us first compare the Colchester of the nineteenth 
 century with the Colchester of the fourteenth, in a few 
 particulars.
 
 CAPITAL AND liABOUR. 79 
 
 In the reign of Edward III. Colchester numbered 
 three hundred and fifty-nine houses of mud, without 
 chimneys, and with latticed windows. In the reign of 
 Queen Victoria it has seven hundred and forty-four 
 houses, each at a rent above ten pounds. The houses 
 below ten pounds are not mentioned in the return from 
 which we derive this information. Houses of ten pounds 
 a-year and upwards are commonly built of brick, and 
 slated or tiled ; secured against wind and weather ; with 
 glazed windows and with chimneys ; and generally well 
 ventilated. The worst of these houses are supplied, as 
 fixtures, with a great number of conveniences, such as 
 grates, and cupboards, and fastenings. To many of such 
 houses gardens are attached, wherein are raised vegeta- 
 bles and fruits that kings could not command two cen- 
 turies ago. Houses such as these are composed of several 
 rooms — not of one room only, where the people are com- 
 pelled to eat and sleep and perform every office, perhaps 
 in company with pigs and cattle — but of a kitchen, and 
 often a parlour, and several bed-rooms. These rooms are 
 furnished with tables, and chairs, and beds, and cooking- 
 utensils. There is ordinarily, too, something for orna- 
 ment and something for instruction ; — a piece or two of 
 china, silver spoons, books, and not unfrequently a watch 
 or clock. The useful pottery is abundant and of really 
 elegant forms and colours ; drinking-vessels of glass are 
 not uncommon. The inhabitants are not scantily sup- 
 plied with clothes. The females are decently dressed, 
 having a constant change of linen, and gowns of various 
 patterns and degrees of fineness. Some, even of the 
 humbler classes, are not thought to exceed the proper 
 appearance of their station if they wear silk. The men 
 have decent working habits, strong shoes and hats, and a 
 respectable suit for Sundays, of cloth often as good as is 
 worn by the highest in the land. Every one is clean ; 
 for no house above the few hovels which still deform the 
 country is without soap and bowls for washing, and it is 
 the business of the females to take care that the linen of 
 the family is constantly -washed. The children, almost 
 universally, receive instruction in some public establish-
 
 80 CAPITAL AXD LABOUK. 
 
 ment ; and when the labour of the day is over, the father 
 thinks the time unprofitably spent unless he burns a 
 candle to enable him to read a book or the newspaper. 
 The food which is ordinarily consumed is of the best 
 quality. Wheaten bread is no longer confined to the 
 rich ; animal food is not necessarily salted, and salt meat 
 is used principally as a variety ; vegetables of many sorts 
 are plenteous in every market, and these by a succession 
 of care are brought to higher perfection than in the 
 countries of more genial climate from which we have im- 
 ported them ; the productions too of distant regions, 
 such as spices, and coffee and tea, are universally con- 
 sumed almost by the humblest in the land. Fuel, also, 
 of the best quality is abundant and comparatively cheap. 
 If we look at the public conveniences of a modern 
 English town, we shall find the same striking contrast. 
 Water is brought not only into every street, but into 
 every house ; the dust and dirt of a family is regularly 
 removed without bustle or unpleasantness ; the streets 
 are paved, and lighted at night ; roads in the highest 
 state of excellence connect the town with the whole 
 kingdom, and by means of milroads a man can travel 
 several hundred miles in a few hours, and more readily 
 than he could ten miles in the old time ; and canal and 
 sea navigation transport the weightiest goods with the 
 greatest facility from each district to the other, and from 
 each town to the other, so that all are enabled to apply 
 their industry to what is most profitable for each and all. 
 Every man, therefore, may satisfy his Mants, according 
 to his means, at the least possible expense of the transport 
 of commodities. Every tradesman has a stock ready to 
 meet the demand ; — and thus the stock of a very mode- 
 rately wealthy tradesman of the Colchester of the present 
 day is worth more than all the stock of all the different 
 trades that were earned on in the same place in the four- 
 teenth century. To effect these public conveniences, 
 millions of capital have been invested, which sums have 
 afforded profitable labour to millions of workmen. Look 
 at the iron trade, which has so large a share in all public 
 works. In the year 1788, sixty thousand tons of cast-
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 81 
 
 iron were manufactured. In the year 1843, the amount 
 of the produce of cast-iron was one million five hundred 
 thousand tons. A large portion of this enormous in- 
 crease has been applied to the internal improvement of 
 the country, in water-pipes, gas-pipes, bridges, rail- 
 roads. 
 
 But to allow us to form a tolerable estimate of the 
 increased production and accumulation of this country, 
 we must take a few general points of comparison, which 
 may enable us to estimate the astonishing extent of this 
 production and accumulation, more accurately even than 
 from the individual case we have exhibited. 
 
 And first, of the Population of the country ; — for an 
 increase of population always shows an increase of pro- 
 duction, for without increased production the amount of 
 population must remain stationary ; with diminished pro- 
 duction it must become less ; and if riiere were no pro- 
 duction and therefore no accumulation, population would 
 be altogether extinguished. Mr. Turner, the historian 
 of the Anglo-Saxons, has estimated from Domesday Book, 
 that the population of England at the time of the Norman 
 conquest somewhat exceeded two millions. It has been 
 estimated by Mr. Chalmers that in 1377 the population 
 did not exceed 2,350,000 souls. There was an increase, 
 therefore, of only the third of a million in three centuries 
 and a half. From 1377 to 1841, a period of little more 
 than four centuries and a half, the population of England 
 had increased to nearly fifteen millions, or more than six 
 times the amount of the population of 1377. The in- 
 creased production of the country must have gone forward 
 in the same proportion — to say nothing of the much 
 greater comparative increase of production demanded by 
 the change for the better in the habits of every class of 
 the consumers. We have no materials for comparing 
 the general production of five hundred years ago with 
 the general production of the present day ; — yet every 
 man may compare in his own mind the state in which he 
 himself lives, and the state in which the people of Col- 
 chester lived at the time we have described in the last 
 chapter. To assist this comparison we will furnish a few
 
 82 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 particulars of the present home consumption of the king- 
 dom, in the great sta{)le articles of her commerce and 
 manufactures. We only take those articles which can be 
 accurately estimated. 
 
 Of wheat, fifteen million quarters are annually con- 
 sumed in the United Kingdom. Of malt, forty million 
 bushels are annually used in breweries and distilleries in 
 the United Kingdom ; and there are forty-six thousand 
 acres under cultivation with hops. Of the quantity of 
 potatoes and other vegetables consumed we have no ac- 
 counts. Of meat, about one million six hundred thousand 
 head of cattle and sheep are sold during the year in 
 Smithfield mai-ket alone, which is probably about a tenth 
 of the consumption of the whole kingdom. The quan- 
 tity of tea consumed in the United Kingdom is about 
 thirty-seven million lbs. annually. Of «/^ar rather more 
 than four million hundred-weights, or about five hun- 
 dred million lbs. every year, — which is a consumption 
 of about eighteen lbs. for every individual, reckoning 
 the population at twenty-seven millions ; and of coffee 
 about twenty-seven million lbs. are annually consumed. 
 Of soap, one hundred and seventy million lbs. are con- 
 sumed. Of sea-borne coals alone there are seven million 
 live hundred thousand tons consumed, and the total con- 
 sumption of coal in Great Britain is estimated at thirty 
 million tons. Of clothing, we annually manufacture 
 above four hundred million lbs. of cotton wool, which 
 produce above fourteen hundred million yards of calico 
 and various other cotton fabrics, and of these we export 
 about half; so that above seven hundred million yards 
 remain for home consumption, being about twenty-six 
 yards annually for each i)erson in a population of twenty- 
 seven millions. The woollen manufacture consumes about 
 forty million lbs. of foreign wool, besides almost the 
 whole of the wool produced at home, estimated at about 
 a hundred and eighty millions of lbs. Of hides and skins 
 above fil'ty million are annually tanned and dressed. Of 
 paper, nearly one hundred million lbs. are yearly manu- 
 factured, which is about four million reams, of five hun- 
 dred sheets to the ream.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. »3 
 
 To cany on the commerce of" this country with foreign 
 nations and between distant parts of the United King- 
 dom, there are twenty-three thousand ships in constant 
 employ, belonging to our own merchants. To carry on 
 the commerce with ourselves, the total length of our 
 turnpike-roads (in England and Wales) is twenty thou- 
 sand miles, besides nearly one hundred thousand miles of 
 other highways, three thousand miles of canals, and about 
 two thousand five hundred miles of railroads, the latter 
 constructed at a cost of about seventy million pounds 
 sterling. To produce food for the inhabitants of the 
 country we have about forty-five million acres under cul- 
 tivation. To clothe them we have millions of spindles 
 worked by steam, instead of a few thousands turned by 
 hand as they were a century ago. The incomes of persons 
 who have 1 50/. a-year and upwards amount to an aggre- 
 gate of about one hundred and eighty million pounds ster- 
 ling per annum ; of which rather more than one-half is 
 derived from real property. The fixed capital of the 
 country insured in fire-offices, that insurance being far 
 short of its real amount, is above six hundred and eighty 
 million pounds sterling. The fixed capital uninsured, or 
 not represented by this species of insurance, is perhaps 
 as much. The capital expended in improvement in land, 
 is, we should conceive, equal to the capital which is re- 
 presented by houses, and furniture, and shipping, and 
 stocks of goods. The public capital of the country 
 expended in roads, canals, docks, harbours, and buildings, 
 is equal to at least half the private capital. All this 
 capital is the accumulated labour of two thousand years, 
 when the civilization of the country first began. The 
 greater portion of it is the accumulated labour of the last 
 four hmidred years, when labour and capital, through the 
 partial abolition of slavery, first began to work together 
 with freedom, and therefore with energy and skill. 
 
 e2
 
 84 CAPITAL AND LABOUB, 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Two of the most ten-ific famines that are recorded in the 
 history of the world occurred in Egypt — a country 
 where there is greater production, with less labour, than 
 is probably exhibited in any other region. The prin- 
 cipal labourer in Egypt is the river Nile, whose periodical 
 overflowings impart fertility to the thirsty soil, and pro- 
 duce in a few weeks that abundance which the labour of 
 the husbandman might not hope to command if employed 
 during the whole year. But the Nile is a workman that 
 cannot be controlled and directed, even by capital, the 
 great controller and director of all work. The influences 
 of heat, and light, and air, are pretty equal in the same 
 places. Where the climate is most genial, the cultivators 
 have least labour to perform in winning the earth ; where 
 it is least genial the cultivators have most labom*. The 
 increased labour balances the small natural productiveness. 
 But the inundation of a great river cannot be depended 
 upon like the light and heat of the sun. For two seasons 
 the Nile refused to rise, and labour was not prepared to 
 compensate for this refusal ; — the ground refused to pro- 
 duce ; the people were starved. 
 
 We mention these famines of Egypt to show that cer- 
 tainty is the most encouraging stimulus to every opera- 
 tion of human industry. We know that production as 
 invariably follows a right direction of labour, as day suc- 
 ceeds to night. We believe that it will be dark to-night 
 and light again to-mon'ow, because we know the general 
 laws which govern light and darkness, and because our 
 experience shows us that those laws are constant and
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 85 
 
 uniform. We know that if we plough, and manure, and 
 sow the ground, a crop will come in due time, varying 
 indeed in quantity according to the season, but still so 
 constant upon an average of years, that we are justified 
 in applying large accumulations and considerable labour 
 to the production of this crop. It is this certainty that 
 we have such a command of the productive powers of 
 nature as will abundantly compensate us for the incessant 
 labour of directing those forces, which has during a long 
 course of industry heaped up the manifold accumulations 
 which we described in the last chapter, and which 
 enables production annually to go forward to the im- 
 mense extent which we there exhibited. The long suc- 
 cession of labour, which has covered this country with 
 wealth, has been applied to the encoiu*agement of the 
 productive forces of nature, and the restraint of the de- 
 stroying. No one can doubt that the instant the labour 
 of man ceases to direct those productive natural forces, 
 the destroying forces immediately come into action. 
 Take the most familiar instance— a cottage whose neat 
 thatch was never broken, whose latticed windows were 
 always entire, M'hose white-washed walls Mere ever clean, 
 round whose porch the honeysuckle was trained in regu- 
 lated luxuriance, whose garden bore nothing but what 
 the owner planted. Remove that owner. Shut up the 
 cottage for a year, and leave the garden to itself. The 
 thatched roof is torn off by the wind and devoured by 
 mice, the windows are driven in by storms, the walls are 
 soaked through with damp and are crumbling to ruin, the 
 honeysuckle obstructs the entrance which it once adorned, 
 the garden is covered with weeds which years of after- 
 labour will have difficulty to destroy : 
 
 " It was a plot 
 Of garden-ground run wild, its matted weeds 
 Mark'd with the steps of those, whom, as they passed, 
 The gooseberry trees that shot in long lank slips, 
 Or currants, hanging from their leafless stems 
 In scanty strings, had tempted to o'erleap 
 The broken wall."
 
 86 CAPITAL A^'T> LABOUR. 
 
 Apply this principle upon a large scale. Let the 
 productive energy of a country be suspended through 
 some great cause \Yhich prevents its labour continuing in 
 a profitable direction. Let it be overrun by a conqueror, 
 or plundered by domestic tyranny of any kind, so that 
 capital ceases to work with security. The fields suddenly 
 become infertile, the towns lose their inhabitants, the 
 roads grows to be impassable, the canals are choked up, 
 the rivers break down their banks, the sea itself swallows 
 up the land. Shakspere, a great political reasoner as 
 well as a great poet, has described such effects, in that 
 part of Henry V. when the Duke of Burgundy exhorts 
 the rival kings to peace : — 
 
 " Let it not disgrace me, 
 If I demand, before this royal view, 
 What rub, or what impediment, there is, 
 "Why that the naked, poor, and mangled peace. 
 Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births. 
 Should not, in this best garden of the world, 
 Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage? 
 Alas ! she hath from Fiance too long been chas'd ; 
 And all her husbandry dc.th lie on heaps, 
 CoiTupting in its own fertility. 
 Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart, 
 Unpruned dies : her hedges even-pleached, 
 Like prisoners wildly over-grown with hair 
 Put forth disordered twigs : her fallow leas. 
 The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory 
 Doth root upon ; while that the coulter rusts, 
 That should deracinate such savagery : 
 The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth , 
 The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover, 
 Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank, 
 Conceives by idleness ; and nothing teems 
 But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs, 
 Losing both beauty and utility : 
 And as our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges, 
 Defective in their natures, grow to wildness ; 
 Even so our houses, and ourselves, and children. 
 Have lost, or do not learn, for want of time, 
 The sciences that should become our country."
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 87 
 
 "VVe have heard it said that Tenterden steeple ^^•as the 
 cause of Goodwin Sands. The meaning of the saying 
 is, that the capital which was appropriated to keep out 
 the sea from that part of the Kentish coast was diverted 
 to the building of Tenterden steeple ; and there being- 
 no funds to keep out the sea, it washed over the 
 land.* The Goodwin Sands remain to show that man 
 must carry on a perpetual contest to keep in subjection 
 the forces of nature, which, as is said of fire, one of the 
 forces, are good servants but bad masters. But these 
 examples show, also, that in the social state our control 
 of the physical forces of nature depends upon the right 
 control of our own moral forces. There was injustice, 
 doubtless, in misappropriating the funds which restrained 
 the sea from devouring the land. Till men know that 
 t-hey shall work with justice on every side, they work 
 feebly and unprofitably. England did not begin to ac- 
 cumulate largely and rapidly till the rights both of the 
 ]X)or man and the rich were to a certain degree esta- 
 blished — till industry w^as free, and property secure. 
 Let any circumstances again arise which may be powerful 
 enough to destroy, or even molest, the freedom of in- 
 dustry and the security of property, and we should work 
 once more without certainty. The elements of prosperity 
 would not be constant and uniform. We should work 
 with the apprehension that some hurricane of tyranny, 
 no matter from what power, would arise, which would 
 sweep away accumulation. When that hurricane did 
 not rise, we might have comparative abundance, like the 
 people of Egypt during the inundation of the Nile. We 
 then should have an inundation of tranquillity. But if 
 the tranquillity were not present — if lawless violence 
 ptood in the place of justice and security — we should be 
 like the people of Egypt when the Nile did not over- 
 flow. \Ve should sutfer the extremity of misery ; and 
 that possible extremity would produce an average misery, 
 even if tranquillity did return, because security had not 
 returned. We should, if this state of things long abided, 
 
 * Grey's Notes to Hudibras.
 
 b» CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 by degrees go back to the condition of Colchester in the 
 fourteenth century, and thence to the universal marsh of 
 two thousand years ago. The place where London 
 stands would be, as it once was, a wilderness for howling 
 wolves. The few that produced would again produce 
 laboriously and painfully, without skill and without divi- 
 sion of labour, because without accumulation ; and it 
 would probably take another thousand years, if men 
 again saw the absolute need of security, to re-create what 
 security has accumulated for our present use. 
 
 From the moment that the industry of this country 
 began to work with security, and capital and labour 
 applied themselves in union — perhaps not a perfect 
 union, but still in union — to the great business of pro- 
 duction, they worked with less and less expenditure of 
 unprofitable labour. They continued to labour more and 
 more profitably, as they laboured with knowledge. The 
 labour of all rude nations, and of all uncultivated indivi- 
 duals, is labour with ignorance. Peter the wild boy, 
 whom we have already mentioned, could never be made 
 to perceive the right direction of labour, because he 
 could not trace it through its circuitous courses for the 
 production of utility. He would work under control, 
 but, if left to himself, he would not work profitably. 
 Having been trusted to fill a cart with manure, he 
 laboured with diligence till the work was accomplished ; 
 but no one being at hand to direct him, he set to work 
 as diligently to unload the cart again. He thought, as 
 too many think even now, that the good was in the 
 labour, and not in the results of the labour. The same 
 ignorance exhibits itself in the unprofitable labour and 
 unprofitable application of capital, even of persons far 
 removed beyond the half-idiocy of Peter the wild boy. 
 In the thirteenth century many of the provinces of 
 France were oveiTun with rats, and the people, instead 
 of vigorously hunting the rats, were persuaded to carry 
 on a process against them in the ecclesiastical courts ; 
 and there, after the cause of the injured people and in- 
 juring rats was solemnly debated, the rats were declared 
 cursed and excommunicated if they did not retire in six
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 89 
 
 days. The historian does not add that the rats obeyed 
 the injunction ; and doubtless the farmers were less pre- 
 pared to resort to the profitable labour of chasing them 
 to death Avhen they had paid the ecclesiastics for the un- 
 profitable labour of their excommunication. There is a 
 curious instance of unprofitable labour given in a book on 
 the Coal Trade of Scotland, written as recently as 1812. 
 The people of Edinburgh had a passion for buying their 
 coals in immense lumps, and, to gratify this passion, the 
 greatest care was taken not to break the coals in any of 
 the operations of conveying them from the pit to the 
 cellar of the consumer. A wall of coals was first built 
 within the pit, another wall under the pit's mouth, an- 
 other wall when they were raised from the pit, another 
 wall in the waggon which conveyed them to the port 
 where they were shipped, another wall in the hold of 
 the ship, another wall in the cart which conveyed them 
 to the consumer, and another wall in the consumer's 
 cellar ; and the result of these seven different buildings- 
 up and takings-down was, that after the consumer had 
 paid thirty per cent, more for these square masses of 
 coal than for coal shovelled together in large and small 
 pieces, his servant had daily to break the large coals to 
 bits to enable him to make any use of them. It seems 
 extraordinary that such waste of labour and capital should 
 have existed amongst a highly acute and refined com- 
 munity, within the last thirty years. They, perhaps, 
 thought they were making good for trade, and therefore 
 submitted to the evil ; Avhile the Glasgow people, on the 
 contrary, by saving thirty per cent, in their coals, had 
 that thirty per cent, to bestow upon new enterprises of 
 industry, and for new encouragements to labour. 
 
 The unprofitable applications of capital and labour 
 which the early history of the civilization of every people 
 has to record, and which, amongst many, have subsisted 
 even whilst they held themselves at the height of refine- 
 ment, have been fostered by the ignorance of the great, 
 and even of the learned, as to the causes which, ad- 
 vancing production or retarding it, advanced or retarded 
 their own interests, and the interests of all the com- 
 
 £3
 
 90 CAPITAL AXD LABOUR. 
 
 munit3^ Princes and statesmen, prelates and pluloso- 
 phers, were equally ignorant of 
 
 " What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so; 
 What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat." 
 
 It was enough for them to consume ; they thought it 
 beneath them to observe even, much less to assist in, the 
 direction of production. This was ignorance as gross as 
 that of Peter the wild boy, or the excommunication of 
 rats. It has always been the fashion of ignorant great- 
 ness to despise the mechanical arts. The pride of the 
 Chinese mandarins was to let their nails grow as long as 
 their fingers, to show that they never worked. Even 
 European nobles once sought the same absurd distinction. 
 In France, under the old monarchy, no descendant of a 
 nobleman could embark in trade without the highest dis- 
 grace ; and the principle was so generally recognized as 
 just, that a French writer, even as recently as 1758, 
 reproaches the sons of the English nobility for the con- 
 trary practice, and asks, with an air of triumph, how can 
 a man be fit to serve his country in Parliament after 
 having meddled with such paltry concerns as those of 
 commerce ? Montesquieu, a writer in most respects of 
 enlarged views, holds that it is beneath the dignity of 
 governments to interfere with such trumpery things as 
 the regulation of weights and measures. Society might 
 have well spared the interference of governments with 
 weights and measures if they had been content to leave 
 all commerce equally free. But, in truth, the regulation 
 of weights and measures is almost a solitary exception to 
 the great principle which goveniments ought to practise, 
 of not interfering, or interfering little with commerce. 
 
 Louis XIV. did not waste more capital and labour by 
 his ruinous wars, and by his covering France with forti- 
 fications and palaces, than by the perpetual interferences 
 of himself and his predecessors with the freedom of trade, 
 which compelled capital and labour to work unprofitabh\ 
 The naturally slow progress of profitable industry is 
 rendered more slow by the perpetual inclination of those 
 in authority to divert industry from its natural and ]>ro-
 
 CAPITAL AKD LABODH. 91 
 
 fitable channels. It was therefore wisely said by a com- 
 mittee of merchants to Colbert, the Prime Minister of 
 France in the reign of Louis XIV., when he asked them 
 what measures government could adopt to promote the 
 interests of commerce, — " Let us alone, permit us quietly 
 to manage our own business." It is undeniable that the 
 interests of all are best promoted when each is left free 
 to attend to his own interests, under the necessary social 
 restraints which prevent him doing a positive injury to 
 his neighbour. It is thus that agriculture and manu- 
 factures are essentially allied in their interests ; that un- 
 restrained commerce is equally essential to the real and 
 permanent interests of agriculture and manufactures ; that 
 capital and labour are equally united in their interests, 
 whether applied to agriculture, manufactures, or com- 
 merce ; that the producer and the consumer are equally 
 united in their most essential interest, which is, that 
 there should be cheap production. While these prin- 
 ciples are not understood at all, and while they are im- 
 perfectly understood, as they still are by many classes 
 and individuals, there must be a vast deal of unprofitable 
 expenditure of capital, a vast deal of unprofitable labour, 
 a vast deal of bickering and heart-burning between indi- 
 viduals who ought to be united, and classes who ought to 
 be united, and nations who ought to be united ; and as 
 long as it is not felt by all that their mutual rights are 
 understood and will be respected, there is a feeling of 
 insecurity which more or less affects the prosperity of all. 
 The only remedy for these evils is the extension of 
 knowledge. Louis XV. proclaimed to the French that 
 the English were their '' veritables ennemis," their true 
 enemies. When knowledge is triumphant it will be 
 found that there are no "veritables ennemis," either 
 among nations, or classes, or individuals. The preju- 
 dices by which nations, classes, and individuals are led 
 to believe that the interest of one is opposed to the in- 
 terest of another, are, nine times out of ten, as utterly 
 absurd as the reason which a Frenchman once gave for 
 hating the English — which was, " that they poured 
 melted butter on their roast veal ; " and this was not
 
 92 CAPITAL AND XABOUK. 
 
 more ridiculous than the old denunciation of the English 
 against the French, that " they ate frogs, and wore 
 wooden shoes." When the world is disabused of the 
 belief that the wealth of one nation, class, or individual 
 must be created by the loss of another's wealth, then, 
 and then only, will all men steadily and harmoniously 
 apply to produce and to enjoy — to acquire prosperit}' and 
 happiness — lifting themselves to the possession of good 
 
 " By Reason's light, on Resolution's wings."'
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 93 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OifE of the most striking and lamentable effects of the 
 want of knowledge, producing disunions amongst man- 
 kind that are injurious to the interests of each and all, is 
 the belief which still exists amongst many of the working 
 men of these kingdoms, that the powers and arrange- 
 ments which Capital has created and devised for the 
 advancement of production are injurious to them in their 
 character of producers. The great forces by which capi- 
 tal and labour now work, — forces which are gathering 
 strength every day, — are accumulation of skill and divi- 
 sion of employments. It will be for us to show that the 
 applications of science to the manufacturing arts have the 
 effect of ensuring cheap production and increased em- 
 ployment. These applications of science are principally 
 displayed in the use of Machinery ; and we shall 
 endeavour to prove that, although individual labour may 
 be partially displaced, or unsettled for a time, by the use 
 of this cheaper and better power than unassisted manual 
 labour, all are great gainers by the general use of that 
 power. Through that power all principally possess, how- 
 ever poor they may be, many of the comforts which make 
 the difference between man in a civilized and man in a 
 savage state ; and further, that in consequence of ma- 
 chinery having rendered productions of all sorts cheaper, 
 and therefore caused them to be more universally pur- 
 chased, it has really increased the demand for tliat manual 
 labour, which it appears to some, reasoning only from a 
 few instances, it has a tendency to diminish. 
 
 In the year 1827, a Committee of the House of Com-
 
 94 CAPITAL A.KD LABOUB. 
 
 mons v,as appointed to examine into the subject of Emi- 
 gration — that is, to see whether it was desirable and 
 practicable to remove distressed labourers from the United 
 Kingdom to distant places, where their labour might be 
 profitably employed to themselves and others. The first 
 person examined before that Committee was Joseph 
 Foster, a working weaver of Glasgow. He told tne 
 Committee, that he and many others, who had formed 
 themsches into a society, were in gi-eat distress ; that 
 numbers of them worked at the hand-loom from eighteen 
 to nineteen hours a-day, and that their earnings, at the 
 utmost, did not amount to more than seven shillings a- 
 week, and that sometimes they were as low as four shil- 
 lings. That twenty years before that time they could 
 readily earn a pound a-week by the same industry ; and 
 that as poicei'-loom weaving had increased, the distress 
 of the hand-weavers also had increased in the same pro- 
 portion. A power-loom is one worked by machinery, 
 and not by the hand of man, as most of our readers per- 
 haps know. The Committee then put to Joseph Foster 
 the following questions, and received the following an- 
 swers : — 
 
 Q. " Are the Committee to understand that you attri- 
 bute the insufficiency of your remuneration for your 
 labour to the introduction of machinery ? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. Do you consider, therefore, that the introduction 
 of machinery is objectionable ? 
 
 A. We do not. The weavers in general, of Glasgow 
 and its vicinity, do not consider that machinery can or 
 ought to be stopped, or put down. They know per- 
 fectly well that machinery must go on, that it will go on, 
 and that it is impossible to stop it. They are aware that 
 every implement of agriculture or manufacture is a por- 
 tion of machinery, and, indeed, everything that goes 
 beyond the teeth and nails (if I may use the expression) 
 is a machine. I am authorized, by the majority of our 
 society, to say, that I speak their minds, as well as my 
 own, in stating this." 
 
 The difference between those who object to machines.
 
 CAPITAL AM> LABOUK. 95 
 
 and the persons who think with Joseph Foster, is, as it 
 appears to us, a want of knowledge. We desire to com- 
 municate that knowledge. It w^ould be out of our power 
 to impart this knowledge at all without machinery : and , 
 therefore, we shall begin by explaining how the ma- 
 chinery which gives knowledge of any sort by the means 
 of books, is a vast blessing, when compared with slower 
 methods of multiplying written language ; and how, by 
 the aid of this machinery, we can produce a book with- 
 out any limit in point of the number of copies, with great 
 rapidity, and at a small price. 
 
 It is nearly four hundred years since the art of print- 
 ing books was invented. Before that time all books 
 were written by the hand. There were many persons 
 employed to copy out books, but they were very dear, 
 although the copiers had small wages. A Bible was 
 sold for thirty pounds in the money of that day, which 
 was equal to a great deal more of our money. Of course, 
 very few peoplelhad Bibles or any other books. An in- 
 genious man invented a mode of imitating the written 
 books by cutting the letters on wood, and taking off 
 copies from the wooden blocks by rubbing the sheet on 
 the back ; and soon after other clever men thought of 
 casting metal types or letters, which could be arranged 
 in words, and sentences, and pages, and volumes ; and 
 then a machine, called a printing-press, upon the prin- 
 ciple of a screw, was made to stamp impressions of these 
 types so arranged. There was an end, then, at once to 
 the trade of the pen-and-ink copiers ; because the copiers 
 in types, who could press off several hundred books while 
 the writers were producing one, drove them out of the 
 market. A single printer could do the work of at least 
 two himdred writers. At first sight this seems a hard- 
 ship, for a hundred and ninety-nine people might have 
 been, and probably were, thrown out of their accustomed 
 employment. But what was the consequence in a year 
 or two '? Where one written book was sold a thousand 
 printed books were required. The old books were mul- 
 tiplied in all countries, and new books were composed by 
 men of talent and learning, because they could then find
 
 96 CAPITAL ANI> LABOUR. 
 
 numerous readers. The printing press did the work 
 more neatly and more correctly than the writer, and it 
 did it infinitely cheaper. What then ? The writers of 
 books had to turn their hands to some other trade, it is 
 true ; but type-founders, paper-makers, printers, and 
 book-binders, were set to work, by the new art or machine, 
 to at least a hundred times greater number of persons 
 than the old way of making books employed. If the 
 pen-and-ink copiers could break the printing-presses and 
 melt down the types that are used in London alone at 
 the present day, twenty thousand people would at least 
 bo thrown out of employment to make room for two 
 hundred at the utmost ; and what would be even worse 
 than all this misery, books could only be purchased, as 
 before the invention of printing, by the few rich, instead 
 of being the comforters and best friends of the millions 
 who are now within reach of the benefits and enjoyments 
 which they bestow. 
 
 The cheapness of production is the great point to 
 which we shall call attention, as we give other examples 
 of the good of machinery. In the case of books pro- 
 duced by the printing-press we have a cheap article, and 
 an increased number of persons engaged in manufactur- 
 ing that article. In almost all trades the introduction of 
 machines has, sooner or later, the like effects. This we 
 shall show as we go on. But to make the matter even 
 more clear, we shall direct notice to the very book the 
 reader holds in his hand, to complete our illustration of 
 the advantages of machinery to the consumer, that is, to 
 the person who wants and buys the article consumed, as 
 well as to the producer, or the person who manufactures 
 the article produced. 
 
 This little book is intended to consist of about 240 
 pages, to be printed, eighteen on a side, upon seven 
 sheets of printing paper, called by the makers demy. 
 These seven sheets of demy, at the price charged in the 
 shops, would cost three-pence halfpenny. If the same 
 number of words were written, instead of being printed 
 — that is, if the closeness and regularity of printing were 
 superseded by the looseness and unevenness of writing,
 
 CAPITAL AIJD labour. 97 
 
 — they would cover 240 pages, or 60 sheets, of the paper 
 called foolscap, which would cost in the shops three 
 shillings ; and we should offer a book difficult instead of 
 easy to read, because writing is much harder to decipher 
 than print. Here, then, besides the superiority of the 
 workmanship, is at once a saving of two shillings and 
 eight-pence halfpenny to the consumer, by the invention 
 of printing, all other things being equal. But the great 
 saving is to come. Work as hard as he could, a writer 
 could not transcribe this little book upon these 240 pages 
 of foolscap in less than ten days ; and he would think 
 himself very ill paid to receive thirty shillings for the 
 operation. Adding, therefore, a profit for the publisher 
 and retail tradesman, a single written copy of this little 
 book, which is sold for a shilling, could not be produced 
 for two pounds. Is it not perfectly clear, then, if there 
 were no printing-press, if the art of printing did not 
 exist, that if we found purchasers at all for this dear book 
 at the cost of two pounds, we should only sell, at the 
 utmost, a fortieth part of what we now sell ; that instead 
 of selling ten thousand copies we could only sell, even 
 if there were the same quantity of book-buying funds 
 amongst the few purchasers as amongst the many, two 
 hundred and fifty copies ; and that therefore, although 
 we might employ two hundred and fifty writers for a 
 week, instead of about twenty printers in the same 
 period, we should have forty times less employment for 
 paper-makers, ink-makers, book-binders, and many other 
 persons, besides the printers themselves, who are called 
 into activity by the large demand which follows cheap- 
 ness of production. 
 
 It will be perceived, without having the subject dwelt 
 upon, that if we could not publish this book clieaply^ we 
 could not publish it extensively ; that, in fact, the book 
 would be useless ; that it Mould be a mere curiosity ; 
 that we should not attempt to multiply any copies, be- 
 cause those whose use it was intended for could not buy 
 it. It is also perfectly clear, that -if, by any unnatural 
 reduction of the wages of labour, such as happens to the 
 Hindoo, who works at weaving muslin for about sixpence
 
 98 CAPITAL AKD LABOUR. 
 
 a- week, we could get copiers to produce the book as 
 cheaply as the printing-press (which is impossible), we 
 could not send it to the world as quickly. We can get 
 ten thousand copies of this book printed in a week, by 
 the aid of about twelve compositors, and two printing 
 machines, each machine requiring two boys and a man 
 for its guidance. To transcribe ten thousand copies in 
 the same time would require more than ten thousand 
 penmen. Is it not perfectly evident, therefore, that if 
 printing, which is a cheap and a rapid process, were 
 once again superseded by writing, which is an expensive 
 and a slow operation, neither this book, nor any other 
 book, could be produced for the use of the people ; that 
 knowledge, upon which every hope of bettering their 
 condition must ultimately rest, would again become the 
 property of a very few ; and that mankind would lose 
 the greater part of that power, which has made, and is 
 making them, truly independent, and which will make 
 them virtuous and happy ? 
 
 The same principle applies to any improvement of the 
 machinery used in printing, or in the manufacture of the 
 paper upon which books are printed. By the use of the 
 printing-machine, instead of the printing-press (which 
 machine is only profitably applicable to books ymnted in 
 large numbers), the cost of production is diminished at 
 least one-tenth ; and by the use of the machine for 
 making paper, a better article is produced, also at a 
 lower rate. This book is printed ujxtn paper as fine as 
 is needful, instead of paper of a wretched quality ; be- 
 cause the paper-machine has diminished the cost of pro- 
 duction, by working up the pulp of which paper is com- 
 posed more evenly, and therefore with a saving. And 
 from both causes united, the diminished price of printing 
 by the machine instead of printing by hand, and the 
 diminished price of machine-made paper, the buyers of 
 this book have seven sheets, instead of five sheets, for a 
 shilling. Thus, not only is the price lessened to the 
 consumer, by the increase of the quantity, but two- 
 sevenths more paper, more ink, one-sixth more labour of 
 the compositor, or printer who arranges the types, more
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 99 
 
 labour of the sewer, or binder of the book ; all these 
 additions of direct labour, and of materials produced by 
 labour, are consumed. In selling this book, therefore, 
 for a shilling-, we give two-sevenths more matter than 
 you could have had without these new inventions ; if we 
 were to take away two-sevenths in quantity, we could 
 lessen the price, and give the smaller book for ninepence. 
 Thus, then, there is a decided advantage to the con- 
 sumer in the diminished cost of the production, and an 
 ample equivalent in mere labour (which, bear always in 
 mind, is the means of producing commodities, and not 
 the end for which they are produced), in the place of 
 labour thrust out by the printing-machine and the paper- 
 machine. 
 
 We think that in the article of Books we have proved 
 that machinery has rendered productions cheaper, and 
 has increased the demand for manual labour, and conse- 
 quently the number of labourers ; and that, therefore, 
 machinery applied to books is not objectionable. We 
 proceed from books to articles of actual necessity.
 
 100 CAPITAL AXD LABOUa. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Amongst the many accounts which the newspapers in 
 December, 1830, gave of the destruction of machinery 
 by agricultural labourers, we observed that in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Aylesbury, a band of mistaken and unfortu- 
 nate men destroyed all the machinery of many farms, 
 down even to the common drills. The men conducted 
 themselves, says the county newspaper, with civility ; 
 and such was their consideration, that iney moved the 
 machines out of the farm-yards, to prevent injury arising 
 to the cattle from the nails and splinters that flew about 
 while the machinery was being destroyed. They could 
 not make up their minds as to the propriety of destroy- 
 ing a horse-churn, and therefore that machine was passed 
 over. 
 
 We will suppose, by way of argument, that there 
 were no laws to repress such outrages ; that if the la- 
 bourers in agi'icultm'e chose to believe that not only 
 thrashing-machines were injurious to them, but that 
 every one of those ingenious implements which have 
 aided in rendering British agriculture the most perfect 
 in the world, was equally harmful, they might, without 
 interruption, break them to pieces. We will further 
 suppose, that while these proceedings go forwai'd, the 
 landowner looks on, the farmer looks on, the magistrate 
 .does not stir, there are no judges or juries in the land, 
 the people in the towns leave the machine-breakers to 
 their own devices. So they break on — thrashing-ma- 
 chine, winno wing-machine, chaff-cutting-machine, drill, 
 and every other new-fangled invention, as they call these
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUS. 101 
 
 things. We will suppose, still further, that the farmer 
 jdelds to all this violence ; that the violence has the 
 effect which it was meant to have upon him ; and that 
 he takes on all the hands which were out of employ, to 
 thrash and wnnnow, to cut chaff, to plant with a dibber 
 instead of with a drill, to do all the work, in fact, by the 
 dearest mode instead of the cheapest. The destroyers 
 of property have got the law, therefore, into their own 
 hands, as far as their triumph over machinery is con- 
 cerned. And how do they proceed in their career? 
 The farmer, we have imagined, takes all this quietly ; 
 he pays the new labourers w^ho have got into his bams 
 and his fields, ready for hand-work, with their flails and 
 their dibbers ; but he employs just as many people as 
 are absolutely necessary, and no more, for getting his 
 corn ready for market, and for preparing, in a slovenly 
 way, for the seed-time. In a month or two, the victo- 
 rious destroyers find that not a single hand the more of 
 them is really employed. And why not ? There are 
 no drainings going forward, the hedges and ditches are 
 neglected, the dung-heap is not turned over, the chalk is 
 not fetched from the pit ; in fact, all those labours are 
 neglected which belong to a state of agi-icultural industry 
 which is brought to perfection, llie farmei^ has no 
 funds to employ in such labours ; he is paying a great 
 deal more than he paid before, because his labourers 
 choose to do certain labours with rude tools, instead of 
 perfect ones. If he is a humane man, but not a firm 
 one, and yields to the notion that it is a good thing to 
 do work in the most round-about way, and, consequently, 
 at the greatest expense, he does not regret the loss of 
 the drill-plough, which, as well as many other agricul- 
 tural tools, lessens labour, lessens the quantity of seed, 
 and increases the crop. He spends all the saving which 
 the drill-plough has caused upon the clamorous labour- 
 ers, who insist that their arms are better for his work 
 than the instrument which they have broken. But still 
 some work must be neglected, and thus the actual amount 
 of money paid for labour is just the same. 
 
 Vie will imagine that this state of things continues till
 
 102 CAPITAL A>'D LABOUK. 
 
 the next spring. All this while the price of grain has 
 been rising. Many farmers have ceased to employ capi- 
 tal at all upon the land. The neat inventions, which 
 enabled them to make a living out of their business, be- 
 ing destroyed, they have abandoned the business altoge- 
 ther. Others, who have yielded to the uproar, go on 
 as well as they can, neglecting a great many labours that 
 unite to make a good crop, although they are more and 
 more pressed upon by the demand for labour, in conse- 
 quence.of a deal of land going out of cultivation. They 
 pay as long as they can ; they pay much more for labour 
 than they did before, some out of compassion, and some 
 out of fear. But the prices are steadily rising, and^ 
 therefore, although there is more money paid to a 
 greater number of labourers, and although some receive 
 higher wages, in the common sense of the word, than 
 they did before they broke the machines, they are infi- 
 nitely worse off, for the rate of wages is really lower. 
 A day's work will then no longer purchase as much 
 bread as before. It requires the work of a day and a 
 half to procure the same quantity. Wages are, there- 
 fore, really lower, because a less crop is being produced 
 at a greater cost, and the market-price is influenced ac- 
 cordingly. 
 
 The labourers now either begin to quarrel amongst 
 themselves, and give up their unwise combinations; or 
 they still combine, with the determination to obtain em- 
 ployment by the destruction of everything that appears 
 to them to stand in the way of it, — everything beyond 
 the teeth and nails of the workmen, as Joseph Foster 
 expressed himself, — and on they go in the work of ruin. 
 The horse, it may be probably found out, is as gi'eat an 
 enemy as the drill-plough ; so the horses are turned out 
 to starve, or have their throats cut, the laws being still 
 idle. This is, indeed, a great point gained, for, as a 
 horse will do the field-work of six men, there must be 
 six men employed, without doubt, instead of one horse : 
 so would conclude these most mistaken violators ot the 
 laws by which society is held together. But how would 
 the fact turn out ? If the farmer still went on, in spite
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 103 
 
 of all these losses and crosses, he might employ men in 
 the place of horses, but not a single man more than the 
 number that would work at the price of the keep of one 
 horse. To do the work of each horse destroyed he 
 would require six men ; but he would only have about a 
 shilling a-day to divide between these six — the amount 
 which the horse consumed. 
 
 In the meantime it would be perfectly evident, from 
 all this convulsion amongst the labourers, from all this 
 wanton and profitless ruin, that a great deal of the land 
 would very quickly go out of cultivation altogether, if 
 the laws were still idle. While the land was going out 
 of cultivation, the stock of corn on hand would be much 
 more quickly decreasing than in quiet times. The 
 thrashing-machine is held to produce some saving of 
 corn, as compared with the flail. The destruction of 
 drills, also, would cause a larger quantity of seed to be 
 sown than would be otherwise necessary. Thrashing- 
 machines and drills, taken together in their savings, pre- 
 vent therefore some thousand quarters of wheat alone 
 from being wasted. Fifteen million quarters of wheat 
 are annually consumed in Great Britain. If they save 
 only a fiftieth of the wheat, as much, therefore, as would 
 feed all the people of Great Britain for a week, or three 
 hundred thousand of those people all the year, would be 
 absolutely thrown away, trodden under foot, sent to the 
 dunghill with the straw, wasted for ever, by one wrong 
 act alone of the labourers ; and all this while we should 
 be preparing to grow a great deal less for the next har- 
 vest. We should have a famine, if foreign countries 
 could not supply us with what the labourers had de- 
 stroyed. And how do we know that foreign labourers 
 would be wiser than English ones, and abstain from such 
 acts, in the knowledge that whatever raises the price of 
 produce lowers the rate of wages ? Are foreign labourers 
 better informed than English labourers ? If so, let us 
 all take shame to ourselves, that the means of acquiring 
 knowledge which this country affords have been neg- 
 lected ; for upon sound knowledge must rest the safety 
 and happiness of all.
 
 104 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 About three or four hundred years ago, from the times 
 of king Henry IV. to those of king Henry VI., and, 
 indeed, long before these reigns, there were often, as v*e 
 have already mentioned^ grievous famines in this country, 
 because the land was very wretchedly cultivated. Men, 
 women, and children perished of actual hunger by thou- 
 sands ; and those who survived kept themselves alive by 
 eating the bark of trees, acorns, and pig-nuts. There 
 were no machines then ; but the condition of the labourers 
 was so bad, that they could not be kept to work upon 
 the land without those very severe and tyrannical laws 
 noticed in Chap, vii., which absolutely forbade them to 
 leave the station in which they were bom as labourers, 
 for any hope of bettering their condition in the towns. 
 There were not labourers enough to till the ground, for 
 they worked without any skill, with weak ploughs and 
 awkward hoes. They were just as badly off as the people 
 of Portugal and Spain at our own day, who are miserably 
 
 }50or, because they have bad machines ; or as the Chinese 
 abourers, who have scarcely any machines, and are the 
 poorest in the world. There was plenty of labour to be 
 performed, but the tools were so bad, and the want of 
 agricultural knowledge so universal, that the land was 
 never half cultivated, and therefore all classes were 
 poorly off. They had little corn to exchange for manu- 
 factures, and in consequence the labourer was badly 
 clothed, badly lodged, and had a very indifferent share 
 of the scanty crop which he raised. In the natural 
 course of things, a good deal of land was laid down to 
 grass ; this was superseding labour to a great extent, and 
 much clamour was raised about this plan, and probably a 
 good deal of real distress was produced. But mark the 
 consequence. Although the money wages of labour 
 were lowered, because there were more labourers in the 
 market, the real amount of wages M'as higher, for better 
 food was created by pasturage at a cheap rate. The 
 labourer then got meat who had never tasted it before ; 
 and when the use of animal food became general, there 
 M^ere cattle and corn enough to be exchanged for manu- 
 factured goods, and the labourer got a coat and a pair of 
 shoes, who had formerly gone half naked.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 105 
 
 A very accurate French writer, M, Dupin, in a book, 
 in which he enters into many comparisons between the 
 condition of the people of England and that of the people 
 of France, says, that two-thirds of the French people are 
 at this day wholly deprived of the nourishment of animal 
 food, and that they live wholly on chestnuts, or maize, 
 or potatoes. He accounts for this by stating that m 
 France only 7^ parts in 100 of the soil are cultivated in 
 meadows, while in England one-third of the whole 
 country is in meadow, or 33 parts in 100. He says, 
 therefore, that the inhabitants of England consume three 
 times as much meat, milk, butter, and cheese, as the in- 
 habitants of France ; and that the people of England are 
 consequently three times better furnished with good 
 food. This Frenchman, who writes with an earnest 
 desire to better the condition of his countrymen, exhorts 
 them to improve the breed of cattle and to lay down 
 more land to grass, that the people may be better nou- 
 rished. If he thought that more labour, without in- 
 creased production, would better the people, he would 
 exhort them to break up the 7^ parts in 100 of grass 
 land, and go to work in raising more corn and more po- 
 tatoes. He does no such thing. He knows that to 
 lessen the price by increasing the quantity of animal 
 food, or of any other comfort, is really to better the 
 condition of the people, by really raising the wages of 
 labour. 
 
 But to return to our triumphant machine-breakers, 
 who utterly despise such considerations. As the year 
 advanced, and the harvest approached, it would be dis- 
 covered that not one-tenth of the land was sown : for 
 although the ploughs were gone, because the horses were 
 turned out to starve, and there was plenty of labour for 
 those who chose to labour for its own sake, or at the 
 price of a horse, this amazing employment for human 
 hands, somehow or other, would not quite answer the 
 purpose. It has been calculated that the power of horses, 
 oxen, &c. employed in husbandry in Great Britain is ten 
 times the amount of human power. If the human power
 
 106 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 insisted upon doing all the work with the worst tools, 
 the certainty is that not even one-tenth of the land could 
 be cultivated. Where, then, would all this madness 
 end ? In the starvation of the labourers themselves. 
 The people in the towns would probably use their ma- 
 chines, which are ships, and barges, and wagons, to 
 'bring them as much of the produce of foreign countries 
 as they could get (and that would be little) in exchange 
 for their manufactures ; and the agricultural labourers, 
 who had put themselves out of the sympathy and protec- 
 tion of society, if they were allowed to eat up all they 
 had produced by such imperfect means, M'ould be in an 
 infinitely more wretched state than they could possibly 
 be, if the demand for labour was many times less than 
 it now is. They would be just in the condition of any 
 other barbarous people, that were ignorant of the inven- 
 tions that constitute the power of civilization. They 
 would eat up the little corn which they raised them- 
 selves ; and have nothing to give in exchange for clothes, 
 and coals, and candles, and soap, and tea, and sugar, and 
 all the many comforts which those who are even the 
 worst oft' are not wholly deprived of. 
 
 All this may appear as an extreme statement ; and 
 certainly we believe that no such evils could happen : 
 for if the laws were passive, the most ignorant of the 
 labourers themselves would, if they proceeded to caiTy 
 their own principle much farther than they have done, 
 see in their very excesses the real character of the folly 
 and wickedness to which it has led, and would lead them. 
 Why should the labourers of Aylesbury not have de- 
 stroyed the harrows as well as the drills ? Why leave 
 a machine which separates the clods of the earth, and 
 break one which puts seed into it ? Why deliberate 
 about a horse-churn, v»hen they are resolved against a 
 winnowing-machine ? The truth is, these poor men 
 perceived, even in the midst of their excesses, the gross 
 deception of the reasons which induced them to commit 
 them. Their motive was a natural, and, if lawfully ex- 
 pressed, a proper impatience, under a condition which
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 107 
 
 had certainly many hardships, and those hardships in 
 great part produced by the want of profitable labour. 
 But in imputing those hardships to machinery, they were 
 at once embarrassed when they came to draw distinctions 
 between one sort of machine and another. This embar- 
 rassment decidedly shews that there were fearful mistakes 
 at the bottom of their furious hostility to machinery. 
 
 F 2
 
 108 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 It has been said by persons whose opinions are worthy 
 attention, that spade-husbandry is, in some cases, better 
 than plough-husbandry ; — that is, that the earth, under 
 particular circumstances of" soil and situation, may be 
 more fitly prepared for the influences of the atmosphere, 
 by digging, than by ploughing. It is not our business 
 to enter into a consideration of this question. The growth 
 of corn is a manufacture, in which man employs the che- 
 mical properties of the soil and of the air, in conjunction 
 with his own labour, aided by certain tools or machines, 
 for the production of a crop ; and that power, whether of 
 chemistry or machinery, — whether of the salt, or the 
 chalk, or the dung which he puts upon the earth, or the 
 spade or the plough which he puts into it, — that power 
 which does the work easiest is necessarily the best, be- 
 cause it diminishes the cost of production. If the plough 
 does not do the work so well as the spade, it is a less 
 perfect machine ; but the less perfect machine may be 
 preferred to the more perfect, because, taking other con- 
 ditions into consideration, it is a cheaper machine. If 
 the spade, applied in a peculiar manner by the strength 
 and judgment of the man using it, more completely turns 
 up the soil, breaks the clods, and removes the weeds 
 than the plough, which receives one uniform direction 
 from man with the assistance of other animal power, then 
 the sjjade is a more perfect machine in its combination 
 with human labour than the plough is, worked with a 
 lesser dcsrree of the same combination. But still it may 
 be a machine which cannot be used with advantage to
 
 CAPITAL AND XABOUR. 100 
 
 the producer, and is therefore not desirable for the con- 
 sumer. All such questions must be determined by the 
 cost of production ; and that cost in agriculture is made 
 up of the rent of land, the profit of capital, and the wages 
 of labour — or the portions of the produce belonging to 
 the landlord, the farmer, and the labourer. Where rent 
 is high, as in the immediate neighbourhood of large 
 towns, it is important to have the labour performed as 
 carefully as possible. It is then economy to turn the 
 soil to the greatest account, and the land is cultivated as 
 a garden. Where rent is low, it is important to have the 
 labour performed with less care, because one acre culti- 
 vated by hand may cost more than two cultivated by the 
 plough, It is then economy to save in the labour, and 
 ihe land is cultivated as a field. In one case, the ma- 
 chine called a spade is used ; in the other the machine 
 called a plough is employed. The use of the one or the 
 other belongs to practical agriculture, and is a question 
 only of relative cost. 
 
 And this brings us to the great principle of all ma- 
 chinery. A tool of the simplest construction is a ma- 
 chine ; a machine of the most curious construction is only 
 a complicated tool. There are many cases in the arts, 
 and there may be cases in agriculture, in which the hu- 
 man arm and hand, with or without a tool, may do work 
 that no machine can so well perform. There are pro- 
 cesses in polishing, and there is a process in copper-plate 
 printing, in which no substance has been found to stand 
 in the place of the human hand. And if, therefore, the 
 man with a spade alone does a certain agricultural work 
 more completely than a man guiding a plough, and a 
 team of horses dragging it (which we do not affirm or 
 deny), the only reason for this is, that the man with the 
 spade is a better machine than the man with the plough 
 and the horses. The most stupid man that ever existed 
 is, beyond all comparison, a machine more cunningly 
 made by the hands of his Creator, more perfect in all his 
 several parts, and with all his parts more exquisitely 
 adapted to the regulated movement of the whole body, 
 less liable to accidents, and less injured by wear and,
 
 110 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 toar, than the most beautiful machine that ever was, or 
 ever will be, invented. There is no possibility of sup- 
 plying in many cases a substitute for the simplest move- 
 ments of man's body, by the most complicated movements 
 of the most ingenious machinery. And why so ? Be- 
 cause the natural machinery by which a man even lifts 
 his hand to his head is at once so complex and so simple, 
 so apparently easy and yet so entirely dependent upon 
 the right adjustment of a great many contrary forces, 
 that no automaton, or machine imitating the actions of 
 man, could ever be made to effect this seemingly simple 
 motion, without shewing that the contrivance was imper- 
 fect, — that it was a mere imitation, and a very clumsy 
 one. What an easy thing it appears to be for a farming- 
 man to thrash his com with a flail ; and yet what an 
 expensive arrangement of wheels is necessary to produce 
 the same effects with a thrashing-machine 1 The truth 
 is, that the man's arm and the flail form a much more 
 curious machine than the other machine of wheels, 
 which does the same work ; and the real question as re- 
 gards the value of the two machines is, which machine 
 in the greater degree lessens the cost of production ? 
 
 We state this principle broadly, in our examination 
 into the value of machinery in diminishing the cost of 
 producing human food. A machine is not perfect, be- 
 cause it is made of wheels or cylinders, employs the 
 power of the screw or the lever, is driven by wind or 
 water or steam, but because it best assists the labour of 
 man, by calling into action some power which he does 
 not possess in himself. If we could imagine a man 
 entirely dispossessed of this power, we should see the 
 feeblest of animal beings. He has no tools which are a 
 
 f)art of himself, to build houses like the beaver, or cells 
 ike the bee. He has not even learnt from nature to 
 build, instinctively, by certain and unchangeable rules. 
 His power is in his mind ; and that mind teaches him to 
 subject all the physical world to his dominion, by avail- 
 ing himself of the forces which nature has spread around 
 him. To act upon material objects he arms his weakness 
 with tools and with machines. As we have before said,
 
 CAPITAL A>-D LABOUR. Ill 
 
 tools aiid machines are in principle the same. When we 
 strike a nail upon the head with a hammer, we avail our- 
 selves of a power which we find in nature — the etieet 
 produced by the concussion of two bodies ; when we 
 employ a water-wheel to beat out a lump of iron with a 
 much larger hammer, we still avail ourselves of the same 
 power. There is no difference in the nature of the in- 
 struments, although we call the one a tool, and the other 
 a machine. Neither the tool nor the machine have any 
 force of themselves. In one case the force is in the 
 arm, in the other in the weight of water which turns the 
 wheel. 
 
 The chief distinction between man in a rude, and man 
 in a civilized state of society is, that the one wastes his 
 force, whether natural or acquired, — the other econo- 
 mizes, that is, saves it. The man in a rude state has very 
 rude instruments ; he therefore wastes his force : the man 
 in a civilized state has very perfect ones ; he therefore 
 economizes it. Should we not laugh at the gardener 
 who went to hoe his potatoes with a stick, having a short 
 crook at the end ? It would be a tool, we should say, 
 fit only for children to use. Yet such a tool was doubt- 
 less employed by some very ancient nations ; for there is 
 an old medal of Syracuse which represents this very tool. 
 The common hoe of the English gardener is a much 
 more perfect tool, because it saves labour. Could we 
 have any doubt of the madness of the man who would 
 propose that all iron hoes should be abolished, to furnish 
 more extensive employ to labourers who should be pro- 
 vided only with a crooked stick cut out of a hedge ? The 
 truth is, if the working men of England had no better 
 tools than crooked sticks, they would be in a state of 
 actual starvation. One of the chiefs of the people of 
 New Zealand, who from their intercourse with English- 
 men had learnt the value of tools, told Mr. Marsden, a 
 missionary, that his wooden spades were all broken, and 
 he had not an axe to make any more ; — his canoes were 
 all broken, and he had not a nail or a gimlet to mend 
 them with ; — his potato grounds were uncultivated, and 
 he had not a hoe to break them up with ; — and that
 
 112 CAPITAL AXD LABOUR. 
 
 for want of cultivation he and his people would have no- 
 thing to eat. This shews the state of a people without 
 tools. 
 
 But some would perhaps make a distinction, which we 
 have endeavoured to show is a worthless one, between 
 tools and machines. There are many who object to ma- 
 chinery, because, having grown up surrounded with the 
 benefits it has conferred upon them, without understand- 
 ing the source of these benefits, they are something like 
 the child who sees nothing but evil in a rainy day. We 
 have mentioned the people of New Zealand, who live 
 exactly on the other side of the globe, and who, there- 
 fore, very rarely come to us ; but when they do come 
 they are acute enough to perceive the advantages which 
 machinery has conferred upon us, and the great distance 
 in point of comfort between their state and ours, princi- 
 })ally for the reason that they have no machinery, while 
 we have a great deal. One of these ])oor men burst into 
 tears when he saw a rope-walk ; because he perceived 
 the immense superiority which the process of spinning 
 ropes gave us over his own countrymen. Another of 
 these people, and he was a very shrew^d and intelligent 
 person, carried back to his country a small hand-mill for 
 grinding com, which he prized as the greatest of all 
 earthly possessions. 
 
 And well might he prize it ! He had no machine for 
 converting corn into meal, but two stones, such as w^ere 
 used in the remote parts of the highlands of Scotland 
 some years ago. And to beat the grain into meal by 
 these two stones (a machine, remember, however imper- 
 fect) would occupy the labour of one-fourth of his family, 
 to procure subsistence for the other three-fourths. The 
 ancient Greeks, three thousand years ago, had improved 
 upon the machinery of the hand-stones, for they had 
 hand-mills. But Homer, the old Greek poet, describes 
 the unhappy condition of the slave who was always em- 
 ployed in using this mill. The groans of the slave were 
 unheeded by those who consumed the produce of his 
 labour ; and such was the necessity for meal, that the 
 women were compelled to turn these mills when there
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 113 
 
 were not slaves enough taken in war to perform this irk- 
 some office. There was plenty of labour then to be per- 
 formed, even with, the machinery of the hand-mill; but 
 the slaves and the women did not consider that labour 
 was a good in itself, and therefore they bitterly gi'oaned 
 under it. By and bye, the understandings of men found 
 out that water and wind would do the same work that 
 the slaves and the women had done ; and that a large 
 qtiantity of labour was at liberty to be employed for 
 other purposes. Some perhaps think that society was in 
 a worse state in consequence. We answer, labour is 
 worth nothing without results. Its value is only to be 
 measured by what it produces. If in a country where 
 hand-mills could be had, the people were to go on beat- 
 ing grain between two stones, all would pronounce them 
 fools, because they could obtain an equal quantity of 
 meal with a much less expenditure of labour. Some 
 have a general prejudice against that sort of machinery 
 which does its work with very little human assistance ; 
 it is not quite so certain, therefore, that they would 
 agree that a people would be equal fools to use the hand- 
 mill when they could employ the wind-mill or the water- 
 mill. But we believe they would think, that if flour 
 could drop from heaven, or be had like water by who- 
 ever chose to seek it, it would be the height of folly to 
 have stones, or hand-mills, or water-mills, or wind-mills, 
 or any machine whatever for manufacturing flour. Does 
 any one ever think of manufacturing water ? The cost 
 of water is only the cost of the labour which brings it to 
 the place in which it is consumed. Yet this admission 
 overturns all objections against machinery. We admit 
 that it is desirable to obtain a thing with no labour at all; 
 can ive therefoj-e doubt that it is desirable to obtain it with 
 the least possible labour ? The only difference between 
 no labour and a little labour, is the difference of the cost 
 of production. And the only difference between little 
 labour and much labour is precisely the same. In pro- 
 curing any thing that administers to his necessities, man 
 makes an exchange of his labour for the thing pro- 
 
 r3
 
 1 14 CAPITAL AKD LABOUR. 
 
 duced, and the less he gives of his labour the better of 
 course is his bargain. 
 
 To return to the hand-mill and the water-mill. An 
 ordinary water-mill for grinding corn w^ill grind about 
 thirty-six sacks a day. To do the same work with a 
 hand-mill would require 1 50 men. At two shillings a 
 day the wages of these men w^ould amount to 15^., which, 
 reckoning six working days, is 90/. a week, or 4680/. 
 a year. The rent and taxes of a mill would be about 
 150/. a year, or ten shillings a working day. The cost 
 of machinery would be certainly more for the hand-mills 
 than the water-mill, therefore we will not take the cost 
 of machinery into the calculation. To produce, there- 
 fore, thirty-six sacks of flour by hand we should pay 15/. ; 
 by the water-mill we should pay ten shillings : that is, 
 we should pay thirty times as much by the one process 
 as by the other. The actual saving is something about 
 two thirds of the price of the flour in the market ; that 
 is, the consumer, if the corn were ground by hand, would 
 pay two thirds more than he pays now for flour ground 
 at a mill. 
 
 But if the system of grinding corn by hand were a 
 very recent system of society, and the introduction of so 
 great a benefit as the water-mill had all at once displaced 
 the hand-grinders, as the spinning machinery displaced 
 the spinning-wheel, what must become, it is said, of the 
 one hundred and fifty men who earned the 15/. a-day, of 
 which sum the consumer has now got 14/. 10s. in his 
 pocket ? They must go to other work. And what is to 
 set them to that work ? The same 14/. IO5. ; which, 
 being saved in the price of flour, gives the poor man, as 
 well as the rich man, more animal food and fuel ; a 
 greater quantity of clothes, and of a better quality ; better 
 furniture, and more of it ; domestic utensils ; and books. 
 To produce these things there must be more labourers 
 employed than before. The quantity of labour is, there- 
 fore, not diminished, while its productiveness is much 
 increased. It is as if every man among us had become 
 suddenly much stronger and more industrious. The
 
 CAPITAIi AND LABOUK. 115 
 
 machines labour for us, and are yet satisfied without either 
 food or clothing. They increase all our comforts and 
 they consume none themselves. The hand-mills are not 
 grinding-, it is true : but the ships are sailing that bring 
 us foreign produce ; the looms are moving that give us 
 more clothes ; the potter, and glass-maker, and joiner, 
 are each employed to add to our household goods ; we 
 are each of us elevated in the scale of society : and all 
 these things happen because machinery has diminished 
 the cost of production.
 
 11^ CAPITAL AND LABOUR, 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 All labourers in agriculture know full well the value of 
 a tool ; but some hate machinery. This is inconsistent. 
 Unless the labourer made a plough (if he will consent 
 even to a plough) out of two pieces of stick, and carried 
 it upon Piis shoulder to the field, as the toil-worn and 
 poor people of India do, he must have some iron about it. 
 He cannot get iron without machinery. He hates ma- 
 chinery, and therefore he will have nothing to do with a 
 plough ! Will he have his hoe, then ? He is not quite 
 sure. Will he give up his knife ? No ; he must keep 
 his knife. He has got every thing to do for himself, and 
 his knife is his tool of all-work. 
 
 Well, how does he get this same knife ? People that 
 have no machinery sharpen a stone, or bit of shell, or 
 bone, and cut or saw with it in the best way they can ; 
 and after they have become very clever, they fasten it to 
 a wooden handle with a cord of bark. An Englishman 
 examines two or three dozens of knives, selects which he 
 thinks the best, and pays a shilling for it, the seller thank- 
 ing him for his custom. The man who has nothing but 
 the bone or the shell would gladly toil a month, for that 
 which does not cost an English labourer half a day's 
 wages. 
 
 And how does the Englishman obtain his knife upon 
 such easy terms ? From the very same cause that he 
 obtains all his other accommodations cheaper, in compari- 
 son with the ordinary wages of labour, than the inhabitant 
 of most other countries, — that is, from the use of ma- 
 chinery, either in the makmg of the thing itself, or in pro-
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 117 
 
 curing that without which it could not be made. We 
 must always remember that if we could not get the 
 materials without machinery, it would be as impossible 
 for us to get what is made of those materials as if a 
 machine delivered it to us ready for use. 
 
 Keeping this in mind, let us see how a knife could be 
 obtained by a man who had nothing to depend upon but 
 his hands. 
 
 Ready-made, without the labour of some other man, a 
 knife does not exist ; but the iron, of which the knife is 
 made, is to be had. Very little iron has ever been found 
 in a native state, or fit for the blacksmith. The little 
 that has been found in that state has been found only 
 very lately ; and if human art had not been able to pro- 
 cure any in addition to that, gold would have been cheap 
 as compared with iron. 
 
 Iron is, no doubt, very abundant in nature ; but it is 
 always mixed with some other substance that not only 
 renders it unfit for use, but hides its qualities. It is 
 found in the state of what is called iron stone, or iron ore. 
 Sometimes it is mixed with clay, at other times with 
 lime or with the earth of flint ; and there are also cases 
 in which it is mixed with sulphur. In short, in the state 
 in which iron is frequently met with, it is a much more 
 likely substance to be chosen for paving a road, or build- 
 ing a wall, than for making a knife. 
 
 But suppose that the man knows the particular ore or 
 stone that contains the iron, how is he to get it out ? 
 Mere force will not do, for the iron and the clay, or 
 other substance, are so nicely mixed, that though the 
 ore were ground to the finest powder, the grinder is 
 no nearer the iron than when he had a lump of a ton 
 weight. 
 
 A^man who has a block of wood has a wooden bowl in 
 the heart of it ; and he can get it out too by labour. 
 The knife will do it for him in time ; and if he take it to 
 the turner, the turner with his machinery, his lathe, and 
 his gouge, will work it out for him in half an hour. The 
 man who has a lump of iron ore has just as certainly a 
 knife in the heait of it ; but no mere labour can work it
 
 118 CAPITAL AND LABOL'R. 
 
 out. Shape it as you may, it is not a knife, or steel, or 
 even iron, — it is iron ore ; and dress it as you will, it 
 would not cut better than a brick-bat, — certainly not so 
 well as the shell or bone of the savage. 
 
 There must be knowledge before any thing can be 
 done in this case. We must know what is mixed with 
 the iron, and how to separate it. We cannot do it by 
 mere labour, as we can chip away the wood and get out 
 the bowl ; and therefore we have recourse to fire. 
 
 In the ordinary mode of using it, fire would make 
 matters worse. If we put the material into the fire as a 
 stone, we should probably receive it back as slag or dross. 
 We must, therefore, prepare our fuel. Our fire must be 
 hot, very hot ; but if our fuel be wood we must bum it 
 into charcoal, or if it be coal into coke. 
 
 The charcoal, or coke, answers for one purpose ; but 
 we have still the clay or other earth mixed with our iron, 
 and how are we to get rid of that ? Pure clay, or pure 
 lime, or pure earth of flint, remains stubborn in our 
 hottest fires ; but when they are mixed in a proper pro- 
 portion, the one melts the other. 
 
 So charcoal or coke, and iron stone or iron ore, and 
 limestone, are put into a furnace ; the charcoal or coke is 
 lighted at the bottom, and wind is blown into the furnace, 
 at the bottom also. If that wind is not sent in by ma- 
 chinery, and very powerful machinery too, the effect will 
 be little, and the work of the man great ; but still it can 
 be done. Within these few years the quality of the wind 
 sent in, a hot-blast or a cold-blast, hgs made a great dif- 
 ference in the facility of producing iron. The labour is 
 less, the iron is cheaper, because the wind employed in 
 its production has been rendered more efficient. 
 
 In this furnace the lime and clay, or earth of flint, 
 unite, and form a sort of glass, which floats upon the sur- 
 face. At the same time the carbon, or pure charcoal, of 
 the fuel, with the assistance of the limestone, mixes with 
 the stone, or ore, and melts the iron, which, being 
 heavier than the other matters, runs down to the bottom 
 of the furnace, and remains there till the workman lets it 
 out by a hole made at the bottom of the furnace for that
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUB. 119 
 
 purpose, and plugged with sand. When the workman 
 knows there is enough melted, or when the appointed 
 time arrives, he displaces the plug of sand with an iron 
 rod, and the melted iron runs out like water, and is con- 
 veyed into furrows made in sand, where it cools, and 
 the pieces formed in the principal furrows are called 
 *' sows," and those in the furrows branching from them, 
 ''pigs." 
 
 But great as is the advantage of this first step of the 
 iron-making, the iron is not yet fit for a knife. It is 
 cast-iron. It cannot be worked by the hammer, or 
 sharpened to a cutting edge ; and so it must be made 
 into malleable iron, — into a kind of iron which, instead 
 of melting in the fire, will soften, and admit of being 
 hammered into shape, or united by the process of weld- 
 ing. 
 
 The methods by which this is accomplished vary ; but 
 they in general consist in keeping the iron melted in a 
 furnace, and stimng it with an iron rake, till the blast of 
 air in the furnace burns the greater part of the carbon 
 out of it. By this means it becomes tough ; and, without 
 cooling, is taken from the furnace and repeatedly beaten 
 by large hammers, or squeezed through large rollers, 
 until it becomes the bar-iron of which so much use is 
 made in every art of life. 
 
 Bringing it into this state requires great force ; and 
 the unaided strength of all the men in Britain could not 
 make all the iron which is at present made, though they 
 did nothing else. Machinery is therefore resorted to ; 
 and water-wheels, steam-engines, and all sorts of powers 
 are set to work in moving hammers, turning rollers, and 
 drawing rods and wires through holes, till every work- 
 man can have the particular form which he wants. If it 
 were not for the machinery that is employed in the m.anu- 
 facture, no man could obtain a spade for less than the 
 price of a year's labour ; the yokes of a horse would cost 
 more than the horse himself; and the farmer would have 
 to return to wooden plough-shares, and hoes made of 
 sticks with crooked ends. There would be labour enough 
 then, as we have already shown ; — but the people could
 
 120 CAPITAL AKD LABOUR. 
 
 not live upon the labour onlj ; they must have profitable 
 labour. 
 
 After all this, the iron is not yet fit for a knife, at least 
 for such a knife as an Englishman may buy for a shilling. 
 Many nations would, however, be thankful for a little 
 bit of it, and nations too in whose countries there is no 
 want of iron ore. But they have no knowledge of the 
 method of making iron, and have no furnaces or ma- 
 chinery. When our ships sail among the people of the 
 eastern islands, those people do not ask for gold. " Iron, 
 iron !" is the call ; and he who can exchange his best 
 commodity for a rusty nail or a bit of iron hoop is a for- 
 tunate individual. 
 
 We are not satisfied with that in the best form, which 
 is a treasure to those people in the worst. We must 
 have a knife, not of iron, but of steely — a substance that 
 will bear a keen edge without either breaking or bend- 
 ing. In order to get that, we must again change the 
 nature of our material. 
 
 How is that to be done? The oftener that iron is 
 heated and hammered, it becomes the softer and more 
 ductile ; and as the heating and hammering forced the 
 carbon out of it, if we give it the carbon back again, we 
 shall harden it ; but it happens that we also give it other 
 properties, by restoring its carbon, when the iron has 
 once been in a ductile state. 
 
 For this purpose, bars or pieces of iron are buried in 
 powdered charcoal, covered up in a vessel, and kept at a 
 red heat for a greater or less number of hours, according 
 to the object desired. There are niceties in the process, 
 which it is not necessary to explain, that produce the 
 peculiar quality of steel, as distinguished from cast-iron. 
 If the operation of heating the iron in charcoal is con- 
 tinued too long, or the heat is too great, the iron becomes 
 cast steel, and cannot be welded ; but if it is not melted 
 in the operation, it can be worked with the hammer in 
 the same manner as iron. 
 
 In each case, however, it has acquired the property 
 upon which the keenness of the knife depends ; and the 
 chief difference between the cast steel and the steel that
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 121 
 
 can bear to be hammered is, that cast steel takes a keener 
 edge, but is more easily broken. 
 
 The property which it has acquired is that of bearing 
 to be tempered. If it be made very hot, and plunged 
 into cold water, and kept there till it is quite cooled, it 
 is so hard that it will cut iron, but it is brittle. In this 
 state, the workman brightens the surface, and lays the 
 steel upon a piece of hot iron, and holds it to the fire till 
 it becomes of a colour which he knows from experience 
 is a test of the proper state of the process. Then he 
 plunges it again into water, and it has the degree of 
 hardness that he wants. 
 
 The grinding a knife, and the polishing it, even when 
 it has acquired the requisite properties of steel, if they 
 were not done by machinery, would cost more than the 
 whole price of a knife upon which machinery is used. A 
 travelling knife-grinder, with his treadle and wheels, has 
 a machine, but not a very perfect one. The Sheffield 
 knife-maker grinds the knife at first upon wheels of im- 
 mense size, turned by water or steam, and moving so 
 quickly that they appear to stand still — the eye cannot 
 follow the motion. With these aids the original grind- 
 ing and polishing cost scarcely any thing; while the 
 travelling knife-grinder charges two-pence for the labom' 
 of himself and his wheel, in just sharpening it. 
 
 As iron is with us almost as plentiful as stone, we do 
 not think much about it. But there is a great deal to be 
 done, much thinking and inventing, before so simple a 
 thing as a shilling knife could be procured : and without 
 the thinking and the inventing all the strength of all the 
 men that ever lived never could procure it ; and without 
 the machinery to lighten the labour, no ingenuity could 
 ffarnish it at a thousand times the expense. 
 
 And why then can an ordinary workman procure it 
 for the price of a few hours' labour ? The causes are 
 easily seen. Every part of the labour that can be done 
 by machinery is so done. One turn of a wheel, one 
 stroke of a steam-engine, one pinch of a pair of rollers, 
 or one blow of a die, will do more in a second than a 
 man could do in a month. Another advantage in the
 
 122 CAPITAL AXD LABOUR. 
 
 manufacture is that the labour is divided. Each man has 
 but one thing to do, and in course of time he comes to do 
 twenty times as much as if he were constantly shifting 
 from one thing to another. The value of the work that a 
 man does is not to be measured in all cases by the time 
 and trouble that it costs him individually, but by the 
 market value of what he produces ; which value is deter- 
 mined, as far as labour is concerned, by the price paid for 
 doing it in the best and most expeditious mode. He 
 that fells a sapling by one stroke of his axe, does just as 
 much work as he that should take to rip it asunder with 
 his nails, or gnaw it with his teeth, according to Joseph 
 Foster's expression. 
 
 And does not all this machinery, it may still be said, 
 deprive many workmen of employment ? No. By these 
 means the iron trade gives bread to hundreds, where 
 otherwise it would not have given bread to one. There 
 are more hands employed at the iron-works than there 
 would have been if there had been no machinery ; be- 
 cause without machinery men could not produce iron 
 cheap enough to be generally used. 
 
 Then the number of founders and smiths ! The pans 
 and kettles, the pipes, the grates, the thousands of iron 
 things that we see, all employ somebody ; and every body 
 is benefited by the use of them. We make bridges of 
 iron, roads of iron, waggons of iron, boats of iron, steam- 
 engines of iron ; and, in fact, so many things of iron, 
 that if we were deprived of it, our country would not be 
 worth inhabiting. As many iron pipes have been laid 
 down for supplying water and light to the inhabitants of 
 London alone, within the last twenty years, as, without 
 machinery, would have kept all the world busy for a cen- 
 tury, or rather could not have been procured at all. ^ 
 
 Then there are the tools of every trade. All the 
 working parts of them are made of iron, and very many 
 of them are made of iron altogether. How would the 
 hedger proceed without his bill, or the ditcher without 
 his mattock ? The first could not do with wood at all, 
 and the last would make but sorry work. Then come 
 the spade, the hoe, the scjthe, and the sickle. How
 
 CAPIT.\X AND LABOUR. 123 
 
 could they be had without iron ? or what would be the 
 condition of the labourer, if iron and iron tools were sold 
 at the price of making them without machinery ? His 
 tools now cost him only the produce of a few days of his 
 own labour ; — in many cases they are supplied to him. 
 If they were made by hand, they would cost him the 
 labour of many weeks to purchase them, if they could be 
 purchased at all. His tools are, however, a first neces- 
 sary of life to the labourer ; — he cannot earn his bread 
 without them. If he bought the tools at the dear rate, 
 he would probably spend half his earnings in buying 
 them ; and then he must be paid double. 
 
 But instead of there being any thing to pay double 
 wages to the labourer, every body would be in the same 
 necessity as himself; and the necessity would be that he 
 and they would either pay double for all that was bought, 
 or work for half price. The axe, the saw, the plane, 
 the gimlet, and the nails, would consume all the earn- 
 ings of the carpenter ; the needles, the shears, and the 
 goose, would be a burden to the tailor ; the farmer would 
 be obliged to pay in the additional price of iron what he 
 now pays to his labourers, and labour itself would be at 
 an end. 
 
 There was a time when iron was made in this country 
 with very little machinery. Iron was manufactured here 
 in the time of the Romans ; but it was made with great 
 manual labour, and was consequently very dear. Hutton, 
 in his History of Birmingham, tells us that there is a 
 large heap of cinders near that town which have been 
 produced by an ancient iron furnace ; and that from the 
 quantity of cinders, as compared with the mechanical 
 powers possessed by our forefathers, the furnace must 
 have been constantly at work from the time of Julius 
 Caesar. A furnace with a steam blast would produce as 
 large a heap in a few years. It is always a difficulty at 
 the iron-works to get rid of their cinders. 
 
 The machinery that is now employed in the iron trade, 
 not only enables the people to be supplied cheaply with 
 all sorts of articles of iron, but it enables a great number 
 of people to find employment, not in the iron trade only,
 
 124 CAPITAL AXD LABOUB. 
 
 but in all other trades, who otherwise could not have 
 been employed ; and it enables everybody to do more 
 work with the same exertion by giving them better tools ; 
 while it makes all more comfortable by furnishing them 
 with more commodious domestic utensils. 
 
 There are thousands of families on the face of the 
 earth, that would be glad to exchange all they have for 
 a tin kettle, or an iron pot, which can be bought any 
 where in the three kingdoms for eighteen pence. And 
 could the poor man in this country but once see how even 
 the rich man in some other places must toil day after day 
 before he can scrape or grind a stone so as to be able to 
 boil a little water in it, or make it serve for a lamp, he 
 would account himself a poor man no more. An English 
 gipsy carries about with him more of the conveniences of 
 life than are enjoyed by the chiefs or rulers in countries 
 which naturally have much finer climates than that of 
 England. But they have no machinery, and therefore 
 they are wretched. 
 
 Nearly all the people now engaged in iron-works are 
 supported by the improvements that have been made in 
 it by machinery since 1788. Yes, wholly by the ma- 
 chinery ; for before then the quantity made by the char- 
 coal of wood had fallen off one-fourth in forty-five years. 
 The wood for charcoal was becoming exhausted, and no- 
 thing but the powerful blast of a machine will make iron 
 with coke. Without the aid of machinery the trade 
 would have become extinct. The iron and the coal em- 
 ployed in making it would have remained useless in the
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 125 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 In every part of the operation of making iron; — in 
 smelting the iron out of the ore ; in moulding cast iron 
 into those articles for which it is best adapted ; in work- 
 ing malleable iron and steel, and in applying them to use 
 after they are made ; nothing can be done without fire, 
 and the fuel that is used in almost every stage of the bu- 
 siness is coal. The coal trade and the iron trade are 
 thus so intimately connected, so very much dependent 
 upon each other, that neither of them could be carried 
 on to any extent without the other. The coal mines 
 supply fuel, and the iron-works give mining tools, pumps, 
 railroads, wheels, and steam-engines, in return. A little 
 coal might be got without the iron engines, and a little 
 iron might be made without coals, by the charcoal of 
 wood. But the quantity of both would be trifling in 
 comparison. Thus it is, that to make one million five 
 hundred thousand tons of iron, requires above three times 
 the quantity, or five million tons of coal. This large 
 quantity is only for the production of pig-metal. In 
 other castings, and in the various subsequent stages of 
 iron manufacture, many more tons of coal are employed. 
 
 Through the geneial consumption of wood instead of 
 coal, a fire for domestic use in France is a great deal 
 dearer than a fire in England ; because, although the 
 coal-pits are not to be found at every man's door, nor 
 within many miles of the doors of some men, machinery 
 at the pits, and ships and barges, which are also ma- 
 chinery, enable most men to enjoy the blessings of a coal 
 fire at a much cheaper rate than a fire of wood, which is
 
 126 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 not limited in its growth to any particular district. With- 
 out the machinery to bring coals to his door, one man 
 out of fifty of the present population of England could 
 not have had the power of warming himself in winter ; 
 any more than without the machines and implements of 
 farming he could obtain food, or without those of the 
 arts he could procure clothing. The sufferings produced 
 by a want of fuel cannot be estimated by those who have 
 abundance. In Normandy, very recently, such was the 
 scarcity of wood, that persons engaged in various works 
 of hand, as lace-making by the pillow, absolutely sat up 
 through the winter nights in the barns of the farmers, 
 where cattle were littered down, that they might be kept 
 warm by the animal heat around them. They slept in 
 the day, and were warmed by being in the same out- 
 house with cows and horses at night ; — and thus they 
 worked under every disadvantage, because fuel was scarce 
 and very dear. 
 
 Well, suppose that our machinery (not mere tools, but 
 more complicated instruments) were laid aside, and all 
 the works and contrivances that have been made by 
 means of it put an end to, and the people left to find 
 coals with shovels and pickaxes, and all the tools used in 
 common digging. How would they go about this task, 
 or what would the coals cost as compared with the pre- 
 sent price ? 
 
 At present a cottager in the south of England, where 
 there is no coal in the earth, may have a bushel of good 
 coals delivered at the door of his cottage for eighteen 
 pence. If he had even the means of transporting himself 
 and his family to the coal district, he could not, without 
 machinery, get a bushel of coals at the price of a year's 
 work. Let us see how a resolute man would proceed in 
 such an undertaking. 
 
 The machinery, we will say, is gone. The mines are 
 filled up, which the greater part of them would be, with 
 water, if the machinery were to stop a single week. Let 
 us suppose that the adventurous labourer knows exactly 
 (iie spot whore the coal is to be found. This knowledge, 
 in a country that has never been searched for coals before,
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 127 
 
 is no easy matter even to those who understand the sub- 
 ject best ; but we shall suppose that he gets over that 
 difficulty too, for after it there is plenty of difficulty 
 before him. 
 
 Well, he comes to the exact spot that he seeks, and 
 places himself right over the seam of coal. That seam 
 is only a hundred fathoms below the surface, which depth 
 he will, of course, reach in good time. To work he 
 goes ; pares off the green sod with his shovel, loosens the 
 earth with his pickaxe, and, in the course of a week, is 
 twenty feet down into the loose earth and gravel, and 
 clears the rock at the bottom. He rests during the Sun- 
 day, and comes refreshed to his work on Monday morn- 
 ing ; when behold there are twelve feet of water in his 
 pit. 
 
 Somebody now lends him a bucket and rope (a ma- 
 chine, mind), and he bales away, till, as night closes, he 
 has lowered the water three feet. Next morning it is 
 up a foot and a half: but no matter; he has done some- 
 thing, and next day he redoubles his efforts, and brings 
 the water down to only four feet. That is encouraging ; 
 but, from the depth, he now works his bucket with more 
 difficulty, and it is again a week before his pit is dry. 
 The weather changes ; the rain comes down heavily ; the 
 surface on which it falls is spongy ; the rock which he 
 has reached is water-tight ; and in twelve hours his pit is 
 filled to the brim. It is in vain to go on. 
 
 The sinking of a pit, even to a less depth than a hun- 
 dred fathoms, sometimes demands, notwithstanding all 
 the improvements by machinery, a sum of not less than 
 a hundred pounds a fathom, or ten thousand pounds for 
 the whole pit ; and therefore, supposing it possible for a 
 single man to do it at the rate of eighteen pence a day, 
 the time which he would require would be between four 
 hundred and five hundred years. 
 
 Whence comes it that the labour of between four hun- 
 dred and five hundred years is reduced to a single day, 
 and that which, independently of the carriage, would 
 have cost ten thousand pounds, is got for eighteen pence ?
 
 128 CAPITAL AND LABOUK. 
 
 It is because man joins with man, and machinery is em- 
 ployed to do the drudgery. Nations that have no ma- 
 chinery have no coal fires, and are ignorant that there is 
 hidden under the earth a substance which contributes 
 more, perhaps, to the health and comfort of the inhabit- 
 ants of Britain than any other commodity which they 
 enjoy. 
 
 Yes, that the coals are procured for so mere a trifle in 
 comparison — that they are procured at all — is owing to 
 every part of the labour that can be so performed being 
 performed by machinery ; and that the machinery exists, 
 and this vast addition is made to every man's comfort, is 
 owing to there being men in the country with capital 
 enough to bear the expense, and with spirit enough to 
 risk their property in operations of so much cost and 
 magnitude. 
 
 Some of the particulars of the mode in which coals are 
 obtained deserve to be mentioned, for the purpose of 
 shewing with what ease machinery can do that which to 
 human strength, however skilfully applied, if unassisted 
 by machinery, would be utterly impossible. 
 
 Suppose the men digging in a narrow pit, such as that 
 which is sunk for the purpose of " winning" coals, how 
 would they, after they had reached a certain depth, raise 
 the earth and rubbish to a surface, and go down or come 
 up ? Without machinery there are really no means, but 
 by putting down a ladder, or cutting steps in the side of 
 the pit. With such aids, let us consider how much rub- 
 bish a man could bring up in a day. Coulomb, a French 
 mathematician, found that a man without any load could 
 climb up steps to a height of about eighty-two fathoms, 
 eighteen times within the hours of ordinary work. There 
 would be therefore, at most, only eighteen d^jly ascents 
 from the pit, even if the man brought nothing with him. 
 If he carry a load, his power of ascent is of course much 
 diminished. 
 
 But art performs what mere bodily strength cannot 
 accomplish. When the pit becomes too deep for throw- 
 ing out the earth with a shovel, a windlass is put across
 
 CAPITAL AXD LABOUR. 129 
 
 it with a rope and buckets, so that while the full one is 
 drawn up the empty one is let down. One man works 
 the windlass, and another digs. 
 
 When the man who digs comes to stone, he lays aside 
 the pickaxe and the shovel, takes the iron ''jumper," 
 drills a hole in the rock, puts in a shot of gunpowder, 
 lays a few faggots over for safety, lights the train, and is 
 drawn some yards up by the bucket. Thunder goes the 
 shot, the faggots prevent all danger from the fragments, 
 and as much stone is loosened in two minutes as the man 
 would have loosened with his pickaxe in a week. This 
 is a chemical aid ; an aid which is as powerful in dimi- 
 nishing cost of production as the aid of machinery. There 
 is therefore now nothing to do but to fill the buckets, 
 and so another man is sent to the windlass. 
 
 When the pit gets still deeper, the windlass is laid 
 aside, and the horse gin is mounted. According to 
 Smeaton, the power of a horse is equal to five men at the 
 same kind of labour. Other writers estimate the power 
 of a horse at more than six men. One of the three men 
 can attend to the horse and empty the buckets, and the 
 two are at liberty to dig and fill below ; so that with the 
 gin and horse, the labour of many men is saved. 
 
 The number of men that can work at a windlass, or 
 the number of horses that can be yoked to a gin, is limited. 
 But the power of the steam-engine is limited only by 
 the strength of the materials of which it is formed. The 
 power of a hundred horses, or of five hundi'ed men, may 
 be very easily made by the steam-engine to act constantly, 
 and on a single point ; and thus there is scarcely any 
 thing in the way of mere force which the engine cannot 
 be made to do. We have seen a pit in Staffordshire, 
 which hardly gave coal enough to maintain a cottager 
 and his family, for he worked the pit with imperfect 
 machinery ; with a half-starved ass applied to a windlass. 
 A mile off was a steam-engine of 200-horse power, rais- 
 ing tons of coals and pumping out rivers of water with a 
 force equal to at least a thousand men. This vast force 
 acted upon a point ; and therefore no advantage was 
 gained over the machine by the opposing force of water, 
 
 G
 
 130 CAPITAL AND LABOUE. 
 
 or the weight of the material to be raised. Before the 
 steam-engine was invented, the produce of the coal- 
 mines barely paid the expense of working and keeping 
 them dry ; and had it not been for the steam-engines and 
 other machinery, the supply would long before now have 
 dwindled into a very small quantity, and the price would 
 have become ten or twenty times its present amount. 
 
 Engines or machines, of some kind or other, not only 
 keep the pits dry and raise the coals to the surface, but 
 convey them to the ship upon railroads ; and the ship, 
 itself a machine, carries them round all parts of the 
 coast ; while barges and boats (still machines) convey 
 them along the rivers and canals. By these means, a 
 ton is carried from the pit to the cottage of the labourer, 
 for less expense than, in the distant places, he himself 
 could fetch a pound, even although he were to get it for 
 nothing at the pit. We shall see, in the next chapter, 
 how all machines which facilitate the general communi- 
 cation between man and man, whether from town to 
 town, from district to district, from county to county, or 
 from nation to nation, advance the general welfare of 
 mankind. 
 
 What are the consequences of machinery employed in 
 raising coals ? That by machinery many millions of tons 
 of one of the very first necessaries of life are obtained, 
 which without machinery could not be obtained at all in 
 the thousandth part of the quantity ; and which, conse- 
 quently, would be a thousand times the price — would, in 
 fact, be precious stones, instead of common fuel.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUE. 131 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The chief power which produces coal and iron cheap at 
 the pit is that of machinery. It is the same power which 
 distributes these bulky articles through the country, and 
 equalizes the cost in a considerable degree to the man 
 who lives in London and the man who lives in Durham 
 or Staffordshire. The difference in cost is the price of 
 transport ; and machinery, applied in various improved 
 ways, is every year lessening the cost of conveyance, and 
 thus equalizing prices throughout the British Islands. 
 The same applications of mechanical power enable a man 
 to move from one place to another with equal ease, 
 cheapness, and rapidity. Quick travelling has become 
 cheaper than slow travelling. The time saved remains 
 for profitable labour. 
 
 About a hundred and sixty years ago, when the first 
 turnpike-road was formed in England, a mob broke the 
 toll-gates, because they thought an unjust tax was being 
 put upon them. They did not perceive that this small 
 tax for the use of a road would confer upon them in- 
 numerable comforts, and double and treble the means of 
 employment. 
 
 If there were no road, and no bridge, a man would 
 take six months in finding his way from London to 
 Edinburgh, if indeed he found it at all. He would have 
 to keep the line of the hills, in order that he might 
 come upon the rivers at particular spots, where he would 
 be able to jump over them with ease, or wade through 
 them without danger. 
 
 When a man has gone up the bank of a river for 
 
 g2
 
 132 CAPITAL AXD LABOUR, 
 
 twelve miles in one direction, in order to be able to 
 cross it, he may find that before he proceeds one mile in 
 the line of his journey, he has to go along the bank of 
 another river for twelve miles in the opposite direction ; 
 and the courses of the rivers may be so crooked that he 
 is really farther from his journey's end at night than he 
 was in the morning. 
 
 He may come to the side of a lake, and not know the 
 end at which the river, too broad and deep for him to 
 cross, runs out ; and he may go twenty miles the wrong 
 way, and thus lose forty. 
 
 jbifficulties such as these are felt by every traveller in 
 an uncivilized country. In reading books of travels, in 
 Africa for instance, we sometimes wonder how it is that 
 the adventurer proceeds a very few miles each day. We 
 forget that he has no roads. 
 
 Two hundred years ago — even one hundred years ago 
 — in some places fifty years ago — the roads of England 
 were wholly unfit for general traffic and the conveyance 
 of heavy goods. Pack-horses mostly carried on the 
 communication in the manufacturing districts. The 
 roads were as unfit for moving commodities of bulk, such 
 as coal, wool, and corn, as the sandy roads of Poland are 
 at the present day. Bad roads in Poland double the 
 original price of wheat by the cost of conveyance a very 
 few miles. Bad corn-laws in England prevent the 
 natural course of commercial exchange, which would 
 very soon mend the Polish roads from the corn-field to 
 the sea-port. The great principle of exchange between 
 one part of this island and another part, which has ceased 
 to be an affair of restrictions and jealousies, has covered 
 this island with good roads, with canals, and finally with 
 railways. The railway and the steam-carriage have 
 carried the principle of diminishing the price of convey- 
 ance, and therefore of commodities, by machinery, to an 
 extent which makes all other illustrations almost unneces- 
 sary. A road with a waggon moving on it is a mecha- 
 nical combination ; a canal, with its locks and towing- 
 paths, and boats gliding along almost without effort, is a 
 higher mechanical combination ; a railway, with its
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUE. 133 
 
 locomotive engine, and carriage after carriage dragged 
 along at the rate of thirty miles an hour, is the highest 
 of such mechanical combinations. The force applied 
 upon a level turnpike-road, which is required to move 
 1800 lbs., if applied to drag a canal boat, will move 
 55,500 lbs., both at the rate of 2^ miles per hour. But 
 we want economy in time as well as economy in the 
 application of motive power. It has been attempted to 
 apply speed to canal travelling. Up to 4 miles an hour 
 the canal can convey an equal weight more economically 
 than a railroad ; but after a certain velocity is exceeded, 
 that is 13^ miles an hour, the horse on the turnpike- 
 road can drag as much as the canal team. Then comes 
 in the great advantage of the railroad. The same force 
 that is required to draw 1900 lbs. upon a canal, at a 
 rate above 13^ miles an hour, will draw 14,400 lbs. upon 
 a railway, at the rate of 133- miles an hour. Who can 
 doubt that the cost of consumption is diminished by ma- 
 chinery, when the producers and consumers are thus 
 brought together, not only at the least cost of transit, 
 but at the least expenditure of time ? 
 
 If we add to the road, the canal, and the railway, the 
 steam-boat traffic of our own coasts, we cannot hesitate 
 to believe that the whole territory of Great Britain and 
 Ireland is more compact, more closely united, more ac- 
 cessible, than was a single county two centuries ago. 
 It may be said, without exaggeration, that it would now 
 be impossible for a traveller in England to set himself 
 down in any situation where the post from London 
 would not reach him in eighteen hours. When the first 
 edition of ' The Results of Machinery ' was published 
 in 1831, we said that the post from London would reach 
 any part of England in three days; and that "fifty 
 years before, such a quickness of communication would 
 have been considered beyond the compass of human 
 means." In fourteen years we have so diminished the 
 practical amount of distance between one part of Great 
 Britain and another, that the post from London to Aber- 
 deen is only thirty-six hours. In a few years it will be 
 even less. Railways are producing these wonderful
 
 134 CAPITAL AXD LABOUR. 
 
 changes ; and in connexion witii railways and improved 
 roads and steam-ships, the mental labourers have been 
 at work with improved organization to make the condition 
 of all other labourers more advantageous. 
 
 Roads, canals, steam-ships, railways, are each and all 
 machines for diminishing the cost of transport, whether 
 of commodities or of human beings. They create labour, 
 they lower and equalize prices. About twenty years ago 
 a new road was made, at the expense of government, 
 through a barren country, which presented an impassable 
 barrier to communication between Limerick, Cork, and 
 Kerry, We will take one example of the instantaneous 
 benefit of this road-making, as described by a witness 
 before Parliament: — "A hatter, at Castle-island, had a 
 small field through which the new road passed : this part 
 next the town was not opened until 1826. In making 
 arrangements with him for his damages, he said that he 
 ought to make me (the engineer) a present of all the 
 land he had, for that the second year I was at the roads 
 he sold more hats to the people of the mountains alone, 
 than he did for seven years before to the high and low 
 lands together," 
 
 The hatter of Castle-island got comfort and pros- 
 perity by the roads, because the man who had to sell 
 and the man who had to buy were brought closer to 
 each other by means of the roads. When there were no 
 roads, the hatter kept his goods upon the shell", and the 
 labourer in the mountains went without a hat. When 
 tlie labourer and the hatter were brought together by the 
 roads, the hatter soon sold oif his stock, and the manu- 
 facturer of hats went to work to produce him a new stock ; 
 while the labourer, who found the advantage of having a 
 hat, also went to work to earn more money, that he 
 might pay for another when he should require it. It 
 became a fashion to wear hats, and of course a fashion to 
 work hard, and to save time, to be able to pay for them. 
 Thus the road created industry on both sides, on the side 
 of the producer of hats and that of the consumer. 
 
 What the new Irish road did for the hatter of Castle- 
 island, the railroads of England and Scotland have done.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 135 
 
 and are doing, for our millions of producers and con- 
 sumers. But it may be held by some that railways, as 
 far as passenger communication goes, are inventions for 
 the benefit of the rich and the pleasure-seeking. Parlia- 
 ment thought otherwise when it enacted, in 1844, that 
 upon every railway there should be a train once a day 
 ])rovided for third-class passengers, in carriages with 
 seats, and protected from the weather, which should take 
 up and set down passengers at every station, and the fare 
 not to exceed one penny per mile. If all railway pro- 
 ])rietors had understood their own interests, none would 
 have waited for a legislative enactment to carry third- 
 class passengers at a penny a mile. But before this act 
 of Parliament was passed, the penny-a-mile passengers 
 formed an important class of travellers. From the 1st of 
 July, 1842, to the 30th of June, 1843, sixty-six railways 
 then in operation in the United Kingdom received from 
 passengers and for the conveyance of goods the enormous 
 sum of four million five hundred and thirty-five thousand 
 }X)unds, Of this sum three million one hundred and ten 
 thousand pounds was received from passengers, amount- 
 ing to more than twenty-three million persons. Of 
 these, six million five hundred thousand were third-class 
 passengers, who paid four hundred and eleven thousand 
 pounds, being upon an average fifteen pence for each. 
 It is evident that the third-class passengers went short 
 distances, some less than fifteen miles, some more. Can 
 any one doubt that the free interchange of labour is pro- 
 moted in an unexampled degree by such railway commu- 
 nication ? 
 
 When William Hutton, in the middle of last century, 
 started from Nottingham (where he earned a scanty 
 living as a bookbinder) and walked to London and 
 back for the purpose of buying tools, he was nine 
 days from home, six of which were spent in going and 
 returning. He travelled on foot, dreading robbers, and 
 still more dreading the cost of food and lodging at public- 
 houses. His whole expenses during this toilsome expe- 
 dition were only ten shillings and eight pence ; but he 
 contented himself with the barest necessaries, keeping
 
 ] 36 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 the money for his tools sewed up in his shirt-collar. If 
 William Hutton had lived in these days, he would, upon 
 sheer principles of economy, have gone to London and 
 back by the Nottingham train in two days, at a cost of 
 twenty shillings for his transit. The twenty shillings 
 would have been sacrificed for his conveyance, but he 
 would have had a week's labour free to go to work with 
 his new tools ; he need not have sewed his money in his 
 shirt-collar for fear of thieves ; and his shoes would not 
 have been worn out and his feet blistered in his toilsome 
 march of two hundred and fifty miles. 
 
 And there are some men who say that this wonderful 
 communication, the greatest triumph of modern skill, is 
 not a blessing ; — for the machinery has put somebody out 
 of employ. Baron Humboldt, a traveller in South 
 America, tells us, that upon a road being made over a 
 part of the great chain of mountains called the Andes, 
 the government was petitioned against the road, by a 
 body of men who for centuries had gained a living by 
 carrying travellers in baskets strapped upon their backs 
 over the fearful rocks, which only these guides could 
 cross. Which was the better course — to make the road, 
 and create the thousand employments belonging to free- 
 dom of intercourse, for these very carriers of travellers, 
 and for ail other men ; or to leave the mountains without 
 a road, that the poor guides might gain a premium for 
 risking their lives in an unnecessary peril ?
 
 CAPITAL AXD LABOUR. 137 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The people who live in small villages, or in scattered 
 habitations in the country, have certainly not so many 
 direct benefits from machinery as the inhabitants of 
 towns. They have the articles at a cheap rate, which 
 machines produce, but there are not so many machines 
 at work for them as for dense populations. From want 
 of knowledge they may be unable to perceive the con- 
 nexion between a cheap coat or a cheap tool, and the 
 machines which make them plentiful, and therefore 
 cheap. But even they, when the saving of labour by a 
 machine is a saving which immediately affects them, are 
 not slow to acknowledge the benefits they derive from 
 that best of economy. The Scriptures allude to the pain- 
 ful condition of the " hewers of wood" and the " drawers 
 of water ;" and certainly, in a state of society where 
 there are no machines at all, or very rude machines, to 
 cut down a tree and cleave it into logs, and to raise a 
 bucket from a well, are very laborious occupations, the 
 existence of which, to any extent, amongst a people, 
 would mark them as remaining in a wretched condition. 
 In our own country, at the present day, there are not 
 many houses, in situations where water is at hand, that 
 have not the windlass, or what is better, the pump, to 
 raise this great necessary of life from the well. Some 
 cottagers, however, have no such machines, and bitterly 
 do they lament the want of them. We once met an old 
 woman in a country district, tottering under the weight 
 of a bucket, which she was labouring to carry up a hill. 
 We asked her how she and her family were oft' in the 
 
 g3
 
 138 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 world. She replied, that she could do pretty well with 
 them, for they could all work, if it were not for one 
 thing — it was one person's labour to fetch water from 
 the spring; but, said she, if we had a pump handy, we 
 should not have much to complain of. This old woman 
 very wisely had no love of labour for its own sake ; she 
 saw no advantage in the labour of one of her family being 
 given for the attainment of a good, which she knev/ 
 might be attained by a very common invention. She 
 wanted a machine to save that labour. Such a machine 
 would have set at liberty a certain quantity of labour 
 which was previously employed unprofitably ; in other 
 words, it would have left her or her children more time 
 for more profitable woik, and then the family earnings 
 would have been increased. 
 
 But there is another point of view in which this ma- 
 chine would have benefited the good woman and her 
 family. Water is not only necessary to drink and to 
 prepare food with, but it is necessary for cleanliness, 
 and cleanliness is necessary for health. If there is a 
 scarcity of water, or if it requires a great deal of labour 
 to obtain it, (which comes to the same thing as a scar- 
 city,) the uses of water for cleanliness will be wholly or 
 in part neglected. If the neglect becomes a habit, which 
 it is sure to do, disease, and that of the worst sort, cannot 
 be prevented. 
 
 When men gather together in large bodies, and in- 
 habit towns or cities, a plentiful supply of water is the 
 first thing to which they direct their attention. If towns 
 are built in situations where pure water cannot be readily 
 obtained, the inhabitants, and especially the poorer sort, 
 sulfer even more misery than results from the want of 
 bread or clothes. In some cities of Spain, lor instance, 
 where the people understand very little about machinery, 
 water, at particular periods of the year, is as dear as 
 wine ; and the labouring classes are consequently in a 
 most miserable condition. In London, on the contrary, 
 water is so plentiful, that between thirty and forty mil- 
 lions of gallons are daily supplied to the inhabitants ; 
 which quantity is distributed to about two hundred thou-
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 139 
 
 sand houses and other buildings, the supply to each va- 
 rying from one hundred to three hundred and fifty gal- 
 lons daily. To many of the houses this water is, by the 
 aid of machinery, not only delivered to the kitchens and 
 wash-houses on the ground-floors, where it is most 
 wanted, but is sent up to the very tops of the houses, to 
 save even the comparatively little labour of fetching it 
 from the bottom. All this is done at an average cost to 
 each house of from less than a penny to about twopence 
 a day ; which is a less price than the labour of an able- 
 bodied man would be w orth to fetch a single bucket from 
 a spring half a mile from his own dwelling. 
 
 And'how did the inhabitants of London set about get- 
 ting this great supply of water ? How did they get a 
 sutficient quantity, not only to use as much as they please 
 for drinking, for cooking, and for washing, but obtained 
 such an abundance, that the poorest man can afford to 
 throw it away as if it cost nothing, into the channels 
 which are also provided for carrying it off, and thus to 
 free his own room or house from every impurity ; and 
 by so doing to render this vast place one of the most 
 healthful cities in the world? They set about doing 
 tliis great m ork by machinery ; and they began to do it 
 when the value of machinery in other things was not so 
 well understood as it is now. As long ago as the year 
 1236, when a great want of water was felt in London, 
 the little springs being blocked up and covered over by 
 buildings, the ruling men of the city caused water to be 
 brought from Tyburn, w^hich was then a distant village, 
 by means of pipes ; and they laid a tax upon particular 
 l^ranches of trade to pay the expense of this great bless- 
 ing to all. In succeedmg times more pipes and conduits, 
 that is, more machinery, was established for the same 
 good purpose ; and two centuries afterwards. King Henry 
 tiie Sixth gave his aid to the same sort of works, in 
 granting particular advantages in obtaining lead for 
 making the pipes. The reason for this aid to such works 
 was, as the royal decree set forth, that they were " for 
 the common utility and decency of all the city, and for 
 the universal advantage,'" and a yery true reason this was.
 
 140 CAPITAL AXD LABOUR. 
 
 As this great town more and more increased, more water- 
 works were found necessary ; till at last, in the reign of 
 James the First, which was nearly two hundred years 
 after that of Henry the Sixth, a most ingenious and en- 
 terprising man, and a great benefactor to his country, 
 Hugh Myddleton, undertook to bring a river of pure 
 water above thirty-eight miles out of its natural course, 
 for the supply of London. He persevered in this im- 
 mense undertaking, in spite of every difficulty, till he at 
 last accomplished that great good which he had proposed, 
 of bringing wholesome water to every man's door. At 
 the present time, the New River, which was the work 
 of Hugh Myddleton, supplies seventeen millions of gal- 
 lons of water every day ; and though the original pro- 
 jector was ruined by the undertaking, in consequence of 
 the difficulty which he had in procuring proper support, 
 such is now the general advantage of the benefit which 
 he procured for his fellow-citizens, and so desirous are 
 the people to possess that advantage, that a share in the 
 New River Company, which was at first sold at one 
 hundred pounds, is now worth fifteen thousand })ounds. 
 
 Before the people of London had water brought to 
 their own doors, and even into their very houses, and 
 into every room of their houses where it is desirable to 
 bring it, they were obliged to send for this great article 
 of life — first, to the few springs which were tbundin the 
 city and its neighbourhood, and secondly, to the conduits 
 and fountains, which were imperlect mechanical con- 
 trivances for bringing it. The service-pipes to each 
 house are more perfect mechanical contrivances ; but they 
 could not have been rendered so perfect without engines, 
 which force the water above the level of the source from 
 which it is taken. When the inhabitants fetched their 
 water from the springs and conduits there was a great 
 deal of human labour employed 5 and as in every large 
 community there are always people ready to perform 
 labour for money, many persons obtained a living by 
 carrying water. When the New River had been dug, 
 and the pipes had been laid down, and the engines had 
 been set up, it is perfectly clear that there would have
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 141 
 
 been no further need for these water-carriers. When 
 the people of London could obtain two hundred gallons 
 of water for twopence, they would not employ a man to 
 fetch a single bucket from the river or the fountain at 
 the same price. They would not, for the mere love of 
 employing human labour directly, continue to buy an 
 article very dear, which, by mechanical aid, they could 
 buy very cheap. If they had resolved, from any mis- 
 taken notions about machinery, to continue to employ 
 the water-carriers, they must have been contented with 
 one gallon of water a day instead of two hundred gal- 
 lons. Or if they had consumed a larger quantity, and 
 continued to pay the price of bringing it to them by 
 hand, they must have denied themselves other necessaries 
 and comforts. They must have gone without a certain 
 portion of food, or clothing, or fuel, which they are now 
 enabled to obtain by the saving in the article of water. 
 To have had for each house two hundred gallons of 
 water, and in having this two hundred gallons of water, 
 to have had the cleanliness and health which result from 
 its use, w^ould have been utterly impossible. At two- 
 pence a gallon, which would not have been a large price 
 considering the distances to which it must have been 
 carried, the same supply of water would have cost about 
 nine millions of pounds sterling a year, and would have 
 employed, at the wages of two shillings a day, more than 
 one-half of all the present inhabitants of London, or 
 eight hundred thousand people, that is, about four times 
 the number of able-bodied men altogether contained in 
 the metropolis. Such a supply therefore would have 
 been utterly out of the question. To have supplied one 
 gallon instead of two hundred gallons to each house at 
 the same rate of wages, would have required the labour 
 of twelve thousand men. It is evident that even this 
 number could not have been employed in such an office ; 
 because had there been no means of supplying London 
 with water but the means of human hands, London could 
 not have increased to one-twentieth of its present size ; 
 there would not have been one-twentieth part of the 
 population to have been supplied, and therefore six hun-
 
 142 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 dred water-carriers would have been an ample proportion 
 to this population. 
 
 There is now, certainly, no labour to be performed by 
 water-caiTiers. But suppose that five hundred years 
 ago, when there were a small number of persons who 
 gained their living by such drudgery, they had deter- 
 mined to prevent the bringing of water by pipes into 
 London. Suppose also that they had succeeded ; and 
 that up to the present day we had no pipes or other me- 
 chanical aids for supplying the water. It is quite evi- 
 dent that if this misfortune had happened — if the welfare 
 of the many had been retarded (for it never could have 
 been finally stopped) by the ignorance of the few — Lon- 
 don, as we have already shown, would not have had a 
 twentieth part of its present population ; and the popula- 
 tion of every other town, depending as population does 
 upon the increase of profitable labour, could never have 
 gone forward. Hov/ then would the case have stood as 
 to the amount of labour engaged in the supply of water? 
 A few hundred, at the utmost a few thousand, carriers of 
 water would have been employed throughout the king- 
 dom ; while the smelters and founders of iron of which 
 water-pipes are made, the labourers who lay down these 
 pij>es, the founders of lead who make the service-pipes, 
 and the plumbers who apply them ; the carriers, whether 
 l)y water or land, M'ho are engaged in bringing them to 
 the towns, the manufacturers of the engines which raise 
 the water, the builders of the houses in which the en- 
 gines stand, — these, and many other labourers and me- 
 chanics who directly and indirectly contribute to the 
 same public advantage, could never have been called into 
 employment. To have continued to use the power of 
 the water-carriers, would have rendered the commodity 
 two hundred times dearer than it is supplied by mecha- 
 nical power. The present cheapness of production, by 
 mechanical power, supplies employment to an infinitely 
 greater number of persons than could have been required 
 ])y a perseverance in the rude and wasteful system which 
 belonged to former ages of ignorance and wretchedness.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 143 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 There was a time when 'the people of England were 
 very inferior to those of the Low Countries, of France, 
 and of Germany, in various productions of manufacturing- 
 industry. We first gave an impulse to our woollen 
 trade, which for several centuries was the great staple of 
 the country, by procuring foreign workmen to teach our 
 people their craft. Before that period the nations on the 
 Continent had a proverb against us. They said, "the 
 stranger buys of the Englishman the skin of the fox for 
 a groat, and sells him the tail again for a shilling." The 
 proverb meant, that we had not skill to convert the raw 
 material into an article of use, and that we paid a large 
 price for the labour and ingenuity which made our native 
 material available to ourselves. 
 
 But still our intercourse, such as it was then, with 
 "the stranger" was better than no intercourse. We 
 gave the rough and stinking fox's skin for a groat, and 
 we got the nicely dressed tippet for a shilling. The next 
 best thing to dressing the skin ourselves, was to pay 
 other people for dressing it. Without foreign commu- 
 nication we should not have got that article of clothing 
 at all. 
 
 All nations that have made any considerable advance 
 in civilization have been commercial nations. The arts 
 of life are very imperfectly understood in countries which 
 have little communication with the rest of the world, and 
 consequently the inhabitants are poor and wretched ; — 
 their condition is not bettered by the exchange with 
 other countries, either of goods or of knowledge. They
 
 144 CAPITAL A>'D LABOUR. 
 
 have the fox's skin, but they do not know how to convert 
 it into value, by being furriers themselves, or by commu- 
 nication with " stranger" furriers. 
 
 The people of the East, amongst whom a certain degree 
 of civilization has existed from high antiquity, were not 
 only the growers of many productions which were un- 
 suited to the climate and soil of Europe, but they were 
 the manufacturers also. Cotton, for instance^ was culti- 
 vated from time immemorial in Hindostan, in China, in 
 Persia, and in Egypt, Cotton was a material easily 
 grown and collected ; and the patient industry of the 
 people by whom it was cultivated, their simple habits, 
 and their few wants, enabled them to send into Europe 
 their manufactured stutls of a fine and durable quality, 
 under every disadvantage of land-carriage, even from the 
 time of the ancient Greeks. Before the discovery, how- 
 ever, of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, 
 cotton goods in Europe were articles of great price and 
 luxury. A French writer, M. Say, well observes, that 
 although cotton stuffs were cheaper than silk (which was 
 formerly sold for its weight in gold), they were still 
 articles which could only be purchased by the most opu- 
 lent ; and that, if a Grecian lady could awake from her 
 sleep of two thousand years, her astonishment would be 
 unbounded, to see a simple country girl clothed with a 
 gown of printed cotton, a muslin kerchief, and a coloured 
 shawl. 
 
 When India was open to the ships of Europe, the Por- 
 tuguese, the Dutch, and the English sold cotton goods 
 in every market, in considerable quantities. These stuffs 
 bore their Indian names of calicos and muslins ; and 
 whether bleached or dyed, were equally valued as 
 amongst the most useful and ornamental articles of Euro- 
 pean dress. 
 
 In the seventeenth century France began to manufac- 
 ture into stuffs the law cotton imported from India, as 
 Italy had done a century before. A cruel act of despot- 
 ism drove the best French workmen, who were Protest- 
 ants, into England, and we learned the manufacture. 
 The same act of despotism, the revocation of the Edict of
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 145 
 
 Nantes, caused the settlement of silk-manufacturers in 
 Spitalfields. We did not make any considerable progress 
 in the art, nor did we use the material of cotton exclu- 
 sively in making up the goods. The warp, or longitu- 
 dinal threads of the cloth, were of flax, the weft only was 
 of cotton ; for we could not twist it hard enough by hand 
 to serve both purposes. This weft was spun entirely by 
 hand with a distatf and spindle, — the same tedious process 
 which prevails amongst the natives of India. Our ma- 
 nufacture, in spite of all these disadvantages, continued 
 to increase ; so that about 1760, although there were fifty 
 thousand spindles at work in Lancashire alone, the weaver 
 found the greatest difficulty in procuring a sufficient sup- 
 ply of thread. Neither weaving nor spinning was then 
 carried on in large factories. They were domestic occupa- 
 tions. The women of a family worked at the distaff or the 
 hand- wheel, and there were two operations necessary in 
 this department ; roving, or coarse spinning, reduced the 
 carded cotton to the thickness of a quill, and the spinner 
 afterwards drew out and twisted the roving into M^eft fine 
 enough for the weaver. A writer on the cotton manu- 
 facture, Mr. Guest, states that very few weavers could 
 procure weft enough to keep themselves constantly em- 
 ployed. " It was no uncommon thing," he says, " for a 
 weaver to walk three or four miles in a morning, and call 
 on five or six spinners, before he could collect weft 
 to serve him for the remainder of the day ; and when 
 he wished to weave a piece in a shorter time than usual, 
 a new ribbon or gown was necessary to quicken the 
 exertions of the spinner." 
 
 That the manufacture should have flourished in Eng- 
 land at all under these difficulties is honourable to the 
 industry of our country ; for the machinery used in weav- 
 ing was also of the rudest sort, so that if the web was 
 more than three feet wide, the labour of two men was 
 necessary to throw the shuttle. English cotton goods, of 
 course, were very dear, and there was little variety in 
 them. The cloth made of flax and cotton was called 
 fustian. We still received the calicos and printed cottons 
 from India.
 
 146 
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 In a country like ours, where men have learned to 
 think, and where ingenuity therefore is at work, a defi- 
 ciency in material or in labour to meet the demand of a 
 market is sure to call forth invention. It is nearly a cen- 
 tury ago since it was perceived that spinning by ma- 
 chinery might give the supply which human labour was 
 inadequate to produce, because, doubtless, the remunera- 
 tion for that labour was very small. The work of the 
 distaff, as it was carried on at that period, in districts 
 partly agricultural and partly commercial, was, gene- 
 rally, an employment for the spare hours of the young 
 women, and the easy industry of the old. It was a 
 labour that was to assist in maintaining the family, — not 
 a complete means for their maintenance. The supply of 
 yarn was therefore insufficient, and ingenious men applied 
 themselves to remedy that insufficiency. Spinning-mills 
 were built at Northampton in 1733, in which, it is said, 
 although we have no precise account of it, that an appa- 
 ratus for spinning was erected. A Mr. Lawrence Earn- 
 shaw, of Mottram, in Cheshire, is recorded to have in- 
 vented a machine, in 1753, to spin and reel cotton at one 
 operation ; which he showed to his neighbours and then 
 destroyed it, through the generous apprehension that he 
 might deprive the poor of bread. We must admire the 
 motive of this good man, although we are now enabled 
 to show that his judgment was mistaken. Richard Ark- 
 wjight, a barber of Preston, invented, in 1769, the prin- 
 cipal part of the machinery for spinning cotton, and by 
 so doing he gave bread to about two millions of people 
 instead of fifty thousand ; and, assisted by subsequent 
 inventions, raised the importation of cotton wool from 
 less than two millions of pounds per annum, to above five 
 hundred of millions ; — set in motion upwards of twelve 
 millions of spindles, instead of fifty thousand ; — and in- 
 creased the annual produce of the manufacture from two 
 hundred thousand pounds sterling to thirty-four million 
 pounds. 
 
 And how did he effect this great revolution? He 
 asked himself whether it was not possible, instead of a 
 wheel which spins a single thread of cotton at a time.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 147 
 
 and by means of which the spinner could obtain in 
 twenty-four hours about two ounces of thread, — whether 
 it might not be possible to spin the same material upon a 
 great number of wheels, from which many hundreds of 
 threads might issue at the same moment. The difficulty 
 was in giving to these numerous wheels, spinning so many 
 threads, the peculiar action of two hands when they 
 pinch, at a little distance from each other, a lock of 
 cotton, rendering it finer as it is drawn out. It was ne- 
 cessary, also, at the same time to imitate the action of the 
 spindle, which twisted together the filaments at the 
 moment they had attained the necessary degree of fine- 
 ness. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, 
 to give an adequate idea, by words, of the complex 
 machinery by which Arkwright accomplished his object, 
 or of the subsequent improvements which have been 
 made upon that machinery. But it may be desirable to 
 describe that chief portion of his invention which enabled 
 rollers to do the work of human fingers, with much 
 greater precision, and incomparably cheaper. 
 
 We must suppose that by the previous operation of 
 carding, the cotton wool has been so combed and prepared 
 as to be formed into a long untwisted line of about the 
 thickness of a man's finger. This line so formed (after 
 it has been introduced into the machine we are about 
 to describe) is called a roving, the old name in hand- 
 spinning. 
 
 In order to convert this roving into a thread, it is ne- 
 cessary that the fibres, which are for the most part curled 
 up, and which lie in all directions, should be stretched out 
 and laid lengthwise, side by side ; that they should be 
 pressed together so as to give them a more compact form ; 
 and that they should be twisted, so as to unite them all 
 firmly together. In the original method of spinning by 
 the distaff, those operations were performed by the finger 
 and thumb, and they were afterwards efi^ected with 
 greater rapidity, but less perfectly, by means of the long 
 wheel and spindle. For the same purpose, Arkwright 
 employed two pairs of small rollers, the one pair being 
 placed at a little distance in front of the other. The
 
 148 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 lower roller in each pair is furrowed or fluted lengthwise, 
 and the upper one is covered with leather ; so that, as 
 they revolve in contact w^ith each other, they take fast 
 hold of the cotton which passes between them. Both 
 pairs of rollers are turned by machinery, which is so con- 
 trived that the second pair shall turn round with much 
 more swiftness than the hrst. Now suppose that a roving 
 is put between the first pair of rollers. The immediate 
 effect is merely to press it together into a more compact 
 form. But the roving has but just passed through the 
 first pair of rollers, when it is received between the second 
 pair ; and as the rollers of the second pair revolve with 
 greater velocity than those of the first, they draw the 
 roving forwards with greater rapidity than it is given out 
 by the first pair. Consequently, the roving will be 
 lengthened in passing from one pair to the other ; and 
 the fibres of which it is composed will be drawn out and 
 laid lengthwise side by side. The increase of length will 
 be exactly in proportion to the increased velocity of the 
 second pair of rollers. 
 
 Two or more rovings are generally united in this ope- 
 ration. Thus, suppose that two rovings are introduced 
 together between the first pair of rollers, and that the 
 second pair of rollers moves with twice the velocity of the 
 first. The new roving thus formed by the union of the 
 two, will then be of exactly twice the length of either of 
 the original ones. It will therefore contain exactly the 
 same quantity of cotton per yard. But its parts will be 
 very difierently arranged, and its fibres will be drawn out 
 longitudinally, and will be thus much better fitted for 
 forming a thread. This operation of doubling and draw- 
 ing is repeated as often as is found necessary, and the 
 requisite degree of twist is given by a machine similar to 
 the spindle and fly of the common flax-wheel. 
 
 The fineness with which the cotton thread can be drawn 
 out, by this machinery, may be gathered from the fact, 
 that Mr. John Polla/d, of Manchester, spun, in 1792, on 
 the mule (the name of a particular description of the 
 cotton-spinning machinery), no fewer than two hundred 
 and seventy-eight hanks of yarn, forming a thread up-
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 149 
 
 wards of one hundred and thirty-two miles in length, from 
 a single pound of raw cotton. Of the rapidity with which 
 some portions of the machinery work, we may form an 
 idea from the fact that the very finest thread which is used 
 in making lace is passed through the strong flame of a 
 lamp, which burns off the fibres, without burning the 
 thread itself. The velocity with which the thread moves 
 is so great, that we cannot perceive any motion at all. 
 The line of thread, passing off a wheel through the flame, 
 looks as if it were perfectly at rest ; and it appears a mi- 
 racle that it is not burnt. 
 
 The invention of ArkwTight — the substitution of rollers 
 for fingers — changed the commerce of the world. The 
 machinery by which a man, or woman, or even a child could 
 produce two hundred threads where one was produced 
 before, caused a cheapness of production much greater 
 than that of India, where human labour is scarcely worth 
 anything. But the fabric of cotton was also infinitely 
 improved by the machinery. The hand of the spinner 
 was unequal in its operations. It sometimes produced a 
 fine thread, and sometimes a coarse one ; and therefore 
 the quality of the cloth could not be relied upon. The 
 yarn which is spun by machinery is sorted with the 
 greatest exactness, and numbered according to its quality. 
 This circumstance alone, w^hich could only result from 
 machinery, has a direct tendency to diminish the cost of 
 production. Machinery not only adds to human power, 
 and economizes human time, but it works up the most 
 common materials into articles of value, and equalizes the 
 use of valuable materials. Thus, in linen of which the 
 thread is spun by the hand, a thick thread and a thin 
 thread will be found side by side ; and, therefore, not only 
 is material wasted, but the fabric is less durable, because 
 it wears unequally. 
 
 These circumstances — the diminished cost of cotton 
 goods, and the added value to the quality — have ren- 
 dered it impossible for the cheap labour of India to come 
 into the market against the machinery of Europe. The 
 trade in Indian cotton goods is gone for ever. Not even 
 the caprices of fashion can have an excuse for purchasing
 
 150 CAPITAL AND LABOUK. 
 
 tke dearer commodity. We make it cheaper, and we 
 make it better. The trade in cotton, as it exists in the 
 present day, is the great triumph of human ingenuity. 
 We bring the raw material from the country of the 
 people who grow tt, on the other side of our globe ; we 
 manufacture it by our machines into articles which we 
 used to buy from them ready-made ; and taking back 
 those articles to their own markets, encumbered with the 
 cost of transport for fourteen thousand miles, and en- 
 cumbered also with the taxes which the State has laid 
 upon it in many various ways, we sell it to these very 
 people cheaper than they can produce it themselves, and 
 they buy it therefore with eagerness.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 151 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Nearly twenty years after Arkwright had begun to 
 spin by machinery, the price of a particular sort of cot- 
 ton yarn much used in the manufacture of calico was 
 thirty-eight shillings a pound. That same yarn is now 
 sold for between three and four shillings, or one-twelfth 
 of its price fifty years ago. If cotton goods were worn 
 only by the few rich, as they were worn in ancient times, 
 and even in the latter half of the last century, that dif- 
 ference of price would not be a great object ; but tlie 
 price is a very important object when every man, wo- 
 man, and child in the United Kingdom has to pay it. 
 The seven hundred million yards of cloth which are 
 annually retained for home consumption, distributed 
 amongst twenty-seven millions of population, allows 
 twenty-six yards every year for each individual. We 
 will suppose that no individual would buy these twenty- 
 six yards of cloth unless he or she wanted them ; that 
 this plenty of cloth is a desirable thing ; that it is con- 
 ducive to warmth and cleanliness, and therefore to health ; 
 that it would be a great privation to go without the cloth. 
 At five-pence a yard, the seven hundred million yards 
 of cloth amount to above fourteen million pounds sterling. 
 At half-a-crown a yard, which we will take as the average 
 price about thirty or forty yeai's ago, they would amount 
 to eighty-seven millions of pounds sterling — an amount 
 equal to all the taxes annually paid in Great Britain and 
 Ireland. At twelve or fourteen times the present price, 
 or six shillings a yard, which proportion we get by know- 
 ing the price of yarn forty years ago and at the present
 
 152 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 day, the cost of seven hundred million yards of cotton 
 cloth would be one hundred and seventy-five millions of 
 pounds sterling. It is perfectly clear that no such sura 
 of money could be paid for cotton goods, and that in fact 
 instead of between fourteen and fifteen millions being 
 spent in this article of clothing by persons of all classes, 
 in consequence of the cheapness of the commodity, we 
 should go back to very nearly the same consumption that 
 existed before Arkwright's invention, that is, to the con- 
 sumption of the year 1750, when the whole amount of 
 the cotton manufacture of the kingdom did not exceed 
 the annual value of two hundred thousand pounds. At 
 that rate of value, the quantity of cloth manufactured 
 could not have been equal to one five-hundredth part of 
 that which is now manufactured for home consumption. 
 Where one person eighty years ago consumed one yard, 
 the consumption per head has risen to about twenty-six 
 yards. We ask, therefore, if this vast difference in the 
 comforts of every family, by the ability which they now 
 possess of easily acquiring warm and healthful clothing, 
 is not a clear gain to all society, and to every one as a 
 portion of society ? It is more especially a gain to the 
 females and the children of your families, whose condi- 
 tion is always degraded when clothing is scanty. The 
 power of procuring cheap clothing for themselves, and 
 for their children, has a tendency to raise the condition 
 of females more than any other addition to their stock of 
 comfort. It cultivates habits of cleanliness and decency ; 
 and those are little acquainted with the human character 
 who can doubt whether cleanliness and decency are not 
 only great aids to virtue, but virtues themselves. John 
 Wesley said that cleanliness was next to godliness. There 
 is little self-respect amidst dirt and rags, and without self- 
 respect there can be no foundation for those qualities 
 which most contribute to the good of society. The power 
 of procuring useful clothing at a cheap price has raised 
 the condition of women amongst us, and the influence of 
 the condition of women upon the welfare of a community 
 can never be too highly estimated. 
 
 That the manufacture of cotton by machinery has pro-
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 153 
 
 ■duced one of the great results for which machinery is to 
 be desired, namely, cheapness of production, cannot, we 
 think, be doubted. If increased employment of human 
 labour has gone along with that cheapness of production, 
 even the most prejudiced can have no doubt of the ad- 
 vantages of this machinery to all classes of the commu- 
 nity. 
 
 At the time that Arkwright commenced his machinery, 
 a man named Hargreave, who had set up a less perfect in- 
 vention, was driven out of Lancashire, at the peril of 
 his life, by a combination of the old spinners by the 
 wheel. In 1789, when the S[)inning machinery was in- 
 troduced into Normandy, the hand-spinners there also 
 destroyed the mills, and put down the manufacture for a 
 time, Lancashire and Normandy are now, in England 
 and France, the great seats of the cotton manufacture. 
 The people of Lancashire and Normandy had not for- 
 merly the means, as we have now, of knowing that 
 cheap production produces increased employment. There 
 were many examples of this principle formerly to be 
 found in arts and manufactures ; but the people were 
 badly educated upon such subjects, principally because 
 studious and inquiring men had thought such matters be- 
 neath their attention. We live in times more favourable 
 for these researches. The people of Lancashire and 
 Normandy, at the period we mention, being ignorant of 
 what would conduce to their real welfare, put down the 
 machines. In both countries they were a very small 
 portion of the community that attempted such an illegal 
 act. The weavers were interested in getting cotton yarn 
 cheap, so the combination was opposed to their interests ; 
 and the spinners were chiefly old women and girls, very 
 few^ in number, and of little influence. Yet they and 
 their friends, both in England and France, made a vio- 
 lent clamour ; and but for the protection of the laws, 
 the manufactories in each country would never have been 
 set up. What was the effect upon the condition of this 
 very population ? M. Say, in his ' Complete Course of 
 Political Economy,' states, upon the authority of an 
 English manufacturer of fifty years' experience, that, in
 
 154 CAPITAL AND LABOUK. 
 
 ten years after the introduction of the machines, the 
 people employed in the trade, spinnei's and weavers, 
 were more than forty times as many as when the spin- 
 ning M'as done by hand. It was calculated, in 1825, and 
 since that year, that the power of twenty thousand horses 
 was employed in the spinning of cotton ; and that the 
 power of each horse yielded, with the aid of machinery, 
 as much yarn as one thousand and sixty-six persons 
 could produce by hand. If this calculation be correct, 
 and there is no reason to doubt it, the spinning ma- 
 chinery of Lancashire alone produced, in 1825, as much 
 yarn as would have required twenty-one million three 
 hundred and twenty thousand persons to produce with 
 the distaff and spindle. This immense power, which is 
 nearly equal to the population of the United Kingdom, 
 might be supposed to have superseded human labour 
 altogether in the production of cotton yarn. It did no 
 such thing. It gave a new direction to the labour that 
 was formerly employed at the distaff and spindle ; but it 
 increased the quantity of labour altogether employed in 
 the manufacture of cotton, at least a hundred fold. It 
 increased it too where an increase of labour was most de- 
 sirable. It gave constant, eas}^, and not unpleasant 
 occupation to women and children. In all the depart- 
 ments of cotton spinning, and in many of those of weav- 
 ing by the power-loom, women and children are em- 
 ployed. There are degrees, of course, in the agi-eeablc 
 nature of the employment, particularly as to its being 
 more or less cleanly. But there are extensive apart- 
 ments in large cotton-factories, where great numbers of 
 females are daily engaged in processes which would not 
 soil the nicest fingers, dressed with the greatest neatness, 
 and clothed in materials (as all women are now clothed) 
 that Mere set apart for the highest in the land a century 
 ago. And yet there are some who regret that the aged 
 crones no longer sit in the cottage chimney, earning a 
 few pence daily by their rude industry at the wheel ! 
 
 The creation of employment amongst ourselves by the 
 cheapness of cotton goods produced by machinery, is not 
 to be considered as a mere chans-e from, the labour of
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 155 
 
 India to the labour of England. It is a creation of em- 
 ployment, operating just in the same manner as the 
 machinery did for printing books. The Indian, it is 
 true, no longer sends us his calicos and his coloured 
 stuifs ; we make them ourselves. But he sends us forty 
 times the amount of raw cotton that he sent when the 
 machinery was first set up. In 1781 we imported five 
 million pounds of cotton wool. In 1843 we imported 
 five hundred and thirty-one million pounds — enough to 
 make twelve hundred and sixty million yards of cloth — 
 which is about two yards a piece for every human being 
 in the world. The workman on the banks of the Ganges 
 (the great river of India) is no longer weaving calicos 
 for us, in his loom of reeds under the shade of a mango 
 tree ; but he is gathering for us forty times as much cot- 
 ton as he gathered before, and making forty times as 
 much indigo for us to colour it with. The export of 
 cotton has made such a demand upon the Indian power 
 of labour, that even the people of Hindostan, adopting 
 European contrivances, have introduced machinery to 
 pack the cotton. Bishop Heber says, that he was fre- 
 quently interested by seeing, at Bombay, immense bales 
 of cotton lying on the piers, and the ingenious screw, by 
 which an astonishing quantity is pressed into the canvas 
 bags. The Chinese, on the contrary, from the want of 
 these contrivances to press the cotton so close in bags, 
 sell their cotton to us at much less profit ; for they pack 
 it so loosely, that it occupies three times the bulk of the 
 Indian cotton, and the freight costs twelve times the 
 price on this account. When the Chinese acquire the 
 knowledge from other nations, which recent events ren- 
 der probable, they will know the value of mechanical 
 skill, in preference to unassisted manual labour. 
 
 The arguments for the use of machinery, that may be 
 derived from the m.anufacture of silk, are precisely the 
 same as those we have exhibited in the manufacture of 
 cotton. The cost of production has been lessened — the 
 employment of the producers has been increased. When 
 the frame -work knitters of silk stockings petitioned
 
 156 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 Oliver Cromwell for a charter, they said, " the English- 
 man buys silk of the stranger for ftwenty marks, and 
 sells him the same again for one hundred pounds." The 
 higher pride of the present day is that we buy four 
 million pounds of raw silk from the stranger, employ a 
 large number of our own people in the manufacture of it 
 by the aid of machinery, and sell it to the stranger, and 
 our own people, at a price as low as that of the calico of 
 half a century ago. 
 
 The manufactures of woollen cloth, and of linen 
 ■CLOTH, partly carried on with materials produced by 
 ourselves, and partly with wool and flax bought from 
 other nations, have increased, with the use of machinery, 
 in the same way as the cotton manufacture. In both 
 cases, the article produced is diminished in price.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 1 57 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The beaver builds his huts with the tools which nature 
 has given him. He gnaws pieces of wood in two with 
 his sharp teeth, so sharp, that the teeth of a similar 
 animal, the agouti, form the only cutting-tool which 
 some rude nations possess. When the beavers desire 
 to move a large piece of wood, they join in a body to 
 drag it along. 
 
 Man has not teeth that will cut wood. But he has 
 reason, which directs him to the choice of much more 
 perfect tools. 
 
 Some of the great monuments of antiquity, such as 
 the pyramids of Egypt, are constructed of enormous 
 blocks of stone brought from distant quarries. We have 
 no means of estimating, with any accuracy, the mechanical 
 knowledge possessed by the people engaged in these 
 works. It was, probably, very small, and consequently, 
 the human labour employed in such edifices was not 
 only enormous in quantity, but exceedingly painiul to 
 the workmen. The Egyptians, according to Herodotus, 
 a Greek writer who lived two thousand five hundred 
 years ago, hated the memory of the kings who built the 
 pyramids. He tells us that the great pyramid occupied 
 u hundred thousand men for twenty years in its erection, 
 without counting the workmen who were employed in 
 hewing the stones, and in conveying them to the spot 
 where the pyramid was built. Herodotus speaks of this 
 work as a torment to the people ; and doubtless, the 
 labour engaged in raising huge masses of stone, that was 
 extensive enough to employ a hundred thousand mevi
 
 1 53 CAPITAL AJTD liABOUK. 
 
 for twenty years, which is equal to two million of men 
 for one year, must have been fearfully tormenting with- 
 out machinery, or with very imperfect machinery. It 
 has been calculated that the steam-engines of England, 
 worked by thirty-six thousand men, would raise the same 
 quantity of stones from the quarry, and elevate them to 
 the same height as the great pyramid, in the short time 
 of eighteen hours. The people of Egypt groaned for 
 twenty years under this enormous work. The labourers 
 groaned because they were sorely tasked ; and the rest 
 of the people groaned because they had to jray the 
 labourers. The labourers lived, it is true, upon the 
 wages of their labour, that is, they Avere paid in food — 
 kept like horses — as the reward of their work. Hero- 
 dotus says, that it was recorded on the pyramid, that the 
 onions, radishes, and garlic which the labourers con- 
 sumed, cost sixteen hundred talents of silver : an im- 
 mense sum, equivalent to several million pounds. But 
 the onions, radishes, and garlic, the bread, and clothes 
 of the labourer, were wnmg out of the profitable labour 
 of the rest of the people, 'J'he building of the pyramid 
 was an unprofitable lai)our. There was no immediate or 
 future source of j)roduce in the pyramid ; it produced 
 neither food, nor fuel, nor clothes, nor any other neces- 
 sary. The labour of a hundred thousand men for twenty 
 years, stupidly employed upon this monument, without 
 an object beyond that of gi-atifying the ' pride of the 
 tyrant who raised it, was a direct tax upon the profitable 
 labour of the rest of the j)eople. 
 
 *' Instead of useful works, like nature great, 
 Enormous cmel wouiiers crusli'd the land."' 
 
 But admitting that it is sometimes desirable for nations 
 and governments to erect monuments which are not of 
 direct utility,— vihich may have an indirect utility in re- 
 cording the memory of great exploits, or in producing 
 feelings of reverence or devotion, — it is clearly an ad- 
 vantage that these works, as v.ell as all other works, 
 should be performed in the cheapest manner ; that is, 
 that human labour should derive every possible assistance
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 159 
 
 from mechanical aid. We will give an illustration of 
 the differences of the application of mechanical aid in 
 one of the first operations of building, the moving a 
 block of stone. The following statements are the result 
 of actual experiment upon a stone weighing ten hundred 
 and eighty pounds. 
 
 To drag this stone along the smoothed floor of the 
 cpiarry required a force equal to seven hundred and 
 fifty-eight pounds. The same stone dragged over a 
 floor of planks required six hundred and fifty-two 
 pounds. The same stone ijlaced on a platform of wood, 
 and dragged over the same floor of ])lanks, required six 
 hundred and six pounds. AVhen the two surfaces of 
 wood were soaped as they sli<l over each otlier, the force 
 required to drag tiie stone was reduced to one hundred 
 and eighty-two pounds. When the same stone was 
 placed upon rollers tiiree inches in diameter, it required, 
 to put it in motion along the floor of the cpiarry, a force 
 only of thirty-four pounds ; and by the same rollers 
 upon a wooden floor, a Ibrce only of twenty-eight 
 pounds. You will see, therefore, tljat without any me- 
 chanical aid, it would require the force of four or five 
 men to set that stone in motion. With the mechanical 
 aid of two surfaces of wood soaped, the same weight 
 might be moved by one man. \Vith the more perfect 
 mechanical aid of rollers, the same weiglit might be 
 moved by a very little child. 
 
 From these statements it must be evident that the cost 
 of a block of stone very much depends upon the quantity 
 of labour necessary to move it from the quarry to the place 
 where it is wanted to be used. We have seen that ^^ith 
 the simplest mechanical aid labour may be reduced sixty- 
 fold. With more perfect mechanical aid, such as that of 
 water-carriage, the labour may be reduced infinitely lower. 
 Thus, the streets of London are paved with granite from 
 Scotland at a moderate expense. 
 
 The cost of timber, which enters so largely into the 
 cost of a house, is, in a great degree, the cost of transport. 
 We load two thousand ships yearly with the timber which 
 we import from the Baltic Sea, and from North America.
 
 160 CAPITAL AND JLABOUR. 
 
 In countries where there are great forests, timber-trees 
 are worth nothing where they grow, excei)t there are 
 ready means of transport. In many parts of North Ame- 
 rica, the great difficulty which the peoj)le find is in clear- 
 ing the land of the timber. The finest trees are not only 
 worthless, but are a positive encumbrance, except when 
 they are growing upon the banks of a great river ; in 
 which case the lo^rs are thrown into the water, or formed 
 into rafts, being floated several hundred miles at scarcely 
 any expense. The same stream which carries them to a 
 seaport turns a mill to saw the logs into planks ; and when 
 sawn into planks the timber is put on shipboard, and 
 carried to distant countries where timber is wanted. 
 Thus mechanical aid alone gives a value to the timber, 
 and by so doing employs human labour. The stream 
 that floats the tree, the sawing-mill that cuts it, the ship 
 that carries it across the sea, enable men profitably to 
 employ themselves in working it. Without the stream, 
 the mill, and the ship, those men would have no labour, 
 because none could atibrd to bring the timber to their 
 own doors. 
 
 We build in this country more of brick than of stone, 
 because brick earth is found almost everywhere, and stone 
 fit for building is lound only in particular districts. Bricks 
 pay to the State a duty of five shillings and tenpence a 
 thousand ; and yet at the kilns they may be bought under 
 forty shillings a thousand, which is less than a halfpenny 
 a piece. How is it that bricks are so cheap ? Because 
 they are made by machinery. The clay is ground in a 
 horse-mill ; the wooden mould in which every brick is 
 made singly, is a copying machine. One brick is exactly 
 like another brick. Every brick is of the form of the 
 mould in which it is made. Without the mould the 
 workman could not make the brick of uniform dimensions ; 
 and without this uniibrmity the after labour of putting 
 the bricks together would be greatly increased. Without 
 the mould the workman could not form the bricks quickly ; 
 his own labour would be increased tenfold. Because bricks 
 are cheap, one thousand five hundred million bricks, as 
 the Excise returns show, are made in England in a year ;
 
 CAPITAL AND liABOUR. 161 
 
 and thus the sunple machine of the mould not only gives 
 employment to a great many brick-makers who would not 
 be employed at all, but also to a great many bricklayers 
 who would also want employment, if the original cost of 
 production were so enormously increased. 
 
 What an infinite variety of machines, in combination 
 with the human hand, is found in a carpenter's chest of 
 tools! The skilful hand of the workman is ihe po we)' 
 which sets these machines in motion ; just as the wind or 
 the water is the power of a mill, or the elastic force of 
 vapour the power of a steam-engine. When Mr. Boulton, 
 the partner of the celebrated James Watt, waited upon 
 George III. to explain one of the great improvements of 
 the steam-engine which they had effected, the king said 
 to him, " What do you sell, Mr. Boulton ?" and the honest 
 engineer answered, " What kings, sire, are all fond of 
 — power." There are people at Birmingham who let out 
 power, that is, there are people who have steam-engines 
 who will lend the use of them, by the day or the hour, 
 to persons who require that saving of labour in their 
 various trades ; so that a person who wants the strength 
 of a horse, or half a horse, to turn a wheel for grinding, 
 or for setting a lathe in motion, hires a room, or part of 
 a room, in a mill, and has just as much power as he 
 requires. The power of a carpenter is in his hand, and 
 the machines moved by that power are in his chest of 
 tools. Every tool which he possesses has for its object 
 to reduce labour, to save material, and to ensure accuracy 
 — the objects of all machines. What a quantity of waste 
 both of time and stuff is saved by his foot-rule ! and 
 when he chalks a bit of string and stretches it from one 
 «nd of a plank to the other, to jerk off the chalk from 
 the string, and thus produce an unerring line upon the 
 face of the plank, he makes a little machine, which saves 
 him great labour. Every one of his hundreds of tools, 
 capable of application to a vast variety of purposes, is an 
 invention to save labour. Without some tool the car- 
 penter's work could not be done at all by the human hand. 
 A knife would do very laboriously what is done very 
 quickly bv a hatchet. The labour of usino: a hatchet, 
 
 H 3
 
 lf.2 CAPITAL AXD JLABOUR. 
 
 and the material which it wastes, are saved twenty times 
 over by the saw. But when the more delicate operations 
 of carpentry are required — when the workman uses his 
 planes, his rabbet-planes, his fillisters, his bevels, and his 
 centre-bits — what an infinitely greater quantity of labour 
 is economized, and how beautifully that work is performed, 
 which, without them, would be rough and imperfect ! 
 Every boy of mechanical ingenuity has tried with his 
 knife to make a boat : and with a knife only it is the 
 work of weeks. Give him a chisel, and a gouge, and a 
 vice to hold his wood, and the little boat is the work of 
 a day. Let a boy try to make a round wooden box, with 
 a lid, having only his knife, and he must be expert in- 
 deed to produce any thing that will be neat and service- 
 able. Give him a lathe and chisels, and he will learn 
 to make a tidy box in half an hour. 
 
 If carpenters had not tools to make houses, there would 
 be few houses made ; and those that were made would 
 be as rough as the hut of the savage who has no tools. 
 The }3eople would go without houses, and the carpenter 
 would go without work, — to say nothing of the people, 
 who would also go without work, that now make tools 
 for the carpenter. 
 
 How great a variety of things are contained in an iron- 
 monger's shop I Half his store consists of tools of one 
 sort or another to save labour ; and the other half con- 
 sists of articles of convenience or elegance most perfectly 
 adapted to every possible want of the builder or the 
 maker of furniture. The uncivilized man is delighted 
 when he obtains a nail,— any nail. A carpenter and 
 joiner, who supply the wants of a highly civilized com- 
 munity, are not satisfied unless they have a choice of 
 nails, from the finest brad to the largest clasp nail. A 
 savage thinks a nail will hold two pieces of wood toge- 
 ther more completely than anything else in the world. 
 It is seldom, however, that he can afford to put it to such 
 a use. If it is large enough, he makes it into a chisel. 
 An English joiner knows that screws will do the work 
 more perfectly in some cases than any nail ; and there- 
 fore we have as great a variety of screws as of nails.
 
 CAPITAIi AND LABOUR. 163 
 
 The commonest house built in England has hinges, 
 and locks, and bolts. A great number are finished with 
 ornamented knobs to door-handles, with bells and bell- 
 pulls, and a thousand other things that have grown up 
 into necessities, because they save domestic labour, and 
 add to domestic comfort. And many of these things 
 really are necessities. M. Say, a French writer, gives 
 us an example of this ; and as his story is an amusing 
 one, besides having a moral, we may as well copy it: — 
 " Being in the country," says he, " I had an example 
 of one of those small losses which a family is exposed to 
 through negligence. For the want of a latchet of small 
 value, the wicket of a barn-yard leading to the fields was 
 often left open. Every one who went through drew 
 the door to ; but as there was nothing to fasten the door 
 Mith, it was always left flapping; sometimes open, and 
 sometimes shut. So the cocks and hens, and the chickens, 
 got out, and were lost. One day a fine pig got out, and 
 ran oft' into the woods ; and after the pig ran all the 
 people about the place, — the gardener, and the cook, 
 and the dairy-maid. The gardener first caught sight of 
 the runaway, and, hastening after it, sprained his ankle ; 
 in consequence of which the poor man was not able to 
 get out of the house again for a fortnight. The cook 
 found, when she came back from pursuing the pig, that 
 the linen she had left by the fire had fallen down, and 
 was burning ; and the dairy-maid having, in her haste, 
 neglected to tie up the legs of one of her cows, the cow- 
 had kicked a colt, which was in the same stable, and 
 broken its leg. The gardener's lost time was worth 
 twenty crowns, to say nothing of the pain he suftered. 
 The linen which was burned, and the colt which was 
 spoiled, were worth as much more. Here, then, was 
 caused a loss of forty crowns, as well as much trouble, 
 plague, and vexation, for the want of a latch which 
 would not have cost threepence." M. Say's story is one 
 of the many examples of the truth of the old proverb — 
 " for want of a nail the shoe w^as lost, for want of a shoe 
 the horse was lost, for want of a horse the man w'as 
 lost."
 
 164 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 Nearly all the great variety of articles in an iron- 
 monger's shop are made by machinery. Without ma- 
 chinery they could not be made at all, or they would be 
 sold at a price which would prevent them being com- 
 monly used. With machinery, their manufacture em- 
 ploys large numbers of artisans, who would be otherwise 
 unemployed. There are hundreds of ingenious men at 
 Birmingham who go into business with a capital ac- 
 quired by their savings as workmen, for the purpose 
 of manufacturing some one single article used in finish- 
 ing a house, such as the knob of a lock. All the heavy 
 work of their trade is done by machinery. The cheap- 
 ness of the article creates workmen ; and the savings of 
 the workmen accumulate capital to be expended in 
 larger works, and to employ more workmen. 
 
 The furniture of a house, some may say — the chairs, 
 and tables, and bedsteads— is made nearly altogether by 
 hand. True. But tools are machines ; and further, w^o 
 owe it to what men generally call machinery, that such 
 furniture, even in the house of a very poor man, is moi-e 
 tasteful in its construction, and of finer material, than 
 that possessed by a nobleman a hundred years ago. How 
 is this ? Machinery (that is ships) has brought us 
 jHUch finer woods than we grow ourselves ; and other 
 machinery (the sawing-mill) has taught us how to render 
 that fine wood very cheap, by economising the use of it. 
 At a veneering-mill, that is, a mill which cuts a maho- 
 gany log into thin plates, much more delicately and 
 truly, and in infinitely less time, than they could be cut 
 by the hand, two hundred and forty square feet of ma- 
 hogany are cut by one circular saw in an hour. A 
 veneer, or thin plate, is cut off a piece of mahogany, six 
 feet six inches long, by twelve inches wide, in twenty- 
 five seconds. What is the consequence of this ? A 
 mahogany table is made almost as cheap as a deal one ; 
 and thus the humblest family in England may have some 
 article of mahogany, if it be only a tea-caddy. And let 
 it not be said that deal furniture w ould afford as much 
 happiness : for a desire for comfort, and even for some 
 degree of elegance, gives a refinement to the character,
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 165 
 
 and, in a certain degree, raises our self-respect. Dio- 
 genes, who is said to have lived in a tub, was a great 
 philosopher ; but it is not necessary to live in a tub ta 
 be wise and virtuous. Nor is that the likeliest plan for 
 becoming so. The probability is, that a man will be 
 more wise and virtuous, in proportion as he strives to 
 suiTOund himself with the comforts and decent ornaments 
 of his station. 
 
 We think that, with regard to buildings and the fur- 
 niture of buildings, it will be admitted that machinery, 
 in the largest sense of the word, has increased the means 
 of every man to procure a shelter Irom the elements, 
 and to give him a multitude of conveniences within that 
 shelter. Most will agree, we think, that a greater num- 
 ber of persons are profitably employed in affording this 
 shelter and these conveniences, with tools and machines, 
 than if they possessed no such mechanical aids to their 
 industry. When the account of the population of Great 
 Britain was last taken, in 1841, there were three million 
 four hundred and sixty -five thousand houses inhabited, 
 and thirty thousand houses being built. In New Zea- 
 land, which is as large as Great Britain, there are not 
 ten thousand native habitations ; and their huts are made 
 of the roughest materials, and in the most comfortless 
 manner. The nation which has mechanical knowledge 
 has two hundred and fifty times as many houses as the 
 nation without these aids ; and the poorest house of the 
 civilized people is fifty times as commodious as the finest 
 house of the uncivilized people. We cannot doubt which 
 nation has the most employment for builders.
 
 166 CAPITAL AND LABOUR, 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 We have seen v< hat machinery will do, in working up 
 valuable materials, such as cotton, brought at a large cost 
 from foreign countries, so as to sell the manufactured 
 goods at a rate which does not exclude even the j)Oorest 
 from their purchase. Let us see what the same sort of 
 mechanical ingenuity can effect, in producing the most 
 useful and ornamental articles of domestic life, from the 
 common earth which may be had lor digging. Without 
 chemical and mechanical skill we should neither have 
 glass nor pottery ; and without these articles, how much 
 lowered beneath his present station, in point of comfort 
 and convenience, would be the humblest peasant in the 
 land ! 
 
 The cost of GLASS is almost wholly the wages of la- 
 bour, as the materials are very abundant, and may be 
 said to cost almost nothing ; and glass is much more 
 easily worked than any other substance. 
 
 Hard and brittle as it is, it has only to be heated, and 
 iiny form that the workman ]>leases may bo given to it. 
 It melts ; but when so hot as to be more susceptible of 
 form than wax or clay, or any thing else that we are 
 acquainted with, it still retains a degree of toughness and 
 capability of extension superior to that of many solids, 
 and of every liquid ,• when it has become red hot all its 
 brittleness is gone, and a man may do with it just as he 
 pleases. He may press it into a moidd ; he may take a 
 lump of it upon the end of an iron tube, and, by blowing 
 into the tube with his mouth, (keeping the glass hot all 
 the time.) he may swell it out into a hollow ball. He
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 167 
 
 may mould that ball into a bottle ; he may draw it out 
 lengthways into a pipe ; he may cut it open into a cup ; 
 he may oj^en it with shears, whirl it round with the edge 
 in the fire, and thus make it into a circular plate. He 
 may also roll it out into sheets, and spin it into threads 
 as fine as a cobweb. In short, so that he keeps it hot, 
 and away from substances by which it maybe destroyed, 
 he can do with it just as he pleases. All this, too, may 
 be done, and is done with lai-ge quantities every day, in 
 less time than any one would take to give an account of 
 it. In the time that the readiest speaker and clearest 
 describer were telling how one quart bottle is made, an 
 ordinary set of workmen would make some dozens of 
 bottles. 
 
 But though the materials of glass are among the cheap- 
 est of all materials, and the substance the most obedient 
 to the hand of the workman, there is a great deal of 
 knowledge necessary before glass can be made. It can 
 be made profitably only at large manufactories, and those 
 manufactories must be kept constantly at work night and 
 day. 
 
 Glass does not exist in a natural form in many places. 
 The sight of native crystal, probably, led men to think 
 originally of producing a sinnlar substance by art. The 
 fabrication of glass is of high antiquity. The historians 
 of China, Japan, and Tartary speak of glass manufacto- 
 ries existing there more than two thousand years ago. 
 An Egyptian mummy two or three thousand years 
 old, which was exhibited in London, was ornamented 
 with little fragments of coloured glass. The writings 
 of Seneca, a Roman author who lived about the time of 
 our Saviour, and of St. Jerome, who lived five hundred 
 years afterwards, speak of glass being used in windov/s. 
 It is recorded that the Prior of the convent of Wey- 
 mouth, in Dorsetshire, in the year 674, sent for French 
 workmen to glaze the windows of his chapel. In the 
 twelfth century the art of making glass was known in 
 this country. Yet it is very doubtful whether glass was 
 employed in windows, excepting those of churches and 
 the houses of the very rich, for several centuries after-
 
 168 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 wards ; and it is quite certain that the period is compa- 
 ratively recent, as we have shown in Chap. VIII., when 
 glass windows were used for excluding cold and admit- 
 ting light in the houses of the great body of the people, 
 or that glass vessels were to be found amongst their or- 
 dinary conveniences. The manufacture of glass in Eng- 
 land now employs many thousand people, because the 
 article, being cheap, is of universal use. The govern- 
 ment has wisely taken off the duty on glass ; and as the 
 article becomes cheaper, so will the people employed in 
 its manufacture become more numerous. 
 
 Machinery, as we commonly understand the term, is 
 not much employed in the manufacture of glass ; but che- 
 mistry, which saves as much labour as machinery, and 
 performs work which no machinery could accomplish, is 
 very largely employed. The materials of which glass is 
 made are sand or earth, and vegetable matter, such as kelp 
 or burnt sea- weed. These materials are put in a state of 
 fusion by the heat of an immense furnace. It requires a 
 red heat of sixty hours to prepare the material of a com- 
 mon bottle. Nearly all glass, except glass for mirrors, is 
 what is called blown. The machinery is very simple, 
 nconsisting only of an iron pipe, and the lungs of the work- 
 man ; and the process is perfected in all its stages by great 
 subdivision of labour, producing extreme neatness and 
 quickness in all persons employed in it. For instance, a 
 wine-glass is made thus : — One man (the blower) takes 
 up the proper quantity of glass on his pipe, and blows it 
 !to the size wanted for the bowl ; then he whirls it round 
 on a reel, and draws out the stalk. Another man (the 
 footer) blows a smaller and thicker ball, sticks it to the 
 end of the stalk of the blower's glass, and breaks his pipe 
 from it. The blower opens that ball, and whirls the 
 whole round till the foot is formed. Then a boy dips a 
 small rod in the glass-pot, and sticks it to the very centre 
 of the foot. The blower, still turning the glass round, 
 takes a bit of iron, wets it in his mouth, and touches the 
 ball at the place where he wishes the mouth of the glass 
 iobe. The glass separates, and the boy takes it to the 
 finisher, who turns the mouth of it ; and by a peculiar
 
 CAPITAL, AUD LABOUR. lQ9l 
 
 swing that he gives it round his head, makes it ])erfectly 
 circular, at the same time that it is so hardened as to be 
 easily snapped from the rod. Lastly the boy takes it on 
 a ibrked iron to the annealing furnace, where it is cooled 
 gradually. 
 
 All these operations require the greatest nicety in the 
 workmen ; and would take a long time in the performance,, 
 and not be very neatly done after all, if they were all 
 done by one man. But the quickness with which they 
 are done by the division of labour is perfectly wonderfuL 
 
 The cheapness of glass for common use, w hich cheap- 
 ness is produced by chemical knowledge and the divisioa 
 of labour, has set the ingenuity of man to w ork to give 
 greater beauty to glass as an article of luxury. The em- 
 ployment of sharp- grinding wheels put in motion by a 
 treadle, and used in conjunction with a very nice handfP 
 produces cut glass. Cut glass is now comparatively so 
 cheap, that scarcely a family of the middle ranks is with- 
 out some beautiful article of this manufacture. And yet,, 
 cheap as glass is, a great deal of even its present price is 
 ta:c. 
 
 If, to increase the mere labour of the glass-blowers, it 
 was resolved that furnaces of less power should be em- 
 ployed, or if, for the same purpose, the subdivision of 
 labour were abolished, and one man were to make a wine- 
 glass in all its stages, the working men of England would 
 have no glass in their w indows. If the glass-cutters were 
 to lay down their wheels, and take to files, the tradesman 
 would have no cut-glass decanter on his table. The rich, 
 only would ])06sess cut-glass vessels of any beauty of con- 
 struction ; and, consequently, the glass-cutters would 
 dwindle down from thousands to hundreds, and even to 
 tens. 
 
 There are two kinds of pottery— common potters' 
 ware, and porcelain of China. The first is a pure kind 
 of brick ; and the second a mixture of very fine brick and 
 glass. Almost all nations have some knowledge of pot- 
 tery ; and those of the very hot countries are sometimes, 
 satisfied with dishes formed by their fingers without any
 
 170 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 tool, and dried by the heat of the sun. In England 
 pottery of every sort, and in all countries good pottery, 
 must be baked or burnt in a kiln of some kind or other. 
 
 Vessels for holding- meat and drink are almost as indis- 
 pensable as the meat and drink themselves ; and the two 
 qualities in them that are most valuable, are, that they 
 shall be cheap, and easily cleaned. Pottery, as it is now 
 produced in England, possesses both of these qualities in 
 the very highest degree. A white basin, having all the 
 useful properties of the most costly vessels, may be pur- 
 chased for twopence at the door of any cottage in England. 
 There are very few substances used in human food that 
 have any effect upon these vessels ; and it is only rinsing 
 them in hot water, and wiping them with a cloth, and they 
 are clean. 
 
 # The making of an earthen bowl v ould be to a man who 
 made a iirst attempt no easy matter. Let us see how it 
 is done so that it can be carried two or three hundred miles 
 and sold for twopence, leaving a profit to the maker, and 
 the wholesale and retail dealer. 
 
 The common jiottery is made of pure clay and pure 
 flint. The flint is found only in the chalk counties, and 
 the fine clays in Devonshire and Dorsetshire ; so that the 
 materials out of which the pottery is made have to be car- 
 ried from the South of England to Staffordshire, where 
 the potteries are situated. 
 
 The great advantage that Staffordshire possesses is 
 abundance of coal to burn the ware and supply the 
 engines that grind the materials. 
 
 The clay is worked in water by various machinery till 
 it contains no single jnece large enough to be visible to 
 the eye. It is like cream in consistence. The flints are 
 burned. They are first ground in a mill and then worked 
 in water in the same manner as the clay, the large pieces 
 being returned a second time to the mill. 
 
 When both are fine enough, one part of flint is mixed 
 with five or six of clay : the whole is worked to a paste, 
 after which it is kneaded either by the hands or a ma- 
 chine ; and when the kneading is completed, it is ready 
 for the potter.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 171 
 
 He has a little wheel which lies horizontally. He 
 lays a portion of clay on the centre of the wheel, puts 
 one hand, or finger if the vessel is to be a small one, in 
 the middle, and his other hand on the outside, and, as 
 the wheel turns rapidly round, draws up a hollow vessel 
 in an instant. With his hands, or with very simple tools, 
 he brings it to the shape he wishes, cuts it from the 
 wheel with a wire, and a boy carries it oif. The potter 
 makes vessel after vessel, as fast as they can be carried 
 away. 
 
 They are partially dried ; after ^^■hicll they are turned 
 on a lathe and smoothed with a wet sponge when neces- 
 sary. 
 
 Only round vessels can be made on the wheel ; those 
 of other shapes are made in moulds of plaster. 
 
 Handles and other solid parts are pressed in moulds, 
 and stuck on while they and the vessels are still wet. 
 
 The vessels thus formed arc first dried in a stove, and, 
 when dry, burnt in a kiln. They are in this state called 
 biscuit. If they are finished white, they are glazed by 
 another process. If they are figured, the patterns are 
 engraved on copper, and printed on coarse paper rubbed 
 with soft soap. The ink is made of some colour that 
 will stand the fire, ground with earthy matter. These 
 }>atterns are moistened and applied to the porous biscuit, 
 which absorbs the colour, and the })aper is washed off, 
 leaving the pattern on the biscuit. 
 
 The employment of machinery to do all the heavy 
 part of the work, the division of labour, by which each 
 workman acquires wonderful dexterity in his department, 
 and the conducting of the whole upon a large scale, give 
 bread to a vast number of })eoj)le, make the pottery 
 cheap, and enable it to be sold at a profit in almost every 
 market in the world. It is not seventy years since the 
 first pottery of a good quality was extensively made in 
 England ; and before that time what was used was im- 
 ported, the common ware from Delf, in Holland, (from 
 which it acquired its name,) and the porcelain from 
 China. We now annually export fifty-three million 
 pieces of earthenware to all parts of the world.
 
 172 CAPITAL AKD LABOUR. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 If the facts which we have stated in the preceding chap- 
 ters have been duly considered, it appears that we cannot 
 much doubt that in articles of the most absohite neces- 
 sity, machinery has at the same time diminished the cost 
 of production, and added to the numbers of the work- 
 men. Without machinery, as we have shown, it would 
 be impossible to raise food, to manufacture implements, 
 to supply fuel and water, to carry on communication, to 
 produce clothes, to build houses and I'urnish them, and 
 to distribute knowledge, either at all, or at least at a 
 price which should allow all men, more or less, to par- 
 take these great blessings of civilization. In the present 
 chapter we propose to show some very curious ettccts of 
 machinery in the production of articles of inferior value, 
 certainly, to those chief necessaries of life which we have 
 mentioned, but which are in such general use amongst 
 all of us, however trifling they may appear in themselves, 
 that the want of them\vould be felt as a severe priva- 
 tion. Without machines they could not be made at all ; 
 or they would be made very coarsely, as mere curiosities. 
 With machines they are made in such numbers that they 
 constitute very large branches of trade, and give employ- 
 ment to hundreds of thousands of people, in assisting the* 
 machines, or in perfecting w hat they produce. 
 
 There is an article employed in dress, which is at once 
 so necessary and so beautiful, that the highest lady in 
 the land uses it, and yet so cheap, that the poorest pea- 
 sant's wife is enabled to procure it. The quality of the 
 article is as perfect as art can make it ; and yet, from the
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 173 
 
 enormous quantities consumed by the great mass of the 
 people, it is made so cheap that the poor can purchase 
 the best kind, as well as the rich. It is an article of 
 universal use. United with machinery, many hundreds, 
 and even thousands, are employed in making it. But if 
 the machinery were to stop, and the article were made 
 by human hands alone, it would become so dear that the 
 richest only could afford to use it ; and it would become, 
 at the same time, so rough in its appearance, that those 
 very rich would be ashamed of using it. The article we 
 mean is a pin. 
 
 Machinery of all kinds is difficult to be described by 
 words. It is not necessary for us to describe the ma- 
 irhinery used in pin-making, to make the reader compre- 
 hend its effects. A pin is made of brass. We have seen 
 how metal is obtained from ore by machinery, and there- 
 fore we will not go over that ground. But suppose the 
 most skilful workman has a lump of brass ready by his 
 side, to make it into pins with common tools, — with a 
 hammer and with a file. He beats it upon an anvil, till it 
 becomes nearly thin enough for his purpose. A very fine 
 hammer, and a very fine touch, must he have to produce 
 a pin of any sort,— even a large corking pin! But the 
 pin made by machinery is a perfect cylinder. To make 
 a metal, or even a wooden cylinder, of a considerable 
 size, with files and polishing, is an operation so difficult, 
 that it is never attempted ; but with a lathe and a sliding 
 rest it is done every hour by a great many workmen. 
 How much more difficult would it be to make a perfect 
 cylinder the size of a pin ? A pin hammered out by 
 hand would present a number of rough edges that would 
 tear the clothes, as well as hold them together. It 
 would not be much more useful or ornamental than the 
 skewer of bone, with which the woman of the Sandwich 
 Islands fiistens her mats. But the wire of which pins 
 are made acquires a perfectly cylindrical form by the 
 simplest machinery. It is forcibl}' drawn through the 
 circular holes of a steel plate ; and the hole being 
 smaller and smaller each time it is drawn through, it is 
 at length reduced to the size required.
 
 174 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 The head of a pin is a more difficult thing to make 
 even than the body. It is formed of a small piece of 
 wire twisted round so as to fit upon the other wire. It 
 is said that by a machine fifty thousand heads can be 
 made in an hour. We should think that a man would 
 be very skilful to make fifty in an hour by hand, in the 
 roughest manner ; if so, the machine does the work of 
 a thousand men. The machine, however, does not do 
 all the work. The head is attached to the body of a 
 pin by the fingers of a child, while another machine 
 rivets it on. The operations of cutting and pointing the 
 pins are also done by machinery ; and they are polished 
 by a chemical process. 
 
 It is by these processes, — by these combinations of 
 human labour with mechanical power, — that it occurs 
 that fifty pins can be bought for one halfpenny, and 
 that therefore four or five thousand pins may be con- 
 sumed in a year by the most economical housewife, at a 
 much less price than fifty pins of a rude make cost two 
 or three centuries ago. A woman's allowance was 
 formerly called her pin-mone!/ , — a proof that pins were 
 a sufficiently dear article to make a large item in her 
 expenses. If pins now were to cost a halfpenny a 
 piece instead of being fifty ibr a halfj)euny, the greater 
 number of females would adopt other modes of fastening 
 their dress, which would probably be less neat and con- 
 venient than pins. No such circumstance could happen 
 while the machinery of pin-making was in use ; but if 
 the machinery were suppressed, by any act of folly on 
 the part of the pin-makers who work with the machi- 
 nery, pins would go out of use, probably, altogether : 
 the pin-makers would lose a/l their employment ; and 
 all the women of the land would be deprived of one of 
 the simplest, and yet most useful inventions connected 
 with the dress of modern times. 
 
 Needles are not so cheap as pins, because the material 
 of which they are made is more expensive, and the pro- 
 cesses cannot be executed so fully by machinery. But 
 without machinery, how^ could that most beautiful ar- 
 ticle, ajine needle, be sold at the rate of six for a } enny ?
 
 CAPITAL A^D LABOLiK. 175 
 
 As in the case of pins, machinery is at work at the first 
 formation of the material. Without the tilt-hammer, 
 which beats out the bar of steel, first at the rate of ten 
 strokes a minute, and lastly at that of five hundred, how 
 could that bar be prepared for needle-making at any- 
 thing like a reasonable price ? In all the processes of 
 needle-making, labour is saved by contrivance and ma- 
 chinery. What human touch would be exquisite enough 
 to make the eye of the finest needle, through which the 
 most delicate' silk is with ditiiculty passed ? Needles 
 are made in such large quantities, that it is even im- 
 portant to save the time of the child who lays them all 
 one way when they are completed. Mr. Babbage, who 
 is equally distinguished for his profound science and his 
 mechanical ingenuity, has described this process as an 
 example of one of the simplest contrivances which can 
 come under the denomination of a tool. "It is neces- 
 sary to separate the needles into two parcels, in order 
 that their points may be all in one direction. This is 
 usually done by women and children. The needles are 
 placed sideways in a heap, on a table, in front of each 
 operator. From five to ten are rolled towards this 
 person by the fore-finger of the left hand ; this separates 
 them a very small space from each other, and each in 
 its turn is pushed lengthways to the right or to the left, 
 according as its eye is on the right or the left hand. 
 This is the usual process, and in it every needle passes 
 individually under the finger of the operator. A small 
 alteration expedites the process considerably ; the child 
 puts on the fore-finger of its right hand a small cloth cap 
 or finger-stall, and rolling from the heap from six to 
 twelve needles, it keeps them down by the fore-finger 
 of the left hand ; whilst it presses the fore-finger of the 
 right hand gently against the ends of the needles, those 
 which have their points towards the right hand stick 
 into the finger-stall ; and the child, removing the finger 
 of the left hand, allows the needles sticking into the 
 cloth to be slightly raised, and then pushes them to- 
 wards the left side. Those needles which had their 
 eyes en the right hand do not stick into the finger cover,
 
 176 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 5ind are pushed to the heap on the right side previous 
 to the repetition of this process. By means of this 
 simple contrivance, each movement of the finger, from 
 one side to the other, carries five or six needles to their 
 proper heap ; whereas, in the former method, frequently 
 only one was moved, and rarely more than two or three 
 -were transported at one movement to their place." 
 
 We have selected this description of a particular pro- 
 -cess in needle-making, to show that great saving of 
 kbour may be eftected by what is not popularly called 
 machinery. In modem times, wherever work is carried 
 on upon a large scale, the division of labour is applied ; 
 t)y which one man attending to one thing learns to per- 
 form that one thing more perfectly than if he had 
 attended to many things. He thus saves a considerable 
 portion of the whole amount of labour. Every skilful 
 workman has individually some mode of working peculiar 
 to himself, by which he lessens his labour. An expert 
 blacksmith, for instance, will not strike one more blow 
 upon the anvil than is necessary to produce the effect 
 he desires. A compositor, or ])rinter who arranges the 
 types, is a swift workman when he makes no unnecessary 
 movement of his arm or fingers in lifting a single type 
 into what is called his composing-stick, where the types 
 are arranged in lines. There is a very simple contrivance 
 to lessen" the labour of the compositor, by preventing 
 him putting the type into his composing stick the wrong 
 side outwards. It is a nick or two nicks, on the side of 
 the type which corresponds with the lower side of the 
 face of the letter. By this nick or nicks he is enabled 
 to see by one glance of his eye on which side the letter 
 is first to be grasped, and then to be arranged. If the 
 nick were not there he would have to look at the face of 
 every letter before he could properly place it. Now if 
 the printers, as a body, were to resolve to perform their 
 work in a difficult instead of an easy way, — if they were 
 to resolve, that the labour employed in printing were 
 desirable to be doubled, — they might effect their unwise 
 resolution by the simplest proceeding in the world. 
 They might refuse to work upon types which had any
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 177 
 
 nicks. In that case two compositors would certainly be 
 required to do the work of one ; and the price of print- 
 ing would consequently be greatly raised, if the com- 
 positors were paid at the present rate for their time. 
 But would the compositors, Mho thus rejected one of the 
 most obvious natural aids to their peculiar labour, be 
 benefited by this course ? No. For the price of books 
 would rise, in the same proportion that the labour re- 
 Cjuired to produce them w as doubled in its quantity, by 
 being lessened one half in its efficiency. And the price 
 of books rising, and that rise lessening purchasers, thou- 
 sands of families would be deprived of a livelihood ; — 
 not only those of compositors, but those of paper-makers, 
 type-founders, and many other trades connected with 
 books. 
 
 If, however, machines are bad things because they save 
 human labour, so are all these arrangements. A manu- 
 factory, where one man does one part, and another 
 another, is a human machine, in which one person is a 
 wheel, another a strap, a third a lever, and so forth. If 
 one person were to ])erform every operation in making a 
 pin or needle, he could not make ten in a day — probably 
 not one. It is said that among the early settlers of North 
 America, there was once a whole village in which there 
 was but one needle. If prejudices against machinery 
 should extend to everything which economizes human 
 labour, and be powerful to derange that economy, an 
 ICnglish village might be found in the same predicament. 
 
 Contrivances such as that of the needle-sorter's sheath 
 are constantly occurring in manufactures. The tags of 
 laces, which are made of thin tin, are now bent into their 
 requisite form by the same movement of the arm that cuts 
 them. A piece of steel, adapted to the side of the shears, 
 gives them at once their proper shape. All such inge- 
 nious applications of scientific principles lessen the price 
 of a commodity. If the small shot which is used by 
 sportsmen were each cast in a mould, the price would be 
 enormous ; but by pouring the melted lead, of which the 
 shot is made, through a sort of cullender, placed at the 
 top of a tower, high enough for the lead to cool in its
 
 178 CAPITAL AND LABOUR . 
 
 passage through the air, before it reaches the gi-ound, the 
 shot is formed in a spherical or round shape, by the mere 
 act of passing through the atmosphere. Some of the 
 shots thus formed are not perfectly spherical— they are 
 pear-shaped. If the selection of the perfect from the 
 imperfect shots were made by the eye, or the touch, the 
 process would be very tedious and insufficient, and the 
 price of the article much increased. The simplest con- 
 trivance in the world divides the bad from the good. 
 The shots are poured tlown an inclined ])lane, and, with- 
 out any trouble of selection, the spherical ones run straight 
 to the bottom, while the pear-shaped ones tumble off on 
 one side or the other of the plane. 
 
 A vast number of people at Birmingham are employed 
 in the manufacture of buttons ; and a great variety of 
 hands are employed in the manufacture of a single button, 
 such as piercers, cutters, stampers, gilders, and burnish- 
 ers. Many of the operations in button-making are per- 
 ibrmed by machinery. The shanks are made by a little 
 machine worked by a steam-engine, at the rate of four- 
 score a minute. But do these engines throw the button- 
 makers out of employ ? On the contrary, the cheapness 
 by which the shank is made by the machine, instead of 
 being expensively made by the slow labour of the hand, 
 allows all sorts of hand-workmen to complete the rest of 
 the button, whether in metal or glass ; and thus Bir- 
 mingham buttons are sold all over the world. 
 
 The manufacture of trinkets, and small articles of taste, 
 at a cheap price by machinery, creates a demand for such 
 articles, that could never have existed at all, if they were 
 made by hand ; and therefore creates employment, which 
 could never otherwise have existed, for very numerous 
 workmen. 
 
 In 1824, Mr. Osier, an intelligent manufacturer at 
 Birmingham, showed a Committee of the House of Com- 
 mons an imitation, in coloured glass, of an engraving on 
 stone, "Those impressions," said he, "could not be 
 given to real stones, but at the expense of from a guinea 
 to thirty shillings each, if executed by a tolerable artist. 
 We produce them for three halfpence, and the mounting
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 179 
 
 of them furnishes employ to a very large number of hands 
 indeed." 
 
 The application of machinery, or of peculiar scientific 
 modes of working, to such apparently trifling articles as 
 pins, needles, buttons, and trinkets, may appear of little 
 importance. But let it be remembered, that the manu- 
 facture of such articles furnishes employment to many 
 thousands of our fellow-countrymen ; and, enabling us to 
 supply other nations with these products, aflbrds us the 
 means of receiving articles of more intrinsic value in ex- 
 change. In 1842, our exports of hardware, cutlery, and 
 brass goods amounted to upwards of three millions ster- 
 ling. No article of ready attainment, and therefore of 
 general consumption, whether it be a labourer's spade, or 
 a child's marble, is unimportant in a commercial point of 
 view. The wooden figures of horses and sheep that may 
 be bought for twopence in the toy-shops, furnish employ- 
 ment to cut them, during the long winter nights, to a 
 large portion of the peasantry of the Tyrol (an extensive 
 district on the boundaries of Austria). The insignificant 
 article of the eyes of children's dolls, alone, produce, in 
 their manufacture, a circulation of several thousand 
 pounds. Mr. Osier, whose words we have just quoted, 
 addressing a Committee of the House of Commons, upon 
 the subject of his beads and trinkets, said, — " Eighteen 
 years ago, on my first journey to London, a respectable 
 looking man in the city asked me if I could supply him 
 with dolls' eyes ; and I was foolish enough to feel half 
 oflfended. 1 thought it derogatory to my new dignity as 
 a manufacturer to make dolls' eyes. He took me into 
 a room quite as wide and perhaps twice the length of this 
 (one of the large rooms for Committees in the House of 
 Commons), and we had just room to walk between 
 stacks, from the floor to the ceiling, of parts of dolls. He 
 said, ' These are only the legs and arms — the trunks are 
 below.' But I saw enough to convince me that he wanted 
 a great many eyes ; and as the article appeared quite in 
 my own line of business, I said I would take an order by 
 way of experiment ; and he showed me several speci- 
 mens. I copied the order. He ordered various quanti-
 
 ] 80 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 ties and of various sizes and qualities. On returning to 
 the Tavistock Hotel, I found that the order amounted to 
 upwards of five hundred pounds." 
 
 Mr. Osier tells this story to show the importance of 
 trifles. The making of dolls' eyes afforded subsistence 
 to many ingenious workmen in glass toys ; and in the 
 same way the most minute and apparently insignificant 
 article of general use, when rendered cheap by chemical 
 science or machinery, produces a return of many thou- 
 sand pounds, and sets in motion labour and labourers. 
 ^Yithout the science and the machinery, which render 
 the article cheap, the labourers would have had no em- 
 ploy, for the article would not have been consumed. 
 What a pretty article is a common tobacco-pipe, of which 
 millions are used ! It is made cheap and beautiful in a 
 mould — a machine for copying pipes. If the pipe were 
 made without the mould, and other contrivances, it would 
 cost at least a shilling instead of a halfpenny: — the 
 tobacco-smoker would go without his pipe, and the pipe- 
 maker without his employment, j^
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOLR. 181 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 We exhibited in the last chapter a few examples, such 
 as the sheath of the needle-sorter, and the nicks in the 
 types of the compositor, of contrivances to economize 
 labour. Such contrivances are not machinery ; but 
 they answer one of the great purposes of machinery, — 
 that of saving time ; and in the same manner they dimi- 
 nish the cost of production. The objection which some 
 make to machinery, namely, that it diminishes the quan- 
 tity of labour required, and therefore the number of 
 labourers, applies also to these contrivances ; and it ap- 
 plies, also, to the greater expertness of one workman as 
 compared with the lesser expertness of another work- 
 man. There are boot-closers so skilful that they have 
 reduced their arms to the precision of a machine. They 
 can begin to close a boot with a thread a yard long in 
 each hand, throw out each arm at once to the full extent 
 of the thread, without making a second pull, and at every 
 successive pull contract the arm so as to allow for the 
 diminished length of the thread each time that it passes 
 through the leather. There are not many workmen who 
 can do this ; but those whose sense of touch is delicate 
 enough are not blamed by their fellow-workmen, for 
 doing that by one movement of the arm which other 
 men do by two movements. 
 
 Every one of us who thinks at all is constantly en- 
 deavouring to diminish his individual labour, by the use 
 of some little contrivance which experience has sug- 
 gested. Men who carry water in buckets, in places 
 where water is scarce, put aj circular piece of wood to
 
 182 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 float on the water, which prevents its' spilling, and con- 
 sequently lessens the labour. A boy who makes paper 
 bags in a grocer's shop, so arranges them that he pastes 
 the edges of twenty at a time, to diminish the labour. 
 The porters of Amsterdam, who draw heavy goods upon 
 a sort of sledge, every now and then throw a greased 
 rope under the sledge, to diminish its friction, and there- 
 fore to lessen the labour of dragging it. Other porters, 
 in the same city, have a little barrel containing water, 
 attached to each side of the sledge, out of which the 
 water slowly drips, like the water upon a stone-cutter's 
 saw, to diminish the friction. The dippers of candles 
 have made several improvements in their art within the 
 last twenty years, for the purpose of diminishing labour. 
 They used to hold the rods between their fingers, dip- 
 ping three at a time ; they next connected six or eight 
 rods together by a piece of wood at each end, having 
 holes to receive the rods ; and they now suspend the 
 rods so arranged upon a sort of balance, rising and 
 ialling with a pulley and a weight, so as to relieve the 
 arms of the workman almost entirely, while the work is 
 done more quickly and with more precision. Are there 
 fewer candle-makers employed now than when they 
 dipped only three rods with considerable fatigue, and no 
 little pain as the candles grew heavy ? 
 
 In the domestic arrangements of a well-regulated 
 household, whether of a poor man or of a rich man, one 
 of the chief cares is, to save labour. Every contrivance 
 to save labour that ingenuity can suggest is eagerly 
 adopted when a country becomes highly civilized. In 
 former times, in our own country, when such contri- 
 vances were little known, and materials as well as time 
 were consequently wasted in every direction, a great 
 Baron was surrounded with a hundred menial servants ; 
 but he had certainly less real and useful labour performed 
 for him, than a tradesman of the present day obtains 
 from three servants. Are there fewer servants now em- 
 ployed than in those times of barbarous state ? Certainly 
 not. The middle classes amongst us can get a great 
 deal done for them in the wav of domestic service, at a
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 183 
 
 small expense ; because servants are assisted by mani- 
 fold contrivances which do much of the work for them. 
 The contrivances render the article of service cheaper ; 
 and therefore there are more servants. The work being- 
 done by fewer servants, in consequence of the contri- 
 vances, the servants themselves are better paid than if 
 there was no cost saved by the contrivances. 
 
 The common jack by which meat is roasted is de- 
 scribed by Mr. Babbagc as " a contrivance to enable the 
 cook in a few minutes to exert a force (in winding up 
 the jack) which the machine retails out during the suc- 
 ceeding hour in turning the loaded spit, thus enabling 
 her to bestow her undivided attention on her other du- 
 ties." We have seen, twenty years ago, in farm-houses, 
 a man employed to turn a spit with a handle ; dogs have 
 been used to run in a wheel for the same purpose, and 
 hence a particular breed so used are called " turn-spits." 
 When some ingenious servant girl discovered that if she 
 put a skewer through the meat and hung it before the 
 fire by a skein of worsted, it would turn with veiy little 
 iittention, she made an approach to the principle of the 
 bottle-jack. All these contrivances diminish labour, and 
 ■ensure regularity of movement ; — and therefore they are 
 valuable contrivances. 
 
 A bell which is pulled in one room and rings in an- 
 other, and which therefore establishes a ready commu- 
 nication between the most distant parts of a house, is a 
 contrivance to save labour. In a large family, the total 
 want of bells would add a fourth at least to the labour 
 of servants. Where three servants are kept now, four 
 servants would be required to be kept then. Would 
 the destruction of all the bells therefore add one fourth 
 to the demand for servants ? Certainly not. The funds 
 employed in paying for service would not be increased 
 a single farthing ; and, therefore, by the destruction of 
 bells, all the families of the kingdom would have some 
 work left undone, to make up for the additional labour 
 required through the want of this useful contrivance : 
 or all the servants in the kingdom would be more hardly
 
 184 CAPITAL AXD LABOUR. 
 
 worked, — would have to work sixteen hours a day in- 
 stead of twelve. 
 
 In some parts of India, the natives have a very rude 
 contrivance to mark the progress of time. A thin metal 
 cup, with a small hole in its bottom, is put to float in a 
 vessel of water ; and as the water rises through the hole 
 the cup sinks in a given time — in 24 minutes. A ser- 
 vant is set to watch the sinking of the cup, and when 
 this happens he strikes upon a bell. Haifa century ago, 
 almost every cottage in England had its hour-glass — an 
 imperfect instrument for registering the progress of time, 
 because it only indicated its course between hour and 
 hour ; and an instrument which required a very watchful 
 attention, and some labour, to be of any use at all. The 
 universal use of watches or clocks, in India, would wholly 
 displace the labour of the servants who note the progress 
 of time by the filling of the cup ; and the same cause has 
 displaced, amongst us, the equally unprofitable labour 
 employed in turning the hour-glass, and watching its 
 movement. Almost every house in England has now a 
 clock or watch of some sort ; and every house in India 
 would have the same, if the natives were more enlight- 
 ened, and were not engaged in so many modes of unpro- 
 fitable labour to keep them poor. His profitable labour 
 has given the English mechanic the means of getting a 
 watch. Machinery, used in every possible way, has 
 made this watch cheap. The labour formerly employed 
 in turning the hour-glass, or in running to look at the 
 church clock, is transferred to the making of watches. 
 The user of the watch obtains an accurate register of 
 time, which teaches him to know the value of that most 
 precious possession, and to economize it ; and the pro- 
 tlucers of the watch have abundant employment in the 
 universal demand for this valuable machine. 
 
 A watch or clock is an instrument for assisting an 
 operation of the miml. Without some instrument for 
 registering time, the mind could very imperfectly attain 
 the end which the watch attains, not requiring any men- 
 tal labour. The observation of the progress of time, by
 
 CAPITA!. AND LABOUR. 185 
 
 the situation of the sun in the day, or of particular stars 
 at night, is a labour requiring great attention, and various 
 sorts of accurate knowledge. It is therefore never at- 
 tempted, except when men have no machines for regis- 
 tering time. In the same manner the labours of the 
 mind have been saved, in a thousand ways, by other 
 contrivances of science. 
 
 The foot-rule of the carpenter not only gives him the 
 standard of a foot measure, which he could not exactly 
 ascertain by any experience, or any mental process ; but 
 it is also a scale of the proportions of an inch, or several 
 inches, to a foot, and of the parts of an inch to an inch. 
 What a quantity of calculations, and of dividing by com- 
 passes, does this little instrument save the carpenter ; 
 besides ensuring a much greater degree of accuracy in 
 all his operations ! The common rules of arithmetic, 
 which almost every boy in England now learns, are parts 
 of a great invention for saving mental labour. The higher 
 branches of mathematics, of which science arithmetic is 
 a portion, are also inventions for saving labour, and for 
 doing what could never be done w ithout these inventions. 
 There are instruments, and very curious ones, for lessen- 
 ing the labour of all arithmetical calculations ; and tables, 
 that is, the results of certain calculations, which are of 
 practical use, are constructed for the same purpose. 
 When we buy a joint of meat. Me often see the butcher 
 turn to a little book, before he tells us how much a cer- 
 tain number of pounds and ounces amounts to, at a certain 
 price per pound. This book is his ' Ready Reckoner/ 
 and a very useful book it is to him ; for it enables him to 
 dispatch his customers in half the time that he would 
 otherwise require, and thus to save himself a great deal 
 of labour, and a great deal of inaccuracy. The inven- 
 tions for saving mental labour, in calculations of arith- 
 metic, have been carried so far, that Mr. Babbage, a 
 gentleman whose name we have twice before mentioned, 
 has almost perfected a calculating machine, which not 
 only does its work of calculation without the possibility 
 of error, but absolutely arranges printing types of figures, 
 in a frame, so that no error can be produced in copying 
 
 i3
 
 IbG CAPITAL AND LABOUK. 
 
 the calculations, before they are printed. We mention 
 this curious machine, to show how far science may go in 
 diminishing mental labour, and ensuring accuracy. 
 
 To all who read this book it is no ditficulty to count a 
 hundred ; and most know the relation which a hundred 
 bears to a thousand, and a thousand bears to a million. 
 Most are able, also, to read off those numbers, or parts 
 of those numbers, when they see them marked down in 
 figures. There are many uncivilized people in the world 
 who cannot count twenty. They have no idea whatever 
 of numbers, beyond perhaps as far as the number of their 
 finarers, or their fingers and their toes. How have we 
 obfained this great superiority over these poor savages ? 
 Because science has been at work, for many centuries, 
 to diminish the amount of our mental labour, by teaching 
 us the easiest modes of calcidation. And how did we 
 learn these modes V We learnt them from our school- 
 masters. 
 
 If any follow up the false reasoning which has led 
 some to think that whatever diminishes labour diminishes 
 the number of labourers, they might conclude, that, as 
 there is less mental work to be done, because science has 
 diminished the labour of that work, there would, there- 
 fore, be fewer mental workmen. Thank God, the greater 
 facilities that have been given to the cultivation of the 
 mind, the greater is the number of those who exert them- 
 selves in that cultivation. The effects of saving unpro- 
 fitable labour are the same in all cases. The use oi 
 machinery in aid of bodi/i/ labour has set that bodily 
 labour to a thousand new employments ; and has raised 
 the character of the employments, by transferring the 
 lowest of the drudgery to wheels and pistons. The use 
 of science in the assistance oi' yyiental lahour has conducted 
 that labour to infinitely more numerous fields of exertion ; 
 and has elevated all intellectual pursuits, by making their 
 commoner processes the play of childhood, instead of the 
 toil of manhood.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 187 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 We cannot doubt that any invention which gives assist- 
 ance to the thinking powers of mankind, and. therefore, 
 by dispensing with much mental drudgery, leads the 
 mind forward to nobler exertions, is a benefit to all. It 
 is not more than four hundred years ago, that the use of 
 Arabic numerals, or figures, began to be generally known 
 in this country. The first date in those numerals said to 
 exist in England, is upon a brass plate in Ware church, 
 1454. The same date in Roman numerals, which were 
 in use before the Arabic ones, would be expressed by 
 eight letters, mccccliv. The introduction of figures, 
 therefore, was an immense saving of time in the com- 
 monest operations of arithmetic. How puzzled we should 
 be, and what a quantity of labour we should lose, if w^e 
 were compelled to reckon earnings and marketings by 
 the long mode of notation, instead of the short one! 
 This book is easily read, because it is written in words 
 composed of twenty-four letters. In China, where there 
 are no letters in use, every word in the language is ex- 
 pressed by a different character. Few people in China 
 write or read ; and those who do, acquire very little 
 knowledge, except the mere knowledge of writing and 
 reading. All the time of their learned men is occupied 
 in acquiring the means of knowledge, and not knowledge 
 itself; and the bulk of the people get very little know- 
 ledge at all. It Mould be just the same thing if there 
 were no machines or engines for diminishing manual 
 labour. Those who had any property would occupy all 
 their time, and the time of their immediate dependents,
 
 188 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 in raising food and making clothes for themselves, and 
 the rest of the people would go without any food or 
 clothes at all ; or rather, which comes to the same thing, 
 there would be no ''■ rest of the people ;" the lord and 
 his vassals would have all the produce ; — there would be 
 half a million of people in England instead of sixteen 
 millions. 
 
 When a boy has got hold of what we call the nidi- 
 ments of learning, he has possessed himself of the most 
 useful tools and machines which exist in the world. He 
 has obtained the means of doing that w ith extreme case, 
 which, without these tools, is done only with extreme 
 labour. He has earned the time which, if rightly em- 
 ployed, will elevate his mind, and therefore improve his 
 condition. Just so is it with all tools and machines for 
 diminishing bodily exertion. They give us the means 
 of doing that with comparative ease, vrhich, without 
 them, can only be done with extreme drudgery. They 
 set at liberty a great quantity of mere animal power, 
 which, having then leisure to unite with mental power, 
 produces ingenious and skilful workmen in every trade. 
 But they do more than this. They diminish human 
 suffering — they improve the health — they increase the 
 term of life— they render all occupations less painful 
 and laborious ;— and, by doing all this, they elevate man 
 in the scale of existence. 
 
 The present Pasha, or chief ruler of Egypt, in one of 
 those fits of caprice which it is the nature of tyrants to 
 exhibit, ordered, a few years ago, that the male popu- 
 lation of a district should be set to clear out one of the 
 ancient canals which was then filled up with mud. The 
 people had no tools, and the Pasha gave them no tools ; 
 but the work was required to be done. £'0 to work the 
 poor wretches went, to the number of fifty thousand. 
 They had to plunge up to their necks in the filthiest 
 slime, and to bale it out with their hands, and their 
 hands alone. They were fed, it is true, during the ope- 
 ration ; but their food was of a quality proportioned to 
 the little profitable labour which they performed. They 
 were fed on horse-beans and water. In the course of
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 189 
 
 one year, more than thirty thousand of these unliappy 
 people perished. If the tyrant, instead of giving labour 
 to fifty thousand people, had possessed the means of 
 setting up steam-engines to pump out the water, and 
 scoop out the mud, — if he had even provided the pump, 
 which is called Archimedes' screw, and was invented 
 by that philosopher for the very purpose of draining 
 land in Egypt, — if the people had even had scoops and 
 shovels, instead of being degraded like beasts, to the 
 emploj'ment of their unassisted hands, — the work might 
 have been done at a fiftieth of the cost, even of the mise- 
 rable pittance of horse-beans and water ; and the money 
 that was saved by the tools and machines, might have 
 gone to furnish profitable labour to the thousands who 
 perished amidst the misery and degradation of their mi- 
 profiiable labour. 
 
 Some may say that this is a case which does not apply 
 to us ; because we are free men, and cannot be com- 
 pelled to perish, up to our necks in mud, upon a pit- 
 tance of horse-beans, doled out by a tyrant. Exactly- 
 so. But what has made us free ? Knowledge. Know- 
 ledge, — which, in raising the moral and intellectual 
 character of every Englishman, has raised up barriers to 
 oppression which no power can ever break down. 
 Knowledge, — which has set ingenious men thinking in 
 every way how to increase the profitable labour of the 
 nation, and therefore to increase the comforts of every 
 man in the nation. Is it for the working men of this 
 country, or for any other class of men, to say that 
 knowledge shall stop at a certain point, and shall go no 
 farther? Is it for them to say, that although they are 
 willing to retain the infinite blessings which knowledge 
 has bestowed upon them — the improved food, the abun- 
 dant fuel and water, the cheap clothing, the convenient 
 houses, the drainage and ventilation which make houses 
 healthful, the preservation of life by medical science, 
 and the profit and comfort of books — that we are to rest 
 satisfied with what we have got : or rather, if the haters 
 of machinery are to be heard, that we are to go back to 
 what we were five hundred years ago ? Depend upon
 
 190 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 it, if we once begin to march backwards, however slow 
 may be the first steps, the retreat towards ignorance, 
 instead of the advance towards knowledge, will soon 
 become pretty quick ; till at last there would be one 
 mad rush from civilization to w? civilization. Then comes 
 the labour of the despot, who has been comparatively 
 idle while knowledge was labouring. There is no halt- 
 ing-place tlien ; and the mud and horse-beans of the 
 Pasha of Egypt will be the natural end, and the fit re- 
 ward, of such monstrous folly and wickedness. 
 
 No one, we suppose, desires to be sick instead of in 
 health, to live a short life instead of a long one. The 
 ])eople of England have gone on increasing very rapidly 
 during the last fifty years ; and the average length of 
 life has also gone on increasing in the same remarkable 
 manner. Men who have attended to subjects of political 
 economy have always been desirous to procure accurate 
 returns of the average duration of life at particular 
 ])laces. and they could prett}' well estimate the condition 
 of the people from these returns. Savages, it is well 
 known, are not long livers ; that is, although there may 
 ])e a few old people, the majority of savages die very 
 young. Why is this ? Many of the savage nations 
 that we know have much finer climates than our own ; 
 but then, on the other hand, they sustain privations 
 which the poorest man amongst us never leels. Their 
 supply of food is uncertain, they want clothing, they are 
 badly sheltered fi-om the weather, or not sheltered at 
 all, they undergo very severe labour when they are 
 labouring. From all these causes savages die young. Is 
 it not reasonable, therefore, to infer that if in any par- 
 ticular country the average duration of life goes on in- 
 creasing ; that is, if fewer people, in a given number and 
 a given time, die now than formerly, the condition of 
 that people is improved ; that they have more of the 
 necessaries and comforts of life, and labour less severely 
 to procure them ? Now let us see how the people of 
 England stand in this respect. The average mortality 
 in a year about a century ago was reckoned to be one in 
 thirty, and now it is one in forty-six. This result is,
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 191 
 
 doubtless, produced in some degree by improvement in 
 the science of medicine, and particularly by the use of 
 inoculation for the small-pox, and vaccination. But 
 making every allowance for these benefits, the fact fur- 
 nishes the most undeniable truth, that the people of 
 England are much better fed, clothed, and lodged than 
 they were a century ago, and that the labour which they 
 perform is far less severe. 
 
 The effect of continued violent bodily exertion upon 
 the duration of life might be illustrated by many in- 
 stances ; we shall mention one. The late Mr. Edge- 
 worth, in his Memoirs, repeatedl}^ speaks of a boatman 
 whom he knew at Lyons, as an old man. " His hair," 
 says Mr. Edgeworth, "was grey, his face wrinkled, his 
 back bent, and all his limbs and features had the appear- 
 ance of those of a man of sixty ; yet his real age was but 
 twenty-seven years. He told me that he was the oldest 
 boatman on the Rhone, that his younger brothers had 
 been worn out before they were twenty-five years old ; 
 such were the effects of the hardships to which they 
 were subject from the nature of their employment." 
 That employment was, by intense bodily exertion, and 
 with the daily chance of being upset, to pull a boat 
 across one of the most rapid rivers in the world, — ^ 
 
 " The swift and arrowy rthone," 
 
 as one of our poets calls it. How much happier would 
 these boatmen have been during their lives, and how 
 much longer would they have lived, could their labour 
 have been relieved by some mechanical contrivance ! and 
 without doubt, the same contrivance would have doubled 
 the number of the boatmen, by causing the passage to 
 be more used. As it was, they were few in number, 
 they lived only a few years, and the only gratification of 
 those few years was an inordinate stimulus of brandy. 
 This is the case in all trades where immense efforts of 
 bodily power are required. The exertion itself wears 
 out the people, and the dram, which gives a momentary 
 impulse to the exertion, wears them out still more. 
 The coal-heavers of London, healthy as they look, are
 
 192 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 but a short-lived people. The heavy loads which they 
 carry, and the quantity of liquor which they drink, both 
 together make sad havoc with them. 
 
 A^iolent bodily labour, in which the muscular power of 
 the body is unequally applied, generally produces some 
 peculiar disease. Nearly all the pressmen who were 
 accustomed to print newspapers of a large size, by hand, 
 were ruptured. The printing-machine now does the 
 same description of work. 
 
 What is the effect upon the condition of pressmen 
 generally by the introduction of the printing-machine to 
 do the heaviest labour of printing ? That the trade of 
 a pressman is daily becoming one more of skill than of 
 drudgery. At the sam.e time that the printing-machine 
 was invented, one of the principles of that machine, that 
 of inking the types with a roller instead of two large 
 cushions, called balls, was introduced into hand-printing. 
 The pressmen were delighted with this improvement. 
 "Ay," said they, ''this saves our labour; we are re- 
 lieved from the hard work of distributing the ink upon 
 the balls." What the roller did for the individual press- 
 man, the machine, which can only be beneficially applied 
 to rapid and to very heavy printing, does for the great 
 body of pressmen. It removes a certain portion of the 
 drudgery, which degraded the occupation, and rendered 
 it painful and injurious to health. We have seen two 
 pressmen working a daily ))aper against time ; it was 
 always necessary, before the introduction of the ma- 
 chines, to put an immense quantity of bodily energy into 
 the labour of working a newspaper, that it might be pub- 
 lished at the proper hour. Time, in this case, was 
 driving the pressmen as fast as the rapid stream drove 
 the boatmen of the Rhone ; and the speed with which 
 they worked v.as killing them as quickly. 
 
 If artisans, v.ho have generally the means of acquiring 
 knowledge, were to think as they ought to do upon the 
 benefits to their own particular trade of machines for 
 saving labour, we should never hear of combinations 
 against such machines. A reflecting being feels it a de- 
 gradation to be employed in unprqfitahle labour. Some
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 193 
 
 parishes, we understand, formerly set their paupers to 
 turn a grindstone, upon which nothing is ground ; and, 
 to their honour be it spoken, the poor people, in many 
 cases, would rather starve than submit to this ignoble 
 occupation. Even the unhappy persons at treadmills 
 feel additionally degraded when they turn the wheel 
 without an object ; they call it " grinding the wind.'* 
 Why are these people degraded by such occupations ? 
 Why do they consider their labour ignominious ? Be- 
 cause their labour has no results. Is it not equally igno- 
 minious when men would resolve, by suppressing ma- 
 chinery, to do that with a great deal of labour, which 
 would otherwise be done by a very little labour ? to 
 bind themselves to the wheel, when the wheel would do 
 the work without them ? — to labour, in fact, without 
 results from their labour,
 
 194 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 Working men, and other men who ought to know better, 
 have attempted to draw distinctions between ohl machines 
 and new niachines. As it is, the inventors of machines 
 generally go before their age ; and thus too many of 
 them have either starved or struggled for years with 
 want, because their own generation was not wise enough 
 to value the blessings which science and skill had pro- 
 vided for it. But if the ordinary difficulties of estab- 
 lishing a new invention, however valuable it might prove, 
 were to be increased by the folly which should say, we 
 will have no new machines at all, or at any rate, a ma- 
 chine shall become old before we will use it, there would 
 be an end to invention altogether. 
 
 Before the invention of the first stocking-machine, in 
 the year 1589, by William Lea, a clergyman, none but 
 the very rich wore stockings, and many of the most 
 wealthy went without stockings at all, their hose being 
 sewn together by the tailor, or their legs being covered 
 with bandages of cloth. William Lea made a pair of 
 stockings, by the frame, in the presence of King James 
 I. ; but such was the prejudice of those times, that he 
 could get no encouragement for his invention. His in- 
 vention was discountenanced, upon the plea that it would 
 deprive the industrious poor of tlieir subsistence. He 
 went to France, where he met with no better success, 
 and died at last of a broken heart. The great then could 
 discountenance an invention, because its application was 
 limited to themselves. Tliey only wore stockings : the 
 poor who made them had none to wear. Stockings were
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 195 
 
 p.ot cheap enough for the poor to wear, and therefore they 
 went without. Of the millions of people now in this 
 country, how few are without stockings ! What a mi- 
 serable exception to the comfort of the rest of the people 
 does it appear when we see a beggar in the streets with- 
 out stockings ! We consider such a person to be in the 
 lowest stages of want and sutfering. Two centuries ago, 
 uot one person in a thousand wore stockings ; — one cen- 
 tury ago, not one person in five hundred wore them ; — 
 now, not one person in a thousand is without them. 
 Who made this great change in the condition of the 
 people of England, and, indeed, of the people of almost 
 all civilized countries ? William Lea — who died at Paris 
 of a broken heart. And why did he die of grief and 
 penury ? Because the people of his own days were too 
 ignorant to accept the blessings he had prepared for 
 them. 
 
 We ask with confidence, had the terror of the stocking- 
 frame any real foundation ? Were any people thrown 
 out of employment by the stocking-frame ? 
 
 " The knitters in tlie sun, 
 And the free maids who weave their thread with bones," 
 
 as Shakspere describes the country lasses of his day, 
 had to change their employment ; but there was far more 
 employment for the makers of stockings, for then every 
 one began to wear stockings. 
 
 But suppose that the ignorance and prejudice which 
 prevailed at the time of James I. upon the subject of 
 machinery, had continued to the present day ; and that 
 not only the first stocking-frame of William Lea had 
 never been used, but that all machines employed in the 
 manufacture of hosiery had never been thought of; and 
 they could not have been thought of, if the first machines 
 had been put down. The greater number of us, in that 
 case, would have been without stockings. 
 
 But there would have been a greater evil than even this. 
 We might all have found substitutes for stockings, or have 
 gone without them. But the progress of ingenuity would 
 have been stopped. The inventive principle would have
 
 196 CAPITAL AND LABOUK. 
 
 been destroyed. Society must either go forward or bacK- 
 ward. There can be no halting place lor any long 
 period. If we had gone backward, we should not only 
 have lost stockings, but all the comforts — all the decen- 
 cies — all the elegancies — and, worse than these losses, all 
 the knowledge — which distinguish the civilised from the 
 uncivilised state. The same thing would happen now, if 
 the principle were admitted that new inventions, and new 
 machines, are evils, and not benefits. The stocking- 
 frame was once a neic machine, and, therefore, the court 
 discountenanced it. There are people at the present day 
 as ignorant as the court Mas then, who would discounte- 
 nance new machines, that, like the stocking-machine, 
 will some day be old. An engineer, who has contributed 
 largely to benefit society by his inventions, told the writer 
 of this book, in the latter part of 1830, that he had com- 
 pleted several machines which he considered of general 
 utility, but which he dared not bring forward in the state 
 of the popular feeling which then prevailed. If this 
 feeling were to prevail and to extend ; — if the brute force 
 which seeks to destroy machinery were not to be put 
 down by the power of the laws, and if the unwise preju- 
 dice which desires to repress it could not be conquered 
 by the power of reason — the glory and prosperity of this 
 country would be gone for ever. We should have reached 
 the end of our career of improvement. — We should begin 
 a backward race ; and it would remain for the inquiring 
 savages of such countries as New Zealand and Otaheite 
 to march forward. The night of the dark ages would 
 return to Europe. 
 
 Those who have not taken the trouble to witness, or 
 to inquire into, the processes by which they are sur- 
 rounded with the conveniences and comforts of civilised 
 life, can have no idea of the vast variety of ways in 
 which invention is at work to lessen the cost of produc- 
 tion. The people of India, who spin their cotton 
 wholly by hand, and weave their cloth in a rude loom, 
 would doubtless be astonished when they first saw the 
 effects of machinery, in the calico which is returned to 
 their own shores, made from the material brought from
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 197 
 
 their own shores, cheaper than they themselves could 
 make it. But their indolent habits would not permit 
 them to inquire how machinery produced this wonder. 
 There are many amongst us who only know that the 
 wool grows upon the sheep's back, and that it is con- 
 verted into a coat by labour and machinery. They do 
 not estimate the prodigious power of thought — the pa- 
 tient labour^ — the unceasing watchfulness — the frequent 
 disappointment — the uncertain profit — which many have 
 had to encounter in bringing this machinery to perfec- 
 tion. How few, even of the best informed, know that 
 in the cotton manufacture, which from its immense 
 amount possesses the means of rewarding the smallest 
 improvement, invention has been at work, and most suc- 
 cessfully, to make machines, that make machines, that 
 make the cotton thread ! There is a part of the ma- 
 chinery used in cotton-spinning called a reed. It con- 
 sists of a number of pieces of wire, set side by side in a 
 frame, resembling, as far as such things admit of com- 
 parison, a comb with two backs. These reeds are of 
 various lengths and degrees of fineness ; but they all 
 consist of cross pieces of wire, fastened at regular in- 
 tervals betw^een longitudinal pieces of split cane, into 
 which they are tied with waxed thread. A machine 
 now does the work of reed-making. The materials 
 enter the machine in the shape of two or three yards of 
 cane, and many yards of wire and thread ; and the ma- 
 chine cuts the wire, places each small piece with un- 
 failing regularity between the canes, twists the thread 
 round the cane with a knot that cannot slip, every time 
 a piece of wire is put in, and does several yards of this 
 extraordinary work in less time than we have taken to 
 write the description. There is another machine for 
 making a part of the machine for cotton spinning, even 
 more wonderful. The cotton wool is combed by cir- 
 cular cards of every degree of fineness ; and the card- 
 making machine, receiving only a supply of leather and 
 wire, does its own work without the aid of hands. It 
 punches the leather — cuts the wire — passes it through 
 the leather — clinches it behind, — and gives it the proper
 
 198 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 form of the tooth m front, — producing a complete card 
 of several feet in circumference in a wonderfully short 
 time. All men feel the benefit of such inventions, be- 
 cause they lessen the cost of production. The necessity 
 for them always precedes their use. There were not 
 reed-makers and card-makers enough in England to 
 supply the demands of the cotton machinery ; so inven- 
 tion went to work to see how machines could make ma- 
 chines ; and the consequent diminished cost of ma- 
 chinery has diminished the price of clothing. 
 
 Machinery enters into competition with human labour ; 
 and therefore there are some people who say — let us tax 
 machinery to support the labour which it supersedes. 
 The real meaning of this is — let us tax machinery, to 
 prevent cheapness of production, to discourage inven- 
 tion, and to interfere with a change from one mode of 
 labour to another mode. There are temporary incon- 
 veniences doubtless, in machinery, and there are partial 
 evils, which sometimes fall severely upon classes and 
 individuals. But it appears to us that any proposed 
 remedy for a temporary and partial evil, which has a 
 tendency to arrest the course of improvement, is a little 
 like the ancient wisdom of the Dutch market-woman, 
 who, when the one pannier of her ass is too heavily 
 laden with cabbages, puts a stone into the other pan- 
 nier, to make matters equal.
 
 CAPITAL A2sD LABOUR. 19^ 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Loud Bacon, the great master of practical wisdom, has 
 said that " the effort to extend the dominion of man 
 over nature is the most healthy and most noble of all 
 ambitions." — " The empire of man," he adds, " over 
 material things has for its only foundation the sciences 
 and the arts." A great deal of the knowledge which 
 constitutes this dominion has been the property of so- 
 ciety, handed down from the earliest ages. No one can 
 tell, for instance, how the art of leavening bread was 
 introduced amongst mankind ; and yet this process, now 
 so familiar to all, contributes as much as, if not more 
 than, any other art to the wholesome and agreeable 
 preparation of our food. Leavening bread is a branch 
 of chemistry; and, like that process, many other pro- 
 cesses of chemistry have been the common property of 
 civilized man from time immemorial. Within a few 
 centuries, however, science has applied its discoveries, 
 to the perfection of the arts ; and in proportion as ca~ 
 pital has been at hand to encourage science, has the 
 progress of the application been certain and rapid. The 
 old Alchemists, or hunters after the philosopher's stone, 
 sought to create capital by their discoveries. They 
 could not make gold, but they discovered certain prin- 
 ciples which have done as much for the creation of utility 
 in a few hundred years as the rude manual labour of all 
 mankind during the same period. Let it not be sup- 
 posed that we wish to depreciate manual labour. We 
 only wish to show that labour is incomparably more pro- 
 lific when directed by science. Mahomet Bey, the ruler
 
 200 CAPITAL AXD LABOUR. 
 
 of Tunis, was dethroned by his subjects. He was a 
 clever man, and had the reputation of possessing the 
 philosopher's stone, or the art of turning common metals 
 into gold. The Dey of Algiers restored him to his 
 throne upon condition that the secret should be com- 
 municated to him. Mahomet, with great pomp and so- 
 lemnity, sent the Dey of Algiers a plough. This was 
 so far well. He intimated that to compel production 
 by labour is to make a nation rich. But had he been 
 able to transmit some of the science which now controls 
 and guides the operations of the plough — the chemical 
 knowledge which teaches the proper application of ma- 
 nures to soils — the rotation of crops introduced by the 
 turnip-husbandry, which renders it unnecessary that the 
 ground should ever be idle, — he would have gone 
 farther towards comnmnicating the real philosopher's 
 stone. 
 
 The indirect influence, too, of a geneml advance in 
 knowledge upon the pai-ticular advance of any branch of 
 labour, is undeniable ; — for the inquiring spirit of an age 
 spreads itself on all sides, and improvement is carried 
 into the most obscure recesses, the darkest chinks and 
 corners of a nation. It has been wisely and beautifully 
 said, " We cannot reasonably expect that a piece of 
 woollen cloth will be wrought to perfection in a nation 
 which is ignorant of astronomy, or where ethics are ne- 
 glected."* The positive influence of science in the 
 direction of labour is chiefly exhibited in the operations 
 of mechanics and chemistry applied to the arts, in the 
 shape of machines for saving materials and labour, and 
 of processes for attaining the same economy. We have 
 described at great length the eftects of these manifold 
 inventions in the improvement of the condition both of 
 producers and consumers. But there are many particu- 
 lars in which knowledge has laboured, and is still laboui'- 
 ing, for the advance of the physical and moral condition 
 of us all, which may have escaped attention ; because 
 these labours operate remotely and indirectly, though 
 
 Hume's Essays.
 
 CAPITAL, AND LABOUR. 201 
 
 not without the highest ultimate certainty and efficiency, 
 in aiding the great business of production. These are 
 the influences of science upon labour, not so direct as 
 the mechanical skill which has contrived the steam- 
 engine, or so indirect as the operation of ethics upon the 
 manufacture of a piece of woollen cloth ; but which con- 
 fer a certain, and in some instances enormous benefit 
 upon production, by the operation of causes which, 
 upon a superficial view, appear to be only matters of 
 laborious but unprofitable speculation. If we succeed in 
 pointing out the extent and importance of those aids 
 which production derives from the labours of men who 
 have not been ordinarily classed amongst " working 
 men," but who have been truly the hardest and most 
 profitable workers which society has ever possessed, we 
 shall show what an intimate union subsists amongst those 
 classes of society who appear the most separated ; -and 
 that these men really labour with all most effectually in 
 the advancement of the great interests of mankind. 
 
 When Hume thought that a nation would be behind 
 in the manufacture of cloth that had not studied astro- 
 nomy, he perhaps did not mean to go the length of say- 
 ing, that the study of astronomy has a real influence in 
 making cloth cheaper, in lessening the cost of production, 
 and in therefore increasing the number of consumers. 
 But look at the direct influence of astronomy upon navi- 
 gation. A seaman, by the guidance of principles laid 
 down by the great minds that have directed their mathe- 
 matical powers to the study of astronomy — such minds 
 as those of Newton and La Place — measures the moon's 
 apparent distance from a particular star. He turns to a 
 page in the ' Nautical Almanac,' and, by a calculation, 
 directed principally by this table, can determine where- 
 about he is upon the broad ocean, although he may not 
 have seen land for three months. Sir John Herschel, 
 a mathematician of our own times, who has united to the 
 greatest scientific reputation the rare desire to make the 
 vast possessions of the world of science accessible to all, 
 has given, in his ' Discourse on the Study of Natural 
 Philosophy,' an instance of the accuracy of such lunar 
 
 K
 
 202 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 observations, in an account of a voyage of eight thousand 
 miles, by Captain Basil Hall, who, without a single land- 
 mark during eighty-nine days, ran his ship into the har- 
 bour of Rio as accurately, and with as little deviation, 
 as a coachman drives his stage into an inn-yard. But 
 what has this, it may be said, to do with the price of 
 clothing '? — Exactly this : part of the price arises from 
 the cost of transport. If there were no ' ' lunar distances " 
 in the ' Nautical Almanac,' the voyage from New York to 
 Liverpool might require three months instead of three 
 weeks. But go a step farther back in the influence of 
 science upon navigation. There was a time when ships 
 could hardly venture to leave the shore. In the days of 
 our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, a merchant who went three 
 times over sea with his own craft might become a thegn, 
 or nobleman. The honour thus bestowed was doubtless 
 to encourage persons of property to encounter an enter- 
 prise then held of great difficulty. Long after this early 
 period of England's navigation, voyages across the At- 
 lantic could never have been attempted. That was before 
 the invention of the mariner's compass ; but even after 
 that invention, when astronomy was not scientifically 
 applied to navigation, long voyages were considered in 
 the highest degree dangerous. The crews both of Vasco 
 de Gama, who discovered the passage to India, and of 
 Columbus, principally consisted of criminals, who were 
 pardoned on condition of undertaking a service of such 
 peril. The discovery of magnetism, however, changed 
 the whole principle of navigation, and raised seamanship 
 to a science. If the mariner '^s compass had not been in- 
 vented, America eould never have been discovered ; and 
 if America, and the passage to India by the Cape of 
 Good Hope, had never been discovered, cotton would 
 never have been brought to England ; and if cotton had 
 never been brought to England, we should have been as 
 badly off for clothing a& the people of the middle ages, 
 and the million of working men and women, manufac- 
 turers of cotton, would have been without employment. 
 
 Astronomy, therefore, and navigation, both sciences 
 the results of long ages of patient inquiry, have opened a
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 203 
 
 communication between the uttermost ends of the earth ; 
 and therefore have had a slow, but certain effect upon the 
 production of wealth, and the consequent diffusion of all 
 the necessaries, comforts, and conveniences of civilized 
 life. The connexion between manufactures and science, 
 practical commerce and abstract speculation, is so inti- 
 mate that it might be traced in a thousand striking in- 
 stances. Columbus, the discoverer of America, satisfied 
 his mind that the earth was round ; and when he had got 
 this abstract idea firmly in his head, he next became 
 satisfied that he should find a new continent by sailing 
 in a westerly course. The abstract notion which filled 
 the mind of Columbus that the earth was a sphere, ulti- 
 mately changed the condition of every living being in the 
 Old World that then existed, or has since existed. In 
 the year 1488, the first geographical maps and charts 
 that had been seen in England were brought hither by 
 the brother of the great Christopher Columbus. If these- 
 maps had not been constructed by the unceasing labours 
 of men in their closets, Columbus would never have 
 thought of discovering " the unknown land " which 
 occupied his whole soul. If the scanty knowledge of 
 geography which existed in the time of Columbus had 
 not received immense additions from the subsequent 
 labours of other students of geography, England would 
 not have twenty thousand merchant ships ready to trade 
 wherever men have anything to exchange, — that is, 
 wherever men are enabled to give of their abundance 
 for our abundance, each being immensely benefited by 
 the intercourse. A map now appears a common thing, 
 but it is impossible to overrate the extent of the accumu- 
 lated observations that go to make up a map. An al- 
 manac seems a common thing, but it is impossible to 
 overrate the prodigious accumulations of science that go 
 to make up an almanac. With these accumulations, it is 
 now no very difficult matter to construct a map or an 
 almanac. But if society could be deprived of the accu- 
 mulations, and we had to re-create and remodel every- 
 thing for the formation of our map and our almanac, it 
 would perhaps require many centuries before these 
 
 k2
 
 204 CAPITAL AND LABOLR. 
 
 accumulations could be built up again ; and all the arts 
 of life would go backward, for want of the guidance of 
 the principles of which the map and the almanac are the 
 interpreters for popular use. 
 
 Science, we see, connects distant regions, and renders 
 the world one great commercial market. Science is, 
 therefore, a chief instrument in the production of com- 
 mercial wealth. But we have a world beneath our feet 
 which science has only just now begun to explore. We 
 want fuel and metallic ore to be raised from the bowels 
 of the earth ; and, till within a very few years, we used 
 to dig at random when we desired to dig a mine, or con- 
 fided the outlay of thousands of pounds to be used in 
 digging, to some quack whose pretensions to knowledge 
 were even more deceptive than a reliance upon chance. 
 The science of geology, almost within the last quarter of 
 a century, has been able, upon certain principles, to 
 determine where coal especially can be found, by know- 
 ing in what strata of earth coal is formed ; and thus the 
 expense of digging through earth to search for coal, 
 when science would at once pronounce that no coal was 
 there, has been altogether withdrawn from the amount of 
 capital to be expended in the raising of coal. That this 
 saving has not been small, we may know from the fact, 
 that eighty thousand pounds were expended fruitlessly 
 in digging for coal at Bexhill, in Sussex, not many years 
 ago, which expense geology would have instantly pre- 
 vented ; and have thus accumulated capital, and given a 
 profitable stimulus to labour, by saving their waste. 
 
 Whatever diminishes the risk to life or health, in any 
 mechanical operation, or any exertion of bodily labour, 
 lessens the cost of [jroduction, by diminishing the pre- 
 mium which is charged by the producers to cover the 
 risk. The safety-lamp of Sir Humphry Davy, by di- 
 minishing the waste of human life employed in raising 
 coals, diminished the price of coals. The magnetic 
 mask, which ])revents iron-filings escaping down the 
 throats of grinders and polishers, and thus prevents the 
 consumption of the lungs, to which these trades are pecu- 
 liarly obnoxious, would diminish the price of steel goods,
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 205 
 
 if the workmen did not prefer receiving the premium in 
 the shape of higher wages, to the health and long life 
 which they would get, without the premium, by the use 
 of the mask. This is not wisdom on the part of the 
 workmen. But whether they are wise or not, the 
 natural and inevitable influence of the discovery, sooner 
 or later, to lessen the cost of production in that trade, by 
 lessening the risk of the labourers, must be established. 
 The lightning conductor of Franklin, which is used very 
 generally on the Continent, and almost universally in 
 shipping, diminishes the risk of property, in the same 
 way that the safety-lamp diminishes the risk of life ; 
 and, by this diminution, the rate of insurance is lessened, 
 and the cost of production therefore lessened. Lightning 
 is one of the destructive forces of Nature, in particular 
 cases, which science knows how to control. A few 
 years ago, all the timber in the Ilartz Forest in Germany 
 was destroyed by a species of beetle, which, gnawing 
 completely round the bark, prevented the sap from 
 rising. This destructive animal made its appearance in 
 England ; and science very soon discovered the cause of 
 the evil, and provided for its removal. If there had 
 been no knowledge of natin-al history here, not a tree 
 would have been left in our woods ; — and what then 
 would have been the cost of timber ? 
 
 It has been said by an American writer, who has pub- 
 lished several treatises well calculated to give the work- 
 man an elevated idea of his rights and duties, that the 
 " man who will go into a cotton-mill, — who will observe 
 the parts of the machinery, and the various processes of 
 the fabric, till he reaches the hydraulic press, with which 
 it is made into a bale, and the canal or railroad by which 
 it is sent to market, may find every branch of trade, and 
 every department of science, literally crossed, inter- 
 twined, interwoven with every other, like the woof and 
 the warp of the article manufactured."* This crossing 
 and intertwining of the abstract and practical sciences, 
 
 * ' Everett's Working Man's Party.' Printed in tlie Ame- 
 rican Library of Useful Knowledge, 1831.
 
 206 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 the mechanic skill and the manual labour, which are so 
 striking- in the manufacture of a piece of calico, prevail 
 throughout every department of industry in a highly 
 civilized community. Every one who labours at all 
 profitably, labours for the production of utility, and sets 
 in motion the labour of others. Look at the labour of 
 the medical profession. In the fourteenth century, John 
 de Gaddesden treated a son of Edward II. for the small- 
 pox, by wrapping him up in scarlet cloth, and hanging 
 scarlet curtains round his bed ; and, as a remedy for 
 epilepsy, the same physician carried his patients to 
 church to hear mass ! The medical art was so little 
 understood in those days, that the professors of medicine 
 had made no impression upon the understanding of the 
 people ; and they consequently trusted not to medicine, 
 but to vain charms, which superstitions the ignorance of 
 the practitioners themselves kept alive. Francis I., 
 King of France, having a persuasion that, because the 
 Jews were the most skilful physicians of that day, the 
 virtue was in the Jew, and not in the science which he 
 professed, sent to Charles V. of Spain for a Jewish phy- 
 sician ; but finding that the man who arrived had been 
 converted to Christianity, he refused to employ him, 
 thinking the virtue of healing had therefore departed 
 from him. A statute of Henry VIII. says, " For as 
 much as the science and cunning of physic and surgery 
 is daily within this realm exercised by a great multitude 
 of ignorant persons, of whom the greater part have no 
 insight in the same, nor in any other kind of learning : 
 some also con no letters on the book, so far forth, that 
 common artificers, as smiths, and weavers, and women, 
 boldly and accustomably, take upon them great cures, in 
 which they partly use sorcery and witchcraft, partly 
 apply such medicines to the disease as be very noxious, 
 and nothing meet, to the high displeasure of God, great 
 infamy to the faculty, and the grievous damage and 
 destruction of diverse of the king's people." When such 
 ignorance prevailed, diseases of the slightest kind must 
 have been very often fatal ; and the power of all men to 
 labour profitably must have been greatly diminished by
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 207 
 
 the ravages of sickness. These ravages are now checked 
 by medical science and medical labour. In some parts 
 of France, even now it is said, the sick cattle are taken 
 by the country people outside the churches to hoar mass. 
 If there were a skilful cattle-doctor in those villages, the 
 loss of stock would be doubtless lessened, and the people 
 would be all the richer for the cattle-doctor's art, instead 
 of degrading religion by a homage akin to the worst 
 idolatry. 
 
 But the principle of connecting every exertion of the 
 mind with profitable labour goes farther even than the 
 applications of science, direct or indirect, to the mecha- 
 nical arts. The sciences and arts cannot be carried for- 
 ward except in a country where the laws of God are 
 respected, where justice is upheld, where intellect gene- 
 rally is cultivated, and taste is diffused. The religious 
 and moral teacher, therefore, who lifts the mind to a 
 contemplation of the duties of man, as they are founded 
 upon a belief in the Providence of an all-wise and all- 
 powerful Creator, is a profitable labourer. The in- 
 structor of the young, M'ho dedicates his time to advanc- 
 ing the formation of right principles, and the acquire- 
 ment of sound knowledge, by his pupils, is a profitable 
 labourer. The writer who applies his understanding to 
 the discovery and dissemination of moral and political 
 truth, is a profitable labourer. The interpreter and ad- 
 ministrator of the laws, who upholds the reign of order 
 and security, defending the innocent, punishing the 
 guilty, and vindicating the rights of all from outrage and 
 oppression, is a profitable labourer. These labourers, 
 it may be said, are still direct producers of utility, but 
 that those who address themselves to the imagination — 
 the poets, the novelists, the painters, and the musicians, 
 — in every polished society, are unprofitable labourers. 
 One word is sufficient for an answer. These men ad- 
 vance the general intellect of a country, and they there- 
 fore indirectly advance the production of articles of ne- 
 cessity. We have already shown how the study of the 
 higher mathematics, upon which astronomy is founded, 
 has an influence upon the production of a piece of wool-
 
 208 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 leii cloth ; and we beg our readers to bear this connexion 
 in mind, when they hear it said, as they sometimes may, 
 that an abstract student, or an elegant writer, is not a 
 producer — is, in fact, an idler. The most illustrious 
 writers of every country, the great poets, 
 
 " High actions and high passions best describing," 
 
 have, next to the inspirations of religion, lifted mankind, 
 more than any other class of intellectual workmen, to 
 their noblest pursuits of knowledge and virtue. Even 
 the less dignified labourers in the same field, — those who 
 especially devote themselves to give pleasure and amuse- 
 ment, — call into action some of the highest and purest 
 sources of enjoyment. They lead the mind to seek its 
 recreations in more ennobling pursuits than those of sen- 
 suality ; their arts connect themselves by a thousand 
 associations with all that is beautiful in the natural 
 world ; they are as useful for the promotion of pure and 
 innocent delight, as the flowers that gladden us by their 
 beauty and fragrance by the side of the corn that nou- 
 rishes us. An entire community of poets and artists 
 would be as unprofitable as if an entire country were 
 dedicated to the cultivation of violets and roses ; but the 
 poets and the artists may, as the roses and the violets, 
 furnish the graces and ornaments of life, without injury, 
 and indeed with positive benefit, to the classes who more 
 especially dedicate themselves to what is somewhat ex- 
 clusively called the production of utility. The right 
 direction of the talents which are dedicated to art and 
 literature is all that is required from those who address 
 themselves to these pursuits. He, therefore, who be- 
 guiles a vacant hour of its tediousness, by some effort of 
 intellect which captivates the imagination without poi- 
 soning the morals, — and he who by the exercise of his 
 art produces forms of beauty which awaken in the mind 
 that principle of taste which, more than any other 
 faculty, requires cultivation, — have each bestowed bene- 
 fits upon the world which may be accurately enough 
 measured even by the severe limitations of political eco-
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUK. 209 
 
 nomy ; they are profitable labourers and benefactors of 
 their species. 
 
 We have entered into these details, principally to 
 show that there are other and higher producers in society 
 than the mere manual labourers. It was an ignorant 
 fashion amongst the mental labourers of other days to 
 despise the physical labourers. They have learnt to 
 know their value ; and there should be a reciprocal 
 knowledge. Both classes are working-classes. No one 
 can say that the mental labourers are not workers. 
 They are, we may truly affirm, taken as a class, the 
 hardest workers in the community. No one ever reached 
 eminence in these pursuits without unwearied industry : 
 the most eminent have been universally despisers of ease 
 and sloth, and have felt their highest pleasures in the 
 absorbing devotion of their entire minds to the duties of 
 their high calling. They have wooed Knowledge as a 
 mistress that could not be won without years of unwea- 
 ried assiduity. The most eminent, too, have been prac- 
 tical men, despising no inquiry, however trifling it 
 might appear to common eyes, and shrinking from no 
 occupation, however tedious, as long as it was con- 
 nected with their higher duties. The positive influence 
 even of the labours of the poets and the artists upon the 
 advance of other labour might be easily shown. In 
 their productions, especially, supply goes before demand, 
 and creates demand. It has been calculated by an 
 American writer, that the number of workmen who 
 have been set in action — paper-makers, printers, binders 
 — by the writings of Sir Walter Scott alone, in all 
 countries, would, if gathered together, form a commu- 
 nity that would fill a large town. The Potteries of 
 Etruria, in Staffordshire, could not have existed unless 
 Mr. Wedgwood had introduced into our manufacture of 
 china the foi-ms of Grecian art, bequeathed to us by the 
 taste of two thousand years ago, and thus created a 
 demand -which has furnished profitable labour to thou- 
 sands. But this, as we have already shown, is not the 
 principal way of viewing the influence of science, and 
 literature, and art, upon all other industry. To reduce 
 
 k3
 
 2J0 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 every labour in art, or literature, or science, to the same 
 standard of value by which manual labour is measured, 
 would be as absurd as the tasteless ignorance of the Spa- 
 niards, who applied a rare and valuable antique bust to 
 serve as the weight to a church clock. Any attempt to 
 put the mental labourers upon the same footing of value 
 as the labourers without skill, would be as impossible as 
 it would be mischievous if it were possible ; for in that 
 case production would decline, and ultimately cease alto- 
 gether, for the fountains of labour with skill would be 
 dried up. Capital must go forward working with accu- 
 mulation of knowledge ; and fortunately, if the working 
 men adapt themselves to this natural energy of capital, 
 they will themselves become the accumulators of know- 
 ledge. Manual labour is only in the highest degree re- 
 quired in the early settlement of a country. When a 
 dense population succeeds to a scattered one, labour with 
 skill is called into action. The counter-control to the 
 absorbing power of capital is the equally absorbing power 
 of skill— for that also is capital. Knowledge is power, 
 because knowledge is property.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUK. 211 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 In looking back upon the great power of capital working 
 with accumulation of knowledge, we cannot attempt to 
 shut our eyes to the fact that manual labour often suffers 
 for a time by the introduction of a more efficient instru- 
 ment of production. There are great temporary evils, 
 for instance, on the introduction of a new machine. But 
 in the consideration of such evils we must never forget 
 the principle which we have sought to impress through- 
 out this book, — that the object for which capital works 
 with skill, and the object which machinery effects, is 
 cheapness of production. Machines either save material, 
 or diminish labour, or both. '' Which is the cheapest," 
 said the Committee to Joseph Foster, ** a piece of goods 
 made by a power-loom, or a piece of goods made by a 
 hand-loom?" He answered, "A power-loom is the 
 cheapest." What, then, is the effect of this reduced cost 
 of production, ultimately, upon the employment of 
 labour ? That the manufacture is increased, — that more 
 cloth is consumed, — that the consumer has more money 
 to lay out in cloth, or more money to lay out in other 
 things. We have shown, most distinctly, the effect of 
 the spinning machinery in increasing twenty-fold the 
 number of people engaged in that branch of manufacture. 
 But let us put the circumstance in the words of a person 
 old enough to recollect the precise facts connected with 
 the first introduction of that machinery. The Committee 
 that we have so often mentioned examined Mr. Fielden, 
 M ho was then a resident at Blackburn, upon this parti- 
 cular subject.
 
 212 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 " Q. Do you remember what occurred in Lancashire 
 when spinning-factories were first established ? 
 
 A. I recollect that period very well. 
 
 Q. Were not a very considerable number of persons 
 thrown out of work, and was not there great distress, in 
 consequence of the introduction of machinery, when 
 spinning was done by machinery and not by hand- 
 labour ? 
 
 A. Yes, there was a great deal of distress, and much 
 rioting took place at the time. 
 
 Q. Persons who had formerly obtained a good living 
 by spinning by hand-labour, were unable to obtain the 
 same wages, and in the same manner, in consequence of 
 the introduction of spinning machinery ? 
 
 A. If the description of spinning that was carried on 
 in the neighbourhood of Blackburn is alluded to, that 
 which was done by the hand, the raw cotton was taken 
 out by the weaver, and spun in his own house, and the 
 change was productive of considerable inconvenience in 
 the first instance ; great alarm was created, and some 
 spinning-mills were destroyed at the time : many persons 
 were thrown out of employment ; but at that time the 
 manufacture of the kingdom was in a very limited state, 
 compared with what it is at present. 
 
 Q. Was not the result of the introduction of that ma- 
 chinery an immense increase of the manufacture ? 
 
 A. Very great. 
 
 Q. And more advantageous wages for a considerably 
 increased number ? 
 
 A. Yes, materially so." 
 
 It is, we think, self-evident, that if the temporary dis- 
 tress of the hand-spinners, which produced the rioting, 
 and the destruction of spinning-mills here described, had 
 gone on to prevent altogether the manufacture of cotton 
 thread by the spinning machinery, the consumption of 
 cotton cloth would have been little increased, and the 
 number of persons engaged in the manufacture would 
 have been twenty, thirty, or even forty times less than 
 the present number. But there would have been another 
 result. Would the great body of the people of Europe
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 213 
 
 have chosen to wear for many years dear cloth instead of 
 cheap cloth, that a few thousand spinners might have 
 been kept at their ancient wheels in Lancashire '? Capital 
 can easily shift its place, and invention follows where 
 capital g-oes before. The people of France, and Ger- 
 many, and America, would have employed the cheap 
 machine instead of the dear one ; and the people of 
 England would have had cheap cloth instead of dear 
 cloth from thence. We cannot build a wall of brass 
 round our islands ; and the thin walls of prohibitive 
 duties are very easily broken through. A profit of from 
 twenty to thirty per cent, will pour in any given quantity 
 of smuggled goods that a nation living under prohibitive 
 laws can demand. Buonaparte, in the height of his 
 power, passed the celebrated Berlin decree for the exclu- 
 sion of all English produce from the continent of Europe. 
 But our merchants laughed at him. The whole coast of 
 France, and Holland, and Italy, became one immense 
 receiving place for smuggled goods. If he had lined the 
 whole coast with all the six hundred thousand soldiers 
 that he marched to Russia, instead of a few custom-house 
 officers, he could not have stopped the introduction of 
 English produce. It was against the nature of things 
 that the people who had been accustomed to cheap goods 
 should buy dear ones ; or that they should go without 
 any article, whether of necessity or luxury, whose use 
 had become general. Mark, therefore, if the cotton- 
 spinners of Lancashire had triumphed sixty years ago 
 over Arkvi^right's machinery, there would not have been 
 a single man, woman, or child of those spinners employed 
 at all, within twenty years after that most fatal triumph. 
 The manufacture of cotton would have gone to other 
 countries ; cotton spinning in England would have been 
 at an end. The same thing would have happened if the 
 power-loom, thirty years ago, had been put down by 
 combination ; that is, if the hand-loom weavers had not 
 been as well-informed and as reasonable as we see they 
 are. Mr. Fielden, whose evidence we have already 
 quoted, says, " The introduction of the power-loom, I 
 conceive, will be the cause of saving the manufactures to
 
 214 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 this kingdom ; without the power-looms the manufac- 
 tories must be annihilated entirely, for the Americans are 
 making use of the power-loom." 
 
 Those who have taken a superficial view of the ques- 
 tion of machinery say, that, only whenever there is a 
 greater demand than the existing means can supply, every 
 new discovery in mechanics is a benefit to society, be- 
 cause it gives the means of satisfying the existing wants ; 
 but that, on the contrary, whenever the things produced 
 are sufficient for the consumers, the discovery is a cala- 
 mity, because it does not add to the enjoyments of the 
 consumers ; it only gives them a better market, which 
 better market is bought at the price of the existence of 
 the producers. 
 
 All such reasoning is false in principle, and unsup- 
 ported by experience. There is no such thing, nor, if 
 machines went on improving for five hundred years at 
 the rate they have done for the last century, could there 
 be any such thing, as a limit to the wants of the con- 
 sumers. The great mass of facts which we have brought 
 together in this book must have shown, that the cheaper 
 an article of necessity becomes, the more of it is used ; 
 that when the most pressing wants are supplied, and 
 supplied amply by cheapness, the consumer has money 
 to lay out upon new wants ; that when these new wants 
 are su])plied cheaply, he goes on again and again to other 
 new wants ; that there are no limits, in fact, to his wants 
 as long as he has any capital to satisfy them. Bear in 
 mind this ; that the first great object of every invention 
 and every improvement is to confer a benefit upon the 
 consumers, — to make the commodity cheap and plentiful. 
 The working man stands in a double character ; he is 
 both a producer and a consumer. But we will be bold 
 to say that the question of cheapness of production is a 
 much more important question to be decided in his favour 
 as a consumer, than the question of dearness of production 
 to be decided in his favour as a producer. The truth is, 
 every man tries to get as much as he can for his own 
 labour, and to pay as little as he can for the labour 
 of others. If a mechanic, succeeding in stopping the
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 215 
 
 machine used in his own trade, by any strange deviation 
 from the natural course of things were to get higher 
 wages for a time, he himself would be the most injured 
 by the extension of the principle. When he found his 
 loaf cost him two shillings instead of one ; when he was 
 obliged to go to the river with his bucket for his supply 
 of water ; when his coals cost a guinea a bushel instead 
 of eighteenpence ; when he was told by the hosier that 
 his worsted stockings were advanced from a shilling a 
 pair to five shillings ; when, in fact, the price of every 
 article that he uses should be doubled, trebled, and, in 
 nine cases out of ten, put beyond the possibility of attain- 
 ment ; — what, we ask, would be the use to him of his 
 advance in wages ? Let us never forget that it is not for 
 the employment of labourers, but for the benefit of con- 
 sumers, that labour is employed at all. The steam- 
 engines are not working in the coal-pits of Northumber- 
 land, and the ships sailing from the Tyne to the Thames, 
 to give employment to colliers and to sailors, but to make 
 coals cheap in London. If the people of London could 
 have the coals withoot the steam-engines and the ships, 
 it would be better for them, and better for the rest of the 
 world. If they could get coals for nothing, they would 
 have more produce to exchange for money to spend upon 
 other things ; and the comforts, therefore, of every one 
 of us would be increased. 
 
 This increase of comfort, some may say, is a question 
 that more affects the rich than it affects the great mass. 
 This again is a mistake. The whole tendency of the 
 improvements of the last four hundred years has not only 
 been to lift the meanest, in regard to a great many com- 
 forts, far above the condition of the rich four hundred 
 years ago, but absolutely to place them, in many things, 
 upon a level with the rich of their own day. They 
 are surrounded, as we have constantly shown through- 
 out this book, with an infinite number of comforts and 
 conveniences which had no existence two or three cen- 
 turies ago ; and those comforts and conveniences are not 
 used only by a few, but are within the reach of almost 
 all men. Every day is adding something to our comforts.
 
 216 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 Our houses are better built — our clothes are cheaper — 
 we have a number of domestic utensils, whose use even 
 was unknown to our ancestors — we can travel cheaply 
 from place to place, and not only travel at less expense, 
 but travel ten times quicker than the richest man could 
 travel two hundred years ago. The bulk of society is 
 not only advancins: steadily to the same level in point of 
 many comforts with the rich, but is gaining that know- 
 ledge which was formerly their exclusive possession. 
 Let all of us who are producers keep fast hold of that 
 last and best power. 
 
 We have endeavoured to show throughout this book 
 that the one great result of machinery, and of every im- 
 provement in art, is to lessen the cost of production ; to 
 increase the benefit to the consumer. But it is a most 
 fortunate arrangement of the social state, as we have also 
 shown, that cheap production gives increased employ- 
 ment. The same class of false reasoners who consider 
 that the wants of society are limited, cry out, it is better 
 to have a population of men than of steam-engines. That 
 might be true, if the steam-engines did put out the men ; 
 but inasmuch as they increase the productions by which 
 men are maintained, they increase the men. What has 
 increased the population of England nearly tenfold during 
 the last five hundred years, but the improvement of the 
 arts of life, which has enabled more men to live within 
 the land ? There is no truth so clear, that as the pro- 
 ductions of industry multiply, the means of acquiring 
 those productions multiply also. The productions which 
 are created by one producer furnish the means of pur- 
 chasing the productions created by another producer ; 
 and, in consequence of this double production, the neces- 
 sities of both the one and the other are better supplied. 
 The multiplication of produce multiplies the consumers 
 of produce. There are, probably, upon the average, no 
 more hats made in the year than there are heads to wear 
 them ; but as there are sixteen millions of heads of the 
 British subjects of Queen Victoria, and there were only 
 five millions of the British subjects of Queen Anne, it is 
 self-evident that the hat-makers have three times as much
 
 CAPITAL AKD LABOUR. 217 
 
 work as they had a century and a quarter ago. What has 
 given the hat-makers three times as much work ? The 
 trebling of the population. And what has trebled the 
 population ? The trebling of produce — the trebling of 
 the means of maintaining that population. 
 
 If the reader has rightly considered the various facts 
 which we have thus presented, he will long before this 
 have come to the conclusion, that it is for the general 
 interests of society that every invention, which has a 
 tendency to diminish the cost of production, shall have 
 the most perfect freedom to go forward. He will also 
 have perceived, that the exercise of this natural right, 
 this proud distinction, of man, to carry on the work of 
 improvement to the fullest extent of his capacity and 
 knowledge, can never be wholly stopped, however it 
 may be opposed. It may be suspended by the ignorance 
 of a government — it may be clamoured down by the 
 prejudice of a people ; but the living principle which is 
 in it can never be destroyed. To deny that this blessing, 
 as well as many other blessings which we enjoy, is not 
 productive of any particular evil, would be uncandid and 
 unwise. Every change produced by the substitution of 
 a perfect machine instead of an imperfect one, of a cheap 
 machine instead of a dear one, is an inconvenience to 
 those who have been associated with the imperfect and 
 the dear machines. It is a change that more or less 
 affects the interests of capitalists as well as of workmen. 
 In a conmiercial country, in a highly civilized commu- 
 nity, improvement is hourly producing some change 
 which affects some interests. Every new pattern which 
 is introduced in hardware deranges for a moment the in- 
 terests of the proprietors of the old moulds. Every 
 new' book, upon any specific subject upon which books 
 have formerly been written, lessens the value of the 
 copyright of those existing books. — What then ? Is 
 every improvement, which thus produces a slight partial 
 injury, to be discountenanced, because of this inevitable 
 condition which we find at every step in the march of 
 society ? Or rather, ought we not to feel that every im- 
 provement brings healing upon its wings, even to those
 
 218 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 for whom it is a momentary evil ; — that if" it displaces 
 their labour or their capital for a season, it gives new 
 springs to the general industry, and calls forth all labour 
 and all capital to higher and more successful exertions ? 
 At every advance which improvement makes, the par- 
 tial and temporary evils of improvement are more and 
 more lessened. In the early stages of social refinement, 
 •when a machine for greatly diminishing labour is for the 
 iirst time introduced, its effects in displacing labour for 
 an instant may be seen in the condition of great masses 
 of people. It is the first step which is the most trying. 
 Thus, when printing superseded the copiers of books 
 by writing, a large body of people were put out of em- 
 ploy ; — they had to seek new employ. It was the same 
 with the introduction of the spinning machinery, — the 
 same with the power-loom. It would be presumptuous 
 to say that no such great changes could again happen in 
 any of the principal branches of human industry ; but it 
 may be said, that the difficulty of introducing more ex- 
 peditious and cheaper modes of manufacture is daily 
 increasing. The more machines are multiplied, that is, 
 the more society approaches towards perfection, the less 
 room is there for those great inventions which change 
 the face of the world. We shall still go on improving, 
 doubtless ; but ingenuity will have a much narrower 
 range to work in. It may perfect the machines which 
 we have got, but it will invent fewer new machines. 
 And who can doubt, that the nearer we approach to this 
 state, the better will it be for the general condition of 
 mankind? Who can doubt whether, instead of a state 
 of society where the labourers were few and wretched, 
 wasting human strength, unaided by art, in labours which 
 could be better performed by wind, and water, and 
 steam, — by the screw and the lever, — it would not be 
 better to approach as nearly as we can to a state of so- 
 ciety where the labourers would be many and lightly 
 tasked, exerting human power in its noblest occupation, 
 that of giving a direction by its intelligence to the mere 
 physical power which it had conquered '? Surely, a na- 
 tion so advanced as to apply the labour of its people to
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUK. 219 
 
 occupations where a certain degree of intelligence was 
 required, leaving all that was purely mechanical to ma- 
 chines and to inferior animals, would produce for itself 
 the greatest number of articles of necessity and conve- 
 nience, of luxury and taste, at the cheapest cost. But 
 it would do more. It would have its population increas- 
 ing with the increase of those productions ; and that 
 population employed in those labours alone which could 
 not be carried on without that great power of man by 
 vv'hich he subdues all other power to his use, — his reason.
 
 220 CAPITAL AXD LABOUR. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 The reader will remember that when the fur-traders re- 
 fused to advance to John Tanner a supply of blankets 
 for his winter consumption, he applied himself to make 
 garments out of moose-skins. The skin was ready ma- 
 nufactured to his hands when he had killed and stripped 
 the moose ; but still the blanket brought from England 
 across the Atlantic was to him a cheaper and a better 
 article of clothing than the moose-skin which he had at 
 hand ; and he felt it a privation when the trader refused 
 it to him upon the accustomed credit. It never occurred 
 to him to think of manufacturing a blanket ; although he 
 was in some respects a manufacturer. He was a manu- 
 facturer of sugar, amongst the various trades which he 
 followed. He used to travel about the country till he 
 had found a grove of maple-trees ; and here he would 
 sit down for a month or two till he had extracted sugar 
 from the maples. Why did he not attempt to make 
 blankets ? He had not that Accumulated Knowledge, 
 and he did not work with that Division or Labour, which 
 are essential to the manufacture of blankets — both of 
 which principles are carried to their highest perfection 
 when caj)ital enables the manufacture of woollen cloth, 
 or any other article, to be carried forward upon a large 
 scale. 
 
 Let us endeavour to trace what accumulations of 
 skill, and especially what divisions of employment, were 
 necessary to enable Tanner to clothe himself with a piece 
 of woollen cloth. We shall not stop to inquire whether 
 the skill has produced the division of employment, or
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 221 
 
 the division of employment has produced the skill. It is 
 sufficient for us to show, that the two principles are in 
 joint operation, unitedly carrying forward the business 
 of production in the most profitable manner. It is 
 enough for us to know, that where there is no skill there 
 is no division of employment, and where there is no di- 
 vision of employment there is no skill. Skill and divi- 
 sion of employment are inseparably wedded. If they 
 could be separated, they would in their separation cease 
 to work profitably. They are kept together by the con- 
 stant energy of capital, devising the most profitable 
 direction lor labour. 
 
 Before a blanket can be made, we must have the ma- 
 terial for making a blanket. Tanner had not the mate- 
 rial, because he was not a cultivator. Before wool can 
 be grown there must be, as we have shown, appropria- 
 tion of land. When this appropriation takes place, the 
 owner of the land either cultivates it himself, which is 
 the earliest stage in the division of agricultural employ- 
 ment, — or he obtains a portion of the produce in the 
 shape of corn or cattle, or in a money payment. Hence 
 a tenantry. But the tenant, to manufacture wool at the 
 greatest advantage, must possess capital, and carry for- 
 ward the principle of the division of employment by 
 hiring labourers. We use the word mamifacture of wool 
 advisedly ; for all farming processes are manufacturing 
 processes, and invariably reduce themselves to change of 
 form, as all commercial processes reduce themselves to 
 change of place. If the capital of the farmer is suffi- 
 cient to enable him to farm upon a large scale, he divides 
 his labourers ; and one becomes a shepherd, one a plough- 
 man, — one sows the ground, and one washes and shears 
 the sheep, more skilfully than another. If he has a con- 
 siderable farm, he divides his land, also, upon the same 
 principle, and has pasture, and arable, and rotation of 
 crops. By these divisions he is enabled to manufacture 
 wool cheaper than the farmer upon a small scale, who 
 employs one man to do everything, and has not a proper 
 proportion of pasture and arable, or a due rotation of 
 crops. At every division of employment skill must be
 
 222 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 called forth in a higher perfection than when two or 
 more employments were joined together ; and that the 
 chief director of the skill, the capil^list himself, or far- 
 mer, must require more skill to make all the parts which 
 compose his manufactory work together harmoniously. 
 
 But we have new divisions of employment to trace 
 before the wool can be got to the manufacturer. These 
 employments are created by what may be called the 
 local division of labour. It is convenient to rear the 
 sheep upon the mountains of Wales, because there the 
 short and thymy pastures are fitted for the growth of 
 wool. It is convenient to manufacture the wool into 
 cloth at Leeds, because coals are there at hand to give 
 power to the steam-engines, with which the manufacture 
 is carried on. The farmer in Wales, and the manufac- 
 turer of cloth at Leeds, must be brought into connexion. 
 In the infancy of commerce one or both of them would 
 make a journey to establish this connexion ; but the cost 
 of that journey would add to the cost of the wool, and 
 therefore lessen the consumption of woollen cloth. The 
 division of employment goes on to the creation of a wool- 
 factor, or dealer in wool, who either purchases directly 
 from the grower, or sells to the manufacturer for a com- 
 mission from the grower. The grower, therefore, sends 
 the wool direct to the factor, whose business it is to find 
 out what manufacturer is in want of wool. If the factor 
 did not exist, the manufacturer would have to find out, 
 by a great deal of personal exertion, what farmer had 
 wool to sell ; or the farmer would have to find out, with 
 the same exertion, what manufacturer wanted to buy 
 wool. The factor receives a commission, which the 
 seller and buyer ultimately unite in paying. They co- 
 operate to establish a wool-factor, just as we all co-operate 
 to establish a postman ; and just as the postman who de- 
 livers a number of letters to a great many individuals, 
 does that service at little more cost to all, than each in- 
 dividual would pay for the delivery of a single letter, so 
 does the wool-factor exchange the wool between the 
 grower and the manufacturer, at little more cost to a large 
 number of the growers who employ him, than each
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 223 
 
 would be obliged to pay in expenses and loss of time to 
 travel from Wales to Leeds to sell his wool. 
 
 We have, however, a great many more divisions of 
 employment to follow out before the wool is conveyed 
 from Wales to Leeds. If the packs are taken on ship- 
 board, and carried down the Mersey to Liverpool, we 
 have all the variety of occupations, involving difterent 
 degrees of skill, which make up the life of a mariner ; 
 if they go forward upon the railroad to Manchester, we 
 have all the higher degrees of skill involved in their 
 transport which belong to the business of an engineer : 
 and if they finally reach Leeds by canal, we have another 
 division of labour that adjusts itself to the management 
 of boats in canals. But the ship, the railroad, the 
 canal, which are created by the necessity of transporting 
 commodities from place to place, have been formed after 
 the most laborious exercise of the highest science, work- 
 ing with the greatest mechanical skill ; and they exist 
 only through the energy of prodigious accumulations of 
 capital, thei growth of centuries of patient and painful 
 labour and economy. 
 
 We have at length the wool in a manufactory at 
 Leeds. The very employment of the circulating capital 
 which has brought it there has produced great division of 
 labour, engaged in carrying forward and maturing the 
 complicated operations of credit. We shall not dwell 
 upon the machinery by which the wool is converted 
 into cloth with the greatest saving of time and material, 
 and with a perfection which no labour of the hand, un- 
 assisted by science, could ever attain. W^e shall call 
 attention only to the great division of employments into 
 which the process of manufacturing wool into cloth has 
 branched, under the guidance of large capital, striving to 
 accomplish production at the cheapest rate. 
 
 The first class of persons who prepare the wool, are 
 the sorters and pickers. It is their business to separate 
 the fine from the coarse locks, so that each may be suited 
 to different fabrics. There is judgment required, which 
 could not exist without division of labour ; and the busi- 
 ness, too, must be done rapidly, or the cost of sorting
 
 224 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 and picking would outweigh the advantage. The second 
 principal operation is scouring. Here the men are con- 
 stantly employed in washing the wool, to free it from all 
 impurities. It is evident that the same man could not 
 profitably pass from the business of sorting to that of 
 scouring, and back again, — from dry work to wet, and 
 from wet to dry. When the wool is out of the hands of 
 the scourers it comes into those of the dyers, who colour 
 it with the various chemical agents applied to the manu- 
 facture. The carders next receive it, who tear it with 
 machines till it attains the requisite fineness. From the 
 carders it passes to the slubbers, who form it into tough 
 loose threads ; and thence to spinners, who make the 
 threads finer and stronger. There are sub-divisions of 
 employment which are not essential for us to notice, to 
 give an idea of the great division of employment, and 
 the consequent accumulation of peculiar skill, required 
 to prepare wool to be made into yarn, to be made into 
 woollen cloth. 
 
 The next stages in the manufacture are the spinning, 
 the warping, the sizing, and the weaving. These are 
 all distinct operations, and are all carried forward with 
 the most elaborate machinery, adapted to the division of 
 labour which it enforces, and by which it is enforced. 
 
 But there is a great deal still to be done before the 
 cloth is fit to be worn. The cloth, now woven, has to 
 be scoured as the wool was. There is a subsequent 
 process called burling, at which females are constantly 
 employed. The boiling and milling come next, in which 
 the cloth is again exposed to the action of water, and 
 beaten so as to give it toughness and consistency. 
 Dressers, called giggers, next take it in hand, who also 
 work with machinery upon the wet cloth. It has then 
 to be dried in houses where the temperature is some- 
 times as high as 130 degrees, and where the men work 
 almost naked. It is evident that the boilers and dressers 
 could not profitably work in the dry-houses ; and that 
 there must be division of employment to prevent those 
 sudden transitions which would destroy the human frame 
 much more quickly than a regular exposure to cold or
 
 CAIPITAL AND LABOUR. 225 
 
 heat, to damp or dryness. The cloth must be next 
 cropped or cut upon the face, to remove the shreds of 
 wool which deform the surface in every direction. 
 When cut, it has to be brushed dry by machinery, to 
 get out the croppings which remain in its texture. This 
 done, it is dyed in the shape of cloth, as it was formerly 
 dyed in the shape of wool. Then come a variety of pro- 
 cesses, to increase the delicacy of the fabric :— singeing, 
 by passing the cloth within a burning distance of red-hot 
 cylinders ; frizing, to raise a nap upon the cloth ; gloss- 
 ing, by carrying over it heavy heated plates of iron ; 
 pressing, in which operation of the press red-hot plates 
 are also employed ; and drawing, in which men, with 
 fine needles, draw up minute holes in the cloth when it 
 has passed through the last operation. Then comes the 
 packing ; and after all these processes it must be bought 
 by a wholesale dealer, and again by a retailer, before it 
 reaches the consumer. Between the growth of the fleece 
 of wool, and the completion of a coat by a skilful tailor, — 
 who, it is affirmed, puts five-and-twenty thousand stitches 
 into it, — what an infinite division of employments ! what 
 inventions of science ! what exercises of ingenuity ! what 
 unwearied application ! what painful, and too often un- 
 healthy labour ! And yet if men are to be clothed well 
 and cheaply, all these manifold processes are not in vain ; 
 and the individual injury in some branches of the employ 
 is not to be compared to the suffering that would ensue 
 if cloth were not made at all, or if it were made at such 
 a cost that the most wealthy only could aftbrd to wear it. 
 But for the accumulation of knowledge, and the division 
 of employments, engaged in the manufacture of cloth, 
 and set in operation by large capital, we should each be 
 obliged to be contented with a blanket such as John 
 Tanner desired ; and very few indeed would even obtain 
 that blanket: for if skill and division of labour were not 
 to go on in one branch, they would not go on in another, 
 and then we should have nothing to give in exchange for 
 the blanket. The individual injury to health, also, pro- 
 duced by the division of labour, is not so great, upon the 
 average, as if there were no division. All the returns 
 
 L
 
 226 CAPITAL AXD LABOUR. 
 
 of human life in this country show an extremely little 
 difference in the effect upon life, even of what we con- 
 sider the most unhealthy trades ; and this proceeds from 
 that extraordinary power of the human body to adapt 
 itself to a habit, however apparently injurious, which is 
 one of the most beautiful evidences of the compensating- 
 principle which prevails throughout the moral world.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 227' 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Having traced the operation of the division of labour, — 
 and one instance, such as that of the manufacture of 
 cloth, will do for an example of the wonders it effects, — 
 we may not improperly devote a few words to a view of 
 the influence of the great extension of the principle upon 
 the condition of the operatives. 
 
 In France, which, as a commercial and manufacturing 
 country, is considerably behind the advance of England, 
 it is a common practice, in many villages and small towns, 
 for the weavers to make the looms and other implements 
 of their trade. In the fifteenth century, in the same 
 country, before an apprentice could be admitted to the 
 privilege of a master-weaver, it Mas not only necessary 
 for him to prove that he understood his trade as a weaver, 
 but that he was able to constmct all the machines and 
 tools with which he carried on his craft. Those who 
 know anything of the business of weaving will very rea- 
 dily come to the conclusion that the apprentice of the 
 fifteenth century, whose skill was put to such a proof, 
 w^as both an indifferent weaver and an indifferent mecha- 
 nician ; — that in the attempt to unite two such opposite 
 trades, he must have excelled in neither ; — and that in 
 fact the regulation was one of those monstrous violations 
 of the freedom of industry, which our ancestors chose to 
 devise for the support of industry. 
 
 Carrying the principle of a division of labour to the 
 other extreme point, we have seen that a vast number of 
 persons are engaged in the manufacture of a piece of 
 cloth, who, if individually set to carry the workmanship 
 of that piece of cloth through all its stages, would be 
 
 l2
 
 228 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 utterly incompetent to produce it at all, much less to 
 produce it as durable and beautiful as the cloth which 
 we all daily consume. How would the sorter of the 
 w^ool, for example, know how to perform the business 
 of the scourer, or of the dyer, or of the carder ?— or the 
 carder that of the spinner or the weaver ? — or the weaver 
 that of the miller, or boiler, or dyer, or brusher, or cut- 
 ter, or presser ? We must be quite sure that, if any 
 arbitrary power or regulation, such as compelled the 
 weaver of the fifteenth century to make his own loom, 
 were, on the other hand, to compel a man engaged in any 
 one branch of the manufacture of woollen cloth to carry 
 that manufacture through all its stages, the production of 
 cloth would be utterly suspended ; and that the workmen 
 being incompetent to go on, the wages of the workmen 
 could no longer be paid : — for the wages of labour are 
 paid by the consumer of the products of labour, and here 
 there would be nothing to consume. 
 
 The great principle, therefore, which keeps the divi- 
 sion of labour in full activity is, that the principle is 
 necessary to production upon a scale that will maintain 
 the number of labourers engaged in working in the 
 cheapest, because most economical manner, through the 
 application of that mode of working. The labourers, 
 even if the principle were injurious to their individual 
 prosperity and happiness, which we think it is not, could 
 not dispense with the principle, because it is essential to 
 economical production ; and if dear production were to 
 take the place of economical production, there would be 
 a proportionately diminished demand for products, and 
 a proportionate diminution of the number of producers. 
 
 The same laws of necessity which render it impossible 
 for the working men to contend against the operation of 
 the division of labour, — even if it were desirable that 
 they should contend against it, as far as their individual 
 interests are concerned, — render it equally impossible 
 that they should contend against the operation of accu- 
 mulation of knowledge in the direction of their labour. 
 The mode in which accumulation of knowledge influences 
 the direction of their labour is, that it furnishes mecha-
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 229 
 
 nical and chemical aids to the capitalist for carrying on 
 the business of production. The abandonment of those 
 mechanical and chemical aids would suspend production, 
 and not in the slightest degree increase, but greatly di- 
 minish, and ultimately destroy, the power of manual 
 labour, seeking to work without those mechanical and 
 chemical aids. The abandonment of the division of la- 
 bour would work the same effects. There would be in- 
 comparably less produced on all sides ; and the workmen 
 on all sides, experiencing in their fullest extent the evils 
 which result from diminished production, would all fall 
 back in their condition, and day by day have less com- 
 mand of the necessaries and comforts of life, till they 
 sank into utter destitution. 
 
 We dwell principally on the effects of accumulation 
 of knowledge and division of labour on the w^orking man 
 as a consumer, because it is the immediate object of this 
 volume to consider such questions with reference to pro- 
 duction. But the condition of the working man as a 
 producer is, taking the average of all ranks of producers, 
 greatly advanced by the direction which capital gives to 
 labour, by calling in accumulation of knowledge and 
 division of labour. If the freedom of labour were not 
 established upon the same imperishable basis as the secu- 
 rity of property, we might, indeed, think that it was a 
 pitiable thing for a man to labour through life at one 
 occupation, and believe tliat it was debasing to the human 
 intellect and morals to make for ever the eye of a needle, 
 or raise a nap upon woollen cloth. The Hindoos, when 
 they instituted their castes^ which compelled a man to 
 follow, without a possibility of emerging from it, the 
 trade of his fathers, saw the general advantage of the 
 division of labour ; but they destroyed the principle 
 which could make it endurable to the individual. They 
 destroyed the Freedom of Industry. " To limit industry 
 or genius, and narrow the field of individual exertion by 
 any artificial means, is an injury to human nature of the 
 same kind as that brought on by a community of pos- 
 sessions. Where there is no stimulus to industry, things 
 are worst ; where industry is circumscribed, they cannot
 
 230 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 prosper ; and are then only in a healthy state, when 
 every avenue to personal advantage is open to every 
 talent and disposition. A state of equality is an instance 
 of the first case ; the division of the people into castes, 
 as among- the Ancient Egyptians, and still among the 
 Hindoos, of the second. This division has been con- 
 sidered by all intelligent travellers as one powerful cause 
 of the stationary character of the inhabitants of that 
 country : and the effect would have "been still more per- 
 nicious, if time or necessity had not introduced some re- 
 laxation into the rigorous restrictions originally esta- 
 blished, and so ancient as to be attributed to Siva. As 
 long, however, as the rule is generally adhered to, that 
 a man of a lower class is restricted from the business of 
 a higher class, so long, we may safely predict, India 
 will continue what it is in point of civilization. An ap- 
 proach to the same effect may be witnessed in the limita- 
 tion of honours, privileges, and immunities in some coun- 
 tries of Europe."* 
 
 When a man can pass from occupation to occupation, 
 as he is now allowed by the laws of this country to do, 
 and as he will be completely allowed when the rights of 
 industry are better understood by the votaries of industry, 
 the division of labour will not press severely upon any 
 man. In those manufactures and trades where the divi- 
 sion of labour is carried to the greatest extent, such as the 
 cotton and silk trades, workmen readily change from one 
 branch to the other, without molestation, and without 
 any great difficulty of adapting themselves to a new oc- 
 cupation. The simpler the process in which a workman 
 has been engaged — and every process is rendered more 
 simple by the division of labour — the easier the transi- 
 tion : and the principal quality which is required to make 
 the transition is, that stock of general knowledge which 
 the division of labour enables a man to attain ; and which, 
 in point of fact, is attained in much higher perfection in 
 a large manufactory, than in that rude state where one 
 man is more or less compelled to do everything for his 
 
 * Sumner's Records of the Creation.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 231 
 
 body, and therefore has no leisure to do anything for his 
 mind. There are evils, undoubtedly, in carrying the 
 division of labour to an extreme point ; but we think that 
 those very evils correct themselves, because they destroy 
 the great object of the principle, and give imperfect 
 instead of perfect production. The moral evils M'hich 
 some have dreaded may assuredly be corrected by gene- 
 ral education, and in fact are corrected by the union of 
 numbers in one employment. What sharpens the intel- 
 lect ought, undoubtedly, to elevate the morals ; and, in- 
 deed, it is only false knowledge which debases the morals. 
 Knowledge and virtue we believe are the closest allies ; 
 and wisdom is the fruit of knowledge and virtue. 
 
 The same principles as to the course which the divi- 
 sion of labour should lead the labourer to pursue, apply 
 to the higher occupations of industry. No man of learn- 
 ing has ever very greatly added to the stock of human 
 knowledge, without devoting himself, if not exclusively, 
 with something like an especial dedication of his time and 
 talents, to one branch of science or literature. In the 
 study of nature we have the mathematician, the astro- 
 nomer, the chemist, the botanist, the zoologist, and the 
 physician engaged, each in his different department. In 
 the exposition of moral and political truths, we have the 
 metaphysician, the theologian, the statesman, the lawyer, 
 occupied each in his peculiar study or profession. A 
 mental labourer, to excel in any one of these branches, 
 must know something of every other branch. He must 
 direct indeed the power of his mind to one department of 
 human knowledge ; but he cannot conquer that depart- 
 "raent without a general, and, in many respects, accurate 
 knowledge of every other department. The same prin- 
 ciple produces the same effects, whether applied to the 
 solution of the highest problem in geometry, or the 
 polishing of a pin. The division of labour must be regu- 
 lated by the acquisition of general knowledge. 
 
 But the division of labour in carrying forward the work 
 of production is invariably commanded, because it is 
 perfected, by the union of forces or co-operation. The 
 process of manufacturing a piece of woollen cloth, which
 
 232 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 we have described, is carried on by division of labour, 
 and by union of forces, working together. In fact, if 
 there were not that ultimate co-operation, the division of 
 labour would be not only less productive than labour 
 without division, but it would not be productive at all. 
 The power of large capital is the power which, as society 
 is arranged, compels this division of parts for the more 
 complete production of a whole. A large cloth manu- 
 factory, as we have seen, exhibits itself to the eye chiefly 
 in the division of labour ; but all that division ends in a 
 co-operation for the production of a piece of cloth. A 
 ship, with five hundred men on board, each engaged in 
 various duties and holding different ranks, is an example 
 of the division of labour; but the division ends in a co- 
 operation to carry the ship from one port to another, and, 
 if it be a ship of war, to defend it from the attacks of an 
 enemy. Those who would direct the principle of co- 
 operation into a ditlerent channel, by remodelling society 
 into large partnerships, do not, because they cannot, 
 depart, in the least degree, from the principles we have 
 laid down. They must have production, and therefore 
 they must have division of labour ; the division of labour 
 involves degrees of skill ; the whole requires to be carried 
 on with accumulation of former labour or capital, or it 
 could not exist. The only difference proposed is, that 
 the labourers shall be the capitalists, and that each shall 
 derive a share in the production, partly from what now is 
 represented as his profits as a capitalist, and partly from 
 what is represented as his wages as a labourer ; but that 
 all separate property shall be swallowed up in joint pro- 
 perty. But we mention this subject here to show that 
 even those who aspire to remodel society cannot change 
 the elements with which it is now constructed, and must 
 work with the same principles, however different may be 
 the names of those principles, and however varied in their 
 application. This is in favour even of the ultimate suc- 
 cess of the principles of co-operation, if they should be 
 found practically to work for the increase of the happi- 
 ness of mankind, which would not be effected by equal- 
 izing the distribution of wealth, if, at the same time, its
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 233 
 
 production were materially checked. This view of the 
 subject goes to show that no sudden or violent change is 
 necessary. In many things society has always acted on 
 the principles of co-operation. As civilization extends, 
 the number of instances has hitherto increased ; and if 
 there is no natural maximum to the adoption of these 
 principles (which remains to be seen), men may gradu- 
 ally slide more and more into them, and realize all sane 
 expectations, without any reconstruction of their social 
 system, — any pulling down and building up again of their 
 morals or their houses. 
 
 It is this union of forces which, whether it prevail in 
 a single manufactory, in a manufacturing town viewed in 
 connexion with that manufactory, in an agricultural dis- 
 trict viewed in connexion with a manufacturing town, in 
 a capital viewed in connexion with both, in a kingdom 
 viewed in connexion with all its parts, and in the whole 
 world viewed in connexion with particular kingdoms ; — 
 it is this union of forces which connects the humblest with 
 the highest in the production of utility. The poor lad 
 who tends sheep upon the downs, and the capitalist who 
 spends hundreds of thousands for carrying forward a pro- 
 cess to make the wool of these sheep into cloth, though 
 at different extremities of the scale, are each united for 
 the production of utility. The differences of power and 
 enjoyment (and the differences of enjoyment are much 
 less than appear upon the surface) between the shepherd 
 boy and the great cloth-manufacturer, are apparently 
 necessary for the end of enabling both the shepherd boy 
 and the capitalist to be fed, and clothed, and lodged, by 
 exchanges with other producers. They are also neces- 
 sary for keeping alive that universal, and, therefore, as it 
 would appear, natural desire for the improvement of our 
 condition, which, independently of the necessity for the 
 satisfaction of immediate wants, more or less influences 
 the industry of every civilized being as to the hopes of 
 the future. It is this union which constitutes the real 
 dignity of all useful employments, and may make the 
 poorest labourer feel that he is advancing the welfare of 
 mankind as well as the richest capitalist ; and that, stand- 
 
 l3
 
 234 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 ing upon the solid foundation of free exchange, the rights 
 of the one are as paramount as the rights of the other, 
 and that the rights of each have no control but the duties 
 of each. We believe that the interests of each are also 
 inseparably united, and that the causes which advance or 
 retard the prosperity of each are one and the same. We 
 have shown that capital and labour must work, to work 
 profitably, with interchangeable freedom and security ; 
 that w hen the security or the freedom of either is im- 
 peded, production languishes ; that in their union of 
 mutual freedom and security capital must of necessity 
 work upon the principles which best advance production, 
 and that therefore capital must work with machinery with 
 division of labour and accumulation of knowledge ; and, 
 finally, that when production is carried forward by these 
 powerful agencies, the situation of every consumer is bet- 
 tered, by the increased command of the necessaries and 
 comforts of life which cheap production places within his 
 reach. It remains for us to show the particular mode in 
 which capital, working with freedom and security, sti- 
 mulates production ; and therefore calls forth labour by 
 assuming a circulating form, which represents the con- 
 sumable commodities destined for the maintenance of 
 labour.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 235 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 There is one other element in the production of wealth 
 which we have incidentally noticed in various parts of 
 this volume, but which is such an essential ingredient in 
 the carrying forward exchanges, without which no wealth 
 can exist, that we must state its operations formally, to 
 arrive at a full knowledge of all the circumstances which 
 determine production. 
 
 When the prodigal, whose course we have described 
 in our fifth chapter, obtained an exchange of consumable 
 commodities for his labour, he received those commo- 
 dities in the shape of " a few pence and a small gratuity 
 of meat and drink." In this transaction we find the cir- 
 cumstances which represent every exchange of labour for 
 capital. The prodigal wanted meat and drink, and he 
 gave labour in exchange for meat and drink ; the capi- 
 talist wanted the produce of labour — he wanted a new 
 value bestowed upon his coals by labour — and he gave 
 meat and drink in exchange for the labour which the 
 prodigal had to give. But the prodigal wanted some- 
 thing beyond the meat and drink which was necessary 
 for the supply of the day. He had other immediate 
 necessities beyond food ; and he had determined to accu- 
 mulate capital. He therefore required " a few pence " 
 in addition to the " meat and drink." The capitalist held 
 that the labour performed had conferred a value upon his 
 property, which would be fairly exchanged for the pence 
 in addition to the food ; and he gave, therefore, in ex- 
 change, that portion of his capital which was represented 
 by the money and by the food. This blending of one
 
 236 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 sort of consumable commodity, and of the money which 
 represented any other consumable commodity which the 
 money could be exchanged with, was an accident arising 
 out of the peculiar circumstances in which the prodigal 
 happened to be placed. In ordinary cases he would have 
 received the money alone ; that is, he would have re- 
 ceived a larger sum of money to enable him to exchange 
 for meat and drink, instead of receiving them in direct 
 payment. It is clear, therefore, that as the money re- 
 presented one portion of the consumable commodities 
 which were ready to pay for the labour employed in 
 giving a new value to the coals, it might represent 
 another portion — the meat, for instance, without the 
 drink ; or it might represent all the consumable commo- 
 dities, meat, drink, lodging, clothes, fuel, which that 
 particular labourer might want ; and even represent the 
 accumulation which he might extract out of his self- 
 denial as to the amount of meat, drink, lodging, clothes, 
 and fuel which he might require as a consumer. 
 
 We have already mentioned that if the labourer, whose 
 story we have told, had received a portion of the coals 
 upon which he had conferred a new value in exchange 
 for the labour which produced that value, he would have 
 been paid in a way that would have naturally arisen out 
 of a rude state of society. But he would have been paid 
 in a way very unfavourable for production. It would 
 have required a new labour before the coals could have 
 procured him the meat, and drink, and lodging of which 
 he had an instant want ; and he therefore must have re- 
 ceived a larger portion of coals to compensate for his new 
 labour, or otherwise his labour must have been worse 
 paid. There would have been unprofitable labour, whose 
 loss must have fallen somewhere, — either upon the capi- 
 talist or the labourer in the first instance, but upon both 
 ultimately, because there would have been less production. 
 All the unprofitable labour employed in bringing the ex- 
 change of the first labour for capital to maturity, would 
 have been so much power withdrawn from the efficiency 
 of the next labour to be performed ; and therefore pro- 
 duction would have been impeded to the extent of that
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 237 
 
 unprofitable labour. The same thing would have hap- 
 pened if, advancing a step forward in the science of ex- 
 change, the labourer had received an entire payment in 
 meat and drink, instead of part meat and drink, and part 
 money. Wanting lodging, he would have had to seek 
 a person who wanted meat and drink in exchange for 
 lodging, before he could have obtained lodging. But he 
 had a few pence, — he had money. He had a commodity 
 to exchange that he might divide and sub-divide as long 
 as he pleased, whilst he was carrying on an exchange ; 
 that is, he might obtain as much lodging as he required 
 for an equivalent portion of his money. If he kept his 
 money, it would not injure by keeping as the food would. 
 He might carry it from place to place more easily than 
 he could carry the food. He would have a commodity 
 to exchange, whose value could not be made matter of 
 dispute, as the value of meat and drink would unques- 
 tionably have been. This commodity would represent 
 the same value, with little variation, whether he kept it 
 a day, or a week, or a month, or a year ; and therefore 
 would be the only commodity whose retention would 
 advance his design of accumulating capital, with certainty 
 and steadiness. It is evident that a commodity possess- 
 ing all these advantages must have some intrinsic qualities 
 which all exchangers would recognise — that it must be a 
 standard of value — at once a commodity possessing real 
 value, and a measure of all other values. This com- 
 modity exists in all commercial or exchanging nations in 
 the shape of coined metal. The metal itself possesses a 
 real value, which represents the labour employed in pro- 
 ducing it ; and, in the shape of coin, represents also a 
 measure of other value, because the value of the coin has 
 been determined by the sanction of some authority which 
 all admit. That authority is most conveniently expressed 
 by a Government, as the representative of the aggregate 
 power of society. The metal itself, unless in the shape 
 of coined money, would not represent a definite value ; 
 because the metal might be depreciated in value by the 
 admixture of baser or inferior metals, unless it bore the 
 impress of authority to determine its value. The ex-
 
 238 CAPITAL A>D LABOUR. 
 
 changers of the metal for other articles of utility could 
 not, without great loss of labour, be constantly employed 
 in reducing it to the test of value, even if they had the 
 knowledge requisite for so ascertaining its value. In 
 Greece, a piece of gold in the rude times was stamped 
 withr the figure of an ox, to indicate that it would ex- 
 change for an ox. In modern Europe, a piece of gold, 
 called a sovereign, represents a certain weight in gold 
 uncoined, and the Government stamp indicates its purity. 
 A sovereign purchases so many pounds weight of an ox, 
 and a whole ox purchases so many sovereigns. The 
 great use of the coined metal is to save labour in ex- 
 changing the ox for other commodities. The money 
 purchases the ox, and a portion of the ox again purchases 
 some other commodity, such as a loaf of bread from, the 
 baker, who obtains a portion of the ox through the me- 
 dium of the money, which is a standard of value between 
 the bread and the beef. 
 
 But there is another and a last step, in carrying forward 
 the business of exchange with ease to all exchangers, 
 and with consequently less labour and increased produc- 
 tion. That step is Credit. Credit, upon a large scale, 
 arose from the difficulty of transmitting coined money 
 rt"om j)lace to place, and particularly from one country 
 to another ; and hence the invention of bills of exchange. 
 A bill of exchange is an order by one person on another, 
 to pay to a specified j)erson, or his order, a sum of money 
 specified, at a certain time and a certain place. It is 
 evident that the bill of exchange travels as much more 
 conveniently than a bag of money, as the bag of money 
 travels more conveniently than the goods which it re- 
 presents. For instance, a box of hardware from Bir- 
 mingham might be exchanged for a case of wine from 
 Bourdeaux, by a direct barter between the tradesman at 
 Birmingham and the tradesman at Bourdeaux ; but this 
 sort of operation must be a very limited one. Through 
 the agency of merchants, the hardware finds its way to 
 Bourdeaux, and the wine to Birmingham, without any 
 direct exchange between either place, or without either 
 having more of the commodity wanted than is required
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 239 
 
 by the market, — that is, the supply proportioned to the 
 demand of each town. Through the division of labour, 
 the merchant who exports the hardware to Bourdeaux, 
 and the merchant who exports the wine from Bourdeaux, 
 are different people ; and there are other people engaged 
 in carrying on other transactions at and wath Bourdeaux, 
 with whom these merchants come in contact. When, 
 therefore, the merchant at Bourdeaux has to pay for the 
 hardware in England, he obtains a bill of exchange from 
 some other merchant who has to receive money from 
 England, for the wane which he has sent there. And 
 thus not only is there no direct barter between the 
 grower of the wine and the manufacturer of the hard- 
 ware, but the wine and the hardware are each paid for 
 without any direct remittance of coined money from 
 France to England, but by a transfer of the debt due 
 from one person to another in each country. By this 
 transfer, the transaction between the buyer and the seller 
 is at once brought to maturity ; and by this operation 
 the buyer and seller are each benefited, because the 
 exchange which each desires is rendered incomparably 
 more easy, because more speedy and complete. The 
 same principle applies to transactions between commercial 
 men in the same country. The order for payment, 
 which stands in the place of coined money in one case, 
 is called a Foreign bill of exchange ; in the other, an 
 Inland bill of exchange. 
 
 The operation of credit in a country whose industry is 
 in an advanced state of activity, is extended over all its 
 commercial transactions, by the necessity of obtaining 
 circulating capital for the carrying forward the produc- 
 tion of any commodity, from its first to its last stages. 
 A manufacturer has a large sum expended in workshops, 
 warehouses, machinery, tools. This is called his plant, 
 or fixed capital. He has capital invested also in the 
 raw material which he intends to convert into some article 
 of utility. He works up his raw material ; he makes 
 advances for the labour required in working it up. The 
 article is at length ready for the market. The wholesale 
 dealer, who purchases of the manufacturer, sells to a re-
 
 240 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 tailer, who is in the habit of buying upon credit, long or 
 short, because the article remains a certain time in his 
 hands before it reaches the consumer, who ultimately 
 pays for it. From the time when a fleece of wool is 
 taken from the sheep's back in Wales, till it is purchased 
 in the shape of a coat in London, there are extensive 
 outlays in every department, which could not be carried 
 on steadily unless there were facilities of credit from 
 one person concerned in the production to another per- 
 son concerned in the production, — the whole credit 
 being grounded upon the belief that the debt contracted 
 in so many stages will be repaid by the sale of the cloth 
 to the consumer. The larger operations of this credit 
 are represented by bills of exchange, or engagements to 
 pay at a given date ; and these bills being converted into 
 cash by a banker, furnish a constant supply of con- 
 sumable commodities to all parties concerned in advanc- 
 ing the production, till the produce arrives in the hands 
 of the consumer. To judge of the extent to which 
 credit is carried in this countiy, it is only necessary to 
 mention, that five millions sterling are daily paid in bills 
 and cheques by the London bankers alone. The credit, 
 imdoubtedly, if conducted upon fair principles, repre- 
 sents some capital actually in existence, and tlierefore 
 does not really add to the accumulation or capital of the 
 producers. But it enables men in trade at once to have 
 stock and circulating capital — to use their houses and 
 shops, and manufactories and implements ; and to give, 
 at the same time, a security to others upon that fix^d 
 capital. This process is, as it were, as if they coined 
 that fixed capital. The credit, which is rendered as 
 secure as possible in all its stages by the accumulating 
 securities of the drawer, acceptor, and endorsers of a 
 Bill of Exchange, brings capital into activity, — it carries 
 it directly to those channels in which it may be profitably 
 employed, — it conducts it to those channels by a system- 
 atic mode of payment for its use, which we call interest, 
 or discount ; — and it therefore cairies forward accumula- 
 tion to its highest point of productiveness. 
 
 If the reader will turn to the passage in our third
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 241 
 
 chapter, where Tanner describes the refusal of the 
 traders to give him credit, he will see how capital, ad- 
 vanced upon credit, sets industry in motion. The In- 
 dians had accumulated no store of skins to exchange for 
 the trader's store of guns, ammunition, traps, and blan- 
 kets. The trader, although he possessed the articles 
 which the Indians wanted, refused to advance them upon 
 the usual credit, and they were consequently as useless 
 to the Indians as if they had remained in a warehouse 
 at Liverpool or Glasgow. When the credit was taken 
 away from the Indians, they could no longer be ex- 
 changers. Their own necessities for clothing were too 
 urgent to enable them to turn their attention from that 
 supply to accumulate capital for exchange, after the 
 winter had passed away. They hunted only for them- 
 selves. The trader went without his skins, and the In- 
 dians without their blankets. Doubtless, the keenness 
 of commercial activity soon saw that this state of things 
 was injurious even to the more powerful party, for the 
 accustomed credit was presently restored to the Indians. 
 It was the only means by which that balance of power 
 could be quickly restored which would enable the par- 
 ties again to become exchangers. Every exchange pre- 
 supposes a certain equality in the exchangers ; and credit, 
 therefore, from the capitalist to the non-capitalist, must, 
 in many cases, be the first step towards any transaction 
 of mutual profit. If the Indians had adopted the reso- 
 lution of Tanner, to do without the blankets for the 
 winter, and had substituted the more imperfect clothing 
 of skins, — and if the traders had persevered in their 
 system of refusing credit, that is, of advancing capital, 
 — the exchange of furs must have been suspended, until, 
 by incessant industry and repeated self-denial, the In- 
 dians had become capitalists themselves. They pro- 
 bably, after a long series of laborious accumulations, 
 might have done without the credit — that is, have not 
 consumed the goods which they received before they 
 were in a condition to give their own goods as equiva- 
 lents ; and then, as it usually happens in the exchanges 
 of civilized society, they would have ensured a higher
 
 242 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 reward for their labour. The credit rendered the labour 
 of the Indians less severe, inasmuch as it allowed them 
 to work with the aid of the accumulations of others, in- 
 stead of with their own accumulations. But it doubt- 
 less gave the traders advantage, and justly so, in the 
 terms of the exchange. If the Indians had brought 
 their furs to the mart where the dealers had brought 
 their blankets, there would have been exchange of ca- 
 pital for capital. As the Indians had not accumulated 
 any furs, and were only hoping to accumulate, there 
 was, on the part of tlie white traders, an advance of a 
 present good ibr a remote equivalent. The traders had 
 doubtless suffered by the casualties which ])revented the 
 Indians completing their engagements. They made a 
 sudden, and therefore an unjust change in their system. 
 The forbearance of the Indians shows their respect for 
 the rights of property, and their consequent appreciation 
 of their own interests. They might, possessing the 
 physical superiority, have seized the blankets and am- 
 munition of the traders. If so, their exchanges would 
 liave been at an end ; the capital would have gone to 
 stimulate other industry ; the Indians would have 
 ripped up the goose with the golden eggs. 
 
 it is easy to see that the employment of capital, 
 through the agency of credit, in all the minute channels 
 of advanced commerce, must wholly depend upon the 
 faith which one man has in the stability and the honesty of 
 another ; and also upon the certainty of the protection 
 of the laws which establish security of property, to en- 
 force the fulfilment of the contract. It is of the highest 
 importance, therefore, for conmiercial men to maintain 
 their credit unimpeached, and to uphold, also, those laws 
 and institutions which enable credit generally to go for- 
 ward without obstruction. Commercial men know how 
 easily credit is destroyed by individual guilt or impru- 
 dence ; and how easily it is contracted, generally, by a 
 combination of circumstances over which an individual, 
 apart from a nation, has no control. The instant that 
 any circumstances take place which weaken the general 
 confidence in the security of property, credit is with-
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 243 
 
 drawn. The plant remains — the tools and warehouses 
 stand — the shops are open ; but production languishes — 
 labour is suspended. The stocks of consumable com- 
 modities for the maintenance of labour may still in part 
 exist, but they do not reach the labourer through the 
 usual channels. Then men say, and say truly, con- 
 fidence is shaken ; — the usual relations of society are 
 disturbed. Capital fences itself round with prudence — 
 hesitates to go on accumulating— refuses to put its ex- 
 istence in peril — withdraws in great part from pro- 
 duction — 
 
 ** Spreads its light wings, and in a moment flies."
 
 244 CAPITAL AND LABOUB. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 In looking back upon all the various circumstances 
 which we have exhibited as necessary for carrying in- 
 dustry to the greatest point of productiveness, we think 
 that we must have established satisfactorily that the two 
 great elements which concur in rendering labour in the 
 highest degree beneficial, are, 1st, the accumulated 
 results of past labour, and, 2nd, the contrivances by 
 which manual labour is assisted, — those contrivances 
 being derived from the accumulations of knowledge. 
 Capital and skill, therefore, are essential to the produc- 
 tive power of labour. The different degrees in which 
 each possesses capital and skill make the difference 
 between an English manufacturer and a North American 
 savage ; and the less striking gradations in the pro- 
 ductive power of the English manufacturer of the present 
 time, and the English manufacturer of five hundred 
 years ago, may be all resolved into the fact that the one 
 has at his command a very large amount of capital and 
 skill, and that the other could only command a very 
 small amount of the same great elements of production. 
 
 We think, also, that we have shown that the accumu- 
 lation of former labour in the shape of tangible wealth, 
 and the accumulation of former labour in the shape of 
 the no less real wealth of knowledge, are processes 
 which go on together, each supporting, directing, and 
 regulating the other. Knowledge is the ofl^spring of 
 some leisure resulting from a more easy supply of the 
 physical wants ; and that leisure cannot exist unless 
 capital exists ; which allows some men to live upon
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 245 
 
 former accumulations. Capital, therefore, may be said 
 to be the parent of skill, as capital and skill united are 
 the encouragers and directors of profitable labour. 
 
 We have shown, that the only foundation of accumu- 
 lation is security of property — we have shown too, that 
 labour is the most sacred of properties. It results, 
 therefore, that in any state of society in which the laws 
 did not equally protect the capitalist and the labourer as 
 free exchangers, each having the most absolute command 
 over his property, compatible with a due regard to the 
 rights of the other, — in such a state, where there was no 
 real freedom and no real security, there would be very 
 imperfect production ; and production being imperfect, 
 all men, the capitalists and the labourers, would be 
 equally destitute, weak, ignorant, and miserable. 
 
 When the great body of the people of a country are 
 so generally educated as to know that it is the interest 
 of the humblest and the poorest that property shall be 
 secure, there will be little occasion for fencing round 
 property with guards, against the secret violence of the 
 midnight robber, or the open daring of the noonday mob. 
 " It is an enlightened moral public sentiment that must 
 spread its wings over our dwellings, and plant a watch- 
 man at our doors."* A very little insecurity destroys 
 the working of capital. The cloth trade of Verviers, a 
 town in France, was utterly ruined, because the morals 
 of the people in the town were so bad, and the police so 
 ineflfectual, that the thefts in the various stages of the 
 manufacture amounted to eight per cent, upon the whole 
 quantity produced. The trade of the place, therefore, 
 was destroyed ; and the capital went to encourage labour 
 in places where the rights of property were better 
 respected. 
 
 But, generally speaking, the security of property is 
 not so much weakened by plunder, as by those incessant 
 contentions which harass the march of capital and labour ; 
 and keep up an irritation between the classes of the 
 capitalists and the labourers, who ought to be united in 
 
 * Everett's Address to the Working Man's Party.
 
 246 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 the most intimate compact for a common good. These 
 irritations most frequently exhibit themselves in the 
 shape of combinations for the advance of wages. We 
 have no hesitation in declaring our opinion that it is the 
 positive duty of the working-man to obtain as high wages 
 as he can extract out of the joint products of capital and 
 labour ; and that he has an equal right to unite with 
 other workmen in making as good a bargain as he can, 
 consistently with the rights of others, for his contribution 
 of industry to the business of production. But it is also 
 necessary for us to declare our conviction that, in too 
 many cases, the working men attempt an object which 
 no single exertion, and no union however formidable or 
 complete, can ever accomplish. They attempt to force 
 wages beyond the point at which they could be main- 
 tained, with reference to the demand for the article pro- 
 duced ; - and if they succeed they extinguish the demand, 
 and therefore extinguish the power of working at any 
 wages. They drive the demand, and therefore the 
 supply, into new channels ; — and they thrust out capital 
 from amongst them, to work in other places where it 
 can work with freedom and security. Above all, such 
 combinations, and the resistance which they call up, 
 have a tendency to loosen the bonds of mutual regard 
 which ought to subsist between capitalists and labourers. 
 Their real interests are one and the same. 
 
 All men are united in one bond of interests, and rights, 
 and duties ; and although each of us have particular in- 
 terests, the ])arts which we play in society are so fre- 
 quently changing, that under one aspect we have each an 
 interest contrary to that which we have under another 
 aspect. It is in this way that we find ourselves suddenly 
 bound closely with those against whom we thought our- 
 selves opposed a moment before ; and thus no class can 
 ever be said to be inimical to another class. In the 
 midst, too, of all these instantaneous conflicts and unions, 
 we are all interchangeably related in the double interest 
 of capitalists and consumers, — that is, we have each and 
 all an interest that property shall be respected, and that 
 production shall be carried forward to its utmost point of
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 247 
 
 perfection, so as to make its products accessible to all. 
 The power of production , in its greatest developments 
 of industry, is really addressed to the satisfaction of the 
 commonest wants. If production, as in despotic coun- 
 tries, were principally labouring- that some men might 
 wear cloth of gold whilst others went naked, then we 
 should say that production was exclusively for the rich 
 oppressor. But, thank God, the man who exclusively 
 wears " purple and fine linen every day" has ceased to 
 exist. The looms do not work for him alone, but for 
 the great mass of the people. It is to the staple articles 
 of consumption that the capitals of manufactures and 
 commerce address their employment. Their employ- 
 ment depends upon the ability of the great body of the 
 people to purchase what they produce. The courtiers 
 of the fifteenth century in France carried boxes of sugar- 
 plums in their pockets, which they offered to each other 
 as a constant compliment ; the courtiers of the next age 
 carried gingerbread in the same way ; and lastly, the 
 luxury of snuff drove out the sugar-plums and the gin- 
 gerbread. But the consumption of tobacco would never 
 have furnished employment to thousands, and a large 
 revenue to the state, if the use of snuff had rested with 
 the courtiers. The producers, consequently, having found 
 the largest, and therefore the most wealthy class of con- 
 sumers amongst the working men, care little whether 
 the Peer wears a silk or a velvet coat, so that the Peasant 
 has a clean shirt. When capital and labour work with 
 freedom and security, the wants of all are supplied, be- 
 cause there is cheap production. It is a bad state of 
 society where 
 
 " One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade." 
 
 Those who like the brocade may still wear it in a state 
 of things where the rights of industry are understood ; 
 but the rags, taking the average condition of the mem- 
 bers of society, are banished to the lands from which 
 capital is driven, — while those who labour with skill, 
 and therefore with capital, have decent clothes, comfort- 
 able dwellings, wholesome food, abundant fuel, medical
 
 248 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 aid in sickness, the comfort and amusement of books in 
 health. These goods, we have no hesitation in saying, 
 all depend upon the security of property ; and he that 
 would destroy that security by force or fraud is the real 
 destroyer of the comforts of those humbler classes whose 
 rights he pretends to advocate. 
 
 The principles which ue maintain, that the interests 
 of all men, and of the poorer classes especially, are 
 necessarily advanced in a constantly' increasing measure 
 by the increase of capital and skill, have been put so 
 strikingly by a philosophical writer, that we cannot for- 
 bear quoting so valuable an authority in support and 
 illustration of our opinions : — 
 
 " The advantages conferred by the augmentation of 
 our physical resources, through the medium of increased 
 knowledge and improved art, have this peculiar and re- 
 markable property, — that they are in their nature dif- 
 fusive, and cannot be enjoyed in any exclusive manner 
 by a few. An eastern despot may extort the riches 
 and monopolize the art of his subjects for his own per- 
 sonal use ; he may spread around him an unnatural 
 splendour and luxury, and stand in strange and prepos- 
 terous contrast with the general penury and discomfort 
 of his people ; he may glitter in jewels of gold and 
 raiment of needle-work ; but the wonders of well con- 
 trived and executed manufacture which we use daily, 
 and the comforts which have been invented, tried, and 
 improved upon by thousands, in every form of domestic 
 convenience, and for every ordinary purpose of life, 
 can never be enjoyed by him. To produce a state of 
 things in which the physical advantages of civilized life 
 can exist in a high degree, the stimulus of increasing 
 comforts and constantly elevated desires must have been 
 felt by millions ; since it is not in the power of a few 
 individuals to create that wide demand for useful and 
 ingenious applications, which alone can lead to great 
 and rapid improvements, unless backed by that arising 
 from the speedy diffusion of the same advantages among 
 the mass of mankind."* 
 
 * Herschel's Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosopliy.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 249 
 
 And, indeed, when we look at the operations of pro- 
 duction as connected with the comforts of the working 
 men of England, and generally with the comforts of 
 what are called the productive classes, let it not be for- 
 gotten that the accumulations of property in the hands 
 of these classes amount to an incomparably higher sum 
 than the accumulations of those who receive the revenues 
 of capital without employing it themselves. Who, then, 
 should desire the protection of property ? — who, in fact, 
 do desire it? In 1830 there were 280,356 persons re- 
 ceiving half-yearly payments as fundholders. Of these, 
 85,767 were entitled to dividends not exceeding 5/. each, 
 45,147 to dividends above 5/. and not exceeding 10/., 
 98,946 to dividends above 10/. and not exceeding 50/., 
 26,205 to dividends above 50/. and not exceeding 100/., 
 14,816 to dividends above 100/. and not exceeding 200/., 
 4523 to dividends above 200/. and not exceeding 300/., 
 2819 to dividends above 300/. and not exceeding 
 500/., and 2133 to dividends exceeding 500/. Thus, 
 256,065 people who are public fundholders receive 
 each an annual sum not exceeding 100/. a year from 
 these funds, M'hile not more than twenty-five thou- 
 sand persons are entitled to dividends above that sum. 
 By far the larger number of these fundholders, there- 
 fore, belong to the middle class. 
 
 But let us look a little farther as to the actual amount 
 of accumulated ca])ital, in the shape of money, in the 
 hands of the working classes. The capital invested in 
 1842, in the Savings Banks of the United Kingdom, 
 amounted to twenty-three millions six hundred and 
 ninety-three thousand pounds. This capital was the 
 property of eight hundred and seventy-four thousand 
 seven hundred and fifteen depositors. Of this number 
 only about one in fifteen held deposits above one hundred 
 pounds. There are thus above a million (1,061,361) of 
 people (including the fundholders under one hundred 
 pounds, with the depositors in the Savings Banks) who 
 cannot be pronounced rich in the common sense of the 
 word, but who have what is commonly called " a stake 
 in the country." But there are even additions still to 
 
 M
 
 250 CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 be made to the large number who have rnonied capital 
 invested in public securities. The capital of Friendly 
 Societies deposited in Savings Banks amounts to one 
 million one hundred and twenty-one thousand pounds ; 
 there are besides nearly four hundred Friendly Societies 
 whose investments amount to nearly one million five 
 hundred thousand pounds, and who have a direct ac- 
 count with the National Debt Commissioners ; and 
 thus, probably, half a million people, members of 
 Friendly Societies, in addition to the million of small 
 fundholders and other Savings Banks depositors, have 
 " a stake in the country." A stake in the country ! 
 Who has not a stake in the country '? The humblest 
 man who has shelter, and clothes, and food for a single 
 day, has a stake in the country ; because the stakes, the 
 " plants," of other men ensure that he shall have food 
 and clothes and shelter the next day; — that if misfor- 
 tune happen, he shall be maintained ; — and that, besides 
 this indirect interest in the stakes of others, he may ob- 
 tain by industry a positive stake himself — become a ca- 
 pitalist, and learn then, that labour and capital are not 
 natural enemies, but the real partners in the production 
 of riches and happiness. 
 
 LONDON: WILLIAM CLOWTLS AMD SONS, STAMFORD STREET.
 
 University of California 
 
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