UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Class 
 
 Book 
 
 WS9 
 
 Volume 
 

Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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 https://archive.org/details/workingmanscompaOOknig 
 

THE 
 
 WORKING-MAN’S COMPANION. 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 } I.— CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
COMMITTEE 
 
 Of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledg“e. 
 
 Chairman— K\gni Hon. the LORD CHANCELLOR. 
 Vice-Chairman— Ri. Hon. LORD JOHN RUSSELL, M.P. 
 Treasurer— WILLIAM TOOKE, Esq., F.R.S. 
 
 W. Allen, Esq. F.R. & R.A.S. 
 Rt. Hon. Vise. Althorp, M.P. 
 Rt. Hon. Vise. Ashley, M.P. . 
 
 F.R.A.S. 
 
 Rt. Hon. Lord Auckland. 
 
 W. B. Baring, Esq. 
 
 Capt. F. Beaufort, R.N. F.R. & 
 R.A.S. 
 
 C. Bell, Esq. F.R.S.L.&E. 
 
 The Right Rev. the Bishop of 
 Chichester, 
 
 John Conolly, M. D. 
 
 William Coulson, Esq. 
 
 Wm. Crawford, Esq. 
 
 J. Fred. Daniel, Esq. F.R.S. 
 
 Sir T. Denman, M. P. 
 
 Rt. Hon. Lord Dover, 
 Lieutenant Drummond, R. E., 
 F.R.A.S. 
 
 Viscount Ebrington, M. P. 
 
 John Elliotson, M.D., F.R.S. 
 
 T. F. Ellis, Esq. M.A.F., R.A.S. 
 How. Elphinstone, Esq. M.A. 
 Thomas Falconer, Esq. 
 
 I. L. Goldsmid,Esq.F.R.& R.A.S. 
 B.Gompertz, Esq., F.R. & R.A.S. 
 
 G. B. Greenough, Esq., F.R. 
 
 L. S. 
 
 H. Hallam, Esq. M.A., F.R.S. 
 M. D. Hill, Esq. 
 
 Rowland Hill, Esq., F.R.A.S. 
 Edwin Hill, Esq. 
 
 Sir J. Cam Hobhouse, Bt., M.P. 
 David Jardine, Esq., M.A. 
 
 Henry B. Ker, Esq. F.R.S 
 J. G. S. Lefevre, Esq., F.R.S. 
 Edward Lloyd, Esq., M. A. 
 James Loch, Esq., M.P., F.G.S. 
 George Long, Esq., M.A. 
 
 J. W. Lubbock, Esq. F.R., R.A. 
 & L.S.S. 
 
 Dr. Lushington, D.C.L., M.P. 
 Zachary Macaulay, Esq. 
 
 B. H. Malkin, Esq. M.A. 
 
 A. T. Malkin, Esq. M.A. 
 
 James Manning, Esq. 
 
 F. O. Martin, Esq. 
 
 John Herman Merivale, Esq. 
 F.A.S. 
 
 James Mill, Esq. 
 
 James Morrison, Esq. M.P. 
 
 Rt. Hon. Sir H. Parnell, Bart., 
 M. P. 
 
 Professor Pattison. 
 
 T. SpringRice,Esq.,M.P.,F.A.S. 
 Dr. Roget, Sec. R.S., F.R.A.S. 
 Sir M. A. Shee, P.R.A., F.R.S. 
 J. Smith, Esq., M.P. 
 
 Wm. Sturch, E.sq. 
 
 Dr. A. T. Thomson, F.L.S. 
 
 N. A. Vigors, Esq., F.R.S. 
 
 H. Warburton, Esq., M.P., 
 F.R.S. 
 
 H. Waymouth, Esq. 
 
 J. Whishaw, Esq., M.A., F.R.S. 
 Mr. Serjeant Wilde, M.P. 
 
 John Wrottesley, Esq., M.A., 
 Sec. R.A S. 
 
 THOMAS COATES, Secretary, 59, Lincoln’s Inn J^ields. 
 
UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE 
 DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. . 
 
 If 
 
 " 
 
 THE 
 
 \ 
 
 WORKING-MAN’S COMPANION. 
 
 THE 
 
 RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY: 
 
 ADDRESSED TO 
 
 THE WORKING-MEN OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 AUTHOR OF “ THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY.” 
 
 5 L— CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. 
 
 CAREY & HART— CHESTNUT STREET 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 CARTER, HENDEE, & BABCOCK. 
 
 1832. 
 


 THE 
 
 RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It has been wisely said by a French writer, 
 who has scattered abroad sound and foolish 
 opinions with a pretty equal hand, that “ it re- 
 quires a great deal of philosophy to observe 
 what is seen every day.”* To no branch of 
 human knowledge can this remark be more 
 fitly applied than to that which relates to the 
 commonest things of the world, — namely, the 
 Wants of Man and the Means of satisfying 
 them. Upon this subject we now propose to 
 address you. 
 
 Man, it has been maintained, has greater natu- 
 ral wants, and fewer natural means, than any 
 : other animal. That his wants are greater, even 
 
 , ^ in the rudest state of the species, than the 
 - wants of any quadruped — to say nothing of 
 ,{f) animals lower in the scale of being — there can 
 I P be no doubt. But that his natural means are 
 ^ L feebler and fewer we cannot believe ; for the 
 ^ exercise of his understanding, in a variety of 
 ^ ways which no brute intelligence can reach, 
 ci is the greatest of his natural means, — and that 
 
 * J. J. Rousseau. 
 
6 the rights of industry. 
 
 power enables him to subdue all things to his 
 use. 
 
 It is the almost unlimited extent of the wants 
 of man in the social state, and the consequent 
 multiplicity and complexity of his means — both 
 his wants and means proceeding from the range 
 of his mental faculties — which have rendered it 
 so difficult to observe and explain the laws which 
 govern the Production, Distribution, and Con- 
 sumption of those articles of utility, essential to 
 the subsistence and comfort of the human race, 
 which we call Wealth. It is not more than a 
 century ago that even those who had “ a great 
 deal of philosophy” first began to apply them- 
 selves “ to observe what is seen every day” ex- 
 ercising, in the course of human industry, the 
 greatest influence on the condition and charac- 
 ter of individuals and nations. The properties 
 of light were ascertained by Sir Isaac Newton 
 long before men were agreed upon the circum- 
 stances which determined the production of a 
 loaf of bread ; and the return of a comet after 
 an interval of seventy-six years was pretty ac- 
 curately foretold by Dr. Halley, when legisla- 
 tors were in almost complete ignorance of the 
 principle which regularly brought as many cab- 
 bages to Co vent Garden as there were purchas- 
 ers to demand them. 
 
 Since those days immense efforts have been 
 made to determine the great circumstances of 
 our social condition, which have such unbound- 
 ed influence on the welfare of mankind. But, 
 unhappily for themselves and for others, the 
 
THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 7 
 
 mass of every nation still remains in compar- 
 ative darkness, with regard even to the ele- 
 mentary truths which the labors of some of 
 the most acute and benevolent inquirers that 
 the world has produced have succeeded in 
 establishing. Something of this ignorance may 
 be attributed to the fact that little has yet been 
 written to inform the class to which you belong, 
 with respect to these subjects ; although a cor- 
 rect understanding of your rights and duties, 
 arising out of such information, is of the high- 
 est importance to the universal good of society. 
 Such a knowledge does not appear to us beyond 
 the range of your present desire for instruction, 
 or your capacity to receive it. “ In the highest 
 questions there is always a point of view in 
 which they may be presented to all the world.”* 
 The great principles of that science which is 
 generally known by the name of ‘Political 
 Economy’ ought, certainly, not to be sealed to 
 the understandings of those who are chiefly af- 
 fected by the operation of those principles — 
 those, namely, who obtain a living by their la- 
 bor. Matters aflecting the interests of every 
 human being, and involving a variety of facts 
 having relation to the condition of mankind in 
 every age and country, are not necessarily, as 
 has been supposed, dry and difficult to under- 
 stand, and consequently only to be approached 
 by systematic students. The interest w’ith 
 which many of you have perused a little book, 
 
 Madame de Stael. 
 
8 THE lilGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 ‘ The Results of Machinery/ which the author 
 of the present work some short time since ad- 
 dressed to you, and which may be considered 
 as a sort of introduction to the more extensive 
 subject of which we desire now to treat, shows 
 us that you have minds open to the reception of 
 such truths, and a due conviction of the neces- 
 sity of examining them with diligent attention. 
 We have now to exhibit to you the natural ope- 
 ration of the principles by which your Industry, 
 as well as every other exchangeable property, 
 must be governed. We have to apply all the 
 universal laws which regulate the exchanges of 
 mankind, to the direction of that exchange 
 which you are most interested in carrying for- 
 ward rapidly, certainly, and uninterruptedly — 
 the exchange of Labor for Capital. If we 
 sometimes appear obscure, it must be borne in 
 mind that we cannot forbear to employ a few 
 technical terms, which are indispensable to the 
 exact knowledge of every science ; and if we 
 sometimes seem tedious, it must also be consid- 
 ered that the truths which we endeavor to ex- 
 pound must be arrived at step by step by a 
 methodical progress. A little patience may 
 probably show you that the obscurity and tedi- 
 ousness are more imaginary than real. At any 
 rate we beg you to. believe that in all we shall 
 advance we shall be guided by a most earnest 
 desire to forward your true interests. We anx- 
 iously hope to teach you, as the practical de- 
 duction from all our statements, how to go for- 
 ward in the scale of comfort and respectability ; 
 
THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY, 9 
 
 —to show you how you may command a 
 larger share of the good things of life by the 
 exercise of the domestic and social virtues ; — to 
 prove to you that the only mode to escape from 
 the wretchedness and debasement by which too 
 many of you are borne down, is to raise the 
 standard of your moral feelings. — In a word, 
 we wish to exhibit to you your Rights in con- 
 nexion with your Duties, by proving to you that 
 the interests of every member of society, prop- 
 erly understood, are one and the same ; and 
 that the more you perfect in yourselves the 
 character of industrious, temperate, intelligent, 
 and orderly members of the community, the 
 more you will advance the interests of the great 
 nation of which you form so important a part, 
 — and the more you will succeed in obtaining a 
 full share of those national blessings which are 
 the invariable results of Security of Property 
 and Freedom of Industry, established in their 
 just relations to each other by equal laws. 
 Whatever is wanting to the perfection of that 
 balance must be won by your ow^n steady ad- 
 vancement in knowledge and virtue. 
 
10 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 § I.— CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Let us suppose a man brought up in civil- 
 ized life, cast upon a desert land — without 
 food, without clothes, without fire, without tools. 
 We see the human being in the. very lowest 
 state of helplessness. Whatever knowledge he 
 had acquired would be worse than useless; 
 for it would not be applicable in any way to 
 his new position. 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 condition of his lot, to enable him to 
 maintain existence at all, would be that he 
 should labor. He must labor to gather the 
 berries from the trees — he must labor to 
 obtain water from the rivulets — he must 
 labor to form a garment of leaves, or of 
 some equally accessible material, to shield his 
 body from the sun — he must labor to render 
 some cave or hollow tree, a secure place of 
 shelter from the dews of night. There would 
 be no intermission of the labor necessary to 
 provide a supply of food from hand to mouth, 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 11 
 
 even in the season when wild fruits were abun- 
 dant. If this labor, in the most favorable 
 season, were interrupted for a single day, or at 
 most for two or three 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. The labor of procuring 
 these would be infinitely greater than that of 
 climbing trees for fruit. To catch fish without 
 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 ac- 
 cumulation of former labor by which his present 
 labor might be profitably directed. The 'power 
 of labor would in his case be in its least pro- 
 ductive state. He would partly justify the 
 assertion that man has the feeblest natural 
 means of any animal ; — because he would be 
 utterly unpossessed of those means which the 
 reason of man has accumulated around every 
 individual in the social state. 
 
 We asked you to suppose a civilized man in 
 the very lowest state in Avhich the power of la- 
 bor may be exercised, because there is no re- 
 cord of any civilized man being for any length 
 of time in such a state. 
 
 Ross Cox, a Hudson’s Bay trader, whose 
 adventures have just been given to the world, 
 was in this state for a fortnight; and his suf- 
 ferings may furnish some idea of the greater 
 
12 THE RIGHTS OP INDUSTRY, 
 
 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 him- 
 self against the wolves and serpents but a 
 stick ; he had nothing 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 themselves of the spontaneous produc- 
 tions around them. But this is not an instance 
 of the continuance of Labor in the lowest state 
 of its power. 
 
 The few individuals, also, who have been 
 found exposed 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 thirty years since, 
 in France, — differed from the civilized man 
 cast naked upon a desert shore in this particu- 
 lar; their wants were of the lowest nature. 
 They 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 bread, but he ea- 
 gerly peeled green sticks, and chewed the rind. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 13 
 
 He had, doubtless, subsisted in this way in the 
 woods. He would not, at first, wear shoes, and 
 delighted to throw the hat which was given 
 him into the river. He was brought to Eng- 
 land, 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 suspicious character, 
 was sent to prison. The jail 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 
 purpose 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 carv- 
 ing, from a painting. This circumstance of the 
 low physical and intellectual powers of these 
 unfortunate persons prevents us exhibiting them 
 as examples of the state which we asked you to 
 suppose. 
 
 Let us advance another step in our view of 
 the power of Labor. Let us take a man in one 
 respect in the same condition that we supposed 
 — left upon a desert land, without any direct so- 
 cial aid ; but with some help to his labor 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 accident on the island of Juan Fernandez, in 
 the Pacific Ocean ; the English ship, in which 
 he was a sailor, having been chased off the 
 B 
 
14 the rights of industry. 
 
 coast by some hostile Spanisli 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 Spaniards, who knew he 
 was left on the island, yet they could never find 
 him. He was in the woods hunting for goats, 
 when Captain Watlin drew off 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 contrived 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 first in the fire, which he struck with his 
 gun-flint, and a piece of the barrel of his gun, 
 which he hardened; having learnt 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 labor, and harden 
 them to a good temper as there was occasion. 
 With such instruments as he made in that man- 
 ner, he got such provisions as the island afford- 
 ed, either goats or fish. He told us that at first 
 he was forced to eat seal, which is very ordinary 
 meat, before he had made hooks ; but after- 
 wards 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 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 15 
 
 barbecii of sticks, lying alone about two feet 
 distance from the ground, was spread with the 
 same, and was all his bedding. He had no 
 clothes left ; having worn 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 regular 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 labor profitably ? — ^to maintain ex- 
 istence in tolerable comfort? 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 pro- 
 curing 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 bu- 
 
16 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 man 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 accu- 
 mulation enabled him to direct his labor, as all 
 labor is directed even in its highest employment, 
 to the change of form, and change of place, of 
 the natural supplies by which he was surround- 
 ed. He created nothing; he only gave his 
 natural supplies a value by his labor. Until he 
 labored, the things about him had no value, as 
 far as he was concerned; when he did obtain 
 them by labor 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 
 beginning and end of all human labor ; and the 
 Moskito Indian only employed the same prin- 
 ciple for the supply of his wants, which directs 
 the labor 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 accumulation of former labor — 
 that is, of the man without any capital about 
 him — was only in the second stage in which 
 the power of labor can he exercised^ and in 
 which it is comparatively still weak and power- 
 less. He labored — he labored with accumula- 
 tion — but he labored without that other power 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 17 
 
 which gives the last and liighest direction to 
 profitable labor. 
 
 Let us place before you all the conditions ne- 
 cessary for the production of Utility, or of what 
 is essential to the support, comfort, and pleasure 
 of human life : — 
 
 1. That there shall be Labor • 
 
 The man thrown upon a desert island with- 
 out accumulation, — the half-idiot boy who wan- 
 dered into the German forests at so early an 
 age that he forgot all the usages of mankind, — 
 were each compelled to labor, and to labor un- 
 ceasingly, to maintain existence. Even with an 
 unbounded command of the spontaneous pro- 
 ductions 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 labor for the honey. The sloth 
 hangs upon the branches of a tree, but he labors 
 till he has devoured all the leaves, and then 
 climbs another tree. The condition of the sup- 
 port of animation is labor ; and if the labor of 
 all animals were miraculously suspended for a 
 season, very short as compared with the dura- 
 tion of individual life, the reign of animated na- 
 ture upon this globe would be at an end. 
 
 The second condition in the production of 
 utility is, 
 
 2. That there shall be accumulation of former 
 labor ^ or^ Capital, 
 
 Without accumulation, as we have seen, the 
 condition of man is the lowest in the scale of 
 B2 
 
18 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 animal existence. The reason is obvious. Man 
 requires some accumulation to aid his natural 
 powers of laboring ; for he is not provided with 
 instruments of labor to anything like the perfec- 
 tion in which they exist amongst the inferior 
 animals. He wants the gnawing teeth, the tear- 
 ing claws, the sharp bills, the solid mandibles, 
 that enable quadrupeds, and birds, and insects, 
 to secure their food, and to provide shelter in so 
 many ingenious ways, each leading us to admire 
 and reverence the directing Providence which 
 presides over such manifold contrivances. He 
 must, therefore, to work profitably, accumulate 
 instruments of work. But he must do more, 
 even in the unsocial state, where he is at perfect 
 liberty to direct his industry as he pleases, un- 
 controlled by the rights of other men. He 
 must accumulate stores of covering and of shel- 
 ter. He must have a hut, and a bed of skins, 
 which are all accumulations, or capital. He 
 must, farther, 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 fish- 
 ing 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 labor is extremely 
 limited. When a man is occupied only in pro- 
 viding immediately for his own wants- — doing 
 every thing for himself, consuming nothing but 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 19 
 
 what he produces himself, — his labor must have 
 a very narrow range. The supply of the 
 lowest necessities of our nature can only be at- 
 tended to, and these must be very ill supplied. 
 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 w^ho 
 would have been his competitors for what the 
 island spontaneously produced. Had other In- 
 dians 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 labor 
 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 j)rinciples of civilization 
 are in a certain degree developed. It is, indeed, 
 the beginning and the end of all civilization. It 
 is itself civilization, partial or complete. 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 accumu- 
 lation — there can be no accumulation without 
 labor. Exchange is that step beyond the con- 
 stant labor and the partial accumulation of the 
 
20 the rights of industry. 
 
 lower animals, which makes man the lord of 
 the world. 
 
 It requires to be noticed, in enumerating the 
 conditions necessary for the production of 
 utility, that Accumulation and Exchanges both 
 absolutely depend upon the principle, that there 
 shall he Property. We shall show you this in 
 the next chapter. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 21 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Society, both in its rudest form and in its 
 most refined and complicated relations, is nothing 
 but a system of Exchanges. An exchange is a 
 transaction in which both the parties who make 
 the exchange are benefited ; — and, consequent- 
 ly, society is a state presenting an uninter- 
 rupted succession of advantages for all its 
 members. Every time that you make a free 
 exchange, you have a greater desire for the 
 thing which you receive than for the thing 
 which you give; — and the person with whom 
 you make the exchange has a greater desire 
 for that which you offer him than for that 
 which he offers you. When you give your la- 
 bor for wages, it is because you have a higher 
 estimation of the wages, than of the profitless 
 ease and freedom of remaining unemployed; 
 — and, on the contrary, the employer who 
 purchases your labor, feels that he shall 
 be more benefited by the results of that la- 
 bor, 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 con- 
 sume himself, and that the other, in the same 
 
22 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 way, has got a greater store of wine ; — the one 
 exchanges something to eat for something 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 ex- 
 changes, the exchange between the abundance 
 beyond the wants of the possessor of one com- 
 modity, and of another, is just as real as the 
 barter of wheat for wine. The only difference 
 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 deter- 
 mined 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. Manifest 
 as this truth is in our own days, and self-evident 
 as it ought to have been in any state of society, 
 we are only just beginning to understand and 
 to act upon the principle. It is about two 
 centuries and a half ago since Montaigne 
 wrote an essay to show that “ the profit of one 
 man is the inconvenience of another but the 
 doctrine is still current amongst mankind. All 
 such errors, whether they apply to the ex- 
 changes of individuals or nations, have been 
 founded upon the false notion that there are no 
 riches but money ; — that gold and silver, in- 
 stead of being the means of more readily carry- 
 ing on the exchanges of objects of real utility, 
 are the end of all exchange ; — and that na- 
 tional prosperity, therefore, consists in obtaining 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 23 
 
 and keeping the precious metals. The world is 
 gradually undeceiving itself, and recovering 
 from the influence of this mistake, which has 
 so long impeded the progress of general pros- 
 perity. 
 
 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 so- 
 cial ; that is, they concur together in the 
 execution of a common work for a common 
 good : but as to their individual possessions, 
 each labors to obtain what it desires, from 
 sources accessible to all, or plunders the stores 
 of others. Not one insect or quadruped, how- 
 ever wonderful may be its approaches to ra- 
 tionality, has the least idea of making a formal 
 exchange with another. The modes by which 
 the inferior animals communicate their thoughts 
 arc probably not sufficiently determinate to al- 
 low of any such agreement. The very founda- 
 tion of that agreement is a complicated prin- 
 ciple, which man alone can understand. It 
 is the Security of individual Property. Im- 
 mediately that this principle is established, 
 labor begins to work profitably, for it works 
 with exchange. If the principle of appro- 
 priation were not acted upon at all, there 
 could be no exchange, and consequently no 
 production. The scanty bounty of nature 
 
 Dr. Whately’s Lectures on Political Economy, 
 
24 the rights of industry. 
 
 might be scrambled for by a few miserable 
 individuals — and the strongest would obtain 
 the best share ; but this insecurity would neces- 
 sarily 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 
 security, no exchange, no capital, no labor, 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 supposed to be written by 
 j\.lexander Selkirk during his solitary abode in 
 the island of Juan Fernandez,” represents him 
 as saying, ‘‘ I am monarch of all I survey.” ^ 
 Alexander Selkirk was left upon the same 
 island as the Moskito Indian ; and his adven- 
 tures there have forrped the ground-work 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. He was, in truth, the one proprietor — 
 
 Cowper’s Miscellaneous Poems. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 25 
 
 the one capitalist, and the one laborer — of 
 the whole island. His absolute property 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, Sel- 
 kirk’s entire sovereignty must have been in- 
 stantly at an end. Some more definite prin- 
 ciple of appropriation must have been estab- 
 lished, 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 him- 
 self on the western ; — 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 knife, the mathematical instru- 
 ments, and the bible, which he brought on 
 shore.* If the Indian’s territory had produced 
 something which Selkirk had not, and if Sel- 
 kirk’s land had also something which the In- 
 dian’s had not, they might have become ex- 
 changers. They would have passed into that 
 condition naturally enough ; — imperfectly per- 
 haps, but still as easily as any barbarous peo- 
 ple who do not cultivate the earth, but ex- 
 change her spontaneous products. 
 
 * These circumstances are recorded in Captain Woodes 
 Rogers’ Cruising Voyage round the World, 1712. 
 
26 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 The poet goes on to make the solitary man 
 say, “ My right there is none to dispute.” The 
 condition of Alexander Selkirk was unquestion- 
 ably one of absolute liberty. His rights were 
 not measured by his duties. He had all rights 
 and no duties. Many writers on the origin of 
 society have held that man, upon entering into 
 union with his fellow-men, and submitting, as 
 a necessary consequence of this union, to the 
 restraints of law and government, sacrifices 
 a portion of his liberty, or natural power, 
 for the security of that power which remains 
 to him. No such agreement amongst man- 
 kind 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 uncontrolla- 
 ble force of their relation to the rights of 
 others. The succor 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, es- 
 tablished 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 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 27 
 
 the monarch of all he surveys. 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 excep- 
 tion, and a very rare one, to the condition of 
 our species all over the world. His absolute 
 rights placed him in the condition of uncon- 
 trolled feebleness ; if he had become social, he 
 would have put on the regulated strength of 
 rights balanced by duties. 
 
 Alexander Selkirk was originally left upon 
 the uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez at 
 his own urgent desire. He was unhappy on 
 board his ship, in consequence of disputes with 
 his captain ; and he resolved 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 de- 
 voted all his labor and all his ingenuity to the 
 satisfaction of his own wants alone. By con- 
 tinual exercise, he was enabled to run down 
 the wild goat upon the mountains ; and by 
 persevering search, he knew where to find the 
 native roots that would render his goats’ flesh 
 palatable. He never thought, however, of pro- 
 viding any store beyond the supply of his own 
 personal necessities. He had no motive for 
 that thought ; because there was no human be- 
 ing within his reach with whom he might ex- 
 change that store for other stores. The very 
 instant, however, that the English ships, which 
 finally gave him back to society, touched upon 
 his shores, — before he communicated by speech 
 
28 the rights of industry. 
 
 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 pre- 
 pared a meal for his expected guests. He 
 knew that he possessed a commodity which 
 they did not possess. He had fresh meat, 
 whilst they had only salt. Of course, what he 
 had to offer was acceptable to the sailors ; and 
 he received in exchange protection, and a place 
 amongst them. He renounced his sovereignty, 
 and became 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 upon his island, as in after-years 
 he regretted he had not done, although a 
 solitary man, he would not have been alto- 
 gether 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 do- 
 minion : give me in exchange for them a fresh 
 supply of gunpowder and shot, some of your 
 clothes, some of the means of repairing these 
 clothes, some of your tools and implements of 
 cookery, and more of your books to divert my 
 solitary hours.” Having enjoyed the ben- 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 29 
 
 efits which he had bestowed, they would, as 
 just men, have paid the debt which 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. He had 
 fashioned and furnished it as well as he could 
 by his own labor, working upon his own 
 materials. The visit which he had received 
 from his fellow-men, after he had abandoned 
 every hope of again looking upon their faces, 
 would have led him to think that other ships 
 would come, with whom he might make other 
 exchanges, — new clothes, new tools, new ma- 
 terials, received as the price of his own ac- 
 cumulations. To make the best of his circum- 
 stances when that day should arrive, he must 
 redouble his efforts to increase his stock of 
 commodities, — some for himself, and some to 
 exchange for other commodities, if the oppor- 
 tunity for exchange should ever come. He 
 must therefore transplant his vegetables, so as 
 to be within instant reach when they should 
 be wanted. He must render his goats do- 
 mestic, instead of chasing them upon the hills. 
 He must go forward from the hunting state, 
 into the pastoral and agricultural. 
 
 All this particular course of improvement, 
 however, supposes that Selkirk should con- 
 tinue in his state of exclusive proprietor — 
 that there should be none to dispute his 
 right. If other ships had come to his shores 
 
 a 2 
 
30 the rights of industry. 
 
 — if they had trafficked with him from time 
 to time — exchanged clothes and household 
 conveniences, and implements of cultivation, 
 for his goats’ flesh and roots — it is probable 
 that other sailors would in time have de- 
 sired to partake his plenty ; — that a colony 
 would have been founded — that the island would 
 have become populous. It is perfectly clear 
 that, whether for exchange amongst themselves, 
 or for exchange with others, the members of thijj 
 colony could not have stirred a step in the cul- 
 tivation of the land without appropriating its 
 produce ; — and they could not have appropriated 
 its produce without 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 
 partnership would not have lasted a day, unless 
 each man’s share of what the partnership pro- 
 duced had been rendered perfectly secure to him. 
 Without security they could not have accumu- 
 lated — without accumulations they could not 
 have exchanged — without exchanges they could 
 could not have carried forward their labors with 
 any compensating productiveness. 
 
 Imperfect appropriation — that is, an appropria- 
 tion which respects personal wealth, such as the 
 tools and conveniences of an individual, and even 
 secures to him the fruits of the earth when ho 
 has gathered them, but which has not reached 
 the last step of a division of land — imperfect ap- 
 propriation such as this raises up the same in- 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 31 
 
 Vincible obstacles to the production of utility ; — 
 because with this original defect there must ne- 
 cessarily be, unprofitable labor, small accumu- 
 lation, 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 himself, although he may have 
 the most unbounded command of natural sup- 
 plies — although not an atom of those natural 
 supplies, whether produced by the earth or the 
 water, is appropriated by others — when, in fact, 
 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 asso- 
 ciation with his fellow-men ; but carrying on 
 that association in the rude and unproductive re- 
 lations of savage life ; — not desiring to “ replen- 
 ish the earth” by cultivation, but seeking only to 
 appropriate the means of existence which it has 
 spontaneously produced ; — laboring, indeed, and 
 exchanging, but not laboring and exchanging in 
 a way that will permit the accumulation of 
 wealth, and therefore remaining poor and misera- 
 ble. We are not about to draw any fanciful 
 picture, but merely to select some lacts from a 
 real narrative, which is very little known in this 
 country. 
 
32 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 In 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 settle- 
 ment 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 In- 
 dians, and became inured to the abiding miseries 
 and uncertain pleasures 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 entrap- 
 ped. 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, accordingly, 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 
 abridgement of John Tanner’s story; but it is 
 our wish to direct your attention to some few 
 particulars, which appear to us strikingly to 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 33 
 
 illustrate some of the positions which we desire 
 to impress upon your minds, 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 progress of civiliza- 
 tion has not yet cleared away. In this region, 
 a number of scattered Indian tribes maintain a 
 precarious 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 
 ammunition 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 civ- 
 ilization perhaps afflicts him with the vices of 
 both states. But the principle of exchange, im- 
 perfectly and irregularly as it operates amongst 
 the Indians, furnishes some excitement to their 
 ingenuity and their industry. Habits of provi- 
 dence are to a certain degree created ; it be- 
 comes necessary to accumulate some capital of 
 the commodities which can be rendered valuable 
 by their own labor, to exchange for commod- 
 ities which their own labor, without exchange, is 
 utterly unable to procure. The principle of 
 exchange, too, being recognized amongst them 
 in their dealings with foreigners, the security 
 of property, without which, as we have shown, 
 
34 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 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 themselves 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 civilized society alone 
 oilers. We shall exemplify these statements 
 by a few details. 
 
 The country over which these people range 
 occupies a surface that may be roughly de- 
 scribed as five or six times as large as all Eng- 
 land. They have the unbounded command of 
 all the natural resources of that country ; and 
 yet their entire numbers do not exceed a few 
 hundred thousands — ^that is, they do not equal 
 the population of a moderately sized English 
 county. It may be fairly said that each In- 
 dian requires a thousand acres for his mainte- 
 nance. 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 assemble to- 
 gether to co-operate in their hunting expedi- 
 tions, they are very soon dispersed by the ur- 
 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 man 
 retained what he had killed. In three days 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 35 
 
 1 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 he 
 says, “ I began to be dissatisfied at remaining 
 with large bands of Indians, a's it was usual for 
 them, after having remained a short time in a 
 place, to suffer from hunger.” These suffer- 
 ings were not, in many cases, of short dura- 
 tion, or of trifling intensity. Tanner describes 
 one instance of famine in the following words : 
 “ The Indians gathered around one after an- 
 other, until we became a considerable band, and 
 then we began to suffer from hunger. The 
 weather was very severe, and our sufferings in- 
 creased. A young woman was the first to die 
 of hunger. 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 desponding 
 parents ; and when, at a late hour in the even- 
 ing, I returned from my hunt, they could not 
 tell what had become of him. I left the camp 
 about the middle of the night, and following his 
 track, I found him at some distance, lying dead 
 in the snow.” 
 
 This worst species of suffering equally 
 exists at particular periods, whether food be 
 sought for by large or by small parties, by 
 
36 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 bands or by individuals. Tanner was travel- 
 ling with the family of the woman who 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 rabbit or two, or a 
 bird, would alford us a prospect of protracting 
 the sufferings of hunger a few days longer.” 
 Again he says, “ Flaving subsisted for some 
 time almost entirely on the inner bark of trees, 
 and particularly of a climbing vine found there, 
 our strength was much reduced.” 
 
 The misery which is thus so strikingly de- 
 scribed, proceeds from the circumstance that 
 the labor of the Indians does not take a 
 profitable direction; — and this waste of labor 
 (for unprofitable applications of labor are the 
 greatest of all wastes) arises from the one fact, 
 that in certain particulars these Indians labor 
 without appropriation. They depend upon the 
 chance productions of nature without com- 
 pelling her to produce; and they do not com- 
 pel her to produce, because there is no appro- 
 priation of the soil, the most efficient natural 
 instrument 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 pro- 
 ducts of the soil, when they had bestowed 
 labor upon obtaining them ; but the last step 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 87 
 
 towards productiveness was not taken. The 
 Indians therefore 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 considerable body of persons, is so 
 notorious a fact, that when the Government of 
 the United States, in 1802, 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 Gov- 
 ernment 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 ap- 
 plication of that skill and knowledge which is 
 preserved and accumulated by the Division of 
 employment. Tanner describes a poor fellow 
 who was wounded in the arm by the accidental 
 discharge of a gun. As there was little surgical 
 skill 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 labor which an 
 individual must go through when the state of 
 society is so rude, that there is scarcely any 
 D 
 
38 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 division of employment, and consequently 
 scarcely any exchanges, is exhibited in many 
 passages of Tanner’s narrative. We select one. 
 “I had no pukkavi, 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 labor I had to bestow about 
 home sometimes kept me from hunting, and 1 
 was occasionally distressed for want of pro- 
 visions. I busied myself about my lodge in 
 the night-time. When it was sufficiently light 
 I 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 prin- 
 ciple of exchange was imperfectly acted upon, 
 because the principle of appropriation was im- 
 perfectly acted upon. The pccupation 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 blan- 
 kets which they bought, into rude coverings for 
 their - bodies. Every one of them did all of 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 39 
 
 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, and tailor; and conse- 
 quently, every man, like Tanner, was so oc- 
 cupied by many things, that want of food and 
 want of rest were ordinary sufierings. He de- 
 scribes a man who was so borno down and op- 
 pressed 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 star- 
 vation, 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 pos- 
 sessed of hunting game gave him a certain com- 
 mand over the spontaneous productions of the 
 forest; but, as his power of hunting depended 
 upon chance supplies of game, his labor ne- 
 cessarily took so irregular a direction, and was 
 therefore so unproductive, that he never ac- 
 cumulated sufficient for his support in time^ 
 of sickness, or for his comfortable support at 
 any time. He became, therefore, despairing; 
 and had that perfect apathy, that indifference 
 to the future, which is the most pitiable evi- 
 dence of extreme wretchedness. This man 
 felt his powerless situation more keenly 
 
40 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 than his companions ; but with all savage 
 tribes there is a want of steady and perse- 
 vering exertion, proceeding from the same 
 cause. Severe labor is succeeded by long 
 fits of idleness, because their labor takes a 
 chance direction. This is an universal case. 
 Habits of idleness, of irregularity, of ferocity, 
 are the characteristics of all those who main- 
 tain existence by the pursuit of the unap- 
 propriated productions of nature; while con- 
 stant application, orderly arrangement of time, 
 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 appli- 
 cation. 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 
 ferocity. The author of this book used to ob- 
 serve the habits of a class of such persons, who 
 frequent the Thames at Eton; and he thus 
 described them in verses of his boyhood : — 
 
 What boat is this which creeps so lazily 
 Up the still stream? How quietly falls the drip 
 Oi 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 the moon ; and there he lays 
 His traps 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 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 41 
 
 Stores that may buy him bread ; but oft’ner still 
 His toil is fruitless, and deject he comes 
 Home to his emberless hearth, and sits him down, 
 
 Idle and starving through the busy day. 
 
 Mungo Park describes the wretched condi- 
 tion of the inhabitants of countries in Africa, 
 where small particles of gold are found in the 
 rivers. Their lives were spent in hunting for 
 the gold to exchange for useful commodities, 
 instead of raising the commodities themselves; 
 — and they were consequently poor and mise- 
 rable, listless and unsteady. Their fitful in- 
 dustry had too much of chance mixed up with 
 it to afford a certain and general profit. The 
 natives of Cape de la Hogue, in Normandy, 
 were the most wretched and ferocious people 
 in all France ; because they depended prin- 
 cipally for support on the wrecks that were fre- 
 quent on their coasts. When there were no 
 tempests, they made an easy transition from 
 the character of wreckers to thdt of robbers. 
 A benefactor of his species taught these un- 
 happy people to collect a marine plant to make 
 potash. They immediately became profitable 
 laborers and exchangers ; they obtained 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 appropriation 
 'beyond articles of domestic use; because they 
 have no property in land, and consequently no 
 D2 
 
42 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 cultivation. Yet even they are not insensible to 
 the importance of the principle, for the preser- 
 vation 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 sometimes each individual, has an allotted 
 hunting-ground — imperfectly appropriated, in- 
 deed, by the first comer, and often contested 
 with violence by other hunters, but still 
 showing that they approach 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 individual 
 property is the foundation of all social im- 
 provement. It is impossible to speak of the 
 productive power of labor in the civilized 
 state, without viewing it in connexion with 
 that great principle of society which considers 
 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 per- 
 fect. At present, the rude industry of the In- 
 dians is stimulated by the luxury of Europe into 
 an employ which would cease to exist if the peo- 
 ple became civilized. If agriculture were in- 
 troduced amongst them — if they \vere to grow 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 43 
 
 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 
 suffering 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 poor 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 ; although 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 poorer and more helpless than they are 
 now as exchangers of skins. They are suf- 
 fering from the effects of small accumulations 
 and imperfect exchange ; but these are far 
 better than no accumulation and no exchange. 
 If the course of their industry were to be 
 
44 TflE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 changed perfect appropriation — if they were 
 
 consequently to become cultivators and manu- 
 facturers, instead of wanderers in the woods to 
 hunt for wild and noxious animals — they 
 would, in a course of years, have abundance of 
 profitable labor, because they would have 
 abundance of capital. As it is, their accumu- 
 lations are so small, that they cannot proceed 
 with their own uncertain labor 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 labor. Of course 
 credit would not exist at all without appropri- 
 ation. Their rights of property are perfect as 
 far as they go; but they are not carried far 
 enough to direct their labor into channels 
 which would insure sufficient production for 
 the laborers. Their labor is unproductive be- 
 cause 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 produc- 
 tion, 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 companies. 
 Mr. Wells, at the commencement of winter, 
 called us all together, gave the Indians a ten- 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 45 
 
 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 In- 
 dians 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 any- 
 thing, 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 destitute not of clothing merely, but 
 of ammunition, and many of them of guns 
 and traps. How were they, without the ac- 
 customed aid from the traders, to subsist . them- 
 selves and their families during the ensuing 
 wdnter ? 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 per- 
 haps perish, unless he would give me such 
 a credit as I had always in the fall been accus- 
 tomed 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 
 ornaments on their dress, and which I had 
 purchased the year before at just twice the 
 price that was commonly given for a capote ;* 
 
 * A sort of great-ooat. 
 
46 the rights of industry. 
 
 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.* 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 winter had not yet set in, and I went 
 immediately to my hunting-ground, killed a 
 number of moose, and set my wife to make the 
 skins into such garments as were best adapted 
 to the winter season, and which I now saw we 
 should be compelled to substitute for the blan- 
 kets and woollen clothes we had been accus- 
 tomed to receive from the traders.” 
 
 This incident at once shows us that the 
 great blessing of the civilized state is its in- 
 crease of the powers of production. Here we 
 see the Indians, surrounded 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 ob- 
 tain 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 con- 
 verted into pasture-grounds; — they must have 
 raised flocks of sheep, and learnt all the various 
 complicated arts, and possessed all the inge- 
 
 * Skins. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 47 
 
 nious machinery, for converting wool into cloth. 
 By their exchange of furs for blankets, they ob- 
 tained a share in the productiveness of civiliza- 
 tion; — they obtained comfortable clothing with 
 much less labor 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 car- 
 ried 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 exchange obtained 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, ren- 
 dered it impossible that they should accumu- 
 late. They had such pressing need of ammu- 
 nition, traps, and blankets, that the produce 
 of the labor of one hunting season was not 
 more than sufficient 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 they 
 would have then advanced many steps in the 
 character of producers. The thing is perhaps 
 impossible ; but were it possible, and were 
 the Indians to have practised it, they would 
 
48 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 immediately have become capitalists, to an ex- 
 tent that would have soon rendered them in- 
 dependent of the credit of the traders. They 
 must, however, have previously established 
 a more perfect appropriation. Each must have 
 inclosed his own hunting-ground; and each 
 must have raised some food for the main- 
 tenance of his own stock of beavers, foxes, 
 and martens. 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 extirpated by their poverty which proceeds 
 from their imperfect production — Europe must 
 go without the brilliant variety of skins which 
 we procure at the cost of so much labor, accom- 
 panied with so much wretchedness, because the 
 labor is so unproductive to the laborers. When 
 the ladies of London and Paris are com- 
 pelled to wear tippets of rabbits instead of sa- 
 bles, and when the hair of the beaver ceases 
 to be employed in the manufacture of our hats, 
 the woods of America will 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 labor and comfort. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 49 
 
 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 boundless extravagance dis- 
 sipated every shilling 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 un- 
 fortunate 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 narrative, “ 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 resolu- 
 tion, 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 you, 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 
 E 
 
50 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 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 favor, nor to wring them from 
 him by a course of law. He was not rash and 
 foolish enough to dream of obtaining again by 
 force those possessions which he had ex- 
 changed for vain superfluities. But he re- 
 solved to become once more their master by the 
 operation of the only principle which could 
 give them to him in a civilized society. He 
 resolved to obtain them again by the same 
 agency through which he had lost them — by 
 exchange. But what had he to exchange? 
 His capital was gone, even to the uttermost 
 farthing; he must labor to obtain new capi- 
 tal. With a courage worthy of imitation 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 something 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 honor- 
 able, as every occupation truly is that is pro- 
 ductive of utility. Incessant labor and scru- 
 pulous 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 desti- 
 tute laborer was again a rich proprietor. He 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 51 
 
 had eau'ned again all that he had lost. The 
 lands 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 natu- 
 ral powers — if suddenly thrown down from a 
 condition of ease, must look upon the world, at 
 the first view, with deep apprehension. 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 arid in clothes, — the victualler from 
 whom he would ask a cup of beer and a 
 night’s lodging, — will give him nothing, al- 
 though they will exchange everything. He 
 cannot exist, except as a beggar, unless he 
 puts himself in the condition to become an ex- 
 changer. 
 
 But still, with all these apparent difficul- 
 ties, his prospects of subsisting, and of sub- 
 sisting comfortably, are far greater than in 
 any other situation in which we must labor to 
 live. As we have already seen, the condition 
 of by far the greater number of the millions 
 that constitute the exchangers of civilized 
 
52 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 society is greatly superior to that of the few 
 thousands who exist upon the precarious sup- 
 plies of the unappropriated productions of nature 
 in the savage life. Although an exchange must 
 always be made — although in very few cases 
 ‘nhe 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 exchanging capital for labor are there- 
 fore so manifold, that the poorest man in a state 
 of civilization has a much greater certainty of 
 supplying all his wants, and of supplying 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 labor; — there is profitable labor be- 
 cause there is large accumulation; — there is 
 large accumulation because there is unlimited 
 exchange ; — there is unlimited exchange, be- 
 cause there is universal appropriation. John 
 Tanner was accounted a rich man by the Indians 
 — doubtless because he was more industrious 
 than the greater number of them ; but we have 
 seen what privations he often suffered. He suf- 
 fered privations because there was no capital, no 
 accumulation of the products of labor, in the 
 country in which he lived. Where such a stoi-e 
 exists, the poorest man has a tolerable certainty 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 53 
 
 that he may obtain his share of it as an ex- 
 changer ; and the greater the store the greater 
 the certainty that his labor, or power of adding 
 to the store, will obtain a full proportion of what 
 previous labor has gathered together. 
 
 It may assist us in making the value of capi- 
 tal more clear, if we take a rapid view of the 
 most obvious features of the accumulation of a 
 highly civilized country. 
 
 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 inhabitants of 
 the land are exterminated ; and their place is 
 supplied with useful creatures, bred, -nourished, 
 and domesticated by human art, and mul- 
 tiplied 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 inun- 
 E2 
 
54 the rights of industry. 
 
 dations, and they have been made navigable 
 wherever their navigation could be profitable* 
 The country is covered with roads and with 
 canals, which render distant provinces as near 
 to each other for commercial purposes as neigh- 
 boring 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 substances and forms that can exhibit the 
 multitude of civilized wants ; and in the manu- 
 factories 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 com- 
 munication with each other by the means of 
 roads and 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 cer- 
 tain rules, and not broken into an embarrassing 
 variety of unintelligible dialects. Their written 
 communications are conveyed to the remotest 
 corners of their own country, and even to 
 other kingdoms, with the most unfailing reg- 
 ularity. Whatever is transacted in such a 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 55 
 
 populous hive, the knowledge of which can 
 afford profit or amusement 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 lite- 
 rature, 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 con- 
 stantly increasing. Lastly, the general well- 
 being of all is sustained by laws, — sometimes 
 indeed imperfectly devised and expensively 
 administered, but on the whole of infinite 
 value to every member of the community; 
 and the property of all is defended from ex- 
 ternal invasion and from internal anarchy by 
 the power of government, which will be re- 
 spected only in proportion as it advances the 
 general good of the humblest of its subjects, 
 by securing their capital from plunder and de- 
 fending 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 complete subjection 
 to the natural laws by which every exchange 
 of society is regulated. These laws some- 
 times prevent labor being instantly exchanged 
 with capital, for an exchange necessarily re- 
 quires a balance to be preserved between what 
 one man has to supply, and what another man 
 has to require ; but in their general effect they 
 secure to labor the certainty that there shall 
 
56 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 be abundance of capital to exchange with ; and 
 that if prudence and diligence go together, 
 the laborer may himself become a capitalist, 
 and even pass out of the condition of a la- 
 borer into that of a proprietor, or one who 
 lives upon accumulated produce. The expe- 
 rience of every day shows 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 laborer or the great body of 
 laborers were to imagine that they could ob- 
 tain 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 the warehouses — but there 
 would be no more crops or clothes. The prin- 
 ciple upon which all accumulation depends, 
 that of security of property, being destroyed, 
 the accumulation would be destroyed. If the 
 laborers, also, were to imagine that they 
 could use the capital without paying for its use, 
 as they have been taught by some to think, 
 the same effects would be the inevitable result. 
 
 A writer who has delivered lectures on Po- 
 litical Economy complains, in those lectures, 
 that the laborer is not allowed to work, 
 unless, in addition to replacing whatever he 
 uses or consumes, and comfortably subsisting 
 himself, his labor also gives a profit to the 
 capitalist on all the capital which he uses or 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 57 
 
 consumes, while engaged in producing;” — and 
 this principle the same writer calls a principle 
 of slavery.* The mischievous ignorance of 
 such doctrines may be very easily shown. If 
 some capitalists did not receive a profit upon 
 the employment of the capital, it would remain 
 unemployed — it would be useless. Capital, 
 the accumulation of former labor, according 
 to this doctrine, ought to be the property of 
 the present laborers ; for it is evident that 
 if it is not allowed to yield a profit to the 
 capitalist, he may as well give up the trouble 
 of taking care of it. The laborers of 1831, 
 we say then, according to this notion, divide 
 the capital, and work more advantageously to 
 themselves with the profits of the capital thus 
 appropriated ; — for there must be appropriation 
 after all. But new laborers will rise up — the 
 laborers of 1832, or of 1842, who have had 
 no share in the spoil. They, of course, ac- 
 cording to the doctrine thus laid down at the 
 Mechanics’ Institute, have a better title than the 
 laborers of 1831, who have become capital- 
 ists; because, not being capitalists, they con- 
 tribute more labor to procure some of the 
 capital by exchange. They, therefore, dis- 
 possess the laborers of 1831 ; — and these, 
 
 * “ Hodgskin’s Popular Political Economy — a work 
 which, — with the exception of this doctrine, which the 
 writer himself shrinks from investigating, although he 
 does not hesitate in proclaiming it, — may be considered 
 useful and instructive. 
 
58 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 again, having become non-capitalists, have a 
 new title to the capital, and dispossess the 
 laborers of 1832. Their title would be exactly 
 similar to that of the priest described by Strabo, 
 the ancient geographer, whose right to the 
 priesthood was acquired by having murdered 
 his predecessor ; and consequently the business 
 of the priest in possession was not to discharge 
 the duties of the priesthood, but to watch sword 
 in hand, to defend himself against the new 
 cjaimant to the office. The doctrine which we 
 have exhii^ted is, that the accumulation of 
 'If former labor belongs to the present laborers ; 
 and that the best title to the accumulation is to 
 have added nothing towards it, but only to be 
 willing to add. 
 
 It is necessary to establish this point of the 
 security of property, as one of the rights, and 
 we may add as the greatest right, of industry ; 
 — and therefore, at the risk of being thought 
 tedious, we further call your attention to the 
 general state of the argument in reply to 
 those who wish to render property insecure. 
 
 The value of an article produced is the la- 
 bor required for its production. 
 
 Capital, the accumulation of past labor, re- 
 presents the entire amount of that labor which 
 is not consumed; — it is the old labor stored 
 up for exchange with new labor. 
 
 Those who attach an exclusive value to new 
 labor as distinguished from old labor — or 
 labor as distinguished from capital — say that 
 the new production shall be stimulated by the 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 59 
 
 old production, without allowing the old produc- 
 tion to be exchanged against the new : — that is, 
 that the old production shall be an instrument 
 for the reward of new labor, but not a profitable 
 one to its possessor. 
 
 The doctrine therefore amounts to this ; that 
 labor shall be exchanged with labor, but not 
 with the produce of labor, — or that there shall 
 be no exchange whatever; — for if the present 
 laborers are to have the sole benefit of the capi- 
 tal, the principle of exchange, in which both ex- 
 changers benefit, is destroyed. There must be 
 an end of all exchanges when the things to be 
 exchanged are not equally desired by both par- 
 ties. If the capitalist is to lend or give the capi- 
 tal to the laborer without a profit, or without a 
 perfect freedom which would entitle him to with- 
 hold it if no profit could be obtained, the balance 
 is destroyed between capital and labor. Accu- 
 mulation is then at an end ; because the security 
 of the thing accumulated to the accumulator is at 
 an end. The security is at an end, because, if 
 the new labor is to have the advantage of the 
 old labor without compensation or exchange, the 
 new labor must take the old labor by force or 
 fraud ; for the new cannot proceed without the 
 , old labor cannot stir without capital. Accu- 
 mulation, therefore, being at an end, labor for an 
 object beyond the wants of an hour is at an end. 
 Society resolves itself into its first elements. 
 We return to the powerless condition, first of 
 I the North American Indians ; — and thence, hav- 
 ing overturned the security of property which 
 
60 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 they respect, we go backward to the state of 
 man in the lowest depth of brute degradation, 
 such as scarcely exists amongst the rudest tribes. 
 
 Feeling, therefore, as we must do when not 
 blinded by ignorance or a desire for plunder, 
 that production depends upon the union of capi- 
 tal and labor, and that the first right of each is 
 security of property, let us see what facility of 
 production does for the condition of the lowest 
 and the feeblest man — such as the prodigal, who 
 would have starved at once had there been im- 
 perfect production, or at any rate could never 
 have passed out of the condition of a laborer. 
 
 When we look at the nature of the accumu- 
 lated wealth of society, it is easy to see that the 
 poorest member of it who dedicates himself to 
 profitable labor is in a certain sense rich — rich, 
 as compared with the unproductive and therefore 
 poor individuals of any uncivilized tribe. The 
 very scaffolding, 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 des- 
 titute of those means. Riches do not consist 
 only of money and lands, of stores of food or 
 clothing, of machines and tools. The particular 
 knowledge of any art, — the general understand- 
 ing of the laws of nature, — the habit from expe- 
 rience 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 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 61 
 
 use of the general conveniences of civilized life, 
 such as roads — these advantages, which the 
 poorest man in England possesses or may pos- 
 sess, 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 unappro- 
 priated, and if, consequently, 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 division of employments, including union of 
 power. In his double capacity of a consumer 
 and a producer, the humblest man has the full 
 benefit of these means of wealth — of these great 
 instruments by which the productive power of 
 labor is carried to its highest point. 
 
 But if these common advantages, these public 
 means of society, offering so many important 
 agents to the individual for the gratification of 
 his wants, alone are worth more to him than all 
 the precarious powder 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 labor of all those who are in 
 a condition to add to the store. It has been truly 
 said, “ it is a great misfortune to be poor, but it 
 is a much greater misfortune for the poor man 
 to be surrounded only with other poor like him- 
 self.” * The reason is obvious. The produc- 
 
 Say. 
 
 F 
 
62 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 tive power of labor 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 re- 
 newed and carried forward by the principle of 
 exchanges, has produced this prodigious amount 
 of the aggregate capital of a country whose civ- 
 ilization is of ancient date. This accumulation 
 of the means of existence, and of all that makes 
 existence comfortable, is principally resulting 
 from the labors of those who have gone before 
 us. It is a stock which was beyond their own 
 immediate wants, and which was not extinguish- 
 ed with their lives. It is our capital. It has 
 been produced by labor alone, physical and 
 mental. It can be kept up only by the same 
 power which has created it, carried to the high- 
 est point of productiveness by the arrangements 
 of society. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOK. 
 
 63 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 There is an old proverb, that ‘‘ when two 
 men ride on one horse, one man must ride 
 behind.” Capital and Labor 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 Labor 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 
 Labor 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 in- 
 terests in many respects are still imperfectly 
 understood, they occasionally quarrel about the 
 conditions upon which they will continue to 
 travel in company. In the very outset of 
 the journey. Labor, doubtless, took the lead. 
 In the dim morning of society Labor was up 
 and stirring before Capital was awake. Labor 
 did not then ride; he travelled slowly on foot 
 through very dirty ways. Capital, at length, 
 
64 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 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 Labor had 
 found out. He procured that fleet and un- 
 tiring horse Exchange ; and when he proposed 
 to Labor 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 us, we are 
 called upon to assign to one of the companions, 
 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 endeavor to advance another step 
 in the illustration of these positions, by taking 
 you back to the prodigal who had spent all 
 his substance. Let us survey him at the mo- 
 ment when he had made the wise, and in many 
 respects heroic, resolution to pass from the 
 condition of a consumer into that of a pro- 
 ducer. 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 
 labor of this man was wholly and imperative- 
 ly directed by accumulation. It was directed 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 65 
 
 as absolutely by the accumulation of others as 
 the labor of Dampier’s Moskito Indian was 
 directed by his own accumulation. The Indian 
 could not labor profitably — he could not ob- 
 tain fish and goats for his food, instead of 
 seals’ 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 
 labor; — for a continual process of waste en- 
 larges neither the mental nor physical faculties, 
 and leaves the wretched being who has to pass 
 into the new condition of a producer as help- 
 less as the weakest child. He had nothing but 
 the low^est power, of laboring without pecu- 
 liar knowledge or skill. He had, however, 
 an intensity and consistency of purpose which 
 raised this humble power into real strength. 
 He was determined never to go backward — 
 always 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 povvers and rights were wholly 
 limited and directed 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 labor was absolutely 
 governed by the system of exchanges. No 
 F2 
 
65 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 other system could operate around him; be- 
 cause he was in a civilized country. Had 
 he been thrown upon a desert land without 
 food and shelter, his labor 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 exchanges being in action, he 
 did not apply his labor directly to the pro- 
 duction of food and lodging for himself. He 
 added by his labor 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 exchanged 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 repre- 
 sented by the “ few pence” and “ a small gra- 
 tuity of meat and drink.” Had the system 
 of exchange been lesS advanced, that is, had 
 society been less civilized, he would probably 
 have exchanged his labor 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 labor 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 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 67 
 
 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 ob- 
 tain by the money than by the food and clothes 
 which our laborer had received for them. 
 During the course of the unprofitable labor 
 of waiting till he had found an exchanger who 
 wanted coals, he might have perished. What 
 then gave him the means of profitable labor, 
 and furnished him with an article which every 
 one was ready to receive in exchange 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 labor that had been 
 employed in giving them value. The coals 
 were altogether valueless till labor 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 labor worked ! Mere 
 manual labor could have done little or nothing 
 with the coals in the pit. Machines had 
 raised them from the pit. Machines had trans- 
 ported 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 pecu- 
 niary wealth to set that knowledge in action by 
 exchanging with it. The heap of coals re- 
 
68 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 presented 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 labor 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 labor; but one labor was 
 still wanting to give them the highest value. 
 They were at their lowest value when they re- 
 mained unbroken in the coal-pit; they were 
 at their highest value when they were deposited 
 in the cellar of the consumer. For that last 
 labor there was circulating capital ready to 
 be exchanged. The man whose course of 
 production we have been tracing imparted to 
 them this last value, and for this labor he re- 
 ceived a “few pence” and a “gratuity of 
 meat and drink.” These consumable com- 
 modities, and the money Avhich might be ex- 
 changed for other consumable commodities, 
 were circulating capital. They supplied his 
 most pressing wants with incomparably more 
 readiness and certainty than if he had been 
 turned loose amongst the unappropriated pro- 
 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 satisfac- 
 tion of his wants. Let us examine the prin- 
 ciple a little more in detail. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 69 
 
 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 laborer 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 object of each exchanger was that 
 labor should be exchanged 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 exchangers, — for the ex- 
 changer of capital and the exchanger of 
 labor. The first right of the laborer was 
 that his labor 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 laborer should 
 have been compelled to shovel in the coals — 
 or, that the capitalist should have been com- 
 pelled to employ the laborer 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 laborer and the capitalist, he 
 'would have found little accumulation to give 
 a profitable direction to his labor. He 
 would have found production suspended or 
 languishing. There would probably have 
 
70 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 been no heap of coals wanting his labor 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. Ac- 
 cumulation, therefore, would have been sus- 
 pended ; — and all profitable labor would in 
 consequence have been suspended. It was 
 the unquestionable right of the laborer that 
 his labor should be free ; but it was balanced 
 by the right of the capitalist that his accumu- 
 lation should be secure. Could the labor 
 have seized upon the capital, or the capital 
 upon the labor, production would have been 
 stopped altogether or in part. The mutual 
 freedom and security of labor and capital 
 compel production to go forward; and labor 
 and capital take their respective stations, and 
 perform their respective duties, altogether 
 with reference to the laws which govern pro- 
 duction. 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 labor know 
 how to accommodate themselves to the direc- 
 tion 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 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 71 
 
 the greatest profit in carrying forward the busi- 
 ness of production. 
 
 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 in- 
 dustry through a succession of servile employ- 
 ments, in different places, of longer and shorter 
 duration.” Here we see the principle of De- 
 mand and Supply still in active operation. “He 
 looked out for the next thing that might chance 
 to offer.” He was ready with his supply of la- 
 bor immediately that he saw a demand for it. 
 Doubtless, the “ indefatigable industry” with 
 which he was ready with his supply created a 
 demand, and thus he had in some degree a con- 
 trol over the demand. But in most cases the 
 demand went before the supply, and he had thus 
 to watch and wait upon the demand. In many 
 instances demand and supply exercise a joint in- 
 fluence and control, each with regard to the 
 other. Pliny, a Roman naturalist, relates that 
 in the year 454 of the building of Rome (which 
 is 300 years before Christ) a number of barbers 
 came over from Sicily to shave the Romans, 
 who till that time had worn long beards. But 
 the barbers came in consequence of being sent 
 for by a man in authority. The demand here 
 distinctly went before the supply ; but the supply, 
 doubtless, acted greatly upon the demand. Du- 
 ring a time of wild financial speculation in Paris, 
 created by what is called the Mississippi bubble, 
 a hump-backed man went daily into the street 
 where the stock-jobbers were accustomed to as- 
 
72 the rights op industry. 
 
 semble, and earned money by allowing them to 
 sign their contracts upon the natural desk with 
 which he was encumbered. The hump-back 
 was doubtless a shrewd fellow, and saw the dif- 
 ficulty under which the stock-jobbers labored. 
 He supplied what they appeared to want ; and a 
 demand was instantly created for his hump. He 
 was well paid, says the story. That was be- 
 cause the supply was smaller than the demand. 
 If other men with humps had been attracted by 
 the demand, or if persons had come to the street 
 with portable desks more convenient than the 
 hump, the reward of his service would naturally 
 have become less. But this part of the question 
 belongs to the considerations \vhich determine 
 the value of individual labor, in which the 
 amount of Circulating Capital is compared with 
 the Number of Laborers; and we have many 
 other branches of the subject to notice before we 
 arrive at this most important branch. We have 
 at present to treat of the Production of wealth by 
 the union of capital and labor ; that is a question 
 of the Distribution of wealth, and has regard to 
 the terms upon which capital and labor are 
 united. 
 
 By following the direction which capital gave 
 to his industry, the prodigal, whose course we 
 have traced up to the point when he went into 
 the condition of a laborer, became at length a 
 capitalist. He had gained, after a considera- 
 ble 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, 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 73 
 
 but cautiously, turned his first gains into second 
 advantages ; retained, without a single deviation, 
 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 in- 
 veterate miser, worth £60,000.” It is not ne- 
 cessary for us further to follow the details of this 
 man’s history, in elucidation of our positions. 
 We proceed from the individual cases to which 
 we have directed your attention, as illustrations 
 of the mode in which capital and labor are 
 united, to exhibit a picture of society generally 
 such as it existed in England a few centuries 
 ago, — when capital and labor were perpetually 
 struggling for supremacy, plundering each other, 
 and being plundered by a stronger power than 
 either, that of arbitrary government, — and 
 when, in consequence of the rights of industry 
 being so constantly violated, because so imper- 
 fectly understood, production went on slowly, 
 and all were poor. 
 
 G 
 
74 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 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 ex- 
 hibited, we shall have led your minds to the 
 conclusion that accumulation, or capital, is 
 absolutely essential to the profitable employ- 
 ment of labor ; and that the greater the ac- 
 cumulation, the greater the extent of that profit- 
 able 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 na- 
 tions and individuals in the earlier state of 
 society, — and is still denied by existing preju- 
 dices, derived from the current maxims of 
 former days of ignorance and half-knowledge. 
 With the speculative writers we have little to 
 do. When Rousseau, for instance, advises 
 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 prefer- 
 ence to the social, which is founded on appro- 
 priation. Knowing this, and being convinced 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 75 
 
 that the savage state, even with imperfect ap- 
 propriation, is one of extreme wretchedness, 
 we may safely leave such opinions to work 
 their own cure. For it is not likely that any 
 individual, however disposed to think that 
 accumulation is an evil, would desire, by de- 
 stroying accumulation, to pass into the con- 
 dition, 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 accumulation, he equally impedes pro- 
 duction, and equally destroys his share in the 
 productive power of capital and labor 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 admira- 
 tion. He sits up all night in frantic riot — he 
 consumes whatever can stimulate his satiated 
 appetite — he is waited upon by a crowd of un- 
 productive and equally riotous retainers — he 
 breaks and destroys everything around him 
 with an unsparing hand — he rides his horses 
 to death in the most extravagant 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 
 
76 the rights of industry. 
 
 “made good for trade.” When, on the con- 
 trary, a man of fortune economizes his revenue 
 — lives like a virtuous and reasonable being, 
 whose first duty is the cultivation of his un- 
 derstanding — eats and drinks with a regard to 
 his health — keeps no more retainers than are 
 sufficient for his proper comfort and de- 
 cency — breaks and destroys nothing — has re- 
 spect to the inferior animals, as well from mo- 
 tives of prudence as of mercy — and dies with- 
 out 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 Buckingham, “ having 
 been possessed of about £50,000 a year, died 
 in 1687, in a remote inn in Yorkshire, reduced 
 to the utmost misery.” * After a life of the most 
 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. 
 
 * Ruffhead’s Pope. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 77 
 
 The George and Garter dangling from that bed 
 Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red ; 
 
 Great Villiers lies. * * * * * 
 
 No wit to flatter, left 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 cantils which connect 
 Manchester with the coal countries, and with 
 Liverpool. The duke of Buckingham 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 revenues 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 labor of thousands, and employed in the 
 direction of that labor the skill of Brindley, 
 the greatest engineer that any country has 
 produced. The one died without a penny, 
 loaded with debt, leaving no trace behind him 
 but the ruin which his waste had produced: 
 the other bequeathed almost the largest prop- 
 erty in Europe to his descendants, and opened 
 a channel for industry which afforded, and still 
 affords, employment to thousands. 
 
 When you hear of a mob breaking windows 
 on an illumination night, you are too apt to 
 say they have “ made good for trade.” Is it 
 not evident that the capital which was repre- 
 G 2 
 
78 the rights of industry. 
 
 sented by the unbroken windows is really so 
 much destroyed of the national riches, when 
 the windows are broken ? — for if the windows 
 had remained 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 
 outlay, 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, probably, 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 maintenance of labor, by an 
 unnecessary destruction of what former labor 
 has produced, trade generally is injured to the 
 extent of the destruction. Some of you say 
 that a fire makes good for trade. The only dif 
 ference of evil betw^een the fire which destroys a 
 house, and the mob which breaks the windows, 
 is, that the fire absorbs capital for the mainte- 
 nance of trade, or labor, in the proportion of 
 a hundred to one, when compared with the 
 mob. Some of you say that war makes good 
 for trade. The only difference of pecuniary evil 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 79 
 
 (the moral evils admit of no comparison) be- 
 tween the fire and the war is, that the war ab- 
 sorbs capital for the maintenance of trade or 
 labor, in the proportion of a million to a 
 hundred, when compared with the fire. If 
 the incessant energy of production were con- 
 stantly repressed by mobs, and fires, and wars, 
 the end would be that consumption would al- 
 together 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. Prodi- 
 gality 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 
 carries on a steady demand for industry, it ac- 
 cumulates 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 unprofitable consumption is a relic of the 
 barbarous ages. In the twelfth century, a 
 count of France commanded his vassals to 
 plow 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 
 
80 the rights of industry. 
 
 the lordly prodigality of his neighbor, 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 con- 
 tempt 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 prop- 
 erty, 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 grat- 
 itude 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 direc- 
 tion 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 dreadful 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 less- 
 ening the evils of scarcity. The consequence 
 was that no person thought of accumulating 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 81 
 
 at all, and that the price 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 Com- 
 mons complained that King Henry seized upon 
 whatever was suited to his royal pleasure — 
 horses, implements, food, any thing that pre- 
 sented itself in the shape of accumulated labor. 
 In the reign of Henry III. a statute was 
 passed to remedy excessive distresses ; from 
 which it appeared that it was no unfrequent 
 practice for the king’s officers to take the op- 
 portunity of seizing the farmers’ oxen, at the 
 moment when they were employed in plow- 
 ing, or, as the statute 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 the First 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 favorite trees 
 which grew near a mansion-house, or in 
 avenues. Despotism, in all ages, has depopu- 
 lated the finest countries, by rendering capital 
 insecure and therefore unpr^uctive; insomuch 
 
82 the rights of industry. 
 
 that Montesquieu lays it down as a maxim, 
 that lands are not cultivated in proportion to 
 their fertility, but in proportion to their freedom. 
 In the fifteenth century in England we find 
 sums of money voted for the restoration of de- 
 cayed towns and villages. Just laws would 
 have restored them much more quickly and 
 effectually. The state of agriculture 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 laborers, 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 com- 
 pelled to sow and till. 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 insecu- 
 rity and wasted by ignorance ; and that the 
 same insecurity, and the same waste, ren- 
 dered it necessary to assume that the farmer 
 would not till and sow, and the laborer 
 would not labor, without compulsion. The 
 natural stimulus to industry was wanting, and 
 therefore there was no industry, or only un- 
 profitable industry. The towns decayed — 
 
 the country was uncultivated — production 
 
 languished — 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 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 83 
 
 the means of building and cultivation, namely 
 the capital of the country, was exhausted by in- 
 justice producing 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 ac- 
 cumulation of capital, the few capitalists them- 
 selves, by their monstrous regulations, which, 
 unfortunately, still throw their dark shadows 
 over our own days, prevented that freedom of 
 industry without which capital could not ac- 
 cumulate. Undoubtedly, the commercial privi- 
 leges of corporations originally offered some 
 barriers against the injustice of the crown and 
 of the nobility ; but the good was always ac- 
 companied with an evil, which rendered it, to 
 a certain extent, valueless. Where these privi- 
 leges gave security, they were a good ; 
 where they destroyed freedom, they were an 
 injury. Instead of encouraging the intercourse 
 between one trade and another, they encir- 
 cled every trade with the most absurd mo- 
 nopolies and exclusive privileges. Instead of 
 rendering commerce free between one dis- 
 trict and another, they, even in the same coun- 
 try, 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 privileges of companies ; if 
 the man of London sought to trade at Coventry 
 he was obstructed by the same corporate rights. 
 
84 the rights of industry. 
 
 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 you know from the 
 language of an apprentice’s indenture, was call- 
 ed an “ art and mystery.” All these follies went 
 upon the presumption that “ one man’s gain is 
 another man’s loss,” instead of vanishing before 
 the truth, that in proportion as the industry of 
 all men is free, so will it be productive ; and that 
 production on all sides insures a state of things 
 in which every exchanger is a gainer, and no 
 one a loser. 
 
 It is not to be wondered that while such opin- 
 ions existed, the union of capital and labor should 
 have been very imperfect ; and that while the 
 capitalists oppressed the laborers, in the same 
 way that they oppressed each other, the laborers 
 should have thought it not unreasonable to plun- 
 der the capitalists. It is stated by Harrison, an 
 old writer of credit,* that during the single reign 
 of Henry the Eighth, 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, about one man in ten must 
 
 * Preface to the Chronicles of Hollingshed, an historian 
 of the time of Elizabeth. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 85 
 
 have been, to use the words of the same his- 
 torian, “ devoured and eaten up by the gallows.” 
 In the same reign the first statute against Egypt- 
 ians (gypsies) 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. Cervan- 
 tes, the author of Don Quixote, says of the 
 Egyptians, or Bohemians, that they seem to 
 have been born for no other purpose than that 
 of pillaging. While this universal plunder went 
 forward, it is evident that the insecurity of prop- 
 erty 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 labor 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 ex- 
 changers but as robbers. As the robbers di- 
 minished the capital, the diminution of capital in- 
 creased the number of robbers ; and if the un- 
 conquerable energy of human industry had not 
 gone on producing, slowly and painfully indeed, 
 but still producing, the country would have soon 
 gone back to the state in which it was a thou- 
 sand years before, when wolves abounded more 
 than men. One great cause of all this plunder 
 and misery was the oppression of the laborers. 
 
 H 
 
86 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY, 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Adam Sjiith, in his great work, “ The Wealth 
 of Nations,” says, ‘‘ The property which every 
 man has in his own labor, 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 neighbor, 
 is a plain violation of this most sacred property.” 
 The right of property, in general, has been 
 defined by another writer, M. Say, to be “ the 
 exclusive faculty guarantied to a man or body 
 of men, to dispose, at their own pleasure, 
 of that which belongs to them.” There can 
 be no doubt that labor is entitled to the same 
 protection as a property that capital is entitled 
 to. There can be no doubt that the laborer 
 has rights over his labor which no government 
 and no individual should presume to interfere 
 with. There can be no doubt that as an ex- 
 changer of labor for capital, the laborer ought to 
 be assured that the exchange shall in all respects 
 be as free as the exchanges of any other descrip- 
 tion of property. His rights as an exchanger 
 are, that he shall not be compelled to part with 
 his property, by any arbitrary enactments, with- 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 87 
 
 out 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 him- 
 self or by union with others, to obtain such an 
 equivalent; that he shall be at full liberty to 
 ofer that property in the best market that he 
 can find, without being limited to any particular 
 market ; that he may give to that property 
 every modification which it is capable of re- 
 ceiving 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 labor shall be forced 
 from him, and no rate of payment for that la- 
 bor 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 violate that freedom of industry in 
 others, which is the foundation of his own at- 
 tempts to improve his condition; that he may 
 go from place to place to exchange his labor 
 without being interfered with by corporate 
 rights or monopolies 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 
 employment, without having regularly learnt it 
 
88 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 at all. When the working-man has these rights 
 secured to him by the sanction of the laws, and 
 the concurrence of the institutions 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 proper- 
 ty. He is upon a perfect legal equality with 
 the capitalist. He may labor cheerfully with 
 the well-founded assurance that his labor 
 will be profitably exchanged for the goods 
 which he desires for the satisfaction 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 preponderance, 
 to prevent the exchange being one of perfect 
 equality, and therefore a real benefit to both 
 exchangers. 
 
 We are approaching this desirable state in 
 England. Indeed, there is scarcely any legal 
 restriction acted upon which prevents the ex- 
 change of labor with capital being complete! 3'' 
 unembarrassed ; whatever evils may still remain 
 in the administration of the poor-rates, in local 
 regulations, and too often in the old customs of 
 particular bodies of workmen themselves, which 
 offer impediments to the perfect freedom of 
 industry. 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 laborers ; it is only a few hundred 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 89 
 
 years ago since the cultivator of the ground, the 
 domestic servant, and sometimes even the arti- 
 san, was the absolute property of another man, 
 — bought, sold, let, without any will of his 
 own, like an ox or a horse — producing no- 
 thing for himself — and transmitting the miseries 
 of his lot to his children. • The progress of 
 civilization destroyed this monstrous 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 ex- 
 hibits very many years of gross injustice, of 
 bitter sufiering, of absurd and ineffectual vio- 
 lations of the natural rights of man ; and of 
 struggles between the capitalist and the la- 
 borer, for exclusive advantages, perpetuated 
 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, to which we have alluded in the 
 last chapter. We shall see that while such a 
 struggle goes forward, — that is, while security 
 of property and freedom of industry are not held 
 as the interchangeable rights of the capitalist 
 and the laborer, — there can be little produc- 
 tion and less accumulation. Wherever posi- 
 tive slavery exists, — wherever the laborers are 
 utterly deprived of their property in their la- 
 bor, and are compelled to dispose of it with- 
 H2 
 
90 the hights of industry. 
 
 out retaining any part of the character of vol- 
 untary exchangers, — there are found idleness, 
 ignorance, and unskilful ness ; industry is en- 
 feebled — the oppressor and the oppressed are 
 both poor — there is no national accumulation. 
 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 laborers 
 called slaves. The Romans were rich, in the 
 common sense of the word, because they plun- 
 dered other nations ; but they could not pro- 
 duce largely when the individual spirit to in- 
 dustry was wanting. The industry of the free- 
 men was rapine : the slaves were the producers. 
 No man will work willingly, when he is to be 
 utterly deprived of the power of disposing at his 
 own will of the fruits of his labor ; 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 violated, property cannot be secure. If 
 Rome had encouraged free laborers instead 
 of breeding menial slaves, it could not have 
 happened that the thieves who were constantly 
 hovering round the suburbs of the city, like 
 vultures looking out for carrion, should have 
 been so numerous, 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 highwaymen, 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 91 
 
 who were ready to plunder whatever had been 
 produced. Production itself was so feeble, 
 when carried on by the labor 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 w^eakness. Poland, the most 
 prolific corn-country in Europe, is unquestiona- 
 bly the poorest country ; and at this moment 
 it lies prostrate at the feet of an invader, when, 
 if its people were animated by the spirit which 
 always enables freemen successfully to defend 
 their propety, the armies of Russia would be 
 swept at once from the soil. Poland has been 
 partitioned, over and over again, by govern- 
 ments 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 laborers. 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 groaned 
 under the evils of positive slavery. The An- 
 glo-Saxons had what they called “ live money,” 
 such as sheep and slaves. To this cause may 
 be doubtless attributed the easy conquest of 
 the country by the Norman invaders, and the 
 
92 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 oppression 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 be- 
 tween the Humber and the Tees, and converted 
 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 imported in large 
 numbers to Ireland. These slaves, or vil- 
 leins, as is the case in Russia and Poland 
 at the present day, differed in the degree 
 of the oppression which was exercised to- 
 wards 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 re- 
 gardant,” were annexed to particular estates, 
 and were called upon to perform whatever agri- 
 cultural offices the lord should demand from 
 them, not having the power of acquiring any 
 property, their only privilege being that they 
 were irremovable except with their own consent. 
 These distinctions are not of much consequence, 
 for, by a happy combination 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 laborers. 
 But still, capital was accumulated so slowly, 
 and labor was so unproductive, that the land 
 did not produce the tenth part of a modern 
 crop ; and the country was constantly exposed 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 93 
 
 to the severest inflictions of famine, whenever a 
 worse than usual harvest occurred. 
 
 In the reign of Edward III. the woollen man- 
 ufacture 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 villlages began to run 
 away from their masters, and take refuge in 
 the towns. If the slave could conceal him- 
 self 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, grad- 
 ually emboldened those who remained as cul- 
 tivators to assert their own natural rights. 
 The nobility complained that the villeins re- 
 fused to perform their accustomed services ; 
 and that corn remained uncut upon the 
 ground. At length, in 1351, the 25th year 
 of Edward IIL, the class of free laborers 
 was first recognized by the legislature ; and 
 a statute was passed, oppressive indeed, and 
 impolitic, but distinctly acknowledging the 
 right of the laborer to assume the character 
 of a free exchanger. Slavery, in England, 
 was not wholly abolished 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 glehce — that is, as be- 
 longing to the estate or colliery where they 
 were born and continued to work. It is not 
 necessary for us further to notice the existence 
 
94 the rights of industry. 
 
 of villeinage or slavery in these kingdoms* 
 Our business is with the slow progress of the 
 establishment of the rights of free laborers — 
 and this principally to show that, during the 
 long period when a contest was going forward 
 between the capitalists and the laborers, in- 
 dustry was comparatively unproductive. It 
 was not so unproductive, 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, 
 labor could not be held to be free— property 
 could not be held to be secure — capital and 
 labor could not have cordially united for pro- 
 duction — accumulation could not have been 
 certain and rapid. 
 
 In the year 1349 there was a dreadful pesti- 
 lence in England, which swept off large num- 
 bers of the people. Those of the laborers 
 that remained, following the natural course of 
 the great principle of demand and supply, 
 I’efused to serve, unless they were paid double 
 the wages which they had received five years 
 before. Then came the “ Statute of La- 
 borers,” of 1351, to regulate wages ; and 
 this statute enacted what should be paid to 
 haymakers, and reapers, and threshers ; to car- 
 penters, and masons, and tilers, and plasterers. 
 No person was to quit his own village, if he 
 could get work at these wages ; and laborers 
 and artificers flying from one district to another, 
 in consequence of these regulations, were to be 
 imprisoned. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 95 
 
 Good laws, it has been said, execute them- 
 selves. When legislators make bad laws, there 
 requires a constant increase of vigilance and 
 severity, and constant attempts at reconciling 
 impossibilities, to allow such laws to work at 
 all. In 1360, the statute of laborers was 
 confirmed with new penalties, such as burning 
 in the forehead with the letter F those work- 
 men who left their usual abodes. Having con- 
 trolled 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 ofial of other victuals. We 
 were not without imitations of such absurdities 
 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 be allowed only to buy the lean 
 and stinking. 
 
 While the wages of labor were fixed by 
 statute, the price of wheat was constantly 
 undergoing the most extraordinary fluctua- 
 tions, ranging from 2s. a quarter to IZ. 6s. 8d. 
 It was perfectly impossible that any profitable 
 industry could go forward in tbe 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 
 
96 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 country was covered with staf-strikers and 
 sturdy rogues who robbed in every direction. 
 The villages were deserted by the laborers re- 
 sorting to the towns, where commerce knew 
 how to evade the destroying regulations of the 
 statutes; and to prevent the total decay of 
 agriculture, laborers were not allowed to move 
 from place to place without letters patent: — 
 any laborer, not producing such a letter, 
 was to be imprisoned and put in the stocks. 
 If a lad had been brought up to the plow till 
 he was twelve years of age, he was compelled 
 to continue 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 abomi- 
 nable 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 suc- 
 ceeded the night of slavery. 
 
 When the industry of the country was nearly 
 annihilated by the laws regulating wages, it 
 was found out that something like a balance 
 should be preserved between wages and prices ; 
 and the magistrates were therefore empowered 
 twice a year to make proclamation, according 
 to the price of provisions, how much every 
 workman should receive. The system, how- 
 ever, would not wwk well. In 1496 a new 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 97 
 
 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 penalties to prevent labor 
 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 VIH., lawgivers began to open 
 their eyes to the folly of their proceedings, and 
 the preamble of a statute says “that dearth, 
 scarcitie, good cheape, and plentie of cheese, 
 butter, capons, hens, chickens, and other vic- 
 tuals necessary for man’s sustenance, hap- 
 peneth, riseth, and chanceth, of so many and 
 divers occasions, that it is very hard and diffi- 
 cile to put any certain prices to any such 
 things.” Yet they went on with new scales, in 
 spite of the hardness of the task ; till at last some 
 of the worst of these absurd laws were swept 
 from the statute-book. The justices, whose prin- 
 cipal occupation was to balance the scale of 
 wages and labor, complained incessantly of 
 the difficulty of the attempt; and the statute 
 of the 5th Elizabeth acknowledged that these 
 old laws could not be carried into execution 
 without the great grief and burden of the poor 
 laborer and hired man.” Still new laws were 
 enacted to prevent the freedom of industry 
 working out plenty for capitalists as well as 
 I 
 
98 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 laborers; 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 
 oppression; and had to maintain a host of 
 paupers, that had gradually filled the land dur- 
 ing these unnatural contests. It would be per- 
 haps incorrect to say, that these contests alone 
 produced the paupers that required this legis- 
 lative 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 labor had gone hand in hand to 
 produce abundance for all, and fairly to distrib- 
 ute that abundance in the form of profits and 
 wages, justly balanced by the steady operation 
 of demand and supply in ^ free and extensive 
 market. ' 
 
 The whole of these absurd and iniquitous 
 laws, which had succeeded the more wicked 
 laws of absolute slavery, proceeded from a 
 struggle on the part of the capitalists in land 
 against the growing power and energy of free 
 labor. If the capitalists had rightly under- 
 stood their interests, they would have seen that 
 the increased production of a thriving and 
 happy peasantry would have amply compen- 
 sated 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 laborers was improved their own condi- 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 99 
 
 tion was also improved. If then capital had 
 worked naturally and honestly for the en- 
 couragement of labor, there would have been 
 no lack of laborers ; 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 la- 
 borers 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 covered with 
 “ valiant rogues and sturdy beggars.” 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 
100 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 It would be desirable to exhibit to you some- 
 thing like an average view of the extent of the 
 possessions of all classes of society, and espe- 
 cially of the middling and laboring classes, in 
 this country, at a period when the mutual 
 rights of capitalists and laborers were so 
 little understood as in the fourteenth century. 
 We have shown you how, at that time, there 
 was a general round of oppression, 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 labor, each 
 plundering the other, and both plundered by 
 arbitrary power, whether of the nobles or the 
 crown, production went on very slowly and 
 imperfectly, and that there was little to plun- 
 der 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 inven- 
 tion of printing ; and even after that invention we 
 must be content to form our conclusions from 
 a few scattered 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- 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 101 
 
 racy ; and in some points to establish conclu- 
 sions which cannot be disputed. It is in the 
 same way that our knowledge of the former 
 state of the physical world must be derived 
 Irom 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 the animals of the southern 
 countries once abounded in these islands, be- 
 cause we occasionally find their bones in 
 quantities which could not have been accumu- 
 lated unless such animals had been once native 
 to these parts; and the remains of sea-shells 
 upon the tops of hills now under the plow 
 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 Eng- 
 land in point of population. It then paid a 
 poll-tax for 2955 lay-persons. In 1311, about 
 half a century before, the number of inhabit- 
 ant housekeepers was 390 ; and the whole 
 household furniture, utensils, clothes, money, 
 cattle, corn, and every other property found in 
 the town, was valued at 51 8Z.. I 65 . Of 6 ?. This 
 valuation took place on occasion of a subsidy 
 or tax to the crown, to carry on a war against 
 12 
 
THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 102 
 
 France ; and the particulars, which are pre- 
 served in the Rolls of Parliament, exhibit with 
 great minuteness the classes of persons then 
 inhabiting that town, and the sort of property 
 which each respectively possessed. The trades 
 exercised in Colchester were the following: — 
 baker, barber, blacksmith, ^b®wyer, brewer, 
 butcher, carpenter, carter, cobbler, cook, dyer, 
 fisherman, fuller, furrier, girdler, glass-seller, 
 glover, linen draper, mercer, and spice-seller, 
 miller, mustard and vinegar-seller, old-clothes- 
 seller, saddler, tailor, tanner, tiler, weaver, 
 wood-cutler and wool-comber. If you look 
 at a small town of the present day, where 
 such a variety of occupations are carried 
 on, you will find that each tradesman has a 
 considerable 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 there can be no doubt ; 
 for here we see the division of labor was 
 pretty extensive, and that is always a proof 
 that production is going forward, however 
 imperfectly. We see, too, that the tradesmen 
 were connected with manufactures in the ordi- 
 nary 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 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 103 
 
 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 500Z. Nor let it be 
 supposed that this smallness of capital can be 
 accounted for by the difference in the standard 
 of money ; for 51 8Z. of the time of Edward III. 
 would amount only to 1450Z. of our present 
 money.* We may indeed satisfy ourselves of 
 the small extent of the capital of individuals at 
 that day, by referring 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 con- 
 sisted of two broad-axes, an adze, a square, and 
 a navegor or spoke-shave. Rough work 
 must the carpenter have been able to perform 
 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 \vas consequently required. The 
 three hundred and ninety housekeepers of Col- 
 chester 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 describing, says “ There were 
 very few chimneys even in capital towns : the 
 
 * Eden’s Table of the Convertible Value of British 
 Money, in his History of the Poor. 
 
104 the rights of industry. 
 
 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 modern 
 luxury. We had improved little upon our Anglo- 
 Saxon ancestors in the article of chimneys. In 
 their time Alcuin, an abbot who had ten thou- 
 sand 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 century. Five hundred years had made 
 little difference in the chimneys of Colchester. 
 The nobility had hangings against the walls to 
 keep out the wind, which crept in through the 
 crevices which the builder’s bunding art had 
 left ; the middle orders had no hangings. Shak- 
 speare alludes to this rough building of houses 
 even in his time : — 
 
 Imperial Cassar, dead and turn’d 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 countrie- 
 houses, instead of glasse, 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. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOE. 105 
 
 The mercer’s stock-in-trade at Colchester was 
 much upon a level with the carpenter’s tools. It 
 was somewhat various, but very limited in quan- 
 tity. The whole comprised a piece of woollen 
 cloth, some silk and fine linen, flannel, silk 
 purses, gloves, girdles, leather purses, and needle- 
 work ; and it was altogether valued at £3, or 
 £9 of our present money. 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 consume 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 no- 
 bilty wore w'hite linen. As industry increased, 
 and the cleanliness of the middle classes increased 
 with it, the use of white linen became more gene- 
 ral. But, even at the end of the next century, 
 when printing was invented, the paper-makers 
 had the greatest difficulty in procuring rags for 
 their manufacture ; and so careful were the peo- 
 ple of every class to preserve their linen, that 
 night-clothes were never worn. Linen was so 
 dear, that Shakspeare makes FalstafF’s shirts 
 eight shillings an ell. The more sumptuous arti- 
 cles of a mercer’s stock were treasured in rich 
 families from generation to generation ; and 
 even the wives of the nobility did not dis- 
 dain to mention in their wdlls a particular 
 
106 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 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 Chroni- 
 cles of Brantome, a French historian of these 
 days, that even the nobility sat upon chests in 
 which they kept their clothes and linen. Har- 
 rison, whose testimony we 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 peradven- 
 ture 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 absence of chairs and tables, 
 would have been of less consequence to the 
 comfort and health of the people, if they had 
 been clean ; but cleanliness never exists with- 
 out a certain possession of domestic conve- 
 niences. The people of England, in the days 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 107 
 
 of which we are speaking, were not famed for 
 their attention to this particular. Thomas a- 
 Becket was reputed extravagantly nice, be- 
 cause he had his parlor strewed every day with 
 clean straw. As late as the reign of Henry 
 VIII., Erasmus, a celebrated scholar of Hol- 
 land, 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 unmo- 
 lested a collection of beer, grease, fragments, 
 bones, spittle, excrements of dogs and cats, 
 and of everything 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 
 unknown. 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 atten- 
 tion was generally paid to the cultivation of 
 the mind. Before the invention of printing, 
 at the time of the valuation of Colchester, 
 books in manuscript, from their extensive cost- 
 liness, could be purchased only by princes. 
 The royal library of Paris, in 1378, consisted 
 of nine hundred and nine volumes, — an extra- 
 ordinary number. The same library now 
 comprises upwards of four hundred thousand 
 volumes. But it may fairly be assumed that, 
 
108 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 where one book could be obtained in the four- 
 teenth 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 priva- 
 tion had continued, and men therefore had 
 not cultivated their understandings, they would 
 not have learnt to give any really profitable 
 direction to their labor, and we should still 
 have been as scantily supplied with furniture 
 and clothes as the good people of Colchester 
 of whom you have been reading. 
 
 Let us see what accumulated supply, or 
 capital, of food the inhabitants of England 
 had five centuries ago. Possessions in cat- 
 tle are the earliest riches of most countries. 
 We have seen that cattle was called “ live 
 money;” and it is supposed that the v/ord 
 capital, which means stock generally, was 
 derived from the Latin word “ capita,” or 
 heads of beasts. The law-term “chattels,” 
 is also supposed to come from cattle. These 
 circumstances show that cattle were the chief 
 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 Con- 
 queror, it is always mentioned how many hogs 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 109 
 
 each estate can maintain. Hume, the histo- 
 rian, in his Essays, alluding to the great herds 
 of swine described by Polybius 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 fourteenth 
 century, although many swine were main- 
 tained in forests preserved for fuel. The hogs 
 wandered about the country in a half- wild 
 state, destroying, probably, more than they 
 profitable consumed ; and they were badly 
 fed, if we may judge from a statute of 1402, 
 which alleges the great decrease of fish in 
 the Thames and other rivers, by the prac- 
 tice of feeding hogs with the fry caught at 
 the wears. The hog’s 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 vine- 
 gar seller formed a business at Colchester, 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 
 K 
 
110 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 the laity were destroyed in the wars be- 
 tween the houses of York and Lancaster. 
 Harrison speaks of wheaten bread as being 
 chiefly used by the gentry for their own tables ; 
 and adds, that the artificer and laborer are 
 “ driven to content themselves with horse- 
 corne, beanes, 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, doubtless contributed to the shorten- 
 ing of life ; to say nothing of the large num- 
 bers 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 eat salted meat 
 without green vegetables, the destruction of 
 life in the navy was something incredible. 
 Admiral Hosier buried his ships’ 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 gr^at measure caused by the indisposition 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. HI 
 
 of the people to unite for a common good in 
 public works, and the inability of government 
 to carry on these works, when their principal 
 concern is war, foreign or domestic. The 
 foundations of the civilization of this country 
 were probably laid by our Roman conquerors, 
 who carried roads through the island, and 
 taught us how to cultivate our soil. Yet im- 
 provement went on so slowly, that even a hun- 
 dred years after the Romans were settled here, 
 the whole country was described as marshy. 
 For centuries after the Romans made the Wat- 
 ling-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 dis- 
 charged of his contract, as he undertakes a 
 physical impossibility. We find, as late as the 
 time of Elizabeth, that her Majesty would 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 religious 
 houses. The difficulty of navigation was so 
 great, that William Longsword, son of Henry 
 
112 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 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 la- 
 bor ; — and looking, as we have previously 
 done, to the incessant contests between the 
 small capital and the misdirected labor, both 
 feeble, because they worked without skill; — 
 we cannot be surprised 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 accu- 
 mulations as we now enjoy. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 113 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The writers who lived at the periods when 
 Europe was slowly emerging from ignorance 
 and poverty, through the first slight union of 
 capital and labor as voluntary exchangers, 
 complain of the increase of comforts as indica- 
 tions of the growing luxury and efieminacy of 
 the people. Harrison says, “ In times past 
 men were contented to dwell in houses builded 
 of sallow, willow, plum-tree, or elm ; so that 
 the use of oak was dedicated to churches, re- 
 ligious houses, princes’ palaces, noblemen’s 
 lodgings, and navigation. But now, these 
 are rejected, 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 assurance 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 
 K2 
 
114 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 heads did never ake.” 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 he 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 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 Water- 
 loo ; 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 soldiers 
 which Hannibal carried into Italy were sud- 
 denly 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 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 115 
 
 we hear of ancient nations being enervated by 
 abundance, we may be sure that the abundance 
 was almost entirely devoured 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. We hear 
 of the luxury of the court of Persia; — the 
 pomp of the seraglios, and of the palaces ; — 
 the lights, the music, the dancing, the per- 
 fumes, the silks, the gold, and the diamonds. 
 The people are held to be effeminate. The 
 Russians, from the hardy north, can lay the 
 Persian monarch any day at their feet. Is 
 this national weakness 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. Fraser, 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 picture of 
 the general decline of prosperity in Persia. 
 Ruins of large villages thickly scattered about 
 with the skeleton-like walls of caravansaries 
 and gardens all telling of better times, stood 
 like memento moris (remembrances of death) 
 to kingdoms and governments; and the whole 
 ■plain was dotted over with small mounds, 
 which indicate the course 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 cultivation to 
 
116 THE EIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 require their aid.” Was it, think you, the 
 luxury of the people which produced this 
 decay — the increase of their means of produc- 
 tion — their advancement in skill and capital ; 
 or some external cause which repressed pro- 
 duction, and destroyed accumulation both of 
 outward wealth and knowledge? “Such is 
 the character of their rulers,” says Mr. Fraser, 
 “that the only measure of their demands 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 labor is con- 
 cealed, for it would otherwise be plundered. 
 It does not freely and openly work to en- 
 courage new labor. Burckhardt, the travel- 
 ler of Nubia, saw a farmer who had been 
 plundered of every thing by the Pacha, be- 
 cause it came to the ears of the savage ruler 
 that the unhappy man was 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 down 
 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 prop- 
 erty — when capital and labor were not 
 united — when all men consequently worked 
 unprofitably, because they worked without 
 division of labor, accumulation of knowledge, 
 and union of forces — there was universal 
 poverty, because there was feeble production. 
 Slow and painful were the steps which capital 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 117 
 
 and labor 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 v/ill 
 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. 
 
 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 William IV. it has 
 six hundred and twelve 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, as you 
 know, 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 
 vegetables and fruits that kings could not 
 command two centuries ago. Houses such as 
 these are composed of several rooms — not of 
 one room only, where the people are compelled 
 to eat and sleep and perform every office, per- 
 haps in company with pigs and cattle — but of 
 a kitchen, and often a parlor, and several 
 bed-rooms. These rooms are furnished with 
 
118 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY". 
 
 tables, and chairs, and beds, and cooking- 
 utensils. There is ordinarily, too, something 
 for ornament 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 ele- 
 gant forms and colors ; drinking- vessels of 
 glass are not uncommon. The inhabitants 
 are not scantily supplied 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 worn by 
 the highest in the land. Every one is clean ; 
 for no house above the few hovels which still 
 deform the land 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 con- 
 stantly washed. The children, almost univer- 
 sally, receive instruction in some public estab- 
 lishment ; and when the labor 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 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 119 
 
 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 imported them; the productions too 
 of distant regions, such as spices, and coffee 
 and tea, are universally consumed 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, so that a man 
 can travel a hundred miles more readily 
 now 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 wants, according to his means, at the 
 least possible expense of the transport of com- 
 modities. Every tradesman has a stock ready 
 to meet the demand ; — and thus the stock of a 
 very moderately wealthy tradesman of the Col- 
 chester of the present day is worth more than 
 all the stock of all the different trades that 
 
120 THE RIGHT3 OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 were carried on in the same place in the four- 
 teenth century. To effect these public conve- 
 niences, millions of capital have been invested, 
 whtch sums have afforded profitable labor 
 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 iron were manufactured. In the year 
 1828, the amount of the produce of cast 
 iron was six hundred thousand tons. A large 
 portion of this enormous increase has been 
 applied to the internal improvement of the 
 country, in water-pipes, gas-pipes, bridges, and 
 rail -roads. 
 
 But to enable 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 pro- 
 duction 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 production, for without increased 
 production the amount of population must re- 
 main stationary; with diminished production 
 it must become less ; and if there were no pro- 
 duction and therefore no accumulation, popula- 
 tion would be altogether extinguished. Mr. 
 Turner, the historian of the Anglo-Saxons, has 
 estimated from Domesday-Book, that the popu- 
 lation of England at the time of the Norman 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 121 
 
 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 1821, a period of four cen- 
 turies and a half, the population of England had 
 increased to nearly twelve millions, or five 
 times the amount of the population of 1377. 
 The increased 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 produc- 
 tion 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 Colchester lived at the time we 
 have described in the last chapter. To assist 
 this comparison we will furnish a few particu- 
 lars of the present home consumption of the 
 kingdom, in the great staple articles of her 
 commerce and manufactures. We only take 
 those articles which can be accurately esti- 
 mated. 
 
 Of xisheat^ fifteen million quarters are an- 
 nually consumed in Great Britain. This is 
 about a quarter of wheat to each individual. 
 Of maZ^, twenty-five million bushels are an- 
 nually used in breweries and distilleries in 
 L 
 
122 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 the United Kingdom; and there are forty-six 
 thousand acres under cultivation with hoys. 
 Of the quantity of potatoes and other vege- 
 tables consumed we have no accounts. Of 
 meat, about one million, two hundred and fifty 
 thousand head of cattle, sheep, and pigs are sold 
 during the year in Smithfield market alone, 
 which is probably about a tenth of the con- 
 sumption of the whole kingdom. The quan- 
 tity of tea consumed in the United Kingdom 
 is about thirty million pounds annually. Of 
 sugai* nearly four million hundred-weights, oi' 
 about five hundred million lbs. every year, — 
 which is a consumption of twenty pounds for 
 every individual, reckoning the population at 
 twenty-five millions; and oi coffee about twenty 
 million lbs. are annually consumed. Of soap, 
 one hundred and fourteen million lbs. are con- 
 sumed ; and of candles, about a hundred and 
 seventeen million lbs. Of sea-borne coals alone 
 there are about three million chaldrons consumed 
 in England and Wales ; and it is estimated that, 
 adding the coals of the midland counties, each 
 person of the population consumes a chaldron 
 throughout the kingdom. Of clothing, we 
 annually manufacture about two hundred mil- 
 lion lbs. of cotton wool, which produce twelve 
 hundred million yards of calico and various 
 other cotton fabrics, and of these we export 
 about a third ; so that eight hundred million 
 yards remain for home consumption, being 
 about thirty- two yards annually for each person. 
 The woollen manufacture consumes about 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 123 
 
 thirty million lbs. of wool. Of hides and 
 skins about fifty million are annually tanned 
 and dressed. Of paper, about fifty million lbs. 
 are yearly manufactured, which is about two 
 million reams, of five hundred sheets to the 
 ream. 
 
 To carry on the commerce of this country 
 with foreign nations and between distant parts 
 of the United Kingdom, there are twenty 
 thousand ships in constant employ, belonging 
 to our own merchants. To carry on the com- 
 merce with ourselves, the total length of our 
 turnpike roads is twenty-five thousand miles, 
 and three thousand miles of canals. To pro- 
 duce food for the inhabitants of the country 
 we have forty million acres under cultiva- 
 tion. To clothe them we have millions of spin- 
 dles worked by steam, instead of a few thou- 
 sands turned by hand as they were a century 
 ago. The fixed capital of the country insured 
 in fire-offices, that insurance being far short of 
 its real amount, is above five hundred 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 represented by 
 houses, and furniture, and shipping, and stocks 
 of goods. The public capital of the country 
 expended in roads, canals, docks, harbors, and 
 buildings, is equal to at least half the private 
 capital. All this capital is the accumulated 
 labor of two thousand years, when the civiliza- 
 
124 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 tion of the country first began. The greater 
 portion of it is the accumulated labor of the 
 last four hundred years, when labor and 
 capital, through the partial abolition of sla- 
 very, first began to work together with free- 
 dom, and therefore with energy and skill. 
 We shall show you the objects to which this 
 succession of labor, working with accumula- 
 tion, has been applied, and the instruments 
 with which these two great powers have 
 worked. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 125 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Two of the most terrific famines that are re- 
 corded in the history of the world occurred in 
 Egypt — a country where there is greater pro- 
 duction, with less labor, than is probably ex- 
 hibited in any other region. The principal 
 laborer in Egypt is the river Nile, whose 
 periodical overflowings impart fertility to the 
 thirsty soil, and produce in a few weeks that 
 abundance which the labor of the husband- 
 man might not hope to command if employed 
 during the whole year. But the Nile is a 
 workman that cannot be controlled and di- 
 rected, 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 labor to 
 perform in winning the earth ; where it is least 
 genial the cultivators have most labor. The 
 increased labor balances the small natural 
 i 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 labor was not prepared 
 to compensate for this refusal ; — the ground 
 ^ refused to produce; the people were starved. 
 L2 
 
126 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 We mention these famines of Egypt to show 
 that certainty is the most encouraging stim- 
 ulus to every operation of human industry. 
 We know that production as invariably follows 
 a right direction of labor, as day succeeds to 
 night. We believe that it will be dark to- 
 night and light again to-morrow, because we 
 know the general laws which govern light and 
 darkness, and because our experience shows 
 us that those laws are constant and uniform. 
 We know that if we plow, 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 labor 
 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 
 labor 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 pro- 
 duction annually to go forward to the immense 
 extent which we there exhibited. The long 
 succession of labor, which has covered this 
 country with wealth, has been applied to the 
 encouragement of the productive forces of na- 
 ture, and the restraint of the destroying. No 
 one can doubt that the instant the labor 
 of man ceases to direct those productive natu- 
 ral forces, the destroying forces immediately 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 12T 
 
 come into action. Take the most familiar in- 
 stance — a cottage whose neat thatch was never 
 broken, whose latticed windows were always 
 entire, whose white-washed walls were ever 
 clean, round whose porch the honeysuckle 
 was trained in regulated luxuriance, whose gar- 
 den 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 de- 
 voured by mice, the windows are driven in 
 by storms, the walls are soaked through with 
 damp and are crumbling to ruin, the honey- 
 suckle obstructs the entrance which it once 
 adorned, the garden is covered with weeds 
 which years of after-labor 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.” 
 
 Apply this principle upon a large scale. Let 
 the productive energy of a country be sus- 
 pended through some great cause which pre- 
 vents its labor 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 grow to be 
 impassable, the canals are choked up, the 
 rivers break down their banks, the sea itself 
 
128 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 swallows up the land. You have heard it said 
 that Tenterden steeple was the cause of Good- 
 win Sands. The meaning of the saying is, 
 that the capital which was appropriated to keep 
 out the sea from that part of the Kentish coasj: 
 was diverted to the building of Tenterden 
 steeple; and there being no funds to keep out 
 the sea, it washed over the land.* The Good- 
 win Sands remain to show that man must 
 carry on a perpetual contest to keep in sub- 
 jection the forces of nature, which, as it 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 de- 
 vouring the land. Till men know that they 
 shall work with justice on every side, they 
 work feebly and unprofitably. England did 
 not begin to accumulate largely, and rapidly 
 till the rights both of the poor man and the 
 rich were to a certain degree established — till 
 industry was free, and property secure. Let 
 any circumstances again arise which may be 
 powerful enough to destroy, or even molest, 
 the freedom of industry and the security of 
 property, and we should work once more with- 
 out certainty. The elements of prosperity 
 would not be constant and uniform. We 
 should work with the apprehension that some 
 
 Grey’s Notes to Iludibras. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 129 
 
 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 inun- 
 dation of the Nile. We then should have an 
 inundation of tranquillity. But if the tran- 
 quillity were not present — if lawless violence 
 stood in the place of justice and security — we 
 should be like the people of Egypt when the 
 Nile did not overflow. We should suffer the 
 extremity of misery ; and that possible ex- 
 tremity would produce an average misery, even 
 if tranquillity did return, because security had 
 not returned. We should, if this state of things 
 long abided, by degrees go back to the con- 
 dition of Colchester in the fourteenth century, 
 and thence to the universal marsh of two thou- 
 sand 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 pain- 
 fully, without skill and without division of 
 labor, 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 cap- 
 ital and labor applied themselves in union- — 
 perhaps not a perfect union, but still in union 
 — to the great business of production, they 
 
130 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 worked with less and less expenditure of un- 
 profitable labor. They continued to labor 
 more and more profitably, as they labored 
 with knowledge. The labor of all rude na- 
 tions, and of all uncultivated individuals, is 
 labor with ignorance. Peter the wild boy, 
 whom we have already mentioned, could never 
 be made to perceive the right direction of labor, 
 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. Hav- 
 ing been trusted to fill a cart with manure, he 
 labored with diligence till the work was ac- 
 complished ; 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 labor, and 
 not in the results of the labor. The same 
 ignorance exhibits itself in the unprofitable 
 labor and unprofitable application of capital, 
 even of persons far removed beyond the half- 
 idiotcy of Peter the wild boy. In the thirteenth 
 century many of the provinces of France were 
 overrun 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 injuring rats was 
 solemnly debated, the rats were declared cursed 
 and excommunicated if they did not retire in 
 six days. The historian does not add that the 
 rats obeyed the injunction ; and doubtless the 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 131 
 
 farmers were less prepared to resort to the prof- 
 itable labor of chasing them to death when 
 they had paid the ecclesiastics for the unprofita- 
 ble labor of their excommunication. There 
 is a curious instance of unprofitable labor 
 given in a book on the Coal Trade of Scot- 
 land, 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 con- 
 sumer. A wall of coals was first built within 
 the pit, another wall at the pit’s mouth, an- 
 other wall when they were raised from the pit, 
 another wall in the wagon which conveyed 
 them to the port where they were shipped, an- 
 other wall in the hold of the ship, another wall 
 in the cart which conveyed them to the con- 
 sumer, 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 shovel- 
 led together in large and small pieces, his ser- 
 vant 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 labor 
 and capital should have existed amongst a 
 highly acute and refined community, within the 
 last twenty years. They, perhaps, thought they 
 were n:iaking good for trade, and therefore sub- 
 mitted to the evil ; while the Glasgow people, 
 
132 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY, 
 
 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 labor- 
 
 The unprofitable applications of capital and 
 labor 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 refinement, 
 have been fostered by the ignorance of the 
 great, and even of the learned, as to the causes 
 which, advancing production or retarding it, 
 advanced or retarded their own interests, and 
 the interests of all the community. Princes 
 and statesmen, prelates and philosophers, 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 
 greatness 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. In France, under the old 
 monarchy, no descendant of a nobleman could 
 embark in trade without the highest disgrace ; 
 and the principle was so generally recognized 
 as just, that a French writer, even as recently 
 as 1758, reproaches the sons of the English 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 133 
 
 nobility for the contrary 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 government ought to 
 practise, of not interfering, or interfering little 
 with commerce. 
 
 Lewis XIV. did not waste more capital and 
 labor by his ruinous wars, and by his covering 
 France with fortifications and palaces, than 
 by the perpetual interferences of himself and 
 his predecessors with the freedom of trade, 
 which compelled capital and labor to work 
 unprofitably. 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 profita- 
 ble channels. It was therefore wisely said by 
 a committee of Merchants to Colbert, the Prime 
 Minister of France in the reign of Lewis XV., 
 when he asked them what measures govern- 
 ment could adopt to promote the interests of 
 commerce, — “ Let us alone, permit us quietly 
 M 
 
134 THE niGHTB OP INDUSTRY. 
 
 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 pre- 
 vent him doing a positive injury to his neigh- 
 bor. It is thus that agriculture and manu- 
 factures are essentially allied in their interests ; 
 that unrestrained commerce is equally essen- 
 tial to the real and permanent interests of agri- 
 culture and manufactures ; that capital and labor 
 are equally united in their interests, whether ap- 
 plied to agriculture, manufactures, or commerce ; 
 that the producer and the consumer are equally 
 united in their most essential interest, which is, 
 that there should be cheap production. While 
 these principles are not understood at all, and 
 while they are imperfectly 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 labor, a 
 vast deal of bickering and heart-burning between 
 individuals 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 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 135 
 
 classes, or individuals. The prejudices by which 
 nations, classes, and individuals are led to be- 
 lieve 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 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 in- 
 dividual 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 prosperity and happiness — lifting 
 themselves to the possession of good 
 
 “ By Reason’s light, on Resolution’s wings.” 
 
136 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 One of the most striking and lamentable 
 effects of the want of knowledge, producing dis- 
 unions amongst mankind that are injurious to 
 the interests of each and all, is the belief 
 which still exists amongst many of you, the 
 working-men of these kingdoms, that the 
 powers and arrangements which Capital has 
 created and devised for the advancement of 
 production are injurious to you in your char- 
 acter of producers. The great forces by which 
 capital and labor now work, — forces which 
 are gathering strength every day, — are accu- 
 mulation of skill and division of employments. 
 We have already endeavored, and we hope 
 with some success, in the “ Results of Ma- 
 chinery,” to show you that applications of sci- 
 ence to the manufacturing arts have the effect 
 of insuring cheap production and increased em- 
 ployment. For this reason, it is unnecessary 
 that we should here dwell at any length upon 
 a question with regard to which we trust 
 many of you have completely satisfied your 
 minds. But as it is the principal object of 
 this volume to exhibit upon a broad scale the 
 productive forces of society, working with the 
 full powers and natural agencies of capital 
 and labor united together for a common good, 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 137 
 
 we should imperfectly attain that object if we 
 did not bestow a few pages upon a view of the 
 absolute necessity which exists for capital and 
 labor to work together with all the aids 
 which they can derive from accumulation of 
 knowledge and division of employment, that 
 the business of production may go on with 
 certainty and with rapidity, — without waste of 
 materials or of time. 
 
 Lord 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 society, handed down from the earliest ages. 
 No one can tell, for instance, how the art of 
 leavening bread was introduced amongst man- 
 kind ; and yet this process, now so familiar to 
 all, contributes as much, if not more, than any 
 other art to the wholesome and agreeable pre- 
 paration of our food. Leavening bread is a 
 branch of Chemistry; and, like that process, 
 many other processes 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 
 capital has been at hand to encourage science, 
 has the progress of the application been cer- 
 tain and rapid. The old Alchemists, or hunters 
 M 2 
 
138 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 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 labor of all man- 
 kind during the same period. Let it not be 
 supposed that we wish to depreciate manual 
 labor. We only wish to show that labor is 
 incomparably more prolific when directed by 
 science. Mahomet Bey, the ruler 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 Al- 
 giers restored him to his throne upon condition 
 that the secret should be communicated to 
 him. Mahomet, with great pomp and solem- 
 nity, sent the Dey of Algiers a plow. This 
 was so far well. He intimated that to compel 
 production by labor is to make a nation 
 rich. But had he been able to transmit some 
 of the science which now controls and guides 
 the operation of the plow — the chemical 
 knowledge which teaches the proper applica- 
 tion of manures 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 communicating the real phi- 
 losopher’s stone. 
 
 The indirect influence, too, of a general 
 advance in knowledge upon the particular 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 139 
 
 advance of any branch of labor, 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, even as the 
 Liverpool Railway is daily extending the civili- 
 zation of the rudest districts of Ireland. It 
 has been wisely and beautifully said, “We can- 
 not 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 neglected.”* The positive influ- 
 ence of science in the direction of labor is 
 exhibited in the operations of mechanics and 
 chemistry applied to the arts, in the shape of 
 machines for saving materials and labor, and 
 of processes for attaining the same economy. 
 In the “ Results of Machinery” we have de- 
 scribed the effects of these manifold inventions 
 in the improvement of your condition both as 
 producers and consumers. But there are many 
 particulars in which knowledge has labored, 
 and is still laboring, for the advance of the 
 physical and moral condition of us all, which 
 may have escaped your attention ; because these 
 labors operate remotely and indirectly, though 
 not without the highest ultimate certainty and 
 efficiency, in aiding the great business of pro- 
 duction. These are the influences of science 
 upon labor, not so direct as the mechanical 
 skill which has contrived the steam-engine, or 
 
 * Hume’s Essays. 
 
140 the rights of industry. 
 
 so indirect as the operation of ethics upon 
 the manufacture of a piece of woollen cloth ; 
 but which confer a certain, and in some in- 
 stances 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 satisfying your minds as to the extent and 
 importance of those aids which production de- 
 rives from the labors 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 you what an 
 intimate union subsists amongst those classes 
 of society who appear the most separated ; and 
 that these men really labor with you all most 
 efiectually 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 astronomy, he perhaps did not 
 mean to go the length of saying, 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 navigation. A 
 seaman, by the guidance of principles I^iid 
 down by the great minds that have directed 
 their mathematical powers to the study of 
 astronomy — such minds as those of Newton 
 and La Place, — measures the moon’s apparent 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 141 
 
 distance from a particular star. He turns to a 
 page in the Nautical Almanac, and, by an easy 
 calculation, directed by this table alone, can de- 
 termine whereabout he is upon the broad ocean, 
 although he may not have seen land for three 
 months*. Sir W. Herschell, 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 accessi- 
 ble to all, has given, in his “ Discourse on the 
 Study of Natural Philosophy,” an instance of the 
 accuracy of such lunar observations, in an ac- 
 count 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 harbor of Rio as accurately, and with as 
 little deviation, as a coachman drives his stage 
 into an inn-yard. But what has this, you say, 
 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 Nau- 
 tical 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 man who had made 
 three voyages across the Straits was entitled 
 to rank as a thane, or nobleman. This feat, 
 then held of so much difficulty, and therefore 
 so highly honored, is now as easy as crossing 
 the Thames from Westminster to Lambeth. 
 
142 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 Long after this early period of England’s 
 navigation, voyages across the Atlantic 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 under- 
 taking 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 invented, America could never have 
 been discovered ; and if America, and the pas- 
 sage 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 Eng- 
 land, we should have been as badly off for 
 clothing as the people of the middle ages, 
 and the million of working men and women, 
 manufacturers of cotton, would have been 
 without employment. 
 
 Astronomy, therefore, you see, and navi- 
 gation, both sciences the results of long ages 
 of patient inquiry, have opened a communica- 
 tion 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 neces- 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 143 
 
 saries, comforts, and conveniences of civilized 
 life. The connexion between manufactures 
 and science, practical commerce and abstract 
 speculation, is so intimate that it might be 
 traced in a thousand striking instances. Co- 
 lumbus, 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. The course of the great 
 river Niger, in Africa, has just been discovered 
 by an enterprising man who was servant to a 
 naval officer who perished in attempting to 
 make the discovery. The knowledege of the 
 course of this river, and its connexion with the 
 sea, may, in process of time, have the greatest 
 influence upon the commerce of England ; but 
 the problem to be solved — the difficulty of de- 
 termining its course — had occupied the minds 
 of the scientific men of Europe long before the 
 question was set at rest by this persevering 
 traveller, after so many others had sunk under 
 the dangers and fatigues of the attempt. 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 labors 
 
144 the rights of industry. 
 
 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 ex- 
 isted in the lime of Columbus had not re- 
 ceived immense additions from the subsequent 
 labors of other students of geography, Eng- 
 land would not have twenty thousand merchant 
 ships ready to trade wherever men have any- 
 thing 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 com- 
 mon thing, but it is impossible to overrate the 
 extent of the accumulated observations that go 
 to make up a map. An almanac seems a 
 common thing, but it is impossible to overrate 
 the prodigious accumulations of science that 
 go to make up an almanac. With these accu- 
 mulations, it is now no very difficult matter to 
 construct a map or an almanac. But if society 
 could be deprived of the accumulations, and 
 we had to re-create and remodel everything for 
 the formation of our map and our almanac, it 
 would perhaps require many centuries before 
 these 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. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 145 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Science, we see, connects distant regions, 
 and renders the world one great commercial 
 market. Science is, therefore, a chief instrument 
 in the production of commercial 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 de- 
 sired to dig a mine, or confided 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 knowing in 
 what strata of earth coal is necessarily 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 al- 
 together 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 
 N 
 
146 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 prevented ; and have thus accumulated capital, 
 and given a profitable stimulus to labor, by 
 saving their waste. 
 
 Whatever diminishes the risk to life or 
 health, in any mechanical operation, or any 
 exertion of bodily labor, lessens the cost of 
 production, by diminishing the premium which 
 is charged by the producers to cover the risk. 
 The safety-lamp of Sir Humphry Davy, by 
 diminishing the waste of human life employed 
 in raising coals, diminished the price of coals. 
 The magnetic mask, which prevents iron-filings 
 escaping down the throats of grinders and pol- 
 ishers, and thus prevents the consumption of 
 the lungs, to which these trades are peculiarly 
 obnoxious, would diminish the price of steel 
 goods, 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 work- 
 men. But whether they are wise or not, the 
 natural and inevitable influence of the discov- 
 ery, sooner or later, to lessen the cost of pro- 
 duction in that trade, by lessening the risk of 
 the laborers, must be established. The light- 
 ning conductor of Franklin, which is used very 
 generally on the Continent, and almost uni- 
 versally in shipping, diminishes the risk of 
 property, in the same way that the safety-lamp 
 diminishes the risk of life ; and, by this diminu- 
 tion, the rate of insurance is lessened, and 
 the cost of production therefore lessened. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 147 
 
 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 Hartz 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 natural 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 published several treatises well cal- 
 culated to give you an elevated idea of your 
 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 rail-road by which it is sent to market, may 
 find every branch of trade, and every depart- 
 ment of science, literally crossed, intertwined, 
 interwoven with every other, like the woof and 
 the warp of the article manufactured.”* This 
 crossing and intertwining of the abstract and 
 practical sciences, the mechanic skill and the 
 manual labor, which are so striking in the 
 manufacture of a piece of calico, prevail through- 
 
 * ‘ Everett’s Working Man’s Party.’ Printed in the 
 American Library of Useful Knowledge, 1831. 
 
148 the rights of industry. 
 
 out every department of industry in a highly- 
 civilized community. Every one who labors 
 at all profitably, labors for the production of 
 utility, and sets in motion the labor of others. 
 Look at the labor of the medical profession. 
 In the fourteenth century, John de Gad- 
 desden 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 understand- 
 ing of the people ; and they consequently trust- 
 ed 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 physician ; but finding that the 
 man who arrived had been converted to Chris- 
 tianity, 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, 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 149 
 
 that common artificers, as smiths, and weavers, 
 and women, boldly and accustomably, take upon 
 them great cures, in which they partly use sor- 
 cery and witchcraft, partly apply such medicines 
 to the disease as be very noxious, and nothing 
 meet, to the high displeasure of God, great in- 
 famy 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 labor profitably 
 must have been greatly diminished by the rav- 
 ages of sickness. These ravages are now check- 
 ed by medical science and medical labor. In 
 some parts of France, even at the present day, 
 the sick cattle are taken by the country people 
 outside the churches to hear -mass. If there 
 were a skilful cattle-doctor in those villages, the 
 loss of stock would be doubtless lessened, and 
 the people w^ould be all the richer for the cattle- 
 doctor’s art, instead of degrading religion by an 
 homage akin to the worst idolatry. 
 
 But the principle of connecting every exer- 
 tion of the mind with profitable labor goes 
 farther even than the applications of science, 
 direct or indirect, to the mechanical arts. The 
 sciences and arts cannot be carried forward 
 except in a country wdiere the law’s of God are 
 respected, where justice is upheld, where intel- 
 lect generally is cultivated, and taste is diffused. 
 The religious and moral teacher, therefore, w’ho 
 lifts the mind to a contemplation of the duties 
 of man, as they are founded upon a belief in 
 N2 
 
150 , THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 the Providence of an all-wise and all-powerful 
 Creator, as a profitable laborer. The instructor 
 of the young, v/ho dedicates his time to ad- 
 vancing the formation of right principles, and 
 the acquirement of sound knowledge, by his 
 pupils, is a profitable laborer. The writer who 
 applies his understanding to the discovery and 
 dissemination of moral and political truth, is a 
 profitable laborer. The interpreter and admin- 
 istrator of the laws, who upholds the reign 
 of order and security, defending the innocent, 
 punishing the guilt)^, and vindicating the rights 
 of all from outrage and oppression, is a profit- 
 able laborer. These laborers, it may be said, 
 are still direct producers of utility, but that 
 those who address themselves to the imagina- 
 tion — the poets, the novelists, the painters, and 
 the musicians, — in every polished society, are 
 unprofitable laborers. One word is sufficient 
 for an answer. These men advance the gene- 
 ral intellect of a country, and they therefore 
 indirectly advance the production of articles 
 of necessity. We have already shown you 
 how the study of the higher mathematics, upon 
 which astronomy is founded, has an influence 
 upon the production of a piece of woollen 
 cloth ; and we beg you to bear this con- 
 nexion in mind, when you hear it said, as you 
 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,” 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 151 
 
 have, next to the inspirations of religion, lifted 
 mankind, more than any other class of intellect- 
 ual workmen, to their noblest pursuits of know- 
 ledge and virtue. Even the less dignified 
 laborers in the same field, — those who espe- 
 cially devote themselves to give pleasure and 
 amusement, — 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 sensuality ; 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 nourishes 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 orna- 
 ments of life, without injury, and indeed with 
 positive benefit, to the classes who more espe- 
 cially dedicate themselves to what is some- 
 what exclusively 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, Vv'ho beguiles a 
 vacant hour of its tediousness, by some eflbrt of 
 intellect which captivates the imagination with- 
 out poisoning the morals, — and he who by the 
 exercise of his art produces forms of beauty 
 
152 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 which awaken in the mind that principle of 
 taste, which, more than any other faculty, re- 
 quires cultivation, — have each bestowed bene- 
 fits upon the world which may be accurately 
 enough measured even by the severe limitations 
 of political economy ; — they are profitable la- 
 borers and benefactors of their species. 
 
 We have entered into these details, princi- 
 pally to show that there are other and higher 
 producers in society than the mere manual la- 
 borers. It was an ignorant fashion amongst 
 the mental laborers of other days to despise 
 your class, the physical laborers. They have 
 learnt to know your value ; and you should 
 learn to know theirs. Both classes are 
 working-classes. No one can say that the 
 mental laborers 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 ab- 
 sorbing 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 unwearied assiduity. The 
 most eminent, too, have been practical men, 
 despising no inquiry, however trifling it might 
 appear to common eyes, and shrinking from 
 no occupation, however tedious, as long as it 
 was connected with their higher duties. The 
 'positive influence even of the labors of the 
 
/ 
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOR. 153 
 
 poets and the artists upon the advance of 
 other labor 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 
 community that would fill a large town. The 
 Potteries of Etruria, in Staffordshire, could not 
 have existed unless Mr. Wedge wood had intro- 
 duced into our manufacture of china the forms 
 of Grecian art, bequeathed to us by the taste of 
 two thousand years ago, and thus created a 
 demand which has furnished profitable labor 
 to thousands. But this, as we have already 
 shown you, is not the principal way of viewing 
 the influence of science, and literature, and art, 
 upon all other industry. To reduce every 
 labor in art, or literature, or science, to the 
 same standard of value by which manual la- 
 bor is measured, would be as absurd as the 
 tasteless ignorance of the Spaniards, who ap- 
 plied a rare and valuable antique bust to serve 
 as the weight to a church-clock. Any attempt 
 to put the mental laborers upon the same foot- 
 ing of value as the laborers without skill, 
 would be as impossible as it would be mis- 
 chievous if it were possible ; for in that case 
 production would decline, and ultimately cease 
 altogether, for the fountains of labor with skill 
 would be dried up. Capital must go forward 
 
154 THE RIGHTS OP INDUSTRY. 
 
 working with accumulation of knowledge ; and 
 fortunately, if you, the working-men, adapt 
 yourselves to this natural energy of capital, you 
 will yourselves become the accumulators of 
 knowledge. Manual labor is only in the high- 
 est degree required in the early settlement of a 
 country. When a dense population succeeds 
 to a scattered one, labor with skill is called 
 into action. Your counter-control to the ab- 
 sorbing power of capital is the equally absorb- 
 ing power of skill — for that also is capital. 
 Knowledge is power, because knowledge is 
 property. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 155 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 You will remember that when the fur-traders 
 refused to advance to John Tanner a supply 
 of blankets for his winter consumption, he ap- 
 plied himself to make garments out of moose- 
 skins. The skin was ready manufactured 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 manufac- 
 turer. He was a manufacturer 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 of Labor, which are 
 essential to the manufacture of blankets — both 
 of which principles are carried to their highest 
 perfection, when capital enables the manufac- 
 
156 thJe rights op industry. 
 
 ture of woollen cloth, or any other article, to 
 be carried forward upon a large scale. 
 
 Let us endeavor to trace what accumula- 
 tions 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 
 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 division of employment there is no skill. 
 Skill and division of employment are insepa- 
 rably 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 profit- 
 able direction for labor. 
 
 Before a blanket can be made, we must 
 have the material for making a blanket. Tan- 
 ner had not the material, because he was not 
 a cultivator. Before wool can be grown there 
 must be, as we have shown, appropriation of 
 land. When this appropriation takes place, 
 the owner of the land either cultivates it him- 
 self, which is the earliest stage in the division 
 of agricultural employment, — or he obtains a 
 portion of the produce in the shape of corn or 
 cattle, or in a money payment. Hence a ten- 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 157 
 
 antry. But the tenant, to manufacture wool 
 at the greatest advantage, must possess capital, 
 and carry forward the principle of the division 
 of employment by hiring laborers. We use 
 the word manufacture of wool advisedly ; 
 for all farming processes are manufacturing 
 processes, and invariably reduce themselves to 
 change of form, as all commercial processes re- 
 duce themselves to change of place. If the 
 capital of the farmer is sufficient to enable him 
 to farm upon a large scale, he divides his labor- 
 ers ; and one becomes a shepherd, one a plow- 
 man, — one sows the ground, and one washes 
 and shears the sheep, more skilfully than an- 
 other. If he has a considerable 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. 
 You must see that at every division of employ- 
 ment skill must be called forth in a higher 
 perfection than when two or more employments 
 were joined together ; and that the chief direc- 
 tor of the skill, the capitalist himself, or farmer, 
 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 
 O 
 
158 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 by what may be called the local division of 
 labor. It is convenient to rear the sheep upon 
 the mountains of Wales, because there the 
 short and thy my pastures are fitted for the 
 growth of wool. It is convenient to manu- 
 facture 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 
 manufacturer 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 commission 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 
 factoi* 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 delivers a number of 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 169 
 
 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 manufac- 
 turer, at little more cost to a large number of 
 the growers who employ him, than each 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 di- 
 visions 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 different de- 
 grees of skill, which make up the life of a mar- 
 iner ; if they go forward upon the rail-road 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 labor that adjusts itself to the management 
 of boats in canals. But the ship, the rail-road, 
 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, working with 
 the greatest mechanical skill ; and they exist 
 only through the energy of prodigious accumu- 
 lations of capital, the growth of centuries of pa- 
 tient and painful labor and economy. 
 
 We have at length the wool in a manufactory 
 at Leeds. The very employment of the circu- 
 
160 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 lating capital which has brought it there has 
 produced great division of labor, engaged in 
 carying 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 labor 
 of the hand, unassisted by science, could ever 
 attain. We shall call your 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 labor ; and 
 the business, too, must be done rapidly, or the 
 cost of sorting and picking would outweigh 
 the advantage. The second principal operation 
 is scouring. Here the men are constantly em- 
 ployed in washing the wool, to free it from all 
 impurities. It is 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 
 color it with the various chemical agents ap- 
 plied to the manufacture. The carders next 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 161 
 
 receive it, who tear it with machines till it at- 
 tains 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 subdivisions of employment which 
 are not essential for us to notice, to give you 
 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 labor 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 wets. 
 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 ma- 
 chinery 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 w^ork almost naked. It is evident that 
 the boilers and di*essers could not profitably 
 O 2 
 
162 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 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 regu- 
 lar exposure to cold or 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 direc- 
 tion. When cut, it has to be brushed dry by 
 machinery, to get out the croppings which re- 
 main 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 
 processes, to increase the delicacy of the fabric : 
 — singeing, by passing the cloth within a burn- 
 ing distance of red-hot cylinders ; frizing, to 
 raise a nap upon the cloth ; glossing, 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 mi- 
 nute 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. Be- 
 tween 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 thou- 
 sand 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 im- 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 163 
 
 healthy labor ! 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 sufiering 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 afford to wear it. But for the ac- 
 cumulation 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 labor 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 indi- 
 vidual injury to health, also, produced by the 
 division of labor, is not so great, upon the 
 average, as if there were no division. All the 
 returns of human life in this country show an 
 extremely little difference in the effect upon 
 life, even of what we consider the most un- 
 healthy 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. 
 
164 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Having traced the operation of the division 
 of labor, — and one instance, such as that of 
 the manufacture of cloth, will do for an ex- 
 ample 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 prin- 
 ciple upon your own condition. 
 
 In France, which, as a commercial and 
 manufacturing country, is considerably behind 
 the advance of England, it is a common prac- 
 tice, in many villages and small towns, for the 
 weavers to make the looms and other imple- 
 ments 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 was not only necessary for him to 
 prove that he understood his trade as a weaver, 
 but that he was able to construct all the ma- 
 chines and tools with which he carried on his 
 craft. You who know anything of the busi- 
 ness of weaving will very readily come to the 
 conclusion that the apprentice of the fifteenth 
 century, whose skill was put to such a proof, 
 was both an indifferent weaver and an indiffer- 
 ent mechanician ; — that in the attempt to unite 
 two such opposite trades, he must have ex- 
 celled in neither and that in fact the regu- 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 165 
 
 lation 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 la- 
 bor 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 utterly incompetent to produce it at all, 
 much less to produce it as durable and beau- 
 tiful as the cloth which we all daily consume. 
 How would the sorter of the wool, 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 cutter, 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 work- 
 men being incompetent to go on, the wages 
 of the workmen could no longer be paid : — 
 for the wages of labor are paid by the 
 consumer of the products of labor, and here 
 there would be nothing to consume. 
 
 The great principle, therefore, which keeps 
 the division of labor in full activity is, that 
 
166 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 the principle is necessary to production upon 
 a scale that will maintain the number of la- 
 borers engaged in working in the cheapest, 
 because most economical manner, through the 
 application of that mode of working. The 
 laborers, 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 produc- 
 tion, there would be a proportionally diminish- 
 ed 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 labor, 
 — even if it were desirable that they should 
 contend against it, as far as their individual 
 interests are concerned, — render it equally im- 
 possible that they should contend against the 
 operation of accumulation of knowledge in the 
 direction of their labor. The mode in which 
 accumulation of knowledge influences the di- 
 rection of their labor is, that it furnishes 
 mechanical 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 
 diminish, and ultimately destroy, the power of 
 manual labor, seeking to work without those 
 mechanical and chemical aids. The abandon- 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 107 
 
 ment of the division of labor would work the 
 «ame effects. There would be incomparably 
 less produced on all sides ; and the workmen 
 on all sides, experiencing in their fullest ex- 
 tent the evils which result from diminished 
 production, would all fall back in their con- 
 dition, and day by day have less command of 
 the necessaries and comforts of life, till they 
 sank into utter destitution. 
 
 We dwell principally on the effects of accu- 
 mulation of knowledge and division of labor 
 on the working-man as a consumer, because it 
 is the immediate object of this volume to con- 
 sider such questions with reference to produc- 
 tion. But it will be for us, in another depart- 
 ment of the “ Rights of Industry,” to show 
 that 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 labor, by calling in 
 accumulation of knowledge and division of 
 labor. If the freedom of labor were not 
 established upon the same imperishable basis 
 as the security of property, we might, indeed, 
 think that it was si pitiable thing for a man to 
 labor through life at one occupation, and be- 
 lieve that it was debasing to the human in- 
 tellect and morals to make for ever the eye 
 of a needle, or raise a nap upon woollen cloth. 
 The Flindoos, 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 
 
168 the rights op industry. 
 
 division of labor ; but they destroyed the prin- 
 ciple 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 com- 
 munity of possessions. Where there is no 
 stimulus to industry, things are worst ; where 
 industry is circumscribed, they cannot 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 considered by all intelligent travellers, 
 as one powerful cause of the stationary char- 
 acter of the inhabitants of that country : and the 
 effect would have been still more pernicious, if 
 time or necessity had not introduced some re- 
 laxation into the rigorous restrictions originally 
 established, and so ancient as to be attributed to 
 Siva. As long, however, as the rule is gene- 
 rally 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 approach 
 to the same effect may be witnessed in the lim- 
 itation of honors, privileges, and immunities in 
 some countries of Europe.”* 
 
 * Summer’s Records of the Creation. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 169 
 
 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 com- 
 pletely allowed when the rights of industry are 
 better understood by the votaries of industry, 
 the division of labor will not press severely 
 upon any man. In those manufactures and 
 trades where the division of labor 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 them- 
 selves to a new occupation. The simpler the 
 process in which a workman has been engaged 
 — and every process is rendered more simple 
 by the division of labor, — the easier the transi- 
 tion : and the principal quality . which is re- 
 quired to make the transition is, that stock of 
 general knowledge which the division of labor 
 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 body, and therefore has 
 no leisure to do anything for his mind. There 
 are evils, undoubtedly, in carrying the division 
 of labor to an extreme point ; but we think 
 that those very evils correct themselves, be- 
 cause they destroy the great object of the 
 principle, and give imperfect instead of perfect 
 production. The moral evils which some have 
 dreaded may assuredly be corrected by general 
 education, and in fact are corrected by the 
 P 
 
170 the rights of industry. 
 
 union of numbers in one employment. What 
 sharpens the intellect ought, undoubtedly, to 
 elevate the morals ; and, indeed, 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 division of labor should lead the laborer 
 to pursue, apply to the higher occupations 
 of industry. No man of learning 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 
 astronomer, 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 laborer, 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 
 department without a general and in many 
 respects accurate knowledge of every other de- 
 partment. The same principle produces the 
 same effects, whether applied to the solution 
 of the highest problem in geometry, or the 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 171 
 
 polishing of a pin. The division of labor must 
 be regulated by the acquisition of general 
 knowledge. 
 
 But the division of labor in carrying for- 
 ward the work of production is invariably com- 
 manded, because it is perfected, by the union 
 of forces or co-operation. The process of 
 manufacturing a piece of woollen cloth, which 
 we have described, is carried on by division of 
 labor, and by union of forces, working to- 
 gether. In fact, if there were not that ulti- 
 mate co-operation, the division of labor would 
 be not only less productive than labor with- 
 out division, but it would not be productive 
 at all. The power of large capital is the power 
 which, as society is arranged, compels this di- 
 vision of parts for the more complete produc- 
 tion of a whole. A large cloth manufactory, 
 as we have seen, exhibits itself to the eye 
 chiefly in the division of labor; but all that 
 division ends in a co-operation for the produc- 
 tion of a piece of cloth. A ship, with five 
 hundred men on board, each engaged in vari- 
 ous duties and holding different ranks, is an 
 example of the division of labor ,* 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 different channel, by 
 re-modelling society iiito large partnerships, do 
 not, because they cannot, depart, in the least 
 degree, from the principles we have laid down. 
 
172 the rights of industry. 
 
 They must have production, and therefore they 
 must have division of labor; the division of 
 labor involves degrees of skill ; the whole 
 requires to be carried on with accumulation of 
 former labor or capital, or it could not exist. 
 The only difierence proposed is, that the 
 laborers 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 repre- 
 sented as his wages as a laborer ; but that all 
 separate property shall be swallowed up in 
 joint property. We may examine the subject 
 more fully when we come to treat upon Profits 
 and Wages; but we mention it here to show 
 that even those who aspire to re-model 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 favor even of the ulti- 
 mate success of the principles of co-operation, 
 if they should be found practically to work for 
 the increase of the happiness of mankind, 
 which would not be effected by equalizing 
 the distribution of wealth, if, at the same time, 
 its production were materially checked. This 
 view of the subject goes to show that no sud- 
 den or violent change is necessary. In many 
 things society has always acted on the princi- 
 ples of co-operation. As civilization extends, 
 the number of instances has hitherto increased ; 
 and if there is no natural maximum to the 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 173 
 
 adoption of these principles (which remains to 
 be seen), men may gradually slide more and 
 more into them, and realize all sane expecta- 
 tions, without any reconstruction of their social 
 system, — any pulling down and building up 
 again of their morals or their houses. 
 
 It is the union of forces which, whether it 
 prevail in a single manufactory, in a manufac- 
 turing town viewed in connexion with that 
 manufactory, in an agricultural district 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 thou- 
 sands for carrying forward a process 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 dif- 
 ferences of power and enjoyment (and the dif- 
 ferences of enjoyment are much less than ap- 
 pear upon the surface) between the shepherd 
 boy and the great cloth manufacturer, are appa- 
 rently 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 necessary for keep- 
 ing alive that universal, and, therefore, as it 
 P2 
 
THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 174 
 
 would appear, natural desire for the improve- 
 ment of our condition, which, independently 
 of the necessity for the satisfaction of imme- 
 diate wants, more or less influences the indus- 
 try 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 laborer feel that he is 
 advancing the welfare of mankind as well as 
 the richest capitalist; and that, standing 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 labor 
 must work, to work profitably, with inter- 
 changeable freedom and security ; that when 
 the security or the freedom of either is impeded, 
 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 division of labor and accu- 
 mulation of knowledge ; and, finally, that when 
 production is carried forward by these power- 
 ful agencies, the situation of every consumer 
 is bettered, by the increased command of the 
 necessaries and comforts of life which cheap 
 production places within his reach. It remains 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 175 
 
 for US to show the particular mode in which 
 capital, working with freedom and security, 
 stimulates production ; and therefore calls forth 
 labor by assuming a Circulating form, which 
 represents the consumable commodities des- 
 tined for the maintenance of labor. 
 
176 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 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 for- 
 ward exchanges, without which no wealth can 
 exist, that we must place its operations before 
 you formally, to enable you to arrive at a full 
 knowledge of all the circumstances which de- 
 termine production. 
 
 When the prodigal, whose course we have 
 described in our fifth chapter, obtained an ex- 
 change of consumable commodities for his 
 labor, he received those commodities in the 
 shape of “ a few pence and a small gratuity 
 of meat and drink.” In this transaction we 
 find the circumstances which represent every 
 exchange of labor for capital. The prodigal 
 wanted meat and drink, and he gave labor in 
 exchange for meat and drink; the capitalist 
 wanted the produce of labor — he wanted a 
 new value bestowed upon his coals by labor 
 — and he gave meat and drink in exchange for 
 the labor which the prodigal had to give. 
 But the prodigal wanted something beyond 
 the meat and drink which was necessary for 
 the supply of the day. He had other imme- 
 diate necessities beyond food; and he had de- 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOPt. 177 
 
 termined to accumulate capital. He therefore 
 required “a few pence” in addition to the 
 “meat and drink.” The capitalist held that 
 the labor performed had conferred a value 
 upon his property, which would be fairly ex- 
 changed for the pence in addition to the food ; 
 and he gave, therefore, in exchange, that por- 
 tion of his capital which was represented by 
 the money and by the food. This blending of 
 one sort of consumable commodity, and of the 
 money which represented any other consuma- 
 ble commodity which the money could be ex- 
 changed with, was an accident arising out of 
 the peculiar circumstances in which the prodi- 
 gal happened to be placed. In ordinary 
 cases he would have received the money alone, 
 — that is, he would have received 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 represented one portion of the consuma- 
 ble commodities which were ready to pay for 
 the labor 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 commodities, 
 meat, drink, lodging, clothes, fuel, which that 
 particular laborer might want; and even re- 
 present the accumulation which he might ex- 
 tract 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 la- 
 
178 the rights of industry. 
 
 borer, whose story we have told, had re- 
 ceived a portion of the coals upon which he 
 had conferred a new value in exchange for the 
 labor which produced that value, he would 
 have been paid in a way that would have nat- 
 urally arisen out of a rude state of society. 
 But he would have been paid in a way very 
 unfavorable for production. It would have 
 required a new labor 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 received a larger por- 
 tion of coals to compensate for his new la- 
 bor, or otherwise his labor must have been 
 worse paid. There would have been unpro- 
 fitable labor, whose loss must have fallen 
 somewhere, — either upon the capitalist or the 
 laborer in the first instance, but upon both 
 ultimately, because there would have been less 
 production. All the unprofitable labor em- 
 ployed in bringing the exchange of the first 
 labor for capital to maturity, would have been 
 so much power withdrawn from the efficiency of 
 the next labor to be performed; and therefore 
 production would have been impeded to the 
 extent of that unprofitable labor. The same 
 thing would have happened if, advancing a 
 step forward in the science of exchange, the 
 laborer 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 lodg- 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 179 
 
 ing, 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 subdivide as long as he pleased, 
 whilst he was carrying on an exchange, — that 
 is, he might obtain as much lodging as he re- 
 quired 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 unquestionably 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 there- 
 fore would be the only commodity whose 
 retention would advance his design of accu- 
 mulating capital, with certainty and steadiness. 
 It is evident that a commodity possessing all 
 these advantages must have some intrinsic 
 qualities which all exchangers would recognize 
 — that it must be a standard of value — at once 
 a commodity possessing real value, and a mea- 
 sure of all other values. This commodity 
 exists in all commercial or exchanging nations 
 in the shape of coined metal. The metal itself 
 possesses a real value, which represents the 
 labor employed in producing 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 author- 
 
180 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 ity which all admit. That authority is most 
 conveniently expressed by a Government, as 
 the representative of the aggregate pov/er 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 exchangers of 
 the metal for other articles of utility could not, 
 without great loss of labor, be constantly em- 
 ployed in reducing it to the test of value, even 
 if they had the knowledge requisite for so as- 
 certaining its value. In Greece, a piece of 
 gold in the rude times was stamped with 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 pur- 
 chases 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 labor 
 in exchanging 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 medium 
 of the money, which is a standard of value be- 
 tween the bread and the beef. 
 
 But there is another and a last step, in carry- 
 ing forward the business of exchange with ease 
 to all exchangers, and with consequently less 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 181 
 
 labor and increased production. That step 
 is Credit. Credit, upon a large scale, arose 
 from the difficulty of transmitting coined money 
 from place 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 person, 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 repre- 
 sents. For instance, a box of hardware from 
 Birmingham might be exchanged for a case of 
 wine from Bourdeaux, by a direct barter be- 
 tween the tradesman at Birmingham and the 
 tradesman at Bourdeaux ; but this sort of ope- 
 ration must be a very limited one. Through 
 the agency of merchants, the hardware finds 
 its way to Bourdeaux, and the wine to Bir- 
 mingham, without any direct exchange between 
 either place, or without either having more of 
 the commodity wanted than is required by the 
 market, — that is, the supply proportioned to the 
 demand of each towm. Through the division of 
 labor, 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 with Bourdeaux, 
 with whom these merchants come in contact. 
 When, therefore, the merchant at Bourdeaux 
 
 Q 
 
182 the rights of industry. 
 
 has to pay for the hardware in England, he 
 obtains a bill of exchange from some other 
 merchant who has to receive money from Eng- 
 land, for the wine which he has sent there. 
 And thus not only is there no direct barter be- 
 tween the grower of the wine and the manu- 
 facturer of the hardware, 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 ma- 
 turity; 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 be- 
 tween 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 In- 
 land 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 production 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 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 183 
 
 he intends to convert into some article of 
 utility. He works up his raw material; he 
 makes advances for the labor 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- 
 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 con- 
 cerned in the production to another person 
 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 consumable commodities to all parties 
 concerned in advancing the production, till the 
 produce arrives in the hands of the consumer. 
 To judge of the extent to which credit is carried 
 in this country, it is only necessary to mention, 
 that five millions sterling are daily paid in bills 
 and cheques, by the London bankers alone. 
 The credit, undoubtedly, if conducted upon 
 
184 the rights of industry. 
 
 fair principles, represents some capital actually 
 in existence, and therefore 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 im- 
 plements ; and to give, at the same time"*, a secu- 
 rity to others upon that fixed capital. This pro- 
 cess 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 activ- 
 ity, — it carries it directly to those channels in 
 which it may be profitably employed, — it con- 
 ducts it to those channels by a systematic mode 
 of payment for its use, which we call interest, 
 or discount; — and it therefore carries forward 
 accumulation to its highest point of productive- 
 ness. 
 
 If you turn to the passage in our third 
 chapter, where Tanner describes the refusal of 
 the traders to give him credit, you will see how 
 capital, advanced upon credit, sets industry in 
 motion. The Indians had accumulated no 
 store of skins to exchange for the trader’s store 
 of guns, ammunition, traps, and blankets. The 
 trader, although he possessed the articles which 
 the Indians wanted, refused to advance them 
 upon the usual credit, and they were conse- 
 quently as useless to the Indians as if they had 
 remained in a warehouse at Liverpool or Glas- 
 gow. When the credit w'as taken away from 
 
CAPITAL. AND I.ABOR. 185 
 
 the Indians, they cpuld 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 capi- 
 tal for exchange, after the winter had passed 
 away. They hunted only for themselves. The 
 trader went without his skins, and the Indians 
 without their blankets. Doubtless, the keen- 
 ness 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 parties again to become exchangers. Every 
 exchange presupposes a certain equality in the 
 exchangers ; and credit, therefore, from the 
 capitalists to the non-capitalists, must, in many 
 cases, be the first step towards any transaction 
 of mutual profit. If the Indians had adopted 
 the resolution of Tanner, to do without the 
 blankets for the winter, and substituted the 
 more imperfect clothing of skins, — and if the 
 traders had persevered in their system of re- 
 fusing credit, that is, of advancing capital, — 
 the exchange of furs must have been sus- 
 pended, until, by incessant industry, and re- 
 peated self-denial, the Indians had become 
 capitalists themselves. They probably, after a 
 long series of laborious accumulations, might 
 have done without the credit — that is, have 
 not consumed the goods which they received 
 before thev were in a condition to give their 
 Q 2 
 
186 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 own goods as equivalents ; and then, as it 
 usually happens in the exchanges of civilized 
 society, they would have insured a higher re- 
 ward for their labor. The credit rendered 
 the labor of the Indians less severe, inasmuch 
 as it allowed them to work with the aid of the 
 accumulations of others, instead of with their 
 own accumulations. But it doubtless 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 capital for capital. As the 
 Indians had not accumulated any furs, and 
 were only hoping to accumulate, there was, on 
 tha part of the white traders, an advance of a 
 present good for a remote equivalent. The 
 traders had doubtless suffered by the casualties 
 which prevented 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 in- 
 terests. They might, possessing the physical 
 superiority, have seized the blankets and am- 
 munition of the traders. If so, their exchanges 
 would have 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 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 187 
 
 the minute channels of advanced commerce, 
 must wholly depend upon the faith which one 
 man has in the stability ^nd the honesty of 
 another ; and also upon the certainty of the pro- 
 tection of the laws which establish security of 
 property, to enforce the fulfilment of the con- 
 tract. It is of the highest importance, there- 
 fore, for commercial men to maintain their 
 credit unimpeached, and to uphold, also, those 
 laws and institutions which enable credit gene- 
 rally to go forward without obstruction. Com- 
 mercial men know how easily credit is de- 
 stroyed by individual guilt or imprudence ,* 
 and how easily it is contracted, generally, by 
 a combination of circumstances over which an 
 individual, apart from a nation, has no con- 
 trol. The instant that any circumstances take 
 place which weaken the general confidence in 
 the security of property, credit is withdrawn. 
 The plant remains — the tools and warehouses 
 stand — the shops are open ; but production 
 languishes — labor is suspended. The stocks 
 of consumable commodities for the maintenance 
 of labor may still in part exist, but they do not 
 reach the laborer through the usual channels. 
 Then men say, and say truly, confidence is 
 shaken ; — the ivsual relations of society are dis- 
 turbed. Capital fences itself round with pru- 
 dence — hesitates to go on accumulating — refuses 
 to put its existence in peril — withdraws in great 
 part from production — 
 
 Spreads its light wings, and in a moment flies.” 
 
188 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 In looking back upon all the various circum- 
 stances which we have exhibited to you as 
 necessary for carrying industry to the greatest 
 point of productiveness, we think that we 
 must have established satisfactorily to your 
 minds, that the two great elements which con- 
 cur in rendering labor in the highest degree 
 beneficial, are, 1st, the accumulated results 
 of past labor, and, 2d, the contrivances by 
 which manual labor is assisted, — those con- 
 trivances being derived from the accumulations 
 of knowledge. Capital and skill, therefore, are 
 essential to the productive power of labor. 
 The difierent degrees in which each possesses 
 capital and skill make the difference between 
 an English manufacturer and a North Ameri- 
 can savage ; and the less striking gradations 
 in the productive power of the English manu- 
 facturer 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 com- 
 mand a very small amount of the same great 
 elements of production. 
 
 We think, also, that we have shown that the 
 accumulation of former labor in the shape of 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 189 
 
 tangible wealth, and the accumulation of for- 
 mer labor 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 off- 
 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 former accumu- 
 lations. Capital, therefore, may be said to be 
 the parent of skill, as capital and skill united 
 are the encouragers and directors of profitable 
 labor. 
 
 We have shown you, that the only founda- 
 tion of accumulation is security of property 
 — we have shown you, too, that your labor 
 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 laborer 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 se- 
 curity, there would be very imperfect pro- 
 duction ; and production being imperfect, all 
 men, the capitalists and the laborers, would 
 be equally destitute, w^eak, ignorant, and mise- 
 rable. 
 
 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 
 
190 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 will be little occasion for fencing round prop- 
 erty with guards, against the secret violence 
 of the midnight robber, or the open daring of 
 the noon-day mob. “ It is an enlightened 
 moral public sentiment that must spread its 
 wing 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 ineffectual, 
 that the thefts in the various stages of the man- 
 ufacture amounted to eight per cent, upon the 
 whole quantity produced. The trade of the 
 place, therefore, was destroyed ; and the capital 
 went to encourage labor in places where the 
 rights of property were better respected. 
 
 But, generally speaking, the security of prop- 
 erty is not so much weakened by plunder as by 
 those incessant contentions which harass the 
 march of capital and labor ; and keep up an 
 irritation between the classes of the capitalists 
 and the laborers, who ought to be united in the 
 most intimate compact for a common good. 
 These irritations most frequently exhibit them- 
 selves in the shape of combinations for the ad- 
 vance of wages. We have no hesitation in de- 
 claring 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 labor ; and that he has an equal right to 
 
 Everett’s Address to the Working-Man’s Party. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 191 
 
 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 produced ; — and if they succeed they ex- 
 tinguish 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. 
 It will be for us to draw your attention to 
 these subjects in our next volume, by showing 
 you the real circumstances which determine 
 the rate of wages, and thence deducing the 
 means by which you can really elevate your 
 condition. 
 
 And here we might properly leave you to 
 the consideration of the principles we have 
 endeavored to establish as “ The Rights of In- 
 dustry,” as far as those rights are called out in 
 the production of wealth, in the hope that the 
 growing intelligence and native sense of you, 
 the Working-Men of these kingdoms, would 
 protect you against the effect of some deceptions 
 which are attempted to be practised upon you. 
 
192 the rights of industry. 
 
 Pretended “ Rights ” are held up to your won- 
 dering credulity, which a little honest and 
 patient consideration will show to be the 
 greatest “ Wrongs” that could be inflicted on 
 yourselves, and on every other class of society, 
 if they could be called into action. Some- 
 times these doctrines meet you in the violent 
 addresses that wrong-headed men deliver in 
 popular assemblies. Sometimes they force 
 themselves upon your notice in the shape of 
 miserable writings, which profess to advocate 
 your interests against those who are called your 
 oppressors, — by which name all those are meant 
 who have anything to lose, and anything to 
 defend. Sometimes they are proclaimed aloud 
 from “ Rotundas,” where the priest of Atheism 
 and the orator of Plunder stand side by side. 
 And, lastly, they insinuate themselves to your 
 view, scattered amongst sound principles, in- 
 tended to explain to you the laws which 
 govern the production of wealth, in lectures 
 on “Popular Political Economy.” One and 
 all of these counsellors, we say, are your bit- 
 terest enemies. They would lead you away 
 from the pursuit of those means which can 
 alone better your condition, to the cherishing 
 of vain delusions, which will make you first 
 unhappy, then idle, then starving, and then 
 utterly depraved and worthless. Such doc- 
 trines may begin in the lecture- room, and there 
 look harmless as abstract propositions ; but 
 they end in the maddening passion, the 
 drunken frenzy, the unappeasable tumult, — 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 193 
 
 the plunder, the fire, the blood— of such scenes 
 as have just disgraced our country, and made 
 one city, amongst the earliest in the march of 
 civilization, a by-word and a reproach for all 
 the civilized earth. 
 
 It may perhaps be said that the doctrines 
 which are thus advocated do not lead to pull- 
 ing down and firing houses. The advocates 
 of the doctrines do not want a destruction of 
 property; they only request a division of it. 
 Say what they will, the doctrines distinctly 
 tend to establish disorder; and if the reign of 
 disorder is allowed to exist, you will instantly 
 cease to be producers, and as instantly be de- 
 prived of the power of being consumers. The 
 course of national misery resulting from na- 
 tional disorders always begins with financial 
 embarrassment, by the destruction of capital, or 
 its withdrawal from all useful works. Those 
 who would advise the “ division of property ” 
 by force or fraud, say, “ to talk of sending away 
 roads, bridges, canals, and cultivated fields, is 
 a striking absurdity.”* They do not say that 
 the roads and bridges and canals would cease to 
 be used, and the fields would cease to be cul- 
 tivated, when the capital was gone. Capital was 
 circulated only because it could be circulated 
 with security. If the present capitalists were 
 driven away, as these reasoners would imply 
 might easily be done, and the laborers were 
 left to work the tools, and steam-engines — to 
 
 Hodgskin’s Popular Political Economy. 
 
 R 
 
194 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 labor in the manufactories, and to inhabit the 
 houses of the present capitalists, — production 
 could not go on an hour, unless the appropri- 
 ation of the plunder were secured to the indi- 
 vidual plunderers. We cannot exactly see the 
 course of the operation ; but we think that 
 the advocates of the principle may discover a 
 new historical fact, for an illustration of its 
 practical working, in the riots at Bristol. 
 
 The advocates of the “ division of property ” 
 have, however, some men amongst them who 
 are more temperate in its distribution, than 
 those who burn houses that they may carry off 
 feather-beds. The scheme of these philoso- 
 phers is, “ at the death of any member of the 
 community, to abolish the exclusive claim of 
 his widow and children, and to divide his prop- 
 erty among all the members of society who 
 have just arrived at adult age.”* It is not ne- 
 cessary for us to argue as to the justice or in- 
 justice of this proposition ; for we have no hesi- 
 tation in affirming that if such a distribution 
 were to take place, there would he no property 
 to distribute. There is nothing new under the 
 sun. Some such scheme has been already 
 tried in the world. Our great King Alfred 
 has given an account of it in his translation of 
 Orocius, a geographer who lived in the fifth 
 century, in which translation Alfred describes 
 a voyage made to the Baltic, in his own times, 
 
 Free Inquirer, published at New- York, 1830, 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 195 
 
 by a navigator named Wulfstan. The story 
 is at once amusing and instructive : — 
 
 “And there is a custom amid the Estum, 
 that when there is a man dead, he lieth within, 
 unburnt, a month amid his relations and 
 friends — sometimes two months ; and the kings 
 and the other principal men so much longer, as 
 they have more wealth : sometimes they be 
 half a year unburnt. They lie above the earth 
 in their house, and all the while that the body is 
 within, there shall be drink and plays until the 
 day that they burn them. 
 
 “ Then the same day that they choose to 
 bear them to the pile, his property that remains 
 after this drink and play, is divided into five or 
 six parts, sometimes more, as the proportion of 
 his wealth admits. They lay these along, a 
 mile apart, the greatest portion from the town, 
 then another, then a third, till it be all laid at 
 one mile asunder; and the least part shall be 
 nearest to the town where the dead man lieth. 
 
 “Then shall be collected all the men that 
 have the swiftest horses in the land, for the 
 way of five miles or six miles from the prop- 
 erty. Then run they altogether to the prop- 
 erty. Then cometh the man that hath the 
 
 swiftest horse to the farthest portion and to the 
 greatest, and so on, one after the other, till all 
 be taken away; he taketh the least who is 
 nearest the town, and runs to it; then each 
 rides away with his prize, and may have it all ; 
 and because of this custom the swift horse is 
 inconceivably dear. 
 
196 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 “ And when the wealth is all thus spent, then 
 they bear the man out and burn him, with his 
 weapons and garments. Most frequently all 
 his wealth is spent during the long lying of 
 the dead man within* 
 
 One of the most advantageous modes in 
 which accumulation goes forward, under the 
 laws which enable a man to dispose of his 
 property at his death, is that of insurance 
 upon lives. By this admirable invention, 
 founded upon the most complete security, a 
 man abridges some portion of his annual ex- 
 penditure, for the purpose of accumulating a 
 fund that will secure to his widow and chil- 
 dren a continuance, in some degree, of the 
 comforts which his industry produces, after 
 that industry is swallowed up in the quiet of 
 the grave. “ The married man hath given 
 hostages to fortune,” — and this is one of the 
 ways in which a prudent, a just, and an affec- 
 tionate husband and father redeems those 
 pledges. He knows the casualties of life — he 
 knows how soon his power of bestowing daily 
 comforts upon his household may be ended. 
 He foregoes, therefore, some luxuries which 
 might be useless, or even worse than useless, 
 to make a provision for the decent maintenance 
 of that household when he is removed. His 
 providence extends beyond his own life. It 
 equalizes his own expenditure, with that of 
 those who are to come after him; — it dreads 
 
 * Turner’s Anglo-Saxons. 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 197 
 
 an abrupt transition from lavishness to mean- 
 ness, from abundance to want, from finery to 
 filth ; — it dispenses with “ drink and plays,” 
 well knowing that “ the property which re- 
 mains after this drink and play” will be very 
 small. In a word, his providence makes him 
 happier in his industry, and smooths the pas- 
 sage to eternity by the consciousness that the 
 blessings of his industry shall not perish with 
 him. VVe doubt whether the equalizing phi- 
 losophers of New-York could give us a better 
 state of morals and happiness. 
 
198 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY, 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Let us briefly look back upon our actual po- 
 sition, as united members of a society in which 
 the laws of property are strictly enforced, — and 
 where, therefore, capital and labor working 
 together efficiently, production and accumula- 
 tion go forward together. 
 
 We say all men are united in one bond of 
 interests, and rights, and duties ; and that 
 although each of us have particular interests, 
 the parts 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 ourselves 
 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 interchange- 
 ably 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 perfection, so as to make its 
 products accessible to all. The power of pro- 
 duction, in its greatest developments of indus- 
 try, is really addressed to the satisfaction of 
 the commonest wants. If production, as in 
 
CAPITAL AXD LABOR. 
 
 199 
 
 despotic countries, werfe principally laboring 
 that some men might wear cloth of gold whilst 
 others went naked, then we should say that 
 production was exclusively for the rich op- 
 pressor. But, thank God, the man who ex- 
 clusively wears “purple and line 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 con- 
 sumption that the capitals of manufactures 
 and commerce address their employment. 
 Their employment depends upon the ability of 
 the great body of the people to purchase what 
 they produce. The courtiers of the 15th cen- 
 tury in France carried boxes of sugar-plums 
 in their pockets, which they ofiered 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 gingerbread. But the 
 consumption of tobacco would never have fur- 
 nished employment to thousands, and a large 
 revenue to the state, if the use of snuff had rest- 
 ed with the courtiers. The producers, therefore, 
 having found the largest, and therefore the most 
 wealthy class of consumers amongst you, 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 labor work with 
 freedom and security, the wants of all are sup- 
 plied, because there is cheap production. It is 
 a bad state of society where 
 
 “ One fiauntis in rags, one flutters in brocade.” 
 
200 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 Those who like the brocade may still wear it m 
 a state of things where the ‘ rights of industry ’ 
 are understood ; but the rags, taking the 
 average condition of the members of society, 
 are banished to the lands from which capital is 
 driven, while those who labor with skill, and 
 therefore with capital, have decent clothes, 
 comfortable dwellings, wholesome food, abun- 
 dant fuel, medical 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 jve maintain, that the 
 interests of all men, and of the poorer classes 
 especially, are necessarily advanced in a con- 
 stantly increasing measure by the increase of 
 capital and skill, have been put so strikingly by 
 a philosophical writer, that we cannot forbear 
 quoting so valuable an authority in support 
 and illustration of our opinions : — 
 
 ‘‘ The advantages conferred by the augment- 
 ation of our physical resources, through the me- 
 dium of increased knowledge and improved art, 
 have this peculiar and remarkable property, — 
 that they are in their nature diffusive, and can- 
 not 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 personal use ; he may spread around him 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 201 
 
 an unnatural splendor and luxury, and stand 
 in strange and preposterous 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 
 contrived and executed manufacture which we 
 use daily, and the comforts which have been 
 invented, tried, and improved upon by thou- 
 sands, 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 ad- 
 vantages 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 im- 
 provements, unless backed by that arising from 
 the speedy diffusion of the same advantages 
 among the mass of mankind.”* 
 
 And, indeed, when we look at the opera- 
 tions of production as connected with the com- 
 forts of the working-men of England, and 
 generally with the comforts of what are called 
 the productive classes, let it not be forgotten 
 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 
 
 * HerscheTs Discourse on the Study of Natural Phi- 
 losophy. 
 
202 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 employing it themselves. Who, then, should 
 desire the protection of property ? — who, in 
 fact, do desire it? In 1830 there were 
 274,823 persons receiving half-yearly pay- 
 ments as fundholders. Of these, 88,609 were 
 entitled to dividends not exceeding 5Z. each, 
 42,227 to dividends not exceeding lOZ., 
 97,307 to dividends not exceeding 50Z., 
 26,316 to dividends not exceeding lOOZ., 
 15,209 to dividends not exceeding 200Z., 
 4912 to dividends not exceeding 300Z., 3077 
 to dividends not exceeding 500Z., and 2166 
 to dividends exceeding 500Z. Thus, you see, 
 about a quarter of a million of people who are 
 public fundholders receive each an annual sum 
 not exceeding lOOZ. a year from these funds, 
 while not more than twenty-five thousand per- 
 sons are entitled to dividends above that sum. 
 By far the larger number of these fundholders, 
 therefore, belong to the middle class ; or to that 
 class to which a great many of you already 
 belong, and to which all of you should aim to 
 belong, by steadily laboring to better your 
 condition by all honest and laudable employ- 
 ments of your bodily and mental powers. 
 
 But let us look a little farther as to the 
 actual amount of accumulated capital, in the 
 shape of money^ in the hands of yourselves 
 entirely, the working classes. The capital in- 
 vested, in 1830, in the Savings Banks of this 
 country, amounted to fourteen millions three 
 hundred and sixty-six thousand pounds. This 
 capital was the property of four hundred and 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 203 
 
 eighteen thousand seven hundred and fifty- 
 eight depositors. Of this number not a four- 
 teenth part held deposits above one hundred 
 pounds. Here then are nearly half a million 
 of people of your own class, and many of them 
 the humblest of your class, possessing accu- 
 mulations of property in money, safely invested 
 in government securities, v/ith interest paid to 
 the hour, and with the facility of demanding the 
 principal at a week’s notice. * There are thus 
 three-quarters of a million 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 be made to the large num- 
 ber who have moneyed capital invested in public 
 securities. The capital of Friendly Societies 
 deposited in Savings Banks amounts to six hun- 
 dred thousand pounds ; and thus, probably, an- 
 other quarter of a million people, members of 
 Friendly Societies, have a stake in the coun- 
 try.” 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 insure that he 
 shall have food and clothes and shelter the next 
 day ; — that if misfortune happen, he shall be 
 
 * These particulars are derived from Mr. Pratt’s valuable 
 Accounts of the Savings Banks, 1831. 
 
204 the rights of industry. 
 
 maintained ; — and that, besides this indirect in^ 
 terest in the stakes of others, he may obtain by 
 industry a positive stake himself — become a 
 capitalist, and learn then, as he ought before to 
 have learnt, that labor and capital are not natu- 
 ral enemies, but the real partners in the produc- 
 tion of riches and happiness. 
 
 When “ the Rights of Industry ” work 
 healthfully for the benefit of all, they go for- 
 ward to bestow upon all the blessings of cheap 
 production, and, consequently, to render it 
 more easy for all to accumulate. Labor then 
 works with skill ; capital works with integrity. 
 We have proud evidence of the skill and integ- 
 rity of our country now before us. M. Say, a 
 French writer, says that he once asked an 
 English workman, in France, why he took so 
 much pains to render his work perfect ; and ho 
 answered that he could not work less skilfully 
 and carefully, even if he were to try. Mr. 
 Cooper, an American writer, says, “ Punctuality 
 and fair dealing increase demand more than 
 can be suspected. In Philadelphia, or New- 
 York, a merchant importer can sell a bale of 
 British goods by the invoice. The purchaser 
 looks no farther, but depends, with implicit 
 confidence, on the invoice description of quality 
 and quantity. No purchaser will buy a bale 
 of French goods without examining every 
 article.” Why is it that the English artificer 
 is a more skilful laborer, and the English 
 merchant a more honest dealer, than the 
 workman or the merchant of other countries ? 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 205 
 
 Because they have been educated better in the 
 particular knowledge of their real interests as 
 producers. But we have all a great deal yet 
 to do in the business of general education ; 
 and especially in all that relates to the effects 
 of the industry of mankind upon their happi- 
 ness. Let us hear what may be said upon 
 this subject ; — 
 
 “Education universally extended throughout 
 the community will tend to disabuse the work- 
 ing class of people, in respect of a notion that 
 has crept into the minds of our mechanics, 
 and is gradually prevailing, that manual labor 
 is the only source of wealth, that it is at 
 present very inadequately rewarded, owing to 
 combinations of the rich against the poor ; 
 that mere mental labor is comparatively 
 worthless; that property or wealth ought not 
 .to be accumulated or transmitted ; that to take 
 interest on money lent, or profit on capital 
 employed, is unjust. These are notions that 
 tend strongly toward an equal division of prop- 
 erty, and the right of the poor to plunder 
 the rich. The mistaken and ignorant people 
 who entertain these fallacies as truths, will 
 learn, when they have the opportunity of 
 learning, that the institution of political society 
 originated in the protection of property, and 
 this has ever continued to be its main end and 
 design ; that equality to-day would be inequality 
 to-morrow ; that labor is, of itself, nearly 
 useless, and can never be brought into action 
 but by means of wealth or capital ; that the rich 
 S 
 
206 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 are as necessary to the poor as the poor are to 
 the rich ; and that there is no injustice in giv- 
 ing Raphael a little higher wages per day, than 
 his color-grinder received, or a better recom- 
 pense to Canova, than to the man who quarried 
 the marble. James Watt and Robert Fulton 
 were worth more to society than five hun- 
 dred thousand hedgers or ditchers. If the 
 mechanics should seriously continue to press 
 such silly notions, they will justly make enemies 
 of those who would otherwise be their rea- 
 sonable friends ; and they are much mistaken 
 if they suppose the wealthy will not find the 
 means as well as the inclination to defend their 
 property against the attacks of ignorance and 
 injustice. All that a good government can 
 do, is to give to every man an equal chance of 
 acquiring useful knowledge ; to lighten as 
 much as possible the burdens of taxation 
 in favor of the poor, to grant no artificial 
 privileges to the rich, and to throw no im- 
 pediment in the way of industry or talent. 
 But nature has ordained great and permanent 
 differences as to strength of body and strength 
 of mind, such as no human institutions can 
 hope to equalize. Circumstances around us, 
 furnishing the motives and stimuli to action 
 or to indolence, to useful or useless pursuits, 
 to profitable or unprofitable industry and oc- 
 cupation, and even the mere chapter of acci- 
 dents, create still more numerous differences, 
 over which society has no control. Who 
 would labor for the benefit of those with 
 
THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 207 
 
 whom he has no connexion? What stimulus 
 would there be to industry and frugality, if a 
 man were deprived of the right of bequeathing 
 his earnings and his savings to his family? 
 What regulation of wages can there be in 
 practice, but the voluntary contract of the 
 hirer and the hired? Nature, and the una- 
 voidable circumstances of society, have created 
 inequalities that are also unavoidable. Each 
 of us in our station, therefore, must submit 
 patiently to that which cannot be avoided ; nor 
 would the poor be benefited by obtaining full 
 command over the wealth of the rich, for the 
 same quarrels would ensue about distribution 
 of wealth the week after, that would take 
 place at the hour of successful plunder.”* 
 These are not the words of some advocate 
 of arbitrary government — some upholder of ex- 
 clusive privileges — some courtly admirer of 
 lavish expenditure. They are the w'ords of a 
 stern republican, teaching the American youth 
 the sound doctrines of political economy, and 
 teaching them at the same time some tenets of 
 government which would be thought much too 
 strong for utterance under a monarchy, and, 
 indeed, would be unsuited to our actual condi- 
 tion. But, lover as he is of a purely democratic 
 form of government, he never thinks that a 
 supreme power residing in the people is to in- 
 volve the destruction of the rights of prop- 
 erty. He knows that to destroy the right of 
 
 * Cooper’s Lectures on the Elements of Political Econ- 
 omy, 2d Edit. ; Columbia, 1831. 
 
208 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 property is to destroy the power of the people 
 to produce, and he wisely and honestly tells 
 them so. Not so the class of teachers whose 
 new theories for advancing the prosperity of 
 mankind in general we have exhibited to you. 
 “In asserting that accumulation of capital,” 
 says Mr. Hodgskin, “ in the hands of persons 
 who neither make nor use it, impedes the pro- 
 gress of society, let me not he supposed to over- 
 look the statement^ that if there were no profit 
 to he obtained on the capitalists stock, there 
 would he no motive to save, no spur to industry, 
 and no increase of national wealth. I do 
 Tiot overlook this statement ; hut because I am 
 sensible of its importance, I will not hastily 
 and dogmatically decide concerning itt We 
 HAVE SEEN HOW Mr. HoDGSKIN HAS DECIDED. 
 
 This is the candor of the cruel and despotic 
 judge, who says to a prisoner, “Let me not 
 be supposed to overlook the evidence of your 
 innocence. I do not overlook this evidence; 
 but because I am sensible of its importance, 
 I will not hastily and dogmatically decide 
 concerning it, but I will only say that you 
 shall be taken hence to the place whence you 
 came, and thence to the place of execution.” 
 Surely, the working-men of this country are 
 not to be deceived by such feeble, and at the 
 same time such presumptuous reasoners ! 
 
 To you, who have patiently borne with us in 
 our examination of the great questions upon 
 which this little book so imperfectly treats, it 
 is, we should think, unnecessary to urge the 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 209 
 
 paramount duly of exhibiting, during a time 
 of strong political excitement, a respect for 
 the laws, and a determination to maintain the 
 private rights of all men inviolate. The rights 
 which are most open to attack, as we have 
 shown you, from designing and ignorant per- 
 sons, are the rights of property. Upon the 
 upholding of those rights depends your own 
 security, your own freedom, your own cer- 
 tainty of going steadily forward in the im- 
 provement of your condition. Those of you 
 who possess knowledge, and who desire know- 
 ledge, must have some influence over those 
 who, unhappily, still remain without that best 
 possession. It is for you to convey to them 
 the truths which we have endeavored to estab- 
 lish. It is for you to show them that the 
 participators in, or the encouragers of tumult 
 are the greatest enemies of freedom. It is 
 for you to show them that freedom can only 
 he the inheritance of the peaceable, the in- 
 dustrious, and the virtuous. It is for you to 
 show them that no people can make any 
 steady improvement in their institutions, that 
 do not march forward in the career of im- 
 provement with an even and dispassionate 
 temper — with a tolerant regard to all honest 
 opinions — and, above all, with a determination 
 that come what storms there may, the vessel 
 of the state shall not sink while the crew are 
 quarrelling. Nothing can destroy our ulti- 
 mate peace and prosperity but a violation of 
 the great principles of natural justice, by which 
 
210 The rights of industry. 
 
 property is upheld for the benefit of all. In' 
 moments such as these, when we hear of a few 
 hundreds of abandoned miscreants — not work- 
 ing-men in any sense of the title, but thieves 
 and outcasts, — not knowing the first interests 
 of working-men, because wanton destroyers 
 of the capital by which labor must be sup- 
 ported, - — when we hear of a small band of 
 these most ignorant of mankind, in this en- 
 lightened country, in this intellectual age, 
 holding the lives and possessions of a commu- 
 nity of eighty thousand people, even for a single 
 hour, at the mercy of their lawless passions, — 
 we could almost be tempted to think that real 
 freedom should never be the birthright of such 
 spurners of the laws of God and man. Cast 
 your eyes for a moment upon such scenes 
 of frantic riot, of desperate outrage, of grovel- 
 ling drunkenness in the lowest stage of brutal 
 abandonment ; think of the terror of the peace- 
 ful inhabitants of such a place in those hours 
 of* midnight plunder and Sabbath riots; and 
 picture to yourselves/ the wives and children of 
 those once happy families clinging to their 
 husbands and their parents, to shield them 
 from the destruction that was let loose in such 
 unnatural and hideous shapes. When you 
 have pondered upon these things, look round 
 for the remedy. It is the diffusion of sound 
 knowledge, which leads to the cultivation of 
 genuine religion. Unless you, each in your 
 own circle, put down that ignorant spirit that 
 would make this temple of our once industrious 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 211 
 
 and peaceful island “ a den of thieves,’’ our 
 liberties are at an end, because our security 
 is at an end. There can be no liberty without 
 security. Unless you, each in your own cir- 
 cle, endeavor to instruct the less informed in 
 the knowledge of their rights in connexion with 
 their duties, we shall all go backward in free- 
 dom, and therefore in national prosperity. 
 
 When the ignorance of great masses of peo- 
 ple is manifested by the light of a burning 
 city, the records of that ignorance remain, in 
 ruins which attest the hideous force of lawless 
 violence. If the restraints of order are again 
 set up, the ruins are cleared away ,* and, slowly 
 perhaps, but certainly, capital again ventures 
 forth to repair the destruction which a con- 
 tempt of its rights had produced. But let 
 the spirit of violence long continue to exist in 
 sullen contests with the laws, or in causeless 
 jealousy of the possessors of property, and the 
 spirit of decay is established. Then begins a 
 silent but certain career of destruction, more 
 sweeping and wide-spreading than all the 
 havoc that civil war upon the most fearful 
 scale has ever produced. Houses are no 
 longer burnt, but they become untenanted ; 
 manufactories are no longer pulled down, but 
 the sound of labor is heard no more within 
 their walls ; barns are no longer plundered 
 to distribute their stores, but the fields are not 
 sown which were wont to produce those stores ; 
 roads are no longer rendered impassable by 
 hostile bands, but the traffic which once sup- 
 
212 THE RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 ported them has ceased ; canals and rivers are 
 not dry, but their waters are mantled over 
 with weeds, for the work of communication is 
 ended ; harbors and docks are not washed 
 away by the sea, but the ships that once spread 
 their sails for every corner of the earth lie idly 
 within their bosoms, rotting “sheer hulks,” 
 abandoned to the destruction of the wind and 
 the wave. In the mean time, while all this 
 silent decay goes forward, and many a moul- 
 dering pile proclaims that the reign of jus- 
 tice is at an end, the people are continuing 
 to perish from the face of the land. Famine 
 and pestilence sweep away their prey by thou- 
 sands ; and the robber who walks abroad at 
 noon-day selects his victims from the few who 
 still struggle to hide a miserable remnant of 
 former abundance. At length tranquillity is 
 established — but it is the tranquillity of death. 
 The destroyers have done their work ; 
 
 “ They make a solitude, and call it peace.” 
 
 These, assuredly, would be the consequences 
 of following the blind guides that would break 
 down the empire of property. These advo- 
 cates of your “ rights” would give you weeds 
 instead of corn, skins instead of cloth, hollow 
 trees instead of houses ; and when you had 
 gone back to the “ freedom ” of savage life, 
 and each of the scattered tenants of a country 
 covered with the ruins of former wealth could 
 exclaim, “ I am lord of the fowl and the 
 brute,” these ministers of desolation would be 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 213 
 
 able to sing their triumphal song of “ Labor 
 defended against the claims of Capital,” amid 
 the shriek of the jackal, and the howl of the 
 wolf. 
 
 But we will hope better things. We will 
 hope that the just, because natural, bonds of 
 society, will be preserved; and that all and 
 each may cling together for the advancement 
 of the happiness of all and each. “ Or ever 
 the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl 
 be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the 
 fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern” 
 — before all our social relations are deranged 
 by the violence of lawless men — cultivate tran- 
 quillity. Unquestionably, if you exert your- 
 selves to maintain the power of order in the 
 state, so that, to use the words of our liturgy, 
 “peace and happiness, truth and justice, re- 
 ligion and piety, may be established amongst 
 us,” we may yet be saved from the degradation 
 and misery of retracing our steps to the past 
 ages of poverty and oppression. 
 
 “ Never be it ours 
 
 To SEE THE SUN HOW BRIGHTLY IT WILL SHINE, 
 
 And know that noble feelings, manly powers, 
 
 Instead of gathering strength, must droop and pine; 
 And earth, with all her pleasant fruits and flowers. 
 Fade, and participate in man’s decline.” 
 
 London^ November 15, 1831. 
 
 THE END. 
 
THE 
 
 WORKING-MAN’S COMPANION. 
 
 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
COMMITTEE. 
 
 Chairman — Right Hon. the LORD CHANCELLOR, P. R. S. 
 Vice Chairman— Hon. LORD JOHN RUSSELL, M. P. 
 Treasurer— W\IAA\M TOOKE, Esq. F. R. S. 
 
 W. Allen, Esq., F. R. S. 
 
 Rt. Hon. Vise. Althorp, M. P. 
 Rt. Hon. Vise. Ashley, M. P. 
 Rt. Hon. Lord Auckland. 
 
 W. B. Baring, Esq., M. P. 
 
 Capt. F. Beaufort, R. N., F. R. S. 
 C. Bell, EJsq. F. R. S., L. & E. 
 John Conolly, M. D. 
 
 William Coulson, Esq. 
 
 Wm. Crawford, Esq. 
 
 J. Fred. Daniell, Esq., F. R. S. 
 Sir T. Denman, M. P. 
 
 Rt. Hon. G. A. Ellis, M. A., M. P. 
 John Elliotson, M. D. F. R. S. 
 T. F. Ellis. Esq. M. A., 
 
 Thomas Falconer, Esq. 
 
 I. L. Goldsmid, Esq., F. R. S. 
 
 B. Gompertz, Esq., F. R. S. 
 
 G. B. Greenough, Esq., F. R. and 
 
 L. S. 
 
 H. Hallam, Esq., F. R. S., M. A. 
 
 M. D. Hill, Esq. 
 
 Rowland Hill, Esq. 
 
 E. Hill, Esq. 
 
 John Cam Hobhou.se, Esq.,M.P. 
 Leonard Horner, Esq., F. R. S. 
 David Jardine, Esq., A. M. 
 Henry B. Ker, Esq , F. R. S. 
 
 J. G. S. Lefevre, Esq., F. R. S. 
 Edward Lloyd, Esq., M. A. 
 
 Jas. Loch, Esq., M. P., F. G. S. 
 George Long, Esq., A. M. 
 
 J. W. Lubbock, Esq., F. R.&L.S. 
 Dr. Lushington, D. C. L. 
 Zachary Macaulay, Esq. 
 
 B. H. Malkin, Esq., M. A. 
 
 A. T. Malkin, Esq. 
 
 Rev. Ed. Maltby, D. D., F. R. S. 
 James Manning, Esq. 
 
 F. O. Martin, Esq. 
 
 John Herman Merivale, Esq. 
 James Mill, Esq. 
 
 James Morrison, Esq., M. P. 
 
 Sir H. Parnell, Bart. M. P. 
 Professor Pattison. 
 
 T. Spring Rice, Esq., M, P., 
 P. A. S. 
 
 Dr. Roget, Sec. R. S. 
 
 E. Srnirke, Esq. 
 
 J. Smith, Esq. 
 
 Wm. Sturch, Esq. 
 
 Dr. A. T. Thomson, F. L. S. 
 
 N. A. Vigors, Esq., F. R. S. 
 
 H. Warburton, Esq., M. P., 
 F. R. S. 
 
 H. Waymotith, Esq. 
 
 J. Whishaw, Esq., M. A. F. R.», 
 Mr. Serjeant Wilde. 
 
 John Wood, Esq., M. P. 
 
 John Wrottesley, Esq., M. A. 
 
 THOMAS COATES, Secretary^ 4, South Square, Gray’a Inn. 
 
UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR 
 THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 THE 
 
 WORKING-MAN’S COMPANION. 
 
 THE 
 
 RESULTS OF MACHINERY, 
 
 NAMELY, 
 
 CHEAP PRODUCTION 
 
 AND 
 
 INCREASED EMPLOYMENT. EXHIBITED: 
 
 BEING 
 
 AN ADDRESS TO THE WORKING-MEN OP THE 
 UNITED KINGDOM. 
 
 AMERICAN EDITION. 
 
 CAREY & HART.-CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
THE 
 
 RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 In the year 1827, a Committee of the House 
 of Commons was appointed to examine into 
 the subject of emigration — that is, to see 
 whether it was desirable and practicable to 
 remove distressed laborers from the United 
 Kingdom to distant places, where their labor 
 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 the Committee, 
 that he and many others, who had formed 
 themselves into a society, were in great dis- 
 tress ; that numbers of them worked at the 
 hand4oom from eighteen to nineteen hours 
 a-day, and that their earnings, at the utmost, 
 did not amount to more than seven shil- 
 lings a-week, and that sometimes they were 
 as low as four shillings. That twenty years 
 before that time they could readily earn a pound 
 a-week by the same industry ; and that as 
 power -loom weaving had increased, the distress 
 of the hand-weavers also had increased in the 
 same proportion. A power-loom is one worked 
 A2 
 
6 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 by machinery, and not by the hand of man, 
 as most of our readers perhaps know. The 
 Committee then put to Joseph Foster the fol- 
 lowing questions, and received the following 
 answers : — 
 
 Q. “ Are the Committee to understand that 
 you attribute the insufficiency of your remune- 
 ration for your labor to the introduction of 
 machinery ? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. Do you consider, therefore, that the in- 
 troduction 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 perfectly well that ma- 
 chinery 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 manu- 
 facture is a portion of machinery, and, indeed, 
 everything that goes beyond the teeth and 
 nails (if I may use the expression) is a ma- 
 chine. I am authorized, by the majority of 
 our society, to say, that I speak their minds, 
 as well as my own, in stating this.” 
 
 If all, or if a large majority of the working- 
 men of our country had come to the same 
 sound opinions as Joseph Foster, we should 
 not take the trouble, because it would be need- 
 less, now to address them. But when we hear 
 on all sides, that misguided men are violating 
 the laws by which the rights of all are pro- 
 tected ; that they are wickedly and ignorantly 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 7 
 
 destroying the property of the farmer and the 
 manufacturer, in the belief that machinery can 
 be stopped or put down ; that they do not know 
 as the poor weavers of Glasgow did know, 
 that machinery must go on, will go on, and 
 that it is impossible to stop it; we think it 
 our duty, having the means of appealing to 
 their reason and to their regard for their own 
 interest, to endeavor to bring their minds to 
 the same conclusions as those of the respect- 
 able weaver, whose words we have repeated. 
 He felt that, although he was in his own per- 
 son a sufferer from the improvement of ma- 
 chinery, it was utterly out of his power, because 
 it was contrary to his reason, and to the reason 
 of all thinking people, whether working-men or 
 not, to resist the progress of that improvement. 
 There are many working-men who entertain 
 the same sound opinions, which they have come 
 to, probably, by an accurate and dispassionate 
 observation of the facts which are within their 
 own view. To such men we hope to offer 
 many new facts to strengthen their opinions; 
 and we rely greatly upon their influence to 
 point out their errors, either to those who are 
 violating the laws, or to those who think the 
 violators of the laws have justice on their side. 
 For the benefit of you all, the informed as well 
 as the uninformed, we address you as men 
 capable of reasoning. We give you a great 
 body of facts to reason upon. We offer no- 
 thing to your passions or your prejudices. 
 We shall attempt to make you feel, by bring- 
 ing before you the same sort of facts by which 
 
8 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY* 
 
 that sensible man, Joseph Foster, convinced 
 his own mind, that although your individual 
 labor may be partially displaced, or unsettled 
 for a time, by the use of a cheaper and a 
 better power, which power is machinery, you 
 are great gainers by the general use of that 
 power. We shall strive to show you, that 
 through this power you possess, however poor 
 you 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 machinery having rendered 
 productions of all sorts cheaper, and therefore 
 caused them to be more universally purchased, 
 it has really increased the demand for that 
 manual labor, which it appears to some of you, 
 reasoning only from a few instances, it has a 
 tendency to diminish. If we make out these 
 propositions, we think you Avill agree with Jo- 
 seph Foster, that the introduction of machinery 
 is not objectionable. 
 
 The difference between those of you who 
 object to machines, and the persons who think 
 with Joseph Foster, is, as it appears to us, a 
 want of knowledge. We desire to impart to 
 you that knowledge. Now, how shall we 
 set about the business of imparting it ? You 
 are many in number, and are scattered over 
 a large extent of country ; some of you are 
 sorely pressed, as we conceive, by the evils that 
 result from a want of knowledge, which make it 
 the more necessary that we should address our- 
 selves to you speedily; and some of you are 
 poor, and therefore have not much to spare, even 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 9 
 
 for what you may believe may do you good. 
 You, therefore, want this knowledge to be given 
 to you, extensively quickly, cheaply. It would 
 be out of our power to impart this knowledge 
 at all without machinery : and, therefore, we 
 shall begin by explaining how the machinery, 
 which gives you knowledge of any sort by the 
 means of books, is a vast blessing, when com- 
 pared with slower methods of multiplying 
 written language ; and how, by the aid of this 
 machinery, w^e can produce a book for your 
 use, without any limit in point of the number 
 of copies, with great rapidity, and at a small 
 price. 
 
 It is about 350 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 people had Bibles or any 
 other books. An ingenious 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 principle of 
 a screw, was made to stamp impressions of 
 these types so arranged. There was an end, 
 
10 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 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 morket. A single printer could do 
 the work of at least two hundred writers. At 
 first sight this seems a hardship, for a hun- 
 dred and ninety-nine people might have been, 
 and probably were, thrown out of their accus- 
 tomed employment. But what was the con- 
 sequence in a year or two ? Where one written 
 book was sold, a thousand printed books were 
 required. The old books were multiplied in 
 all countries, and new books were composed 
 by men of talent and learning, because they 
 could then find numerous readers. The print- 
 ing-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 bookbinders, were set to work, 
 by the new art or machine, to at least a hun- 
 dred 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 
 be 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 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 11 
 
 of being the guides, and 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 your attention, as 
 we give you other examples of the good of 
 machinery. In the case of books produced by 
 the printing-press you have a cheap article, and 
 an increased number of persons engaged in 
 manufacturing that article. In almost all trades 
 the introduction of machines has, sooner or 
 later, the like effects. This we shall show you 
 as we go on. But to make the matter even 
 more clear, we shall direct your notice to the 
 very book you hold in your hand, to com- 
 plete our^ illustration of the advantages of ma- 
 chinery 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 
 216 pages, to be printed, eighteen on a side, 
 upon six sheets of printing paper, called by the 
 makers demy. These six sheets of demy, at 
 the price charged in the shops, would cost four- 
 pence. 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, — they would cover 200 pages, or 50 
 sheets, of the paper called foolscap, which would 
 cost in the shops three shillings ; and you would 
 have a book difficult instead of easy to read;^ 
 
12 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 because writing is much harder to decipher 
 than print. Here, then, besides the superior- 
 ity of the workmanship, is at once a saving 
 of two shillings and eight pence to the con- 
 sumer, 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 
 200 pages of foolscap in less than ten days; 
 and he would think himself very ill paid to re- 
 ceive thirty shillings for the operation. Adding, 
 therefore, a profit for the publisher and retail 
 tradesman, a single written copy of this little 
 book, which you buy 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 them- 
 selves, who are called into activity by the 
 large demand which follows cheapness of pro- 
 duction. 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 13 
 
 You will perceive, without having the sub- 
 ject dwelt upon, that if we could not give you 
 this book cheaply, we could not give it you 
 extensively j that, in fact, the book would be 
 useless ,* that it would be a mere curiosity ; 
 that we should not attempt to multiply any 
 copies, because those whose use it was intend- 
 ed for could not buy it. It is also perfectly 
 clear, that if, by any unnatural reduction of the 
 wages of labor, such as happens to the Hin- 
 doo, who works at weaving muslin for about 
 sixpence a^ week, we could get copiers to pro- 
 duce 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 thou- 
 sand 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 writ- 
 ing, 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 better- 
 ing your 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 ? 
 
 B 
 
14 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 The same principle applies to any improve- 
 ment of the machinery used in printing, or in 
 the manufacture of the paper upon which 
 books are printed. By the use of the print- 
 ing machine, instead of the printing press, 
 (which machine is only profitably applicable 
 to books printed 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 upon paper 
 as fine as is needful for comfortable reading, 
 instead of paper of a wretched quality ; be- 
 cause the paper-machine has diminished the 
 cost of production, by working up the pulp of 
 which paper is composed 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 six sheets, or 216 
 pages, instead of five sheets, or 180 pages, for 
 a shilling. Thus, not only is the price lessened 
 to the consumer, by the increase of the quan- 
 tity, but one-sixth more paper, one-sixth more 
 ink, one-sixth more labor of the compositor 
 or printer who arranges the types, one-sixth 
 more labor of the sewer or binder of the book ; 
 all these additions of direct labor and of 
 materials produced by labor are consumed. 
 In selling you this book, therefore, for a shil- 
 ling, we give you a sixth more matter than you 
 could have had without these new inventions ; 
 if we were to take away that sixth in quantity, 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 15 
 
 we could lessen the price, and give you the 
 smaller book for tenpence. Thus, then, there 
 is a decided advantage to the consumer in the 
 diminished cost of the production, and an 
 ample equivalent in mere labor, (which, bear 
 always in mind, is the means of producing 
 commodities, and not the end for w hich they 
 are produced,) in the place of labor thrust 
 out by the printing-machine and the paper- 
 machine. 
 
 We cannot conclude this branch of our sub- 
 ject without one other illustration. About seven 
 years ago the art of engraving on steel w as in- 
 vented : this art arose out of an attempt to mul- 
 tiply plates by machinery. It w as said that this 
 art would ruin the engravers as a body ; for as 
 steel-plates would not w ear out with printing 
 twenty thousand copies, and copper-plates 
 could not give more than a thousand impres- 
 sions, one steel-plate would stand in the place 
 of twenty copper ones. Yet engravers, as a 
 body, were never so numerous or so flourish- 
 ing as they are at this moment ,* simply be- 
 cause steel-plates having made engravings 
 cheap, numbers can have the pleasure of pos- 
 sessing prints, w’hieh were formerly only within 
 the reach of a very few. The class of books 
 called Annuals, which consist ^ach of ten or 
 twelve beautiful engravings, with amusing 
 reading, at a moderate price, and of which at 
 least one hundred thousand copies are sold, 
 having cost in their production about £50,000, 
 could never have existed without the invention 
 of steel engraving ; and there are many other 
 
16 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 publications of landscapes, views of buildings, 
 maps, &c. which, being rendered cheap by steel 
 engravings, have produced exactly the same 
 effects of increasing the enjoyments of the con- 
 sumers, and bettering the condition and in- 
 creasing the numbers of the producers. 
 
 We think that in the article of Books we 
 have proved to you that machinery has ren- 
 dered productions cheaper, and has increased 
 the demand for manual labor, and consequent- 
 ly the number of laborers ; and that, therefore, 
 machinery applied to books is not objectiona- 
 ble. We proceed from books to articles of 
 actual necessity. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Amongst the many accounts which the news- 
 papers of December, 1830, give of the destruc- 
 tion of machinery by agricultural laborers, 
 we read that in the neighborhood of Ayles- 
 bury, a band of mistaken and unfortunate men 
 destroyed all the machinery of many farms, 
 doion even to the common drills. The men 
 conducted themselves, says the county news- 
 paper, with civility ; and such was their consid- 
 eration, that they 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 de- 
 stroyed. They could not make up their minds as 
 to the propriety of destroying a horse-churn, 
 and therefore that machine was passed over. 
 
 We will suppose, by way of argument, that 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 17 
 
 there were no laws to repress such outrages ; 
 that if the laborers in agriculture 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 pro- 
 ceedings go forward, 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-break- 
 ers to their own devices. So they break on — 
 thrashing machine, winnowing machine, chafF- 
 cutting machine, drill, and every other new- 
 fangled invention, as they call these things. 
 We will suppose, still further, that the farmer 
 yields 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 winnow, 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, there- 
 fore, into their own hands, as far as their 
 triumph over machinery is concerned. And 
 how do they proceed in their career? The 
 farmer, we have imagined, takes all this quiet- 
 ly; he pays the new laborers who have got 
 into his barns and his fields, ready for hand- 
 work, with their flails and their dibbers ; but 
 he employs just as many 'people as are absor 
 
18 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 lutely necessary y 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 victorious destroyers find that not 
 a single hand the more of them is really em- 
 ployed. 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 labors are neglected which belong 
 to a state of agricultural industry which is 
 brought to perfection. The farmer has no 
 funds to employ in such labors ; he is paying 
 a great deal more than he paid before, because 
 his laborers choose to do certain labors 
 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, con- 
 sequently, at the greatest expense, he does not 
 regret the loss of the drill-plow, which, as well 
 as many other agricultural tools, lessens labor, 
 lessens the quantity of seed, and increases the 
 crop. He spends all the saving which the 
 drill-plow has caused upon the clamorous 
 laborers, 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 labor is just the same. 
 
 We will imagine that this state of things 
 ntinues till the next spring. All this while 
 'H’ice of grain has been rising. Many far- 
 have ceased to employ capital at all upon 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 19 
 
 the land. The neat inventions, which enabled 
 them to make a living out of their business, 
 being destroyed, they have abandoned the 
 business altogether. Others, who have yielded 
 to the uproar, go on as well as they can, 
 neglecting a great many labors that unite to 
 make a good crop, although they are more 
 and more pressed upon by the demand for 
 labor, in consequence of a deal of land going 
 out of cultivation. They pay as long as 
 they can ; they pay much more for labor 
 than they did before, some out of compas- 
 sion and some out of fear. But the prices 
 are steadily rising, and, therefore, although 
 there is more money paid to a greater number 
 of laborers, and although some receive higher 
 wages, in the common sense of the word, 
 than they did before they broke the machines, 
 they are infinitely 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 pro- 
 cure the same quantity. Wages are, therefore, 
 really lower, because a less crop is being pro- 
 duced at a greater cost, and the market-price 
 is influenced accordingly. 
 
 The laborers now either begin to quarrel 
 among themselves, and give up their unwise 
 combinations ; or they still combine with the 
 determination to obtain employment by the 
 destruction of every thing that appears to 
 them to stand in the way of it, — every thing 
 beyond the teeth and nails of the workmen, as 
 Joseph Foster expressed himself — and on they 
 
20 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY, 
 
 go in the work of ruin. The horse, it may be 
 probably found out, is as great an enemy as 
 the drill-plow; 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 em- 
 ployed, without doubt, instead of one horse : 
 so would conclude these most mistaken vio- 
 lators of the laws by which society is held 
 together. But how would the fact turn out? 
 If the farmer still went on, in spite 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 mean time it would be perfectly evi- 
 dent, from all this convulsion amongst the 
 laborers, 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. One-tenth, it is said by some, 
 would be lost of that stock by employing flails 
 instead of thrashing machines. This is, proba- 
 bly, an extreme statement, grounded only upon 
 a comparison between the regular produce of 
 the thrashing machine, and the most careless 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 21 
 
 thrashing by the flail. But there is no doubt that 
 the machine saves some corn. The destruction 
 of drills, also, would cause a larger quantity of 
 seed to be sown than would be otherwise ne- 
 cessary. Thrashing machines and drills, taken 
 together in their savings, prevent 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 labor- 
 ers ; and all this while we should be preparing 
 to grow a great deal less for the next harvest. 
 We should have a famine, if foreign countries 
 could not supply us with what the laborers had 
 destroyed. And how do we know that foreign 
 laborers would be wiser than the English ones, 
 and abstain from such acts, in the knowledge 
 that whatever raises the price of produce low- 
 ers the rate of wages? Are foreign laborers 
 better informed than English laborers ? If so, 
 let us all take shame to ourselves, that the 
 means of acquiring knowledge which this coun- 
 try afibrds have been neglected ; for upon 
 sound knowledge must rest the safety and hap- 
 piness of all. 
 
 About three or four hundred years ago, 
 from the times of king Henry IV. to those of 
 king Henry VI, , and, indeed, long before 
 
22 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 these reigns, there were often 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 them- 
 selves alive by eating the bark of trees, 
 acorns, and pig-nuts. There were no ma- 
 chines then ; but the condition of the labor- 
 ers was so bad, that they could not be kept to 
 work upon the land without very severe and 
 tyrannical laws, which absolutely forbade them 
 to leave the station in which they were born 
 as laborers, for any hope of bettering their 
 condition in the towns. There were not labor- 
 ers enough to till the ground, for they worked 
 without any skill, with weak plows and 
 awkward hoes. They were just as badly off 
 as the people of Portugal and Spain at our 
 own day, who are miserably poor, because they 
 have bad machines ; or as the Chinese laborers, 
 who have scarcely any machines, and are the 
 poorest in the world. There was plenty of la- 
 bor 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 
 manufactures, and in consequence the laborer 
 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 labor to a great extent, 
 and much clamor was raised about this plan, 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 23 
 
 and probably a good deal of real distress was 
 produced. But mark the consequence. Al- 
 though the money wages of labor were low- 
 ered, because there were more laborers in the 
 market, the real amount of wages was higher, 
 for better food was created by pasturage at 
 a cheap rate. The laborer then got meat who 
 had never tasted it before ; and when the use 
 of animal food became general, there were 
 cattle and corn enough to be exchanged for 
 manufactured goods, and the laborer got a 
 coat and a pair of shoes, who had formerly 
 gone half naked.* 
 
 A very accurate French writer, M. Dupin, 
 in a book lately published, 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 in France 
 only 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 inhabitants 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 
 
 See Appendix, No. III. p. 207, 
 
24 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 of cattle, and to lay down more land to grass, 
 that the people may be better nourished. If 
 he thought that more labour, without increjased 
 production, would better the people, he would 
 exhort them to break up the 7i parts in 100 of 
 grass land, and go to work in raising more 
 corn and more potatoes. 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 condi- 
 tion of the people, by really raising the wages 
 of labor.* 
 
 But to return to our triumphant machine- 
 breakers, who utterly despise such considera- 
 tions. As the year advanced, and the harvest 
 approached, it would be discovered that not 
 one-tenth of the land was sown ; for although 
 the plows were gone, because the horses were 
 turned out to starve, and there was plenty of 
 labor for those who chose to labor for its 
 own sake, or at the price of a horse, this amaz- 
 ing 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 hu- 
 man power. If the human power 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 laborers themselves. The people in the 
 towns would probably use iheir machines. 
 
 See Appendix, No. IV. page 208 . 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 25 
 
 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 laborers, who had put them- 
 selves out of the sympathy and protection of 
 society, if they were allowed to eat up all 
 they had produced by such imperfect means, 
 would be in an infinitely more wretched state 
 than they could possibly be, if the demand for 
 labor 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 inventions that constitute the power of 
 civilization. They would eat up the little corn 
 which they raised themselves; and have no- 
 thing 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 off are not wholly deprived of. 
 
 All this may appear as an extreme state- 
 ment ; and certainly we believe that no such 
 evils could happen ; for if the laws were pas- 
 sive, which they will not be, the most ignorant 
 of the laborers themselves would, if they pro- 
 ceeded to carry their own principle much far- 
 ther 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 laborers of 
 Aylesbury not destroy the harrows as well as 
 the drills ? Why leave a machine which sepa- 
 rates the clods of the earth, and break one 
 which puts seeds into it 1 Why deliberate about 
 C 
 
20 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 a horse-churn, when they are resolved against 
 a winnowing machine? The truth is, these 
 poor men perceive, even in the midst of their 
 excesses, the gross deception of the reasons 
 which induce them to commit them. Their 
 motive is a natural, and if lawfully expressed, 
 a proper impatience, under a condition which 
 has certainly many hardships, and those hard- 
 ships in great part produced by the want of 
 profitable labor. But in imputing those hard- 
 ships to machinery, they are at once embar- 
 rassed when they come to draw distinctions 
 between one sort of machine and another. 
 This embarrassment decidedly shows that 
 there are fearful mistakes at the bottom of 
 their furious hostility to machinery. Some of 
 these mistakes it is the object of this little 
 book to clear up. We apply ourselves to the 
 task with a confident hope of doing good, be- 
 cause in this very embarrassment we perceive 
 the working of a conscientious principle. 
 There is much ignorance to be encountered ; 
 but there is a disposition for honest inquiry, 
 which will, in time, produce the best effects. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 It has been said by persons whose opinions 
 are worthy attention, that spade-husbandry is, 
 in some cases, better than plow-husbandry ; 
 — that is, that the earth, under particular cir- 
 cumstances of soil and situation, may be more 
 fitly prepared for the influences of the atmo- 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 27 
 
 sphere, by digging, than by plowing. 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 chemical properties 
 of the soil and of the air, in conjunction with his 
 own labor, 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 plow 
 which he puts into it, — that power which does 
 the work easiest is necessarily the best, because 
 it diminishes the cost of production. If the 
 plow 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 conditions 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 plow, 
 which receives one uniform direction from man 
 with the assistance of other animal power, 
 then the spade is a more perfect machine in 
 its combination with human labor, than the 
 plow is, worked with a lesser degree of the 
 same combination. But still it may be a ma- 
 chine which cannot be used with advantage 
 to the producer, and is therefore not desirable 
 for the consumer. 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 
 
28 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 wages of labor — or the portions of the pro- 
 duce belonging to the landlord, the farmer, 
 and the laborer. Where rent is high, as in 
 the immediate neighborhood of large towns, 
 it is important to have the labor 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 labor 
 performed with less care, because one acre cul- 
 tivated by hand may cost more than two culti- 
 vated by the plow. It is then economy to 
 save in the labor, and the land is cultivated 
 as a field. In one case, the machine called a 
 spade is used ; in the other, the machine called 
 a plow 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 machinery. A tool of the simplest construc- 
 tion is a machine ; a machine of the most curi- 
 ous construction is only a complicated tool. 
 There are many cases in the arts, and there 
 may be cases in agriculture, in which the human 
 arm and hand, with or without a tool, may do 
 work that no machine can so well perform. 
 There are processes 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 
 plow, and a team of horses dragging it, (which 
 we do not affirm or deny,) the only reason for 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 29 
 
 this is, that the man with the spade is a better 
 machine than the man with the plow 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 tear, than the most beautiful machine 
 that ever was, or ever will be, invented. There 
 is no possibility of supplying in many cases a 
 substitute for the simplest movements of man’s 
 body, by the most complicated movements of 
 the most ingenious machinery. And why so ? 
 Because 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 show- 
 ing that the contrivance was imperfect, — 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 corn with a flail ; 
 and yet what an expensive arrangement of 
 wheels is necessary to produce the same effects 
 with a thrashing machine. 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 regards the value of the two 
 C 2 
 
30 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 machines is, which machine in the greater de- 
 gree lessens the cost of production ? 
 
 We state this principle broadly, in our ex- 
 amination into the value of machinery in 
 diminishing the cost of producing human 
 food. A machine is not perfect, because 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 labor of man, by calling into action 
 some power which he does not possess in him- 
 self. If we could imagine a man entirely dis- 
 possessed of this power, we should see the 
 feeblest of animal beings. He has no tools 
 which are a part of himself, to build houses 
 like the beaver, or cells like the bee. He has 
 not even learnt from nature to build, instinct- 
 ively, 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 availing 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 be- 
 fore said, tools and machines are in principle 
 the same. When we strike a nail upon the 
 head with a hammer, we avail ourselves of a 
 power which we find in nature — the effect 
 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 instruments, 
 although we call the one a tool, and the other 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 81 
 
 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 economizes, 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. 
 Would you 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, 
 you would say, fit only for children to use. 
 Yet such a tool was doubtless 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 gar- 
 dener is a much more perfect tool, because it 
 saves labor. Could you 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 laborers 
 who should be provided only with a crooked 
 stick cut out of a hedge ? The truth is, if you, 
 the working-men of England, had no better 
 tools than crooked sticks, you would be in a 
 state of actual starvation. One of the chiefs 
 of the people of New-Zealand, who, from their 
 intercourse with Englishmen had learnt the 
 value of tools, told Mr. Marsden-, a missionary. 
 
32 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 that his wooden spades were all broken, and 
 he had not an ax 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 for 
 want of cultivation he and his people would 
 have nothing to eat. This shows you the state 
 of a people without tools. 
 
 But you would perhaps take a distinction, 
 which we have endeavored to show you is a 
 worthless one, between tools and machines. 
 There are many who object to machinery, be- 
 cause, having grown up surrounded with the 
 benefits it has conferred upon them, without 
 understanding 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, therefore, 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, 
 principally for the reason that they have no 
 machinery, while we have a great deal. One 
 of these poor men burst into tears when he 
 saw a rope-walk ; because he perceived the im- 
 mense superiority which the process of spin- 
 ning ropes gave us over his own countrymen. 
 Another of these people, and he was a very 
 shrewd and intelligent person, carried back to 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 83 
 
 his country a small hand-mill for grinding corn, 
 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 were 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 labor 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 employed in using this mill. 
 The groans of the slave were unheeded by 
 those who consumed the produce of his labor ; 
 and such was the necessity for meal, that 
 the women were compelled to turn these mills 
 when there were not slaves enough taken in 
 war to perform this irksome office. There 
 was plenty of labor then to be performed, 
 even with the machinery of the hand-mill ; 
 but the slaves and the women did not consider 
 that labor was a good in itself, and therefore 
 they bitterly groaned under it. By and by, 
 the understanding 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 quantity of labor was at liberty to be 
 employed for other purposes. You perhaps 
 think that society was in a worse state in con- 
 
54 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 sequence. We will tell you exactly in what 
 respects society gains, and what you gain as 
 part of society, by the abolition of hand-mills, 
 and the use of wind-mills and water-mills for 
 grinding corn. 
 
 Labor 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, you would 
 pronounce them fools, because they could ob- 
 tain an equal quantity of meal with a much 
 less expenditure of labor. You have perhaps 
 a general prejudice against that sort of machi- 
 nery which does its work with very little human 
 assistance ; it is not quite so certain, therefore, 
 that you 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 you would think, that if flour 
 could drop from heaven, or be had like water by 
 whoever chose to seek it, it would be the height 
 of folly to have stones, or hand-mills, or water- 
 mills, or wind-millsf^or any machine whatever 
 for manufacturing flour. Do you ever think 
 of manufacturing water? The cost of water 
 is only the cost of the labor which brings it to 
 the place in which it is consumed. Yet this 
 admission overturns all your objections against 
 machinery. You admit that it is desirable to 
 obtain a thing irith no labor at all ; can you 
 therefore doubt that it is desirable to obtain it 
 with the least possible labor ? The only dif- 
 ference between no labor and a little labor, 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 85 
 
 is the difference of the cost of production. 
 And the only difference between little labor 
 and much labor is precisely the same. In 
 procuring any thing that administers to his 
 necessities, man makes an exchange of his 
 labor for the thing produced, and the less he 
 gives of his labor the better, of course, is his 
 bargain. 
 
 To return to the hand-mill and the water- 
 mill. An ordinary water-mill for grinding 
 corn will grind about thirty-six sacks a day. 
 To do the same work with a hand-mill would 
 require 150 men. At two shillings a day the 
 wages of these men would amount to 15Z. 
 which, reckoning six working days, is 90Z. a 
 week, or 4680Z. a year. The rent and taxes 
 of a mill would be about 150Z. 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, therefore, thirty-six sacks of flour by 
 hand we should pay 15Z.; by the water-mill we 
 should pay ten shillings : that is, w e should pay 
 thirty times as much by the one process as by 
 the other. The actual saving is something 
 about one half of the price of the flour in the 
 market ; that is, the consumer, if the corn were 
 ground by hand, would pay double what he 
 pays now that it is ground at a mill. He 
 pays lO^Z. for his quartern loaf now; he would 
 pay 20(Z. then. 
 
 But if the system of grinding corn by hand 
 were a very recent system of society, and the 
 
36 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 introduction of so great a benefit as the water- 
 mill had all at once displaced the hand-grinders, 
 as the spinning machinery displaced the spin- 
 ning-wheel, what must become, you say, of the 
 one hundred and fifty men who earned the 15Z. 
 a day, of which sum the consumer has now got 
 14Z. IO 5 . in his pocket? They must go to 
 other work. And what is to set them to that 
 work? The same 14Z. IO 5 . : 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 laborers 
 employed than before. The quantity of labor 
 is, therefore, not diminished, while its produc- 
 tiveness is much increased. It is as if every 
 man among us had become suddenly much 
 stronger and more industrious. The machines 
 labor 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 pro- 
 duce ; 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 produc- 
 tion. 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 37 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 All laborers in agriculture know full well the 
 value of a tool ; but some hate machinery. This 
 is inconsistent. Unless the laborer made a 
 plow (if he will consent even to a plow) 
 out of two pieces of stick, and carried it 
 upon his 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 machinery, and there- 
 fore he will have nothing to do with a plow ! 
 Will he have his hoe, then 1 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 1 
 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 thanking 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 la- 
 borer half a day’s wages. 
 
 And how does the Englishman obtain his 
 knife upon such easy terms ? From the very 
 D 
 
38 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 same causes that he obtains all his other ac- 
 commodations cheaper, in comparison with the 
 ordinary wages of labor, than the inhabitant of 
 any other country, — that is, from the use of ma- 
 chinery, either in the making of the thing itself, 
 or in procuring that without which it could not 
 be made. We must always remember that if 
 we could not get the materials without ma- 
 chinery, 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 labor 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 procure 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 sub- 
 stance 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* Some- 
 times 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 sul- 
 phur. In short, in the state in which iron is 
 frequently met with, it is a much more likely 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINE!.. 89 
 
 substance to be chosen for paving a road, or 
 building a wall, than for making a knife. 
 
 But suppose that the man knows the particu- 
 lar ore or stone that contains the iron, how 
 is he to get it out? Mere forte 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 labor. 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 heart of it; but no mere labor can work 
 it 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 sepa- 
 rate it. We cannot do it by mere labor, 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 
 
40 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 must, therefore, prepare our fuel. Our fire 
 must be hot, very hot; but if our fuel be 
 wood we must burn it into charcoal, or if it be 
 coal into coke. 
 
 The charcoal, or coke, answers for one pur- 
 pose ; 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 
 proportion, the one melts the other. 
 
 So charcoal or coke, and iron stone or 
 iron ore, and limestone, are put into a fur- 
 nace ; 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 machinery, and very powerful machinery 
 too, the effect will be little, and the work of the 
 man great ; but still it can be done. 
 
 In this furnace the lime and clay, or earth 
 of flint, unite, and form a sort of glass, which 
 floats upon the surface. 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 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 conveyed into fur- 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 41 
 
 rows 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.” A single fur- 
 nace will, in this way, make seventy-five tons 
 of iron in a week ; or as much iron in the year 
 as will make the blades of about one hundred 
 and forty millions of knives, at an ounce to 
 each blade. 
 
 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, in- 
 stead of melting in the fire, will soften, and 
 admit of being hammered into shape, or united 
 by the process of welding. 
 
 The methods by which this is accomplished 
 vary ; but they in general consist in keeping 
 the iron melted in the furnace, and stirring 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 be- 
 comes 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; 
 D2 
 
42 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 and water-wheels, steam-enjrines, 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 manufacture, no man could 
 obtain a spade for less than the price of a year’s 
 labor ; the yokes of a horse would cost more 
 than the horse himself ; and the farmer would 
 have to return to wooden plow-shares, and 
 hoes made of sticks with crooked ends. There 
 would be labor enough then, as we have 
 already shown : — but the people could not live 
 upon the labor only ; they must have profitable 
 labor. 
 
 After all this, the iron is not yet fit for a 
 knife, at least for such a knife as an English- 
 man 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 know- 
 ledge of the method of making iron, and have 
 no furnaces or machinery. 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 fortunate 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 bending. In 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 43 
 
 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 hard- 
 en 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 ob- 
 ject desired. There are niceties in the pro- 
 cess, which it is not necessary to explain, 
 that produce the peculiar quality of steel, 
 as distinguished from cast-iron. If the ope- 
 ration 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 man- 
 ner 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 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 
 
44 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 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 color 
 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 de- 
 gree of hardness that he wants. 
 
 The grinding a knife, and the polishing it, 
 even when it has acquired the requisite prop- 
 erties of steel, if they were not done by ma- 
 chinery, 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 immense 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 grinding and polishing cost scarcely 
 any thing; while the travelling knife-grinder 
 charges two-pence for the labor 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 pro- 
 cure it ; and without the machinery to lighten 
 the labor, no ingenuity could furnish it at a 
 thousand times the expense. 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 45 
 
 And why then can an ordinary workman 
 procure it for the price of a few hours’ labor 1 
 The causes are easily seen. Every part of the 
 labor 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 ad- 
 vantage in the manufacture is, that the labor 
 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 shift- 
 ing 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 determined, 
 as far as labor 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 ax, does just as much work as he that 
 should take a week 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, you still say, 
 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 em- 
 ployed at the iron-works than there would have 
 been if there had been no machinery ; because 
 without machinery men could not produce iron 
 cheap enough to be generally used. 
 
 Then the number of founders and smiths! 
 
40 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 The pans and kettles, the pipes, the grates, the 
 thousands of iron things that we see, all em- 
 ploy somebody; and every body is benefited 
 by the use of them. We make bridges of 
 iron, roads of iron, wagons 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 inhabit- 
 ing. As many iron pipes have been laid down 
 for supplying water and light to the inhabit- 
 ants of London alone, within the last twenty 
 years, as, without machinery, would have kept 
 all the world busy for a century, or rather, 
 could not have been procured at all. You will 
 have more facts on this branch of the subject, 
 in a succeeding chapter. 
 
 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 alto- 
 gether. How could 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 made but sorry work. Then 
 come the spade, the hoe, the scythe, and the 
 sickle. How could they be had without iron ? 
 or what would be the condition of the laborer, 
 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 labor ; — in many cases they are supplied 
 to him. If they were made by hand, they would 
 cost him the labor of many weeks to purchase 
 them, if they could be purchased at all. His 
 tools are, however, a first necessary of life to 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 47 
 
 the laborer ; — he cannot earn his bread with- 
 out 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 
 wwk for half-price. The ax, the saw, the plane, 
 the gimlet, and the nails, would consume all 
 the earnings 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 laborers ; and labor 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 
 labor, and was consequently very dear. Hut- 
 ton, 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 pos- 
 sessed 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. 
 
48 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 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, 
 but in all other trades, who otherwise could 
 not have been employed ; and it enables every- 
 body 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 anywhere 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. 
 
 One or tw o facts will show still more forci- 
 bly the value of machinery in the iron-works. 
 In 1788, the whole iron made in the year did 
 not amount to seventy thousand tons; and 
 seventy thousand tons more were imported in 
 bars from Sweden and Russia, which must have 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 49 
 
 been paid for out of the labor of the people 
 in England. At present the quantity annually 
 made in Britain is not less than six hundred 
 thousand tons. The quantity made yearly has 
 increased nearly nine-fold in the space of less 
 than half a century. 
 
 Nearly all the people now engaged in iron- 
 works are supported by the improvements that 
 have been made in it hy machinery since 1788. 
 Yes, wholly by the machinery ; for before then 
 the quantity made by the charcoal of v )od 
 had fallen off one-fourth in forty-five 1 ^ars. 
 The wood for charcoal was becoming cAhausted, 
 and nothing but the powerful blast of a ma- 
 chine will make iron with coke. Without the 
 aid of machinery the trade would have become 
 extinct. The iron and the coal employed in 
 making it would have remained useless in the 
 mines. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 We have seen what an important article coal 
 is in the manufacture of iron. It is so im- 
 portant, that iron-works in England are inva- 
 riably carried on in the coal counties. In 
 France there are nearly four hundred charcoal 
 furnaces; but they do not do more than a 
 fourth of the work of smelting iron which is 
 done by our coke furnaces, of which, in Eng- 
 land and Wales, there are about three hundred, 
 each producing, when in full work, upon the 
 E 
 
50 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 average, fifty tons a week, or the enormous 
 quantity of seven hundred and eighty thousand 
 tons a year. 
 
 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 working 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 business is coal. The coal trade 
 and the iron trade are thus so intimately con- 
 nected, 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, rail-roads, 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 char- 
 coal of wood. But the quantity of both would 
 be trifling in comparison. Thus it is, that to 
 make six hundred thousand tons of iron, re- 
 quires five times the quantity, or, three million 
 tons, of coal. This large quantity is only for 
 the production of pig-metal. In other cast- 
 ings, and in the various subsequent stages of 
 iron manufacture, many more tons of coal are 
 employed. 
 
 Through the general consumption of wood in- 
 stead 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 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 51 
 
 miles of the doors of some men, machinery at 
 the pits, and ships and barges, which are also 
 machinery, enable most men to enjoy the 
 blessings of a coal fire at a much cheaper rate 
 than a fire of wood, which is not limited in its 
 growth to any particular district. Without 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 pro- 
 duced by a want of fuel cannot be estimated 
 by those who have abundance. In Normandy, 
 at the present day, such is the scarcity of 
 wood, that persons engaged in various works 
 of hand, as lace-making by the pillow, abso- 
 lutely sit up through the winter nights in the 
 barns of the farmers, where cattle are littered 
 down, that they may be kept warm by the 
 animal heat which is around them. They sleep 
 in the day, and are warmed by being in the 
 same out-house with cows and horses at 
 night ; — and thus they work under every dis- 
 advantage, because fuel is 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 
 
52 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 this task, or what would the coals cost as com- 
 pared with the present price ? 
 
 At present a cottager in the south of Eng- 
 land, 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 under- 
 taking. 
 
 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 laborer knows exactly the spot 
 where the coal is to be found. This knowledge 
 in a country that has never been searched for 
 coals before, is no easy matter even to those 
 who understand the subject 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 pickax, 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 Sunday, and comes re- 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 63 
 
 freshed to his work on Monday morning; 
 when, behold, there are twelve feet of water in 
 his pit! 
 
 Somebody now lends him a bucket and 
 rope, (a machine, 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. 
 
 But suppose the man, in spite of every diffi- 
 culty, to reach the coal at last, which he might 
 do possibly at the end of twelve months. If 
 he is wise he will even then desist, and return 
 to his family, whom somebody must have 
 supported while he was making these fruitless 
 exertions, satisfied that it is better to spend a 
 day’s wages in the purchase of a bushel of 
 coals, than to waste weeks, and months, and 
 years in an attempt to get it, without absolute 
 payment, but at a sacrifice of labor which under 
 the most favorable circumstances would add a 
 hundred fold to the market price. 
 
 The sinking of a pit, even to a less depth 
 than a hundred fathoms, sometimes demands, 
 notwithstanding all the improvements by 
 E2 
 
64 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 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 labor of between 
 four hundred and five hundred years is re- 
 duced to a single day, and that which, inde- 
 pendently of the carriage, would have cost ten 
 thousand pounds, is got for eighteen pence ? 
 It is because man joins with man, and machi- 
 nery is employed to do the drudgery. Nations 
 that have no machinery have no coal fires, and 
 are ignorant that there is hidden under the 
 earth a substance which contributes more, per- 
 haps, 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 ail — is owing to every part of the labor that 
 can be so performed being performed by machi- 
 nery ; 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 showing with what ease 
 machinery can do that which to human 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 65 
 
 strength, however skilfully applied, if unas- 
 sisted by machinery, would be utterly impos- 
 sible. 
 
 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 cut- 
 ting steps in the side of the pit. With such 
 aids, let us consider how much rubbish 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 daily ascents 
 from the pit, even if the man brought nothing 
 with him. If he carry a load, his power of as- 
 cent is of course much diminished. 
 
 But art performs what merely bodily strength 
 cannot accomplish. When the pit becomes 
 too deep for throwing out the earth with a 
 shovel, a windlass is put across 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 pickax and the shovel, takes 
 the iron “jumper,” drills a hole in the rock, 
 puts in a shot of gunpowder, lays a few fagots 
 over for safety, lights the train, and is drawn 
 some yards up by the bucket. Thunder goes 
 
50 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 the shot, the fagots prevent all danger from 
 the fragments, and as much stone is loosened 
 in two minutes as the man would have loos- 
 ened with his pickax in a week. This is a 
 chemical aid ; an aid which is as powerful in 
 diminishing 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 labor. 
 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 labor 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 hundred 
 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 bo 
 made to do. We have seen a pit in Stafford- 
 shire, which hardly gave coal enough to main- 
 tain 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 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 57 
 
 a steam-engine of 200-horse-power, raising 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 ad- 
 vantage was gained over the machine by the 
 opposing force of water, 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 be- 
 come 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 ; 
 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 la- 
 borer, 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 commu- 
 nication between man and man, whether from 
 town to town, from district to district, from 
 county to county, or from nation to nation, ad- 
 vance 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 
 
58 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY, 
 
 necessaries of life are obtained, which without 
 machinery could not be obtained at all in the 
 thousandth part of the quantity; and which, 
 consequently, would be a thousand times the 
 price — would, in fact, be precious stones, in- 
 stead of common fuel. 
 
 It is estimated that between forty and fifty 
 thousand people are actually employed in the 
 collieries on the Tyne and Wear districts alone, 
 and in the business connected with those col- 
 lieries. These cannot be above one-third of 
 the whole so employed in the United Kingdom. 
 But when the young, the infirm, and the aged, 
 are taken into consideration, it is not too much 
 to say that for every one that works, two are 
 supported without working. Therefore it is 
 within the mark to say that the coal-trade di- 
 rectly supports one in every forty of all the 
 people of England. 
 
 But all these people are not only employed in 
 union with the machinery, but they are more 
 comfortably employed than they would be with- 
 out it. 
 
 In all mining-operations, conducted as they 
 are in modern times, and in our own country, 
 we must either go without the article pro- 
 duced, whether coal, or iron, or lead, or tin, if 
 the machines were abolished, — or we must 
 employ human labor, in works the most 
 painful, at a price which would not only ren- 
 der existence unbearable, but destroy it al- 
 together. The people, in that case, would be 
 in the condition of the unhappy natives of 
 South America, when the Spaniards resolved 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 69 
 
 to get gold at any cost of human suffering. 
 The Spaniards had no machines but pickaxes 
 and spades, to put in the hands of the poor 
 Indians. They compelled them to labor in- 
 cessantly with these, and half the people were 
 destroyed. Without machinery, in places where 
 people can obtain even valuable ore for no- 
 thing, the collection and preparation of metals 
 is hardly worth the labor. Mungo Parke de- 
 scribes the sad condition of the Africans who 
 are always washing gold dust ; — and we have 
 seen in Derbyshire a poor man separating 
 small particles of lead from the limestone, or 
 spar, of that country, and unable to earn a 
 shilling a day by the process. A man of capi- 
 tal erects lead-works, and in a year or two ob- 
 tains an adequate profit, and employs many 
 laborers. 
 
 The mines of Cornwall, especially those of 
 tin and copper, are of the greatest value; 
 many of them are deep, and contain a great 
 deal of water; and the country produces no 
 coal. The water used to be drawn out of those 
 mines by pumps ; and Mr. Davies Gilbert re- 
 members the man who assisted in making the 
 first horse-gin that was seen to the west of St. 
 Michael’s mount. 
 
 From the joint experiments of Messrs. Watt 
 and Bolton, and the principal miners, the best 
 steam-engines, in 1778, raised two thousand 
 gallons, from a depth of three hundred and 
 forty-eight feet, for every bushel of coal used. 
 
 An ordinary man, working with a good 
 
60 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 pump, will raise one thousand gallons from the 
 same depth in a day. 
 
 In 1829, the best engine in Cornwall, did 
 ten times the work of those in 1778, or each 
 bushel of coal raised twenty thousand gallons 
 of water. 
 
 In 1829, therefore, one bushel of coal did 
 the work of twenty men, or of four horses for 
 one whole day. 
 
 The rearing of men, or of horses, bears as 
 great a proportion to the whole of their labor, 
 as the cost of steam-engines does to that which 
 they can do. 
 
 Therefore, a bushel of coals, by the steam- 
 engine, buys as much labor as the wages of 
 twenty men, or the keep of four horses. 
 
 A bushel of coal (which is about three-quar- 
 ters of a hundred weight, at twenty shillings 
 a ton) costs ninepence in the coal districts; 
 in the places where the price is highest it will 
 not cost more than one shilling and ninepence ; 
 and the cost of coal for the whole engines may 
 be therefore taken at the average of fifteen 
 pence. 
 
 Therefore, by an engine, the work of twenty 
 men may be got for fifteen pence, while the 
 men, at fifteen pence a day, would cost twenty- 
 four shillings. 
 
 Men, therefore, could not compete with 
 steam-engines if they asked more than four- 
 pence halfpenny in the week, or three farthings 
 for each day’s hard work of ten hours. If they 
 worked at a rate like this, they would be worse 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 61 
 
 oflf than were the Indians of South America. 
 If the men did not work as cheaply as the 
 engines, the coals would not be consumed as 
 extensively as machinery enables them to be 
 consumed. The consumption of coals has 
 increased much more rapidly than the increase 
 of the population. In the time of Charles II. 
 two hundred thousand chaldrons were annually 
 consumed in London. At the present time, 
 above a million and a half chaldrons are con- 
 sumed. It has been calculated that each 
 person in London, in 1801, used a chaldron 
 of coals in a year, and that now a chaldron and 
 one-sixth is used by each person. The com- 
 petition of capital, and improved machinery, 
 have made coals cheaper. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 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 great degree to the man who lives in 
 London, and the man who lives in Durham or 
 Staffordshire. 
 
 About a hundred and fifty years ago, when 
 the first turnpike-road was formed in England, 
 the 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 
 F 
 
62 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 the use of a road, would confer upon them 
 innumerable 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 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 back 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 further 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. 
 
 Difficulties 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 for- 
 get that he has no roads. 
 
 If the natural obstacles against travelling 
 were not removed by art, it is within the truth 
 to say that any man who had to go from one 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 63 
 
 end of Britain to the other, would lose six 
 months. If he wished to carry a ton, or even a 
 hundred weight, of any sort of goods with him, 
 he could not perform the journey at all. 
 
 The produce of the different parts of the 
 country are different, and the goods, whether 
 manufactured or not, that are to spare at any 
 one place, are wanted at some other. One 
 county produces corn, another coals and plow- 
 shares. Both are useless where they are, and 
 the places are miles distant. If a man went with 
 corn for a plowshare, his corn would be eaten 
 before he got half way. There could be no 
 communication. 
 
 Pack-horses, fifty years ago, carried on the 
 communication in manufacturing districts, upon 
 roads where no wheel-carriage could proceed ; 
 but the intercourse in that way was very ex- 
 pensive, and consequently limited. 
 
 Roads and wheel-carriages are the next step. 
 Roads in the straight line, up one hill and 
 down another, as the Romans made them ; and 
 roads full of ruts, made of bad materials, and 
 never attended to, add much to the cost of 
 production. As the team draws no more 
 along the whole road than it can draw along 
 the worst part of it, the traffic is small and 
 costly ; and doubles the price of an article by 
 the time that it has been carried thirty or forty 
 miles. 
 
 This is a great loss to all parties. The 
 sellers sell only half what they could sell, and 
 so they must charge more for it ; and the 
 buyers, consequently, obtain a diminished 
 
64 the results op machinery. 
 
 quantity. Mr. Jacob, who went upon the con- 
 tinent to see what stores of wheat the people 
 had,- found that in the sandy roads of parts of 
 Germany and Poland, the original price of 
 wheat was doubled by the price of conveyance, 
 in a very few miles. 
 
 It is quite plain that he who finds out the 
 means of conveying persons or goods from one 
 place to another in half the time in which they 
 have been accustomed to be conveyed, does 
 the very same thing as if he brought the places 
 one-half nearer. 
 
 On foot a man could carry twenty-eight 
 pounds from London to York in ten days ; the 
 mail coach can carry a ton from London to 
 York in twenty-four hours; the distance is 
 200 miles. York is really, then, for all purposes 
 of trade, brought within half a mile of London 
 by the mail, as compared with the porter on 
 foot. Forty times the weight is carried, and it 
 is carried in one-tenth of the time. The only 
 cost to be subtracted from the gain is the ex- 
 pense of the mail. 
 
 It is the rapidity, however, that is the prin- 
 cipal value, and not the mere cheapness inde- 
 pendent of time ; for that which is of the ut- 
 most consequence to-morrow, may be of no 
 value whatever ten days hence. The saving 
 of time is the greatest of all savings. 
 
 Water is another great mode of communica- 
 tion. A man can move with his finger a log in 
 the water, which all his force could not stir 
 on land. A man can lift a lump of brick with 
 ease, as long as it is completely under water, 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 05 
 
 although he would be obliged to drop it before 
 he got it altogether out. 
 
 The cause is very simple ; it sinks down 
 till it is just as heavy as the water, and thus 
 in as far as weight is concerned, the moving 
 of it does not differ from the moving of the 
 water. Brick is exactly double the weight of 
 water ; and, therefore, a man can lift two hun- 
 dred weight in the water with the same exer- 
 tion of his strength as he lifts one hundred 
 weight in the air. 
 
 Thus, if the lump of brick is one hundred 
 weight in the water, it will be one hundred and 
 a half when half way out, and two hundred 
 when out altogether; and if the man cannot 
 lift two hundred weight, he will never be able 
 to bring it quite out of the water, though he 
 may move it about when wholly under water, 
 or when a part only is above. 
 
 If the thing, whatever it is, floats, the only 
 labor in drawing it is that of displacing a cer- 
 tain quantity of water. 
 
 The communication between distant coun- 
 tries by means of ships is of a paramount ne- 
 cessity ; for without them the communication 
 could not exist at all. The ships of England 
 cause employment and a living for many thou- 
 sands of people, that otherwise could have 
 found none. But they also give us the com- 
 modities of all parts of the world at a rate not 
 much higher than is paid by the people of 
 the countries where they are produced, and 
 sometimes even cheaper than in parts of those 
 countries themselves. This extraordinary re- 
 
66 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 suit is produced by the circumstance that land- 
 carriage in the interior of a country is dearer 
 than water-carriage from its ports. The writer 
 of this book received lately a package from 
 Havre, a French port; and the cost of bringing 
 it by sea from Havre was less than the cost 
 of bringing it in a cart from the docks at the 
 east-end of London to a house at the west-end. 
 Havre is nearer to London in the price of 
 transport, than the Custom-house of London 
 is to Pall-Mall. We cannot have a more strik- 
 ing proof of the value of ship-machinery, by 
 which we obtain all the commodities which 
 the world produces, in greater abundance and 
 at a cheaper rate than the people of any other 
 country. 
 
 In our rivers we have vast quantities of 
 goods moved along by the tide, with little more 
 labor than taking care that the barges do 
 not get aground ; and where there is no tide, 
 horses are used on a towing-path. Horses 
 work to a disadvantage there, but still one 
 does the work of a great number employed in 
 land-carriage. On the canals which cross the 
 country in all directions, the effect is still 
 greater; and though the expense of making 
 canals is considerable, they generally yield 
 large profits ; while they give employment to 
 ten times as many people as could be employed 
 without them. 
 
 The conveyance of goods by canals is cheap ; 
 but it is a slow conveyance when compared 
 with that of a coach. We might naturally 
 suppose that the slow motion of canals might 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 67 
 
 be got the better of by steam-boats, as contrary 
 winds and calms are got the better of in the 
 narrow seas. But that is not the case. The 
 steam-boat produces a great deal of motion in 
 the water, by which the banks of the canal 
 would be injured ; and the canal would have 
 to be made extravagantly expensive for the 
 load that the boat, burdened with its ma- 
 chinery, could carry, to prevent mutual injury 
 by the boat striking the banks. 
 
 Machinery is not without its resources, for 
 the purpose of combining cheapness and expe- 
 dition. Machinery gives us the rail-way and the 
 steam-carriage, to the action of which, either 
 in strength or in speed, there is no limit but 
 the strength of the materials. The most com- 
 plete instance of this means of communication 
 is upon the rail-way between Liverpool and 
 Manchester, and the following is an account of 
 the first conveyance of heavy goods along this 
 rail-way in December, 1830. 
 
 The train consisted of eighteen wagons, 
 containing a hundred and thirty-five bags 
 and bales of American cotton, two hundred 
 barrels of flour, sixty-three sacks of oatmeal, 
 and thirty-four sacks of malt, weighing alto- 
 gether fifty-one tons, eleven hundred weight, 
 and one quarter. To this must be added the 
 weight of the wagons and oil-cloths, viz. 
 twenty-three tons, eight hundred weight, and 
 three quarters; the tender, with water and 
 fuel, four tons ; and of fifteen persons on the 
 train, one ton; making a total weight of 
 exactly eightt^ tons^ exclusive of the engine, 
 
108 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 about six tons. The journey was performed 
 in two hours and fifty-four minutes, including 
 three stoppages of five minutes each (one only 
 being necessary under ordinary circumstances) 
 for oiling, watering, and taking in fuel; un- 
 der the disadvantages also of an adverse wind, 
 and of a great additional friction in the wheels 
 and axles, owing to their being entirely new. 
 The train was assisted up the Rainhill inclined 
 plane, by other engines, at the rate of nine 
 miles an hour, and descended the Sutton in- 
 clined plane at the rate of sixteen miles and a 
 half an hour. The average rate on the other 
 parts of the road was twelve miles and a half 
 an hour, the greatest speed on the level being 
 fifteen miles and a half an hour. 
 
 All these modes of communication are no- 
 thing but applications of machinery. The road 
 is a sort of machine; the coach and the 
 wagon are machines ; the barge, the ship, and 
 the steam-ship are machines ; the rail-way and 
 the locomotive engine (or engine moving from 
 place to place) are machines. If these were to 
 be destroyed, all the other advances in civiliza- 
 tion that have taken place amongst us would be 
 of comparatively little advantage, as there 
 would be no means of bringing the produce and 
 the consumers together. Without the means 
 of conveying goods to a market, the prices of 
 commodities would be doubled, and many thou- 
 sands would be thrown out of bread. 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 69 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 We have endeavored to explain the general 
 principle that easy communications, whether 
 of roads, or canals, or rail-ways, between one 
 part of a country and another, add to the gene- 
 ral wealth, and diminish the cost of production. 
 We shall proceed to give some particular ex- 
 amples of the advantages of improved commu- 
 nication to country districts remote from towns, 
 and particularly to the laboring population of 
 those districts. 
 
 In England, at the present day, there is no 
 part of the country without good roads. It 
 would be impossible for a traveller in England 
 to set himself down in any situation where the 
 post from London would not reach him in 
 three days. Fifty years ago such a quickness 
 of communication would have been considered 
 beyond the compass of human means. It would 
 be easy to show what benefits have been con- 
 ferred upon the poorest inhabitant of England, 
 by the roads and canals which now intersect 
 the country in every direction. But the value 
 of these blessings may be better estimated, by 
 viewing the condition of such parts of the 
 United Kingdom as are just beginning to enjoy 
 them.* 
 
 In the Highlands of Scotland, at the begin- 
 
 ♦ See Appendix, No. II. p. 213. 
 
70 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 ning of the present century, the communica- 
 tion from one district to another was attended 
 with such difficulty and danger, that some of 
 the counties were excused from sending jurors 
 to the circuit to assist in the administration of 
 justice. The poor people inhabiting these 
 districts were almost entirely cut off from in- 
 tercourse with the rest of mankind. The High- 
 lands were of less advantage to the British 
 empire than the most distant colony. Parlia- 
 ment resolved to remedy the evil; and, ac- 
 cordingly, from 1802 to 1817, the sum of two 
 hundred thousand pounds was laid out, in 
 making roads' and bridges in these moun- 
 tainous districts. Mark the important con- 
 sequences to the people of the Highlands, as 
 described by Mr. Telford, the engineer of the 
 roads.*— 
 
 ‘‘ In these works, and in the Caledonian 
 canal, about three thousand two hundred men 
 have been annually employed. At first they 
 could scarcely work at all ; they were totally 
 unacquainted with labor, they could not use 
 the tools ; but they have since become ex- 
 cellent laborers; of that number we consider 
 one-fourth left us annually, taught to work. 
 These works may be considered in the light 
 of a working academy, from which eight 
 hundred have annually departed improved 
 workmen. These men have either returned 
 to their native districts, having had the ex- 
 perience of using the most perfect sorts of 
 tools and utensils, (which alone cannot be 
 considered as less than ten per cent, on any 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 71 
 
 labor,) or they have been usefully dissemi- 
 nated throughout the other parts of the 
 country. Since these roads were made ac- 
 cessible, wheelwrights and Cartwrights have 
 been established, the plow has been intro- 
 duced, and improved tools and utensils are 
 used. The plow was not previously used 
 in general ; in the interior and mountainous 
 parts they frequently used crooked sticks with 
 iron on them, drawn or pushed along. The 
 moral habits of the great mass of the working 
 classes are changed; tl\ey see that they may 
 depend on their own exertions for support; 
 this goes on silently, and is scarcely perceived 
 until apparent by the results. I consider these 
 improvements one of the greatest blessings 
 ever conferred upon any country. About two 
 hundred thousand pounds have been granted 
 in fifteen years. It has been the means of 
 advancing the country at least one hundred 
 years.” 
 
 There are many parts of Ireland which sus- 
 tain the same miseries and inconveniences from 
 the want of roads, as the Highlands of Scot- 
 land did at the beginning of the present cen- 
 tury. In 1823, Mr. Nimmo, the engineer, 
 stated to parliament, that the fertile plains of 
 Limerick, Cork, and Kerry, were separated 
 from each other by a deserted country, pre- 
 senting an impassable barrier between them. 
 This country was the retreat of smugglers, 
 robbers, and culprits of every description. 
 According to another engineer, Mr. Griffith, 
 
72 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 this tract, in 1824, was a wild, neglected, and 
 deserted country, without roads, culture, or 
 civilization. The government ordered roads 
 to be made through this barren district. In 
 1829, in less than five years after the com- 
 mencement of the roads, Mr. Griffith thus de- 
 scribes the change which had been produced. 
 “ A very considerable improvement has already 
 taken place in the vicinity of the roads, both 
 in the industry of the inhabitants and the ap- 
 pearance of the country. At the commence- 
 ment of the works, the people flocked into 
 them, seeking employment at any rate ; their 
 looks haggard, their clothing wretched; they 
 rarely possessed any tools or implements be- 
 yond a small, ill-shaped spade ; and nearly the 
 whole face of the country was unimproved. 
 Since the completion of the roads, rapid strides 
 have been made ; upwards of sixty new lime- 
 kilns have been built; carts, plows, harrows, 
 and improved implements have become com- 
 mon ; new houses of a better class have been 
 built, new inclosures made, and the country 
 has become perfectly tranquil, and exhibits a 
 scene of industry and exertion at once pleas- 
 ing and remarkable. A large portion of the 
 money received for labor has been husbanded 
 with care, laid out in building substantial 
 houses, and in the purchase of stock and 
 agricultural implements ; and numerous ex- 
 amples might be shown of poor laborers, 
 possessing neither money, houses, nor land, 
 when first employed, who in the past year have 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 73 
 
 been enabled to take farms, build houses, and 
 stock their land.” 
 
 But the evidence of Mr. Griffith is not the 
 only proof which we can offer of the effects of 
 such works upon the condition of the people. 
 Another witness, Mr. Kelly, thus describes 
 their condition before and after the roads were 
 made. “At Abbeyfeale and Brosna above 
 half of the congregation at mass on Sundays 
 were barefoot and ragged, with small straw 
 hats of their own manufacture, felt hats being 
 worn only by a few. Hundreds, or even thou- 
 sands of men, could be got to work for six- 
 pence a day if it had been offered. The farm- 
 ers were mostly in debt, and many families 
 went to beg in Tipperary and other parts. The 
 condition of the people is now very different ; 
 the congregations at the chapels are now as 
 well clad as in other parts ; the demand for 
 labor is increased, and a spirit of industry is 
 getting forward, since the new roads have be- 
 come available.” Mr. Kelly gives also a 
 curious illustration of the influence of these 
 road-improvements upon the retail trade of the 
 district. “ 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- 
 G 
 
74 the results of machinery. 
 
 Although he never worked a day on the roads, 
 he got comfort and prosperity by them.” 
 
 The hatter of Castle-island got comfort and 
 prosperity 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 shelf, and the laborer 
 in the mountains went without a hat. When 
 the laborer and the hatter were brought to- 
 gether by the roads, the hatter soon sold off his 
 stock, and the manufacturer of hats went to 
 work to produce him a new stock ; while the 
 laborer, 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. 
 
 But there are people who can understand the 
 value of a road, who cannot perceive that of a 
 steam-engine. Let us see what the steam-en- 
 gine does for communication. 
 
 The establishment of steam-boats between 
 England and Ireland has greatly contributed 
 to the prosperity of both countries. How 
 have steam-boats done this ? They have 
 brought the people closer together. They 
 have made the closely-packed million of people 
 who live in the country round Liverpool, the 
 neighbours of the small farmers and pea- 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 75 
 
 sants who live amongst the rich valleys of Ire- 
 land. The steam-boat has given cheaper food 
 and more of it to the manufacturers on the 
 banks of the Mersey, and cheaper clothes and 
 more of them to the laborers on the banks 
 of the Shannon. In other words, to use the 
 language of an intelligent witness before a 
 committee of the house of Commons, “ Steam- 
 navigation has given to Ireland the dearest 
 and best market for her agricultural produce 
 of all kinds, as well as the cheapest and best 
 market from which to bring manufactures of 
 all kinds for the consumption of her population 
 in return.” We shall see how these two 
 causes operate to increase the comforts, by 
 lessening the cost of production to both par- 
 ties ; and we shall see these effects most 
 plainly in the facts stated by an accurate ob- 
 server, Mr. Williams, who gave his evidence 
 last year to parliament, on the condition of the 
 people of Ireland. 
 
 Mr. Williams says, that before the steam- 
 boats were established, there was little trade in 
 the smaller articles of farming production, such 
 as poultry and eggs. The first trading steam- 
 boat from Liverpool to Dublin was set up in 
 1824; there are now forty such boats between 
 England and Ireland. The sailing vessels 
 were from one week to two or three weeks on 
 the passage ; the voyage from Liverpool to 
 Dublin is now performed in fourteen hours. 
 Reckoning ten miles for an hour, Dublin 
 and Liverpool are 140 miles apart ; with 
 the old vessels, taking twelve days as tfie 
 
76 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 average time of the voyage, they were sepa- 
 rated as completely as they would be by 
 a distance of 2880 miles. What is the con- 
 sequence ? ‘‘ Traders may now’ have from 
 any of the manufacturing towns in England, 
 within two or three days, even the smallest 
 quantity of any description of goods and 
 thus, “ one of the effects has been to give a 
 productive employment to the capital of per- 
 sons in secondary lines of business, that for- 
 merly could not have been brought into action.” 
 Mr. Williams adds, “ I am a daily witness to 
 the intercourse by means of the small traders 
 themselves between England and Ireland. 
 Those persons find their way into the interior 
 of England, and purchase manufactured goods 
 themselves. They are of course enabled to 
 sell them upon much better terms in Ireland ; 
 and I anticipate that this will shortly lead to 
 the creation of shops and other establishments 
 in the interior of Ireland, for the sale of a 
 great variety of articles which are not now to 
 be had there.” And how do the small dealers 
 in English manufactured goods find purchasers 
 in the rude districts of Ireland for our clothes 
 and our hardware ? Because the little farmers 
 have sent us their butter and eggs and poul- 
 try, and have either taken our manufactures in 
 exchange, or have taken back our money to 
 purchase our manufactures, which is the same 
 thing. Many millions of eggs, collected 
 amongst the very poorest classes by the in- 
 dustry of women and children, are annually 
 sent from Dublin to Liverpool. Mr. Williams 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 77 
 
 has known fifty tons, or eight hundred and 
 eighty thousand eggs, shipped in one day, as 
 well as ten tons of poultry ; and he says, this is 
 quite a new creation of property. It is a crea- 
 tion of property that has a direct tendency to 
 act upon the condition of the poorer classes in 
 Ireland; for the produce is laid out in pro- 
 viding clothes for the females and children of 
 the families who engage in rearing poultry and 
 collecting eggs. Thus the English manufac- 
 turer is bettered, for he has a new market for 
 his manufactures, which he exchanges for 
 cheap provisions ; and the dealer in poultry 
 and eggs has a new impulse to this branch of 
 industry, because it enables him to give clothes 
 to his wife and children. 
 
 This exchange of benefits — this advance- 
 ment in the condition of both parties — this 
 creation of produce and of profitable labor — 
 this increase in the number of laborers — 
 could not have taken place without machinery. 
 That machinery is the carriage which conveys 
 the produce to the river, and the steam-boat 
 which makes a port in another country much 
 nearer, for practical purposes, than the market- 
 town of a thinly-peopled district. A new ma- 
 chinery is added; the steam-carriage running 
 on the rail-road, which, in the case of the Liv- 
 erpool and Manchester rail-road, as one of 
 the witnesses truly says, “ is like carrying 
 Liverpool forty miles into the interior, and 
 thus extending the circle to which the supply 
 will be applicable.” The last invention per- 
 fects all the inventions which have preceded 
 G2 
 
78 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 it. The village and the city are brought close 
 together, in effect, and yet retain all the ad- 
 vantages of their local separation ; — the port 
 and the manufactory are divided only by two 
 hours’ distance in time, while their distance in 
 space affords room for all the various occupa- 
 tions which contribute to the perfection of either. 
 The whole territory of Great Britain and Ire- 
 land is more compact, more closely united, 
 more accessible, than was a single county two 
 centuries ago.* Men can exchange their com- 
 modities at the best market ; the seller and the 
 buyer are each free to choose their market. If 
 Ireland sends to Liverpool more cattle than 
 Liverpool can consume, they can go upon the 
 rail-road to Manchester. If Manchester has a 
 cheap stock of cotton cloth, which Liverpool 
 does not want for America, the pieces will 
 find their way to the small dealers in the ham- 
 lets of Ireland. 
 
 And there are some men who say that this 
 wonderful communication, the greatest tri- 
 umph of modern skill, is not a blessing; — for 
 the machinery has put somebody out of em- 
 ploy. 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 peti- 
 tioned 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 
 
 See Appendix, No. VI, p. 213. 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 79 
 
 could cross. Which was the better course — 
 to make the road, and create the thousand 
 employments belonging to freedom of inter- 
 course, for these very carriers of travellers, and 
 for all other men ; or to leave the mountains 
 without a road, that the poor guides might 
 gain a premium for risking their lives in an un- 
 necessary peril ? 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The people who live in small villages, or 
 in scattered habitations in the country, have 
 certainly not so many direct benefits from ma- 
 chinery as the inhabitants of towns. They 
 have the articles at a cheap rate, which ma- 
 chines produce, but there are not so many 
 machines at work for them as for the inhab- 
 itants of towns. From want of knowledge 
 they are unable to perceive the connexion be- 
 tween a cheap coat or a cheap tool, and the 
 machines which make them plentiful, and 
 therefore cheap. But even they, when the 
 saving of labor 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 painful condition of the “hewers of 
 wood” and the “ drawers of water and cer- 
 tainly, 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, or to 
 
80 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 raise a bucket from a well, are very laborious 
 occupations, the existence of which, to any ex- 
 tent, 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 laboring to 
 carry up a hill. We asked her how she and Iier 
 family were off in the 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 labor 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 labor for its own sake; she saw no ad- 
 vantage in the labor of one of her family 
 being given for the attainment of a good, 
 which she knew might be attained by a very 
 common invention. She wanted a machine to 
 save that labor. Such a machine would have 
 set at liberty a certain quantity of labor which 
 was previously employed unprofitably ; in 
 other words, it would have left her or her 
 children more time for more profitable work, 
 and then the family earnings would have been 
 increased. 
 
 But there is another point of view in which 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 81 
 
 this machine 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 clean- 
 liness is necessary for health. If there is a 
 scarcity of water, or if it requires a great deal 
 of labor to obtain it, (which comes to the same 
 thing as a scarcity,) the uses of water for clean- 
 liness 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 inhabit towns or cities, a plentiful supply 
 of water is the first thing to which they direct 
 their attention. If towns are built in situa- 
 tions where pure water cannot be readily 
 obtained, the inhabitants, and especially the 
 poorer sort, suffer even more misery than 
 results from the want of bread or clothes. In 
 some cities of Spain, for instance, where the 
 people understand very little about machinery, 
 water, at particular periods of the year, is as 
 dear as wine ; and the laboring classes are 
 consequently in a most miserable condition. 
 In London, on the contrary, water is so plen- 
 tiful, that twenty-nine millions of gallons are 
 daily supplied to the inhabitants ; which quan- 
 tity, distributed to about one hundred and 
 twenty-five thousand houses and other build- 
 ings, is at the rate of above two hundred gal- 
 lons every day to each house. To many of 
 the houses this water is, by the aid of ma- 
 chinery, not only delivered to the kitchens and 
 
82 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 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 
 labor of fetching it from the bottom. All this 
 is done at an average cost to each house of 
 about two-pence a-day ; which is a less price 
 than the labor of an able-bodied man would be 
 worth to fetch a single bucket, from a spring 
 half a mile from his own dwelling. 
 
 * And how did the inhabitants of London set 
 about getting this great supply of water? How 
 did they get a sufficient quantity, not only to use 
 as much as they please for drinking, for cooking, 
 and for washing, but obtained such an abun- 
 dance, 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 this great work 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, which was then a distant village, by 
 means of pipes ; and they laid a tax upon par- 
 ticular branches of trade to pay the expense of 
 this great blessing to all. In succeeding times 
 more pipes and conduits, that is, more ma- 
 chinery, was established for the same good 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 83 
 
 purpose; and two centuries afterwards, King 
 Henry the 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 very 
 true reason this was. 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 hun- 
 dred years after that of Henry the Sixth, a 
 most ingenious and enterprising man, and a 
 great benefactor to his country, Hugh Myddle- 
 ton, 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 
 immense undertaking, in spite of every diffi- 
 culty, till he at last accomplished that great 
 good which he had proposed, of bringing whole- 
 some water to every man’s door. At the pres- 
 ent time, the New River, which was the work 
 of Hugh Myddleton, supplies thirteen millions 
 of gallons of water every day ; and though the 
 original projector was ruined by the undertak- 
 ing, 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 pounds. 
 
84 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 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 found 
 in the city and its neighbourhood, and sec- 
 ondly, to the conduits and fountains, which 
 were imperfect mechanical contrivances 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 labor employed ; and as in 
 every large community there are always peo- 
 ple ready to perform labor 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 been no further need for these 
 water-carriers. When the people of London 
 could obtain two hundred gallons of water for 
 two-pence, they would not employ a man ta 
 fetch a single bucket from the river or the 
 fountain at the same price. They would not, 
 for the mere love of employing human labor 
 directly, continue to buy an article very dear, 
 which, by mechanical aid, they could buy very 
 cheap. If they had resolved, from any mistaken 
 notions about machinery, to continue to em- 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 85 
 
 ploy the water-carriers, they must have been 
 contented with one gallon of water a day in- 
 stead of two hundred gallons. 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 neces- 
 saries 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, would have 
 been utterly impossible. At two-pence a gal- 
 lon, 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 Lon- 
 don, 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 ut- 
 terly 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 labor 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 
 H 
 
80 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 of human hands, London could not have in- 
 creased 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 hundred water-carriers would 
 have been an ample proportion to this popula- 
 tion. 
 
 There is now, certainly, no labor to be per- 
 formed by water-carriers. But suppose that 
 five hundred years ago, when there were a 
 small number of persons who gained their 
 living by such drudgery, they had determined, 
 with as much justice and reason as the present 
 breakers of machinery, 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 evident that if this misfortune had hap- 
 pened — if the welfare of the many had been 
 retarded, (for it never could have been finally 
 stopt,) by the ignorance of the few — London, 
 as we have already shown, would not have 
 had a twentieth part of its present population ; 
 and the population of every other town, de- 
 pending as population does upon the increase 
 of pr^table labor, could never have gone 
 forward. How then would the case have stood 
 as to the amount of labor engaged in the 
 supply of water? A few hundred, at the ut- 
 most a few thousand, carriers of water would 
 have been employed throughout the kingdom ; 
 while the smelters and founders of iron of 
 which water-pipes are made, the laborers wha 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 87 
 
 lay down these pipes, the founders of lead who 
 make the service-pipes, and the plumbers who 
 apply them ; the carriers, whether by water or 
 land, who 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 engines stand, — these, and many 
 other laborers and mechanics 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 ren- 
 dered the commodity two hundred times dearer 
 than it is supplied by mechanical power. The 
 present cheapness of production, by mechanical 
 power, supplies employment to an infinitely 
 greater number of persons than could have 
 been required by a perseverance in the rude 
 and wasteful system which belonged to former 
 ages of ignorance and wretchedness. 
 
 The supply of artificial light, by gasy may 
 be proved to be an equal advantage to the con- 
 sumers and the producers, by the same course 
 of argument. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 There was a time when the people of Eng- 
 land were very inferior to those of the Low 
 Countries, of France, and of Germany, in 
 
88 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY, 
 
 various productions of manufacturing indus- 
 try. 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. Be- 
 fore 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 fbr 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 labor 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 inter- 
 course. We gave the rough and stinking fox’s 
 skin for a groat, and we got the nicely-drest 
 tippet for a shilling. The next best thing to 
 dressing the skin ourselves, was to pay other 
 people for dressing it. Without foreign com- 
 munication 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 com- 
 munication 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 have the fox’s 
 skin, but they do not know how to convert it 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 89 
 
 into value, by being furriers themselves, or by 
 communication 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 unsuited to the 
 climate and soil of Europe, but they were the 
 manufacturers also. Cotton, for instance, was 
 cultivated from time immemorial in Hindos- 
 tan, 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 stuffs of a fine and durable 
 quality, under every disadvantage of land- 
 carriage, even from the time of the ancient 
 Greeks. Before the discovery, however, 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 
 opulent; 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 colored 
 shawl. 
 
 When India was open to the ships of Europe, 
 the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the English, 
 sold cotton goods in every market, in consider- 
 H2 
 
90 the results op machinery. 
 
 able quantities. These stuffs bore their Indian 
 names of calicoes and muslins; and whether 
 bleached or dyed, were equally valued as 
 amongst the most useful and ornamental arti- 
 cles of European dress. 
 
 In the seventeenth century, France began to 
 manufacture into stuffs the raw cotton im- 
 ported from India, as Italy had done a century 
 before. A cruel act of despotism drove the 
 best French workmen, who were Protestants, 
 into England, and we learnt the manufacture. 
 The same act of despotism, the revocation of 
 the edict of 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 
 exclusively in making up the goods. The 
 warp, or longitudinal 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 distaff and spindle, — the same 
 tedious process which prevails amongst the 
 natives of India. Our manufacture, 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 pro- 
 curing a sufficient supply 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; 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 91 
 
 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 weft fine enough for the weaver. 
 A writer on the cotton manufacture, Mr. Guest, 
 states, that very few weavers could procure weft 
 enough to keep themselves constantly employed. 
 ‘‘ It was no uncommon thing,” he says, “ for a 
 weaver to walk three or four miles in a morn- 
 ing, and call on five or six spinners, before he 
 could collect weft to serve him for the re- 
 mainder of the day ; and when he wished to 
 weave a piece in a shorter time than usual, a 
 new ribbon or gown w^as necessary to quicken 
 the exertions of the spinner.” 
 
 That the manufacture should have flourished 
 in England at all under these difiiculties is 
 honorable to the industry of our country ; for 
 the machinery used in weaving was also of the 
 rudest sort, so that if the web was more than 
 three feet wide, the labor 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 calicoes and printed cottons from 
 India. 
 
 In a country like ours, where men have 
 learnt to think, and where ingenuity therefore 
 is at work, a deficiency in material or in labor 
 to meet the demand of a market is sure to call 
 forth invention. It is nearly a century ago 
 since it was perceived that spinning by ma- 
 chinery might give the supply which human 
 
92 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 labor was inadequate to produce, because, 
 doubtless, the remuneration for that labor 
 was very small. The work of the distaff, as it 
 was carried on at that period, in districts 
 partly agricultural, and party commercial, was 
 generally an employment for the spare hours 
 of the young women, and the easy industry of 
 the old. It was a labor 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 apparatus for 
 spinning was erected. A Mr. Lawrence Earn- 
 shaw, of Mottram, in Cheshire, is recorded to 
 have invented a machine, in 1753, to spin and 
 reel cotton at one operation ; which he showed 
 to his neighbors 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 Arkwright, a barber 
 of Preston, invented, in 1769, the principal 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, as- 
 sisted by subsequent inventions, raised the 
 importation of cotton wool from India from 
 less than two millions of pounds per annum, 
 to two hundred of millions ; — set in motion six 
 millions of spindles, instead of fifty thousand ; 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 03 
 
 — and increased the annual produce of the 
 manufacture from two hundred thousand pounds 
 sterling to thirty-six million pounds. 
 
 And how did he effect this great revolution 1 
 He asked himself whether it was not possible, 
 instead of a wheel which spins a single thread 
 of cotton at a time, 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 lit- 
 tle distance from each other, a lock of cotton, 
 rendering it finer as it is drawn out. It was 
 necessary, also, at the same time, to imitate 
 the action of the spindle, which twisted to- 
 gether the filaments at the moment they had 
 attained the necessary degree of fineness. It 
 would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, 
 to give an adequate idea, by words, of the 
 complex machinery by which Arkwright ac- 
 complished 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 in- 
 comparably cheaper. 
 
 We must suppose that by the previous ope- 
 ration of carding, the cotton wool has been 
 so combed and prepared as to be formed into 
 
94 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 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 rovings the old 
 name in hand-spinning. 
 
 In order to convert this roving into a thread, 
 it is necessary that the fibres, which are for 
 the most part curled up, and which lie in all 
 directions, should be stretched out and laid 
 lengthways, 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 distaflT, 
 those operations were performed by the finger 
 and thumb, and they were afterwards effected 
 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 
 lower roller in each pair is furrowed or fluted 
 lengthwise, and the upper one is covered 
 with leather ; so that, as they revolve in con- 
 tact with each other, they take fast hold of the 
 cotton which passes between them. Both pairs 
 of rollers are turned by machinery, which is 
 so contrived that the second pair shall turn 
 round with much more swiftness than the 
 first. Now suppose that a roving is put 
 between the first pair of rollers. The im- 
 mediate effect is merely to press it together 
 into a more compact form. But the roving 
 has but just passed through the first pair of 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 95 
 
 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 lengthways 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 operation. 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 
 differently arranged, as its fibres will be drawn 
 out longitudinally, and will be thus much 
 better fitted for forming a thread. This ope- 
 ration of doubling and drawing 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 Pollard, 
 of Manchester, spun, in 1792, on the mule, 
 (the name of a particular description of the 
 
96 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 cotton-spinning machinery,) no fewer than two 
 hundred and seventy-eight hanks of yarn, 
 forming a thread upwards 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, 
 you may form an idea, when you learn 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 you cannot per- 
 ceive 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 miracle that it is not burnt. 
 
 The invention of Arkwright — the substitu- 
 tion of rollers for fingers — changed the com- 
 merce of the world. The machinery by which 
 a man or woman, or even a child could pro- 
 duce two hundred threads where one was 
 produced before, caused a cheapness of pro- 
 duction much greater than that of India, 
 where human labor is scarcely worth any 
 thing. But the fabric of cotton was also infi- 
 nitely improved by the machinery. The hand 
 of the spinner was unequal in its opera- 
 tions. 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 cir- 
 cumstance alone, which could only result from 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 97 
 
 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 mate- 
 rials 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 rendered it impossible for the 
 cheap labor 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 the 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 it, 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. 
 
 I 
 
98 
 
 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 It is just possible that some of you will say 
 it matters not to us, the working men of Eng- 
 land, whether the people of India sell us raw 
 cotton or piece goods ; or whether the trade 
 in cotton amounts to one million a year or 
 thirty-six millions. You may want to know 
 how you individually, whether laborers or 
 mechanics, are benefited by these changes, 
 which look so large in figures. We will en- 
 deavor to tell you how you are benefited. 
 
 Of the cotton cloth made in England, three 
 hundred and sixty million yards are exported, 
 and three hundred and ninety-nine million 
 yards are retained for home consumption. 
 This was the state of the trade upon an average 
 of years from 1824 to 1828. You are, doubt- 
 less, benefited very greatly, though indirectly, 
 by the cotton cloth and the cotton yarn which 
 goes out of the country. The difference in 
 the value between the raw cotton and the cot- 
 ton yarn or cloth, is the price of your industry, 
 and of the profits of capital which sets your 
 industry in motion. At that price you buy 
 foreign produce, by which purchase you bring 
 many articles of necessity and luxury within 
 your reach. But this, you say, is a doubtful 
 good. The good is not doubtful ; but the ob- 
 jects which produce the good are spread 
 over a large surface. We shall confine your 
 attention therefore to one object. 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 99 
 
 Nearly twenty years after Arkwright had 
 begun to spin by machinery, the price of a 
 particular sort of cotton 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 forty 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 the price is a very important object 
 when every man, woman, and child in the 
 United Kingdom has to pay it. The four 
 hundred million yards of cloth which are an- 
 nually retained for home consumption, dis- 
 tributed amongst twenty-five millions of popu- 
 lation, allows sixteen yards every year for 
 each individual. We will suppose that no in- 
 dividual would buy these sixteen 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 there- 
 fore to health ; that it would be a great priva- 
 tion to go without the cloth. At six-pence a 
 yard, the four hundred million yards of cloth 
 amount to ten million pounds sterling. At 
 half-a-crown a yard, which we will take as the 
 average price about five-and-twenty years ago, 
 they would amount to fifty millions of pounds 
 sterling — an amount equal to all the taxes an- 
 nually paid in Great Britain and Ireland. At 
 twelve times the present price, or six shillings 
 a yard, which proportion we get by knowing 
 
100 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 the price of yarn forty years ago and at the 
 present day, the cost of four hundred million 
 yards of cotton cloth would be one hundred 
 and twenty millions of pounds sterling. It is 
 perfectly clear that no such sum of money 
 could be paid for cotton goods, and that, in 
 fact, instead of ten millions being spent in this 
 article of clothing by persons of all classes, in 
 consequence of the cheapness of the commo- 
 dity, we should go back to very nearly the 
 same consumption that existed before Ark- 
 wright’s invention, that is, to the consumption 
 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 con- 
 sumption. So that thirty-one people each now 
 consume sixteen yards of cotton cloth, where 
 one person, eighty years ago, consumed one 
 yard. We ask you, 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 of 
 you as a portion of society ? It is more espe- 
 cially a gain to the females and the children of 
 your families, whose condition is always de- 
 graded 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 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 101 
 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 lit- 
 tle 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 cloth- 
 ing 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 com- 
 munity can never be too highly estimated. 
 
 That the manufacture of cotton by ma- 
 chinery has produced one of the great results 
 for which machinery is to h.e desired, namely, 
 cheapness of production, cannot, we think, be 
 doubted. If increased employment of human 
 labor has gone along with that cheapness of 
 production, even the most prejudiced can have 
 no doubt of the advantages of this machinery 
 to all classes of the community. 
 
 At the time that Arkwright commenced his 
 machinery, a man named Hargrave, who had 
 set up a less perfect invention, 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 spinning machinery was 
 introduced 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, 
 
102 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 the great seats of the cotton manufacture. The 
 people of Lancashire and Normandy had not 
 formerly the means, as we have now, of know- 
 ing 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 be- 
 cause studious and inquiring men had thought 
 such matters beneath their attention. We live 
 in times more favorable 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 at- 
 tempted such an illegal act. The weavers 
 were interested in getting cotton yarn cheap, 
 so the combination was opposed to their inter- 
 ests ; 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 violent clamor ; 
 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,” 
 (that is, the science which teaches how the 
 wealth of a people may be best advanced,) 
 states, upon the authority of an English manu- 
 facturer of fifty years’ experience, that, in ten 
 years after the introduction of the machines, 
 the people employed in the trade, spinners and 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 103 
 
 weavers, were more than forty times as many 
 as when the spinning was done by hand. It 
 was calculated, in 1825, 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 per- 
 sons could produce by hand. If this calculation 
 be correct, and there is no reason to doubt it, 
 the spinning machinery 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 labor altogether in the pro- 
 duction of cotton yarn. It did no such thing. 
 It gave a new direction to the labor that was 
 formerly employed at the distaff and spindle ; 
 but it increased the quantity of labor alto- 
 gether employed in the manufacture of cotton, 
 at least a hundred fold. It increased it too 
 where an increase of labor was most desi- 
 rable. It gave constant, easy, and not unplea- 
 sant occupation to women and children. In 
 all the departments of cotton-spinning, and in 
 many of those of weaving by the power-loom, 
 women and children are employed. There 
 are degrees, of course, in the agreeable nature 
 of the employment, particularly as to its being 
 more or less cleanly. But there are extensive 
 apartments in large cotton factories, where 
 great numbers of females are daily engaged in 
 
104 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 processes which would not soil the nicest 
 fingers, dressed with the greatest neatness, and 
 clothed in materials (as all women are now 
 clothed) that were 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 our- 
 selves by the cheapness of cotton goods pro- 
 duced by machinery, is not to be considered as 
 a mere change from the labor of India to the 
 labor 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 
 calicoes and his colored stuffs ; 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 im- 
 ported five million pounds of cotton wool. In 
 1828 we imported two hundred and ten million 
 pounds — enough to make twelve hundred and 
 sixty million yards of cloth — which is about 
 two yards apiece for every human being in 
 the world. The workman on the banks of the 
 Ganges, (the great river of India,) is no longer 
 weaving calicoes for us, in his loom of reeds 
 under the shade of a mango tree; but he is 
 gathering for us forty times as much cotton as 
 he gathered before, and making forty times as 
 much indigo for us to color it with. The export 
 «f cotton has made such a demand upon the 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. ' 105 
 
 Indian power of labor, that even the people 
 of Hindostan, adopting European contrivances, 
 have introduced machinery to pack the cotton. 
 Bishop Heber says, that he was frequently 
 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 occu- 
 pies 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 their 
 institutions now shut out, they will know the 
 value of mechanical skill, in preference to un- 
 assisted manual labor. 
 
 The arguments for the use of machinery, 
 that may be derived from the manufacture 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 in- 
 creased. When the frame-work knitters of 
 silk stockings petitioned Oliver Cromwell for a 
 charter, they said, “ the Englishman buys silk 
 of the stranger for twenty marks, and sells him 
 the same again for one hundred pounds.” 
 The higher pride of the present day is, that we 
 buy three million and a half pounds of raw 
 silk from the stranger, employ half a million 
 
106 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 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 ma- 
 terials 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. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 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 esti- 
 mating, with any accuracy, the mechanical 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 107 
 
 knowledge possessed by the people engaged 
 in these works. It was, probably, very small, 
 and consequently, the human labor employed 
 in such edifices was not only enormous in 
 quantity, but exceedingly painful to the work- 
 men. The Egyptians, according to Hero- 
 dotus, a Greek writer who lived two thou- 
 sand five hundred years ago, hated the mem- 
 ory of the kings who built the pyramids. 
 He tells us that the great pyramid occu- 
 pied a 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 labor engaged in raising 
 huge masses of stone, that was extensive 
 enough to employ a hundred thousand men 
 for twenty years, which is equal to two mil- 
 lion of men for one year, must have been fear- 
 fully tormenting without machinery, or with 
 very imperfect machinery. It has been cal- 
 culated 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 
 laborers groaned because they were sorely 
 tasked ; and the rest of the people groaned 
 because they had to pay the laborers. The 
 laborers lived, it is true, upon the wages of 
 
108 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 their labor, that is, they were paid in food — 
 kept like horses— as the reward of their work. 
 Herodotus says, that it was recorded on the 
 pyramid, that the onions, radishes, and garlic 
 which the laborers consumed, cost sixteen hun- 
 dred talents of silver ; an immense sum, equiv- 
 alent to several million pounds. But the onions, 
 radishes, and garlic, the bread, and clothes of 
 the laborer, were wrung out of the profitable 
 labor of the rest of the people. The building 
 of the pyramid was an unprofitable labor. 
 There was no immediate or future source of 
 produce in the pyramid; it produced neither 
 food, nor fuel, nor clothes, nor any other ne- 
 cessary. The labor of a hundred thousand 
 men for twenty years, stupidly employed upon 
 this monument, without an object beyond that 
 of gratifying the pride of the tyrant who raised 
 it, was a direct tax upon the profitable labor of 
 the rest of the people. 
 
 “ Instead of useful works, like nature great, 
 
 Enormous cruel wonders crush’d the land.” 
 
 But admitting that it is sometimes desir- 
 able for nations and governments to erect 
 monuments which are not of direct utility, 
 — which 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 advantage that these works, 
 as well as all other works, should be per- 
 formed in the cheapest manner ; that is, that 
 human labor should derive every possible as- 
 sistance from mechanical aid. We will give 
 you an illustration of the differences of the 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 109 
 
 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 weigh- 
 ing ten hundred and eighty pounds. 
 
 To drag this stone along the smoothed floor 
 of the quarry 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 placed on a platform of wood, and 
 dragged over the same floor of planks, re- 
 quired six hundred and six pounds. When 
 the two surfaces of wood were soaped as they 
 slid over each other, the force required to drag 
 the stone was reduced to one hundred and 
 eighty-two pounds. When the same stone was 
 placed upon rollers three inches in diameter, it 
 required, to put it in motion along the floor of 
 the quarry, a force only of thirty-four pounds ; 
 and by the same rollers upon a wooden floor, a 
 force only of twenty-eight pounds. You will 
 see, therefore, that without any mechanical 
 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. 
 With the more perfect mechanical aid of roll- 
 ers, the same weight 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 labor, 
 necessary to move it from the quarry to the 
 K 
 
110 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 place where it is wanted to be used. We 
 have seen that, with the simplest mechanical 
 aid, labor may be reduced sixty -fold. With 
 more perfect mechanical aid, such as that of 
 water-carriage, the labor may be reduced infi- 
 nitely 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. 
 In countries where there are great forests, 
 timber-trees are worth nothing where they 
 grow, except there are ready means of trans- 
 port. In many parts of North America, the 
 great difficulty which the people find is in 
 clearing the land of the timber. The finest 
 trees are not only worthless, but are a posi- 
 tive encumbrance, except when they are 
 growing upon the banks of a great river ; in 
 which case the logs are thrown into the 
 water, or formed into rafts, being floated 
 several hundred miles, at scarcely any ex- 
 pense. The same stream which carries them 
 to a sea-port 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 
 labor. The stream that floats the tree, the 
 sawing-mill that cuts it, the ship that carries 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. Ill 
 
 it across the sea, enable men profitably to em- 
 ploy themselves in working it. Without the 
 stream, the mill, and the ship, those men would 
 have no labor, because none could afford 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 found 
 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 ma- 
 chine. 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 uni- 
 form dimensions ; and without this uniformity 
 the after labor of putting the bricks together 
 would be greatly increased. Without the 
 mould the workman could not form the bricks 
 quickly; — his own labor would be increased 
 ten-fold. Because bricks are cheap, one 
 thousand million bricks, as the excise returns 
 show, are made in England in a year; and 
 thus the simple 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 
 
112 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 cost of production were so enormously in- 
 creased. 
 
 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 the power which 
 sets these machines in motion ; just as the 
 wind or the water is the power of a mill, or 
 the elastic force of vapor the power of a 
 steam-engine. When Mr. Bolton, the partner 
 of the celebrated James Watt, waited upon 
 George III. to explain one of the great im- 
 provements of the steam-engine which they 
 had effected, the king said to him, “ What 
 do you sell, Mr. Bolton?” and the honest 
 engineer answered, “What kings, sire, are 
 all fond of — powerJ*^ 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 
 labor in their various trades; so that a per- 
 son 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 ob- 
 ject to reduce labor, to save material, and to 
 insure accuracy — the objects of all machines. 
 What a quantity of waste, both of time and 
 stuff, is saved by his foot-rule I and when he 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 113 
 
 chalks a bit of string and stretches it from 
 one end of a plank to the other, to jerk off the 
 chalk from the string, and thus produce an un- 
 erring line upon the face of the plank, he makes 
 a little machine, which saves him great labor. 
 Every one of his hundreds of tools, capable of 
 application to an infinite variety of purposes, 
 is an invention to save labor. Without some 
 tool the carpenter’s work could not be done at 
 all by the human hand. A knife would do 
 very laboriously what is done very quickly by 
 a hatchet. The labor of using a hatchet, 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 bevils, and his centre- 
 bits, what an infinitely greater quantity of la- 
 bor is economized, and how beautifully that 
 work is performed, which, without them, would 
 be rough and imperfect! Every boy of me- 
 chanical 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^nd the 
 little boat is the work of a day. 
 
 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 
 people would go without houses, and the car- 
 penter would go without work, — to say no- 
 thing of the people, who would also go without 
 work, that now make tools for the carpenter. 
 K2 
 
114 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 How great a variety of things are contained 
 in an ironmonger’s shop ! Half his store con- 
 sists of tools of one sort or another to save la- 
 bor ; and the other half consists 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 community, 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 to- 
 gether more completely than any thing 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 
 therefore we have as great a variety of screws 
 as of nails. 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 labor, and add to domestic comfort. 
 And many of these things really are necessi- 
 ties. M. Say, a French writer, gives us an 
 example of this ; and as his story is an amu- 
 sing 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 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 115 
 
 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 with, it was always left flap- 
 ping ; 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 off 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 suffered. 
 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 was lost, for 
 
116 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 want of a shoe the horse was lost, for want of 
 a horse the man was lost.” 
 
 Nearly all the infinite variety of articles in 
 an ironmonger’s shop are made by machinery. 
 Without machinery they could not be made at 
 all, or they would be sold at a price which 
 would prevent them being commonly used. 
 With machinery, their manufacture employs 
 large numbers of artisans, who would be other- 
 wise unemployed. There are hundreds of in- 
 genious men at Birmingham, who go into 
 business with a capital acquired by their 
 savings as workmen, for the purpose of manu- 
 facturing 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 ma- 
 chinery. The cheapness 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, we owe it to what 
 men generally call machinery, that such furni- 
 ture, even in the house of a very poor man, 
 is more tasteful in its construction, and of 
 finer material, than that possessed by a noble- 
 man a hundred years ago. How is this? 
 Machinery (that is ships) has brought us much 
 finer woods than we grow ourselves; and 
 other machinery (the sawing-mill) has taught 
 us how to render that fine wood very cheap, 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 117 
 
 by economizing the use of it. At a veneering- 
 mill, that is, a mill which cuts a mahogany 
 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 mahogany are cut by one 
 circular saw in an hour. A veneer, or thin 
 plate, is cut oflf 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 would afford 
 as much happiness ; for, a desire for comfort, 
 and even for some degree of elegance, gives 
 a refinement to the character, and, in a certain 
 degree, raises our self-respect. Diogenes, 
 who is said to have lived in a tub, was a great 
 philosopher ; but it is not necessary to live in 
 a tub to 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 surround himself 
 with the comforts and decent ornaments of his 
 station. 
 
 We think that, with regard to buildings, 
 and the furniture of buildings, you will admit 
 that machinery, in the largest sense of the 
 word, has increased the means of every man, 
 to procure shelter from the elements, and to 
 give him a multitude of conveniences within 
 that shelter. You will also agree, we think, 
 
118 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 that a greater number 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 popu- 
 lation of Great Britain was last taken, in 
 1821, there were two millions four hundred 
 and thirty thousand houses inhabited, and 
 twenty-one thousand houses being built. In 
 New Zealand, which is as large as Great 
 Britain, there are not ten thousand habita- 
 tions ; and these 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. You cannot doubt 
 which nation has the most employment for 
 builders.* 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 We have seen what 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 poorest from 
 their purchase. Let us see what the same 
 sort of mechanical ingenuity can effect, in 
 
 See Appendix, No. VII. p. 214. 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 119 
 
 producing the most useful and ornamental 
 articles of domestic life, from the common 
 earth which may be had for 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 con- 
 venience, would be the humblest peasant in 
 the land ! 
 
 The cost of GLASS is almost wholly the wages 
 of labor, 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 any form that the workman pleases 
 may be 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 ac- 
 quainted with, it still retains a degree of tough- 
 ness 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 mould ; 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 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 open it with shears, 
 whirl it round with the edge in the fire, and 
 thus make it into a circular plate. He may 
 
120 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 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 may be destroyed, he can do with 
 it just as he pleases. All this, too, may be 
 done, and is done with large 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 ordi- 
 nary set of workmen would make some dozens 
 of bottles. 
 
 But though the materials of glass are among 
 the cheapest of all materials, and the sub- 
 stance 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 con- 
 stantly 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 pro- 
 ducing a similar substance by art. The fabri- 
 cation of glass is of high antiquity. The his- 
 torians of China, Japan, and Tartary, speak of 
 glass manufactories existing there more than 
 two thousand years ago. An Egyptian mummy 
 two or three thousand years old, which was 
 lately exhibited in London, was ornamented 
 with little fragments of colored glass. The 
 writings of Seneca, a Roman author who lived 
 about the time of our Savior, and of St. 
 Jerome, who lived five hundred years after- 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 121 
 
 wards, speak of glass being used in windows. 
 It is recorded that the prior of the convent of 
 Weymouth 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 em- 
 ployed in windows excepting those of churches, 
 and the houses of the very rich, for several 
 centuries afterwards; and it is quite certain 
 that the period is comparatively recent when 
 glass windows were used for excluding cold and 
 admitting light in the houses of the great body 
 of the people, or that glass vessels were to be 
 found amongst their ordinary conveniences. 
 The manufacture of glass in England now em- 
 ploys about forty thousand people, because the 
 article, being cheap, is of universal use. 
 
 Machinery, as we commonly understand the 
 term, is not much employed in the manufacture 
 of glass ; but chemistry, which saves as much 
 labor 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 common bottle. Nearly all glass, except 
 glass for mirrors, is what is called blown. The 
 machinery is very simple, consisting only of 
 an iron pipe, and the lungs of the workman ; 
 and the process is perfected in all its stages by 
 
122 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY, 
 great subdivision of labor, producing extreme 
 neatness and quickness in all persons em- 
 ployed 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 to be. The 
 glass separates, and the boy takes it to the 
 finisher, who turns the mouth of it ; and by a 
 peculiar swing that he gives it round his head, 
 makes it perfectly circular, at the same time it 
 is so hardened as to be easily snapped from 
 the rod. Lastly the boy takes it on a forked 
 iron to the annealing furnace, where it is cool- 
 ed 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 labor is perfectly 
 wonderful. 
 
 The cheapness of glass for common use^ 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 123 
 
 ^hich cheapness is produced by chemical 
 knowledge, and the division of labor, has set 
 the ingenuity of man to work to give greater 
 beauty to glass as an article of luxury. The 
 employment of sharp-grinding wheels, put in 
 motion by a treadle, and used in conjunction 
 with a very nice hand, produces cut glass. 
 Cut glass is now comparatively so cheap, that 
 scarce a family of the middle ranks is without 
 some beautiful article of this manufacture. 
 And yet, cheap as glass is, a great deal of even 
 its present price is tax. 
 
 If, to increase the mere labor of the glass- 
 blowers, it was resolved that furnaces of less 
 power should be employed, or if, for the same 
 purpose, the subdivision of labor were abol- 
 ished, and one man were to make a wine glass 
 in all its stages, the working men of England 
 would have no glass in their windows. 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 possess cut-glass vessels of any beauty 
 of construction ; 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 knowdedge of pottery ; 
 and those of the very hot countries are some- 
 times satisfied with dishes formed by their 
 
124 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 fingers, without any 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 al- 
 most as indispensable 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 pro- 
 duced in England, possesses both of these 
 qualities in the very highest degree. A 
 white bason, having all the useful properties 
 of the most costly vessels, may be purchased 
 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 would be to 
 a man who made a first attempt, no easy matter. 
 Let us see how it is done so that it can be car- 
 ried two or three hundred miles and sold for 
 twopence, leaving a profit to the maker, and 
 the wholesale and retail dealer. 
 
 The common pottery 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 carried 
 from the South of England to Staffordshire, 
 where the potteries are situated. 
 
 The great advantage that Stafibrdshire pos- 
 sesses is abundance of coal to burn the ware 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY, 125 
 
 and supply the engines that grind the mate- 
 rials. 
 
 The clay is worked in water by various 
 machinery till it contains no single piece 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 work- 
 ed 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 machine; 
 and when the kneading is completed it is ready 
 for the potter. 
 
 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 off. The potter makes vessel after 
 vessel, as fast as they can be carried away. 
 
 They are partially dried ; after which they 
 are turned on a lathe and smoothed with a wet 
 sponge when necessary. 
 
 Only round vessels can be made on the 
 wheel; those of other shapes are made in 
 jTioulds of plaster. 
 
 L2 
 
120 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 Handles and other solid parts are pressed 
 in moulds, and stuck on while they and the 
 vessels are still wet. 
 
 The vessels thus formed are 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 color that will stand the fire, 
 ground with earthy matter. These patterns 
 are moistened, and applied to the porous 
 biscuit, which absorbs the color, and the paper 
 is washed off, leaving the pattern on the bis- 
 cuit. 
 
 The employment of machinery to do all the 
 heavy part of the work, the division of labor, 
 by which each workman acquires wonderful 
 dexterity in his department, and the conduct- 
 ing of the whole upon a large scale, give bread 
 to a vast number of people, 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 imported, 
 the common ware from Delf, in Holland, (from 
 which it acquired its name,) and the porcelain 
 from China. We now annually export thirty- 
 eight million pieces of earthenware to all parts 
 of the world. 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 127 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Ip the facts which we have stated in the pre- 
 ceding chapters have been duly considered, it 
 appears to us that you cannot much doubt (if 
 you have any doubt at all) that in articles of 
 the most absolute necessity, machinery has at 
 the same time diminished the cost of produc- 
 tion, and added to the numbers of the workmen. 
 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 furnish them, and to distribute 
 knowledge, either at all^ or at least at a price 
 which should allow all men, more or less, to 
 partake these great blessings of civilization. In 
 the present chapter, we propose to show you 
 some very curious effects of machinery, in the 
 production of articles of inferior value, certain- 
 ly, 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 
 would be felt as a severe privation. 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 employment to 
 hundreds of thousands of people, in assisting the 
 machines, or in perfecting what they produce. 
 
12B THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 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 peasant’s wife is enabled 
 to procure it. The quality of the article is as 
 perfect as art can make it ; and yet, from the 
 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 thou- 
 sands, 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 machinery used in pin-mak- 
 ing, to make you comprehend its effects. A 
 pin is made of brass. You have seen how 
 metal is obtained from ore by machinery, and, 
 therefore, 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 ham- 
 mer 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 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 129 
 
 pin made by machinery is a perfect cylinder. 
 To make a metal, or even a wooden cylinder, 
 of 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 work- 
 men. 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 fastens her mats. 
 But the wire of which a pin is made, acquires 
 a perfectly cylindrical form by the simplest 
 machinery. It is forcibly 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 re- 
 quired. 
 
 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 cut- 
 
130 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY, 
 ting and pointing the pins are also done by ma- 
 chinery ,* and they are polished by a chemical 
 process. 
 
 It is by these processes, — by these combi- 
 nations of human labor with mechanical 
 power, — that it occurs, that fifty pins can be 
 bought for one half-penny, and that, therefore, 
 four or five thousand pins may be consumed 
 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 
 fin-money ^ — -a proof that pins were a sufficient- 
 ly dear article to make a large item in her ex- 
 penses. If pins now were to cost a half- 
 penny apiece, instead of being fifty for a half- 
 penny, the greater number of females would 
 adopt other modes of fastening their dress, 
 which would probably be less neat and conve- 
 nient 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 machinery, pins would go 
 out of use, probably, altogether; the pin- 
 makers would lose all their employment ; and 
 all the women of the land would be deprived 
 of one of the simplest, and yet most useful in- 
 ventions connected with the dress of modern 
 times. 
 
 Needles are not so cheap as pins, because the 
 material of which they are made is more expen- 
 sive, and the processes cannot be executed so 
 completely by machinery. But without machi- 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 131 
 
 nery, how could that most beautiful article, a 
 fine needle, be sold at the rate of six for a 
 penny 1 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, labor is saved by 
 contrivance and machinery. What human 
 touch would be exquisite enough to make the 
 eye of the finest needle, through which the 
 most delicate silk is with difficulty passed? 
 Needles are made in such large quantities, that 
 it is even important 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 pro- 
 cess as an example of one of the simplest con- 
 trivances which can come under the denomi- 
 nation of a tool. “ It is necessary 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 
 tlie right or the left hand. This is the usual 
 
132 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY, 
 
 process, and in it every needle passes indi- 
 vidually under the finger of the operator. A 
 small alteration expedites the process consider- 
 ably ; 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 towards the left side. Those 
 needles which had their eyes on the right hand 
 do not stick into the finger cover, and 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 par- 
 ticular process in needle-making, to show that 
 great saving of labor may be effected by 
 what is not popularly called machinery. In 
 modern times, wherever work is carried on 
 upon a large scale, the division of labor is 
 applied ; by which one man attending to one 
 thing learns to perform that one thing more 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 133 
 
 perfectly than if he had to attend to many 
 things. He thus saves a considerable portion 
 of the whole amount of labor. Every skil- 
 ful workman has individually some mode of 
 working peculiar to himself, by v/hich he 
 lessens his labor. An expert blacksmith, for 
 instance, will not strike one blow more upon 
 the anvil than is necessary to produce the 
 effect he desires. A compositor, or printer 
 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 labor 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 prop- 
 erly 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 labor employed in print- 
 ing 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 nicks. In 
 that case two compositors would certainly be 
 M 
 
134 THE KESULT3 OF MACHINERY. 
 
 required to do the work of one ; and the price 
 of printing would consequently be greatly 
 raised, if the compositors were paid at the 
 present rate for their time. But would the 
 compositors, who thus rejected one of the most 
 obvious natural aids to their peculiar labor, be 
 benefited by this course? No. For the price 
 of books would rise, in the same proportion 
 that the labor required to produce them was 
 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 live- 
 lihood; — 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 labor, so are all these arrange- 
 ments. A manufactory, 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 perform 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 the present rage 
 against machinery should extend to every 
 thing which economizes human labor, (and if 
 it is right in the one case it is equally so in 
 the other,) an English village might be found 
 in the same predicament. 
 
 Contrivances such as that of the needle- 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 135 
 
 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 ingenious appli- 
 cations of scientific principles lessen the price 
 of a commodity. Ilf the small shot which are 
 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 passage through the air, before it reaches 
 the ground, 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 per- 
 fect 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 down an inclined 
 plane, and, without 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 
 
136 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 piercers, cutters, stampers, gilders, and bur- 
 nishers. Many of the operations in button- 
 making are performed by machinery. The 
 shanks are made by a little machine worked 
 by a steam-engine, at the rate of fourscore 
 a minute. But do these engines throw the 
 button-makers out of employ ? On the con- 
 trary, the cheapness with which the shank is 
 made by the machine, instead of being ex- 
 pensively made by the slow labor of the hand, 
 allows all sorts of hand-workmen to complete 
 the rest of the button, whether in metal or 
 glass ; and thus Birmingham buttons are sold 
 all over the world. 
 
 The manufacture of trinkets, and small arti- 
 cles 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 manufac- 
 turer at Birmingham, showed a Committee of 
 the House of Commons an imitation, in colored 
 glass, of an engraving on stone. ‘‘ Those im- 
 pressions,” 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 
 half-pence, and the mounting of them fur- 
 nishes employ to a very large number of hands 
 indeed.” 
 
 The application of machinery, or of peculiar 
 scientific modes of working, to such apparently 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 187 
 
 trifling articles as pins, needles, buttons, and 
 trinkets, may appear of little importance. But 
 let it be remembered, that the manufacture of 
 such articles furnishes employment to many 
 thousands of our fellow-countrymen ; and, en- 
 abling us to supply other nations with these 
 products, affords us the means of receiving 
 articles of more intrinsic value in exchange. 
 In 1828, our exports of hardware, cutlery, and 
 brass goods amounted to two millions sterling. 
 No article of ready attainment, and therefore 
 of general consumption, whether it be a la- 
 borer’s spade, or a child’s marble, is unim- 
 portant in a commercial point of view. The 
 wooden figures of horses and sheep that may 
 be bought for twopence in the toy-shops, fur- 
 nish employment 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 ar- 
 ticle 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. I 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 
 M2 
 
138 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 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 
 specimens. ’ I copied the order. He ordered 
 various quantities 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 im- 
 portance 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 thousand pounds, and sets in 
 motion labor and laborers. Without the sci- 
 ence and the machinery, which render the ar- 
 ticle cheap, the laborers would have had no 
 employ, for the article would not have been 
 consumed. What a pretty article is a com- 
 mon 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 contri- 
 vances, it would cost at least a shilling in- 
 stead of a half-penny : — the poor man would 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 139 
 go without his pipe, and the pipe-maker with- 
 out his employment. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 We exhibited to you, in the last chapter, a 
 few examples, such as the sheath of the needle- 
 sorter, and the nicks in the types of the com- 
 positor, of contrivances to economize labor. 
 Such contrivances are not machinery ; but 
 they answer one of the great purposes of ma- 
 chinery, — that of saving time ; and in the same 
 manner they diminish the cost of production. 
 The objections which some of you make to 
 machinery, namely, that it diminishes the 
 quantity of labor required, and therefore the 
 number of laborers, applies also to these con- 
 trivances ; and it applies, also, to the greater 
 expertness of one workman as compared with 
 the lesser expertness of another workman. 
 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 deli- 
 
140 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 cate enough are not blamed by their fellow- 
 workmen, for doing that by one movement of 
 the arm which other men do by two move- 
 ments. 
 
 Every one of us who thinks at all is con- 
 stantly endeavoring to diminish his individual 
 labor, by the use of some little contrivance 
 which experience has suggested. Men who 
 carry water in buckets, in places where water 
 is scarce, put a circular piece of wood to float 
 on the water, which prevents its spilling, and 
 consequently lessens the labor. A boy who 
 makes paper bags, in a grocer’s shop, so ar- 
 ranges them that he pastes the edges of 
 twenty at a time, to diminish the labor. 
 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 therefore to lessen 
 the labor 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 dimin- 
 ish the friction. The dippers of candles 
 have made several improvements in their 
 art within the last twenty years for the pur- 
 pose of diminishing labor. They used to 
 hold the rods between their fingers, dipping 
 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 falling with a 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 141 
 
 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 pre- 
 cision. Are there fewer candle-makers, think 
 you, employed now, than when they dipped 
 only three rods, with considerable fatigue, and 
 no little pain, as the candles grew heavy? 
 The excise returns show that seventy-eight mil- 
 lions of pounds of candles were used in 1818, 
 and one hundred and ten millions of pounds 
 in 1829. There can be no doubt that we have 
 more candle-makers, because candles are 
 cheaper. 
 
 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 
 labor. Every contrivance to save labor 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 labor performed 
 for him, than a tradesman of the present day 
 obtains from three servants. Are there fewer 
 servants now employed than in those times of 
 barbarous state? Certainly not. The middle 
 classes amongst us can get a great deal done 
 for them in the way of domestic service, at a 
 small expense; because servants are assisted 
 by an infinite number of contrivances which do 
 much of the work for them. The contrivances 
 
142 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 render the article of service cheaper; and 
 therefore there are more servants. The work 
 being done by fewer servants, in consequence 
 of the contrivances, 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 described by Mr. Babbage 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 succeeding 
 hour in turning the loaded spit, thus enabling 
 her to bestow her undivided attention on her 
 other duties.” 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 dis- 
 covered that if she put a skewer through the 
 meat and hung it before the fire by a skein of 
 worsted, it would turn with very little atten- 
 tion, she made an approach to the principle 
 of the bottle-jack. All these contrivances di- 
 minish labor, and insure regularity of move- 
 ment ; — and therefore they are valuable con- 
 trivances. 
 
 A bell which is pulled in one room and 
 rings in another, and which therefore estab- 
 lishes a ready communication between the 
 most distant parts of a house, is a contrivance 
 to save labor. In a large family, the total 
 want of bells would add a fourth at least to the 
 labor of servants. Where three servants are 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 143 
 
 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, there- 
 fore, by the destruction of bells, all the fami- 
 lies of the kingdom would have some work 
 left undone, to make up for the additional 
 labor required through the want of this 
 useful contrivance : or all the servants in the 
 kingdom would be more hardly worked, — 
 would have to work sixteen hours a day instead 
 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 
 servant is set to watch the sinking of the cup, 
 and when this happens, he strikes upon a bell. 
 Half a century ago, almost every cottage in 
 England had its hour-glass — an imperfect in- 
 strument for registering the progress of time, 
 because it only indicated its course between 
 hour and hour ; and an instrument which re- 
 quired a very watchful attention, and some 
 labor, to be of any use at all. The universal 
 use of watches or clocks, in India, would 
 wholly displace the labor of the servants, 
 who note the progress of time by the filling of 
 the cup; and the same cause has displaced. 
 
144 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 amongst us, the equally unprofitable labor 
 employed in turning the hour-glass, and watch- 
 ing 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 enlightened, 
 and were not engaged in so many modes of 
 unprofitable labor to keep them poor. His 
 profitable labor has given the English me- 
 chanic the means of getting a watch. Ma- 
 chinery, used in every possible way, has made 
 this watch cheap. The labor formerly em- 
 ployed 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 producers of the watch have abundant em- 
 ployment in the universal demand for this 
 valuable machine. 
 
 A watch or clock is an instrument for as- 
 sisting an operation of the mind. Without 
 some instrument for registering time, the 
 mind could very imperfectly attain the end 
 which the watch attains, not requiring any 
 mental labor. The observation of the pro- 
 gress of time, by the situation of the sun in 
 the day, or of particular stars at night, is a 
 labor requiring great attention, and various 
 sorts of accurate knowledge. It is therefore 
 never attempted, except when men have no 
 machines for registering time. In the same 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 145 
 
 manner the labors 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 di- 
 viding by compasses, does this little instru- 
 ment save the carpenter; besides insuring 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 
 labor. The higher branches of mathematics, 
 of which science arithmetic is a portion, are 
 also inventions for saving labor, and for doing 
 what could never be done without these in- 
 ventions. There are instruments, and very 
 curious ones, for lessening the labor 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 you buy a joint of meat, you 
 often see the butcher turn to a little book, be- 
 fore he tells you how much a certain 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 re- 
 quire, and thus to save himself a great deal of 
 N 
 
146 THE IlESULTS OF MACHINERY, 
 labor, and a great deal of inaccuracy. The in- 
 ventions for saving mental labor, in calcula- 
 tions of arithmetic, have been carried so far, 
 that Mr. Babbage, a gentleman whose name we 
 have twice before mentioned, has almost perfect- 
 ed 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 the calculations, before 
 they are printed. We mention this curious ma- 
 chine, to show how far science may go in dimin- 
 ishing mental labor, and insuring accuracy. 
 
 To all of you who read this book it is no 
 difficulty to count a hundred ; and most of 
 you know the relation which a hundred bears 
 to a thousand, and a thousand bears to a 
 million. Many of you are able, also, to read 
 off those numbers, or parts of those numbers, 
 when you 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 fingers, or their 
 fingers and their toes. How have we obtained 
 this great superiority over these poor savages ? 
 Because science has been at work, for many 
 centuries, to diminish the amount of our men- 
 tal labor, by teaching us the easiest modes 
 of calculation. And how did we learn these 
 modes ? We learnt them from our school-mas- 
 ters. 
 
 If any of you follow up the false reasoning 
 which has led you to think that whatever 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 147 
 
 diminishes labor diminishes the number of la- 
 borers, you might conclude, that, as there is 
 less mental work to be done, because science 
 has diminished the labor of that work, there 
 would, therefore, 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 sav- 
 ing unprofitable labor are the same in all cases. 
 The use of machinery in aid of bodily labor has 
 set that bodily labor to a thousand new em- 
 ployments ; 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 of mental labor has 
 conducted that labor to infinitely more numer- 
 ous fields of exertion ; and has elevated all in- 
 tellectual pursuits, by making their commoner 
 processes the play of childhood, instead of the 
 toil of manhood. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 You cannot doubt, we should imagine, that 
 any invention which gives assistance 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 
 
148 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY, 
 
 hundred years ago, that the use of Arabic nu- 
 merals, or figures, began to be generally known 
 in this country. The first date in those nume- 
 rals 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 %ures, 
 therefore, was an immense saving of time in 
 the commonest operations of arithmetic. How 
 puzzled you would be, and what a quantity of 
 labor you would lose, if you were compelled 
 to reckon your earnings and your marketings 
 by the long mode of notation, instead of the 
 short one ! You read this book easily, be- 
 cause it is written in words composed of 
 twenty-four letters. In China, where there 
 are no letters in use, every wwd in the lan- 
 guage is expressed 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 knowledge at all. It would be just 
 the same thing if there were no machines or 
 engines for diminishing manual labor. Those 
 who had any property would occupy all their 
 time, and the time of their immediate de- 
 pendants, 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, 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 149 
 
 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 fifteen millions. 
 
 When a boy has got hold of what we call 
 the rudiments 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 with extreme ease, which, 
 without these tools, is done only with extreme 
 labor. He has earned the time which, if 
 rightly employed, 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, which, with- 
 out them, can only be done with extreme 
 drudgery. They set at liberty a great quan- 
 tity of mere animal power, which, having 
 then leisure to unite with mental power, pro- 
 duces 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 labori- 
 ous; — 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 population of a dis- 
 trict 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 
 N2 
 
150 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 Pasha gave them no tools ; but the work was 
 required to be done. So 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 operation ; but their 
 food was of a quality proportioned to the little 
 'profitable labor which they performed. They 
 were fed on horse-beans and water. In the 
 course of one year, more than thirty thousand 
 of these unhappy people perished. If the 
 tyrant, instead of giving labor to fifty thou- 
 sand 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 employment of their unas- 
 sisted hands,— the work might have been done 
 at a fiftieth of the cost, even of the miserable 
 pittance of horse-beans and water; and the 
 money that was saved by the tools and ma- 
 chines, might have gone to furnish profitable 
 labor to the thousands who perished amidst 
 the misery and degradation of their unprofita- 
 ble labor. 
 
 You say, probably, that this is a case which 
 does not apply to you ; because you are free 
 men, and cannot be compelled to perish, up 
 to your necks in mud, upon a pittance of 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 151 
 
 horse-beans, doled out by a tyrant. Exactly 
 so. But what has made you free ? Knowledge. 
 Knowledge, — 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 
 labor 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 know- 
 ledge 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 abundant 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 destroyers 
 of machinery are to be heard, that we are to go 
 back to what we were five hundred years ago ? 
 Depend upon 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 wncivili- 
 zation. Then comes the labor of the despot, 
 who has been comparatively idle while know- 
 ledge was laboring. There is no halting-place 
 
152 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 then ; 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 people 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, and appears still to be 
 increasing'* Men who have attended to sub- 
 jects of political economy have always been 
 desirous to procure accurate returns of the ave- 
 rage duration of life at particular places, and 
 they could pretty well estimate the condition 
 of the people from these returns. Savages, it 
 is well known, are not long livers; that is, 
 although there may be 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 pri- 
 vations which the poorest man amongst us 
 never feels. Their supply of food is uncer- 
 tain, they want clothing, they are badly shel- 
 tered from the weather, or not sheltered at 
 all, they undergo very severe labor when 
 they are laboring. From all these causes 
 savages die young. Is it not reasonable, 
 therefore, to infer that if in any particular 
 country the average duration of life goes on 
 increasing ; that is, if fewer people, in a given 
 number and a given time, die now than for- 
 
 See Appendix, No. II. p. 207. 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 153 
 
 merly, the condition of that people is ini" 
 proved ; that they have more of the necessaries 
 and comforts of life, and labor 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 ; fifty 
 years ago it was one in forty ; thirty years ago 
 one in forty-seven, twenty years ago one in 
 fifty-two; and now it is one in fifty-eight* 
 You see, therefore, according to this estimate, 
 of which there is no reason whatever to doubt 
 the accuracy, that where one person dies in 
 a jear now, two died, a century ago. This 
 remarkable result is, doubtless, produced in 
 some degree by improvements 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 furnishes the most undeniable truth, 
 that the people of England are infinitely better 
 fed, clothed, and lodged than they were a cen- 
 tury ago, and that the labor which they perform 
 is infinitely less severe. 
 
 The effect of continued violent bodily exer- 
 tion upon the duration of life might be illus- 
 trated by many instances; we shall mention 
 one. The late Mr. Edgeworth, in his Memoirs, 
 repeatedly speaks of a boatman whom he 
 knew at Lyons, as an old man. “ His hair,” 
 says Mr. Edgeworth, “ was gray, his face 
 wrinkled, his back bent, and all his limbs and 
 features had the appearance of those of a man 
 of sixty; yet his real age was but twenty- 
 
154 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 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 em- 
 ployment 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 Rhone,” 
 
 as one of our poets calls it. How much hap- 
 pier would these boatmen have been during 
 their lives, and how much longer would they 
 have lived, could their labor have been re- 
 lieved 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 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. 
 
 Violent bodily labor, in which the muscu- 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY.’ 155 
 
 lar 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. A great number of the annui- 
 tants of the Printer’s Pension Society are rup- 
 tured pressmen, whose muscles have been un- 
 equally strained by their laborious operation. 
 The printing-machine now does the same de- 
 scription of work. 
 
 What is the effect upon the condition of 
 pressmen generally by the introduction of the 
 printing-machine to do the heaviest labor of 
 printing? That the trade of a pressman is 
 daily becoming one more of skill than of drud- 
 gery. At the same 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 improve- 
 ment. “ Ay,” said they, “ this saves our la- 
 bor ; we are relieved from the hard work of 
 distributing the ink upon the balls. What 
 the roller did for the individual pressman, the 
 machine, which can only be beneficially ap- 
 plied to rapid and to very heavy printing, 
 does for the great body of pressmen. It re- 
 moves a certain portion of the drudgery, which 
 degraded the occupation, and rendered it pain- 
 ful and injurious to health. We have seen 
 two pressmen working a daily paper against 
 time ; it was always necessary, before the in- 
 troduction of the machines, to put an immense 
 
156 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 quantity of bodily energy into the labor 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 was killing 
 them as quickly. 
 
 If artisans, who 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 labor, 
 we should never hear of combinations against 
 such machines. A reflecting being feels it a 
 degradation to be employed in unprofitable 
 labor. Some parishes, we understand, set 
 their paupers to turn a grindstone, upon which 
 nothing is ground; and, to their honor be it 
 spoken, the poor people, in many cases, would 
 rather starve than submit to this ignoble occu- 
 pation. Even the unhappy persons at tread- 
 mills feel additionally degraded when they 
 turn the wheels without an object ; they call it 
 “ grinding the wind.” Why are these people 
 degraded by such occupations ? Why do they 
 consider their labor ignominious? Because 
 their labor has no results. Is it not equally 
 ignominious when men resolve, by suppressing 
 machinery, to do that with a great deal of 
 labor, which would otherwise be done by a 
 very little labor? to bind themselves to the 
 wheel, when the wheel would do the work 
 without them ? — to labor, in fact, without re- 
 sults from their labor. 
 
 We have a remarkable example of the folly 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 157 
 
 of a particular body of men upon this subject 
 now lying before us. We have a paper, dated 
 the 16th of December, 1830, issued by nearly 
 five hundred journeymen bookbinders of Lon- 
 don and Westminster, calling upon their em- 
 ployers to give up the use of a machine for 
 beating books. Books, before they are bound 
 in leather, were beat with large hammers 
 upon a stone, to make them solid. That work 
 is now done in London by a machine. The 
 workman is relieved from the only portion of 
 his employ which was sheer drudgery — from 
 the only portion of his employ w^hich was so 
 laborious, that it rendered him unfit for the 
 more delicate operations of bookbinding, 
 which is altogether an art. The greatest 
 blessing ever conferred upon bookbinders, as 
 a body, was the invention of this machine. 
 Why? It has set at liberty a quantity of 
 mere labor without skill to furnish wages to 
 laborers with skill. The master bookbinders 
 of London and Westminster state that they 
 cannot find good workmen in sufficient quan- 
 tities to do the work which the consumer re- 
 quires. The good workmen and the bad were 
 each employed in the drudgery of beating, 
 which called into action a certain muscular 
 power of the arm and hand, which unfitted 
 them for the delicacy and rapidity of other 
 operations of bookbinding. The good work- 
 men were therefore lessened by the drudgery 
 of the beating hammer ; but the bad workmen, 
 the mere laborers, whose work a very simple 
 machine can do better, feel that they cannot 
 
168 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 compete with this machine. Why ? They 
 were indolent and dissipated, and the work 
 which they neglected is now done without their 
 aid. The great delay in bookbinding was al- 
 ways occasioned by the delay in beating. It 
 was a mere drudgery which the better men 
 paid others to perform ; and these mere drudges, 
 by the neglect of their work, kept the higher 
 orders of bookbinders idle. And yet, in spite 
 of their own experience, all the bookbinders 
 try to put down the beating-machine, which, 
 in truth, has a tendency, above all other things, 
 to elevate their trade, and to make that an art 
 which in one division of it was a mere labor. 
 If the painter were compelled to grind his own 
 colors and make his own frames, he would no 
 longer follow an art, but a trade ; and he would 
 receive the wages of a laborer instead of the 
 wages of an artist, not only so far as related to 
 the grinding and frame-making, but as affecting 
 all his occupations, by the drudgery attending 
 a portion of them. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The objection of the bookbinders to the 
 beating-machine, offers a remarkable exam- 
 ple of the inconsistency of all such objec- 
 tions. The bookbinders have a machine 
 called a plow, for cutting the edges of books, 
 which is, probably, as old as the trade itself. 
 A great deal of labor and a great deal of 
 material are saved by this plow. Why do 
 they not require that a book should be cut 
 with a ruler and a pen-knife? They have 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 159 
 
 presses, too, acting with a screw, to make the 
 book solid and flat. A press with an iron 
 screw will do ten times the work of a press 
 with a wooden screw ; and one of Bramah’s 
 hydraulic presses, which has power enough, 
 if fully exerted, to break a piece of wrought 
 iron three inches thick, will do twenty times 
 the work of the common iron-screw press. 
 Nobody insists that the master bookbinder 
 shall use the press of the smallest power, 
 that he may be compelled, at the same time, 
 to use the labor of ten men instead of one. 
 The objection would be too absurd upon the 
 face of it. But a press of any kind is an old ma- 
 chine. A machine for beating books is a new 
 machine. Working-men, and other men who 
 ought to know better, have attempted to 
 draw distinctions between old machines and 
 new machines. 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 establishing a new invention, however valu- 
 able 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 machine 
 shall become old before we will use it, there 
 would be an end to invention altogether. 
 
 We have before us, “ A List of Inventions of 
 the various kinds of Machinery made use of in 
 the manufacture of Hosiery, Lace, &c.” The 
 
160 HE RESULTS OF MACHINER . 
 
 compiler of the List, which is printed at Not- 
 tingham, mentions these various kinds of ma- 
 chinery as having been the means of raising 
 the mechanics of Nottingham to so high a 
 rank amongst the artisans of Great Britain.” 
 This List contains a brief description, with the 
 dates of the invention, and the names of the 
 inventors, of no less than one hundred and 
 one machines, nearly all applied to the manu- 
 facture of stockings and lace. Many of these 
 machines are now in use ; some of them are 
 disused ; but they are all improvements, or 
 attempted improvements, of some less perfect 
 machines which preceded them. 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 sown together by the 
 tailor, or their legs being covered with band- 
 ages 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 encourage- 
 ment for his invention. His invention was dis- 
 countenanced, upon the plea that it would de- 
 prive the industrious poor of their 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 lim- 
 ited to themselves. They only wore stock- 
 ings ; the poor who made them had none to 
 wear. Stockings were not cheap enough for 
 
TOE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 161 
 
 the poor to wear, and therefore they went 
 without. Of the millions of people now in 
 this country, how few are without stockings I 
 What a miserable exception to the comfort of 
 the rest of the people does it appear to you, 
 when you see a beggar in the streets without 
 stockings ! You consider such a person to be 
 in the lowest stages of want and suffering. 
 Two centuries ago, not one person in a thou- 
 sand wore stockings; — one century 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? Wil- 
 liam 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 pre- 
 pared 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 the sun, 
 
 And the free maids who weave their thread with bones,” 
 as Shakspeare describes the country lasses of 
 his day, had to change their employment ; but 
 there was infinitely more employment for the 
 makers of stockings, for then every one began 
 to wear stockings. The improvements of ma- 
 chinery have made cotton and worsted stock- 
 ings so exceedingly cheap, that it is almost 
 become a question, whether it is worth while 
 02 
 
162 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 to mend stockings. What is the consequence ? 
 In Nottingham and Derby, the great stocking 
 counties, there are thousands and tens of thou- 
 sands of persons engaged in the manufacture. 
 In almost every cottage you hear a stocking- 
 frame at work. It is the same with lace- 
 making. The invention of the lace-machine 
 is comparatively a recent one ; and the ma- 
 chine which makes the net of considerable 
 bi*eadth, has been invented within these twenty 
 years. Every body now wears lace, and there- 
 fore the making of lace has become a most 
 extensive manufacture, instead of a very small 
 one. The manufacture employs many persons 
 with the machine, in the place of very few 
 without the machine, because the consumers 
 of lace can buy the article at a small price 
 instead of r large one. But the makers of lace 
 by the pillow are thrown out of employment. 
 Certainly they are, if they have not readiness 
 enough to adapt their employment to the 
 change. The greater number have learnt to 
 accommodate their employment to the ma- 
 chine, and not to strive against it. As many 
 young women, and doubtless many more, are 
 now employed in working upon the lace made 
 by the machines, as were formerly employed 
 in making the lace itself. At Marlow, which, 
 ten years ago, was a celebrated place for 
 making lace by hand, the people have had the 
 good sense to turn their attention to making 
 children’s caps instead of making lace, and the 
 labor so engaged at the present moment, as 
 we have ascertained from a correct inquiry 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 163 
 
 into the facts, employs no less than five hun- 
 dred persons, and produces a return for the 
 labor, independent of the materials, of five 
 thousand pounds yearly. 
 
 Now, suppose that the ignorance and preju- 
 dice which prevailed at the time of James I. 
 upon the subject of machinery, had continued 
 to the present day ; and tliat not only the first 
 stocking-frame of William Lea had never been 
 used, and the machine for making lace had 
 never been invented, but that all of the hun- 
 dred and one machines, employed in the manu- 
 facture of hosiery and lace, 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 ; and 
 the little lace that the price would have per- 
 mitted to have been used, would have been 
 brought from Flanders. Two hundred years 
 ago, the nobility seldom put on their stockings 
 but when they went to court ; and one hundred 
 years ago, a peeress only exhibited her lace 
 when she displayed her diamonds. 
 
 But there would have been a greater evil 
 than even this. We might all have found sub- 
 stitutes for stockings, or have gone without 
 them ; and we might have left the wearing of 
 lace to the wearers of diamonds. But the 
 progress of ingenuity would have been stopt. 
 The inventive principle would have been de- 
 stroyed, Society must either go forward or 
 backward. There can be no halting-place for 
 any long period. If we had gone backward, 
 
164 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 we should not only have lost lace and stock- 
 ings, but all the comforts — all the decencies 
 — all the elegancies — and, worse than these 
 losses, all the knowledge — which distinguish 
 the civilized from the uncivilized state. The 
 same thing would happen now^ if the principle 
 were admitted that new inventions, and new 
 machines, are emls^ and not benefits. The 
 stocking-frame was once a new machine, and, 
 therefore, the court discountenanced it. There 
 are people at the present day as ignorant as the 
 court was then, who would discountenance 
 new machines, that, like the stocking-machine, 
 will some day be old. An engineer, who has 
 contributed largely to benefit society by his 
 inventions, tells the writer of this book that he 
 has completed several machines which he 
 considers of general utility, but which he dares 
 not bring forward in the present state of the 
 popular mind. 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 
 prejudice 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 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 165 
 witness, or to inquire into, the processes by 
 which they are surrounded with the conve- 
 niences and comforts of civilized life, can have 
 no idea of the infinite variety of ways in which 
 invention is at work to lessen the cost of pro- 
 duction. 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 
 their own shores, cheaper than they themselves 
 could make it. But their indolent habits 
 would not permit them to inquire how ma- 
 chinery produced this wonder. There are 
 many amongst us who only know that the 
 wool grows upon the sheep’s back, and that it 
 is converted into a coat by labor and ma- 
 chinery. They do not estimate the prodigious 
 power of thought — the patient labor — the 
 unceasing watchfulness — the frequent disap- 
 pointment — the uncertain profit — which many 
 have had to encounter in bringing this ma- 
 chinery to perfection. How few, even of the 
 best informed, know that in the cotton manu- 
 facture, which, from its immense amount, pos- 
 sesses the means of rewarding the smallest 
 improvement, invention has been at work, and 
 most successfully, to make machines, that 
 make machines, that make the cotton thread. 
 There is a part of the machinery used in cot- 
 ton-spinning called a reed. It consists of a 
 number of pieces of wire, set side by side in a 
 frame, resembling, as far as such things admit 
 
160 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 of comparison, 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 intervals between 
 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 machine cuts the 
 wire, places each small piece with unfailing 
 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 — nearly in as little time as you 
 can read it in. There is another machine for 
 making a part of the machine for cotton-spin- 
 ning, even more wonderful. The cotton wool 
 is combed by circular cards of every degree of 
 fineness; and the card-making machine, re- 
 ceiving 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 form of the tooth in 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 RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 167 
 
 the cotton machinery ; so invention went to 
 work to see how machines could make ma- 
 chines; and the consequent diminished cost 
 of machinery has diminished the price of 
 clothing. 
 
 Machinery enters into competition with 
 human labor; and therefore there are some 
 people who say, let us tax machinery to sup- 
 port the labor which it supersedes. The 
 real meaning of this is — let us tax machinery, 
 to prevent cheapness of production, to dis- 
 courage invention, and to interfere with a 
 change from one mode of labor to another 
 mode. There are temporary inconveniences, 
 doubtless, in machinery, which we shall pres- 
 ently examine ; and we think that every man 
 who suffers from these inconveniences pos- 
 sesses in himself the power of remedying 
 those evils, or at least of mitigating them. 
 But it appears to us that any proposed remedy 
 for a temporary 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 pannier, to make matters 
 equal. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 When men complain of a want of employ- 
 ment, they complain of the want of some 
 
168 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY, 
 
 power which is not in themselves. Nobody 
 hinders them from working: they may dig a 
 hole and fill it up again ; or they may fill a 
 bucket from a pond, and carry the water to 
 another pond. But they do not do these things. 
 There was less employment amongst our an- 
 cestors — much less, than there is now ; and 
 they therefore had a proverb that it is better to 
 play for nothing than to work for nothing — 
 which means, that it is better not to work 
 at all, than to do unprofitable work. What 
 power is that which the laborer requires to set 
 him to profitable work? It is the power of 
 
 CAPITAL. 
 
 Capital is the accumulation of the fruits of 
 former industry. Nations which consume every 
 thing that they produce, without leaving a store 
 for future production, have no capital. They 
 live, as we term it, from hand to mouth. They 
 are poor and wretched. The accumulation of 
 capital is one of the greatest means of multi- 
 plying the power of man. United with the 
 power of exchange — that is the power of giving 
 capital for labor, and the produce of capital and 
 labor for other produce, — it constitutes,, in a 
 great degree, the superiority of our species over 
 all other animals, and the superiority of those 
 of our species who employ it over those who do 
 not. The people who do not use this faculty, 
 such as the savages of North America, are 
 gradually disappearing from the face of the 
 earth. They are driven out, by capital extend- 
 ing the dominion of industry. 
 
 The use of capital consists in its advance. 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 1G9 
 
 It goes before all operations of labor and 
 trade. It is the power that sets labor and 
 trade in motion ; just as the power of wind, or 
 water, or steam, gives movement to wheels and 
 pistons. The distinction between the poorest 
 man who works, and the poorer man incapable 
 of work, is, that the one possesses capital, the 
 other does not. The time which a lad spends 
 in learning the most ready way to perform any 
 labor, is his advance of capital. The thing 
 produced by that advance is a workman. 
 There is an accumulation of knowledge and 
 skill, which makes the difference between the 
 workman and the no workman. When a la- 
 borer, or an artisan, goes to work on Monday 
 morning, and works all the week, receiving no 
 wages till Saturday night, he makes a more 
 direct advance of capital. He has either ac- 
 cumulated something upon which he can live 
 during the period in which he waits for his 
 wages ; or somebody trusts him ; in the one 
 case, it is his own capital ; in the other case, 
 it is the capital of another which is advanced. 
 The man who sells matches in the street has a 
 capital. He has advanced something to pur- 
 chase the wood and sulphur of which his 
 matches are made, and he has advanced his 
 time ; his profit, like that of all other capital- 
 ists, depends upon the certainty and the quick- 
 ness of his return. If he cannot sell his matches 
 at all, or if he is a long time in selling them, 
 he must live upon his other accumulations, or 
 he must starve. The business of a match- 
 maker as much depends for its success upon 
 P 
 
170 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 the right employment of capital, as that of a 
 farmer or a cotton-manufacturer. 
 
 We will endeavor to point out, as briefly as 
 we can, how capital operates upon the three 
 great branches of human industry, namely, 
 agriculture, manufactures, and commerce. 
 
 A farmer having acquired capital, either by 
 the former savings of himself or his fathers, or 
 by borrowing from the savings of others, takes 
 a certain number of acres of land. He changes 
 his capital of money into other things which 
 are equally capital ; — into horses, and cows, 
 and sheep, and agricultural instruments, and 
 seed. He makes an advance in the hope of 
 producing a profit. He therefore sets his 
 horses to work ; — he gets milk from his cows ; 
 — he shears his sheep ; — he fattens his oxen ; 
 — and he puts his tools into the hands of la- 
 borers, to prepare the ground for the reception 
 of his seed. He is paying money away on 
 every side, which he would not do, if he did 
 not expect a return, with a profit. By all these 
 operations — by the work of his horses and his 
 laborers — by the increase in number, and the 
 increase in value of his flocks and herds, — and 
 by the harvest after the seed-time, — new pro- 
 duce is created which produces a return of 
 capital, and ought to produce a profit if that 
 capital is properly expended. The hope of 
 profit sets the capital to work, and the capital 
 sets the laborer to work. If there were no capi- 
 tal there would be no labor. Capital gives the 
 laborer the power, which he has not in him- 
 self, of working for a profit. 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 171 
 
 A capitalist desires to set up a cotton manu- 
 factory. He erects buildings, he purchases 
 machines, he buys cotton-wool, he engages 
 workmen. The annual value of the buildings 
 and of the machines,— that is the interest upon 
 their cost, added to the loss by wear and tear 
 — the price of the raw material, and the wages 
 of the workman, are all calculated to be paid 
 out of the price at which the cotton thread will 
 be sold. To engage in such large undertakings, 
 in which the returns are slow, there must be 
 great accumulation of capital. To engage in 
 such large undertakings, in which the risk is 
 considerable, there must be abundant enter- 
 prise. Without extensive accumulations of 
 capital, which produce enterprise, they could 
 not be engaged in at all. 
 
 Capital employed in commerce circulates 
 through the world in a thousand forms; but 
 it all comes back in produce to the country that 
 sends it out. Nations that have no accumulated 
 stock, that is, no capital, have no commerce ; 
 and where there is no commerce there are no 
 ships and no sailors ; and there are no comforts 
 besides those which spring up at the feet of the 
 more fortunate individuals of such nations.* 
 When one country is poor, as compared 
 with another country possessing no greater 
 natural advantages, there can be no doubt that 
 there are some circumstances in the govern- 
 ment, or in the habits of the people, which 
 have a tendency to prevent capital being 
 
 See Appendix, No. V. p. 212. 
 
172 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 employed in that country. There can be no 
 doubt, for instance, that the poverty of Ireland, 
 as compared with England, is produced by a 
 want of capital. The evidence of Dr. Doyle, 
 a distinguished Roman Catholic prelate, be- 
 fore a Committee of the House of Commons, 
 in 1830, is conclusive upon this point, as well 
 as upon the causes which have mainly operated 
 to prevent capital being employed in Ireland. 
 
 “ Q. Do you think there is the means of 
 employing additional capital upon land, or in 
 other improvements in Ireland, at the present 
 moment, yielding profit not less than the aver- 
 age rate of profit? 
 
 A* I can have no doubt upon that subject ; 
 and I am very decidedly of opinion, that a 
 quantity of capital might be usefully expended 
 both in the improvement of the lands now in- 
 closed, and in the reclaiming lands now waste. 
 
 Q. If capital can be so employed with a 
 profit, what are the circumstances which, in 
 your opinion, prevent it from being so employ- 
 ed, for if it were to be so employed naturally, 
 it is presumed, you would prefer such a system 
 to any forced application of capital whatever? 
 
 An Undoubtedly I would ; but it is not 
 employed at present, because there are, or 
 there have been, rather, in Ireland, many 
 causes which deterred men from embarking 
 capital in that country, which could be em- 
 ployed with more safety, if not with more 
 profit, in another. Many of these causes have 
 ceased, and therefore there is, at present, an 
 opening for the employment of capital which 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 173 
 
 did not exist before ; but notwithstanding that, 
 I think there are still very many obstacles to 
 the employment of it in the improvement of 
 lands, or the establishment of manufactures in 
 Ireland, the chief of which are the unsettled 
 state of the population in that country, the 
 nightly combinations and outrages which re- 
 sult from that state, as well as the want of 
 character in the common people themselves. 
 All those things operate very much to prevent 
 the investment of capital in land in Ireland by 
 men who, if society were better arranged, 
 would not hesitate so to vest it. I think, there- 
 fore, that though there may be at present a 
 prospect that capital could be employed use- 
 fully in Ireland, it would be the duty of the 
 legislature to open that prospect wider, and to 
 give greater facilities and encouragements to 
 the investment of capital, to hold out induce- 
 ments to men to settle in that country, by pre- 
 paring for them a quiet and well-ordered popu- 
 lation.” 
 
 The causes, you see, that prevent capital 
 being employed in Ireland, and which, there- 
 fore, preventing profitable labor, keep the 
 people poor, are the unsettled state of the pop- 
 ulation in that country — the nightly combi- 
 nations and outrages that result from that 
 state — as well as the want of character in the 
 working people. Whatever tends to make 
 the state of society insecure, tends to prevent 
 the employment of capital. In despotic coun- 
 tries, that insecurity is produced by the tyranny 
 of one. In other countries, where the people 
 P2 
 
174 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 having been misgoverned, are badly educated, 
 that insecurity is produced by the tyranny 
 of many. In either case, the bulk of the peo- 
 ple themselves are the first to suffer, whether 
 by the outrages of a tyrant, or by their own 
 outrages. They prevent labor; by driving 
 away to other channels the funds which support 
 labor. In such countries as Turkey, where, 
 when a man becomes rich, his property is seiz- 
 ed upon by the one tyrant, nobody dares to 
 avow that he has any property. Capital is not 
 employed ; it is hidden : and the people who 
 have capital live, not upon its profits, but by 
 the diminution of the capital itself. It was the 
 same in the feudal times in England, when the 
 lord tyrannized over his vassals, and no proper- 
 ty was safe but in the hands of the strongest. 
 In those times, people who had treasure buried 
 it. Who thinks of burying treasure now in 
 England ? In the plays and story-books which 
 depict the manners of those times, we constant- 
 ly read of people finding bags of money. We 
 never find bags of money now, except when a 
 very old hoard, hidden in some time of national 
 trouble, comes to light.* Why is money not 
 hidden, and not found now? Because people 
 have security for the employment of it, and by 
 the employment of it in creating new produce, 
 the nation’s stock of capital goes on hourly in- 
 creasing. 
 
 * So little time ago as the reign of Charles II. we 
 read of a gentleman (Secretary to the Admiralty) going 
 down from London to his countiy-house, with all his 
 money in his carriage, to bury it in his garden. See 
 Pepy»^ Memoirs. 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 175 
 
 The great point to which we would draw 
 your attention, from this plain statement of the 
 use of capital is, that if any act is committed 
 by which capital is either destroyed or placed 
 in danger, there is an insecurity in the employ- 
 ment ; and that, therefore, capital is first with- 
 drawn from that employment which is most 
 dangerous ; and, secondly, from the country al- 
 together, if all its employments become equally 
 dangerous. 
 
 At the present moment, in many parts of 
 this country, the farmer’s property is destroyed, 
 because the laborer thinks the farmer does 
 not give him sufficient employment. The 
 case is not mended by this destruction. If 
 '' the farmer’s property is destroyed, the funds 
 which he possesses for paying laborers are 
 at the same time destroyed. The capital is 
 destroyed which gives laborers that power of 
 laboring profitably which is not in them- 
 selves. If the farmer’s property is not actually 
 destroyed, but only placed in jeopardy, he 
 will withdraw his capital into some other 
 business, where the danger of destruction 
 does not exist. If the property of the farmer 
 is neither actually destroyed, nor placed so 
 greatly in danger as to warrant the sacrifice 
 consequent upon withdrawing it to another 
 business, there will still be evil if the slightest 
 degree of insecurity exist. There will be no 
 new capital invested in the business of farm- 
 ing. Changes are constantly taking place in 
 the disposal of capital, and the comparative 
 security of its employment gives the direction 
 
176 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 to these changes. If much capital leaves 
 agriculture, and none comes to it, the funds 
 for the maintenance of agricultural labor will 
 fearfully decline. And who will be the first 
 to suffer ? The laborers themselves. The 
 capital may be transferred to other employ- 
 ments, but the laborers will remain ; they will 
 perish upon the soil which they have rendered 
 infertile. 
 
 In this country there are immense public 
 works constantly going forward, in the prose- 
 cution of which men unite their capital for ob- 
 jects which are too large to be undertaken by 
 any single man. Such associations are called 
 companies. In this way, roads, canals, and 
 railways are formed, docks and bridges are 
 constructed, water-works are established, 
 mines are worked. Such employments of 
 capital are, more than any other, affected by 
 the condition of a country with regard to its 
 internal security. The people of Ireland are 
 crying out for such uses of capital amongst 
 them to give them labor ; but they will de- 
 mand the capital in vain till the capitalists 
 feel sure that their capital will not be put in 
 jeopardy by the violent actions of the people 
 themselves. If combinations against ma- 
 chinery were to go on in England, there 
 would be no new capital employed to give 
 facilities to commerce and manufactures, 
 whose prosperity is mainly the result of ma- 
 chinery. There would be no more capital for 
 public works, which employ thousands of 
 workmen in their construction. Would the 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 177 
 
 railway from Birmingham to London be pro- 
 ceeded with, in which a capital of three mil- 
 lions sterling is to be employed, if the artisans 
 of Birmingham were to break their machines 1 
 There would be an end of the commerce of 
 Birmingham in that case ; and then the railway 
 would be given up, for the existing canals 
 would have no employment, and there would 
 be no traffic on the roads. The only use of 
 roads would be to enable the starving work- 
 men, starved by their own folly, to wander 
 about the country in search of that profitable 
 labor which they had destroyed. They would 
 wander about in vain. The capital would 
 make itself wings and fly away to other coun- 
 tries, where men still acted as reasonable be- 
 ings. Our capital, our machines, and our best 
 mechanics would go to France and America. 
 The tyranny of a mob would drive away the 
 wealth and industry of the nation to places 
 where they could be employed in security, just 
 in the same way as the tyranny of a king drove 
 the French silk and cotton weavers to this 
 country a century and a half ago. The effects 
 of all tyranny are the same, whether it be that 
 of one despot or of many despots. Tyranny of 
 any kind destroys our peace and our security. 
 When men are in terror they try to save what 
 they have got, instead of endeavoring to get 
 more. Capital no longer does its work, labor 
 is at an end. 
 
 It is easy to perceive from these facts, which 
 cannot be denied, that if, through the preju- 
 dices of some mechanics against machinery, 
 
178 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 the capital engaged in manufactures should 
 be rendered as insecure as the capital engaged 
 in agriculture, that capital would go to other 
 countries where such insecurity did not exist. 
 The insecurity of capital employed in agricul- 
 ture, and of capital employed in manufactures, 
 would extend to capital employed in com- 
 merce ; and the want of employment of capital 
 in each of these great branches of human in- 
 dustry would produce a state of misery which 
 it would be fearful to contemplate. We should 
 all be more or less without food, without fuel, 
 without clothes. The land would cease to pro- 
 duce corn, the mines would cease to produce 
 ore, the forges would cease to produce tools, 
 the looms would cease to produce cloth. There 
 would be 
 
 “ No kind of traffic, 
 
 * * * * no name of magistrate ; 
 
 Letters should not be known, no use of service. 
 
 Of riches or of poverty ; no contracts, 
 
 Successions ; bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none ; 
 
 No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil ; 
 
 No occupation ; all men idle, all, 
 
 And women too.” 
 
 The poet has well described the state of a 
 community without industry, because without 
 capital. It is the state of savages who bear its 
 hardships, and who are few in number, because 
 they are thinned by those hardships. But 
 let a nation of twenty millions of people, by 
 any act of folly, drive capital away from them, 
 and famine, pestilence, civil war, midnight 
 murder, rapine, and every other dreadful 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 179 
 calamity would follow this unnatural violation 
 of the laws of God and man. The twenty 
 millions would soon be reduced to one mil- 
 lion ; the country would fall back a thousand 
 years. We should all be idle, but our idleness 
 would not feed or clothe us; we might all 
 desire to labor, but there would be no accu- 
 mulation to give us profitable labor. We 
 should all be prodigals who had spent our 
 substance, and there would be no forgiving 
 parent’s home where our misery might be 
 pitied and relieved when it was past endurance. 
 The friend whom we had driven from us 
 would never return. We could not go to the 
 capital ; the capital would not come back to us. 
 The land would be depopulated and rendered 
 barren ; and then the few that remained would 
 have slowly to emerge from poverty and bar- 
 barism, by going back to the arts which the 
 world has been laboriously acquiring for hun- 
 dreds of years.* 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 There are great temporary inconveniences 
 in the introduction of a new machine. Who 
 can doubt it ? Who can deny that it is a serious 
 evil, when the honest industry of a working 
 man is suddenly invadgd by a power against 
 which he cannot struggle; — when, in fact, 
 such a man as Joseph Foster, laborious, intel- 
 ligent, reflecting, and singularly honest in the 
 
 See Appendix, Nos. L and II. p. 207 
 
180 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 expression of his opinions, says, that his con- 
 dition has been declining ever since the intro- 
 duction of power-loom weaving ; — that he 
 has not any hope that any possible improve- 
 ment in the cotton trade would provide in 
 future for the hand-weavers out of employ- 
 ment ; — that the well-informed weavers have a 
 general persuasion that the hand-weaving is a 
 business which is nearly extinct altogether. 
 The state of change is doubtless a state of 
 suffering. The moment the machine comes 
 into competition with human labor, the wages 
 of that labor begin to adjust themselves to 
 the lesser cost of production by the machine. 
 The Rev. Mr. Turner, (the present learned 
 and benevolent Bishop of Calcutta) was in 
 1827 the rector of Wilmslowe, in Cheshire, a 
 manufacturing parish. The questions of the 
 same Committee that examined Joseph Foster, 
 and Mr. Turner’s answers, show how the com- 
 petition of human labor is maintained against 
 machinery, until that labor finds new objects 
 of employment, generally created by the ma- 
 chines themselves : 
 
 “ Q. How long has the hand-loom weaving 
 been introduced in your parish ? 
 
 A. I cannot speak with great certainty, but 
 I should think, for thirty years it has been the 
 standard occupation of our people, and it has 
 been an occupation in which they have en- 
 gaged without any limitation but the size of 
 their families, for they had as much work as 
 the looms they set up would enable them to 
 furnish. 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 181 
 
 Q. Has not the invention of the power-loom 
 superseded the use of those hand-looms ? 
 
 A. Undoubtedly ; it would have superseded 
 them much more rapidly than it has done, if 
 the hand-loom weaver were not enabled to sub- 
 mit to a reduction of wages. 
 
 Q. But in so submitting, he has accepted 
 wages which are insufficient to support him, 
 and he looks to parochial contribution for the 
 remainder of his support ? 
 
 A. Yes; and, in fact, the competition be- 
 tween the hand-loom and the power-loom is 
 maintained out of the poor-rates.” 
 
 Now we perceive, most clearly, that society, 
 when such changes occur, interposes an arti- 
 ficial power to prevent immediate ruin from 
 such changes. Society breaks the fall of the 
 workman who is thrust out of his place by 
 them. There can be no doubt that it is the 
 duty of society to interpose, in some way or 
 other, to prevent a general blessing from be- 
 coming a particular curse. The only question 
 is, in what way that interposition shall be 
 effected. The hand-loom weavers, in 1827, 
 were desirous to emigrate. They had been 
 struggling, and very naturally, for twenty 
 years, to keep the less useful machine in the 
 field against the more useful machine ; and 
 they could only maintain that struggle by a 
 constant yielding in the price of their own 
 labor. They at last could yield no longer ; 
 and they wisely determined to give up the 
 struggle. They wished to change their situa- 
 tion ^together ; to remove to new places, and 
 
 Q 
 
182 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 engage in new occupations: they wished to 
 have their labor profitable instead of unprofita- 
 ble. If it were within the power of a govern- 
 ment to assist such a wish, there can be no 
 doubt but that power would be beneficially, 
 because humanely, employed. Of the possi- 
 bility of the exercise of such a power, it is not 
 for us to speak. It is our duty only to show, 
 that the wish to change their employment, on 
 the part of the hand-loom weavers, was the 
 wisest wish they could form ; a wish, the com- 
 pletion of which would have been as beneficial 
 to others as to themselves. 
 
 In the consideration of the evils resulting 
 from the introduction of a new machine, you 
 must never forget the principle which we have 
 sought to impress upon you throughout this 
 book, — that the object for which machines are 
 established, and the object which they do 
 effect, is cheapness of production. Machines 
 either save material, or diminish labor, 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 labor ? 
 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 you, most distinctly, the eflect of the 
 spinning machinery in increasing twenty-fold 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 183 
 
 the number of people engaged in that branch 
 of manufacture. But let us put the circum- 
 stance before your eyes once more, 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, a 
 resident at Blackburn, upon this particular sub- 
 ject. 
 
 “ 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 introduc- 
 tion of machinery, when spinning was done by 
 machinery and not by hand-labor ? 
 
 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-labor, were unable 
 to obtain the same wages, and in the same man- 
 ner, in consequence of the introduction of spin- 
 ning machinery? 
 
 A. If the description of spinning that was 
 carried on in the neighborhood 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 incon- 
 venience in the first instance; great alarm 
 was created, and some spinning-wheels were 
 destroyed at the time ; many persons were 
 
184 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 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 machinery an immense increase of the 
 manufacture ? 
 
 A* Very great. 
 
 • Q. And more advantageous wages for a con- 
 siderably increased number? 
 
 A. Yes, materially so.” 
 
 It is, we think, self-evident, that if the tem- 
 porary distress 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 con- 
 sumption of cotton cloth would have been 
 little increased, and the number of persons en- 
 gaged in the manufacture would have been 
 twenty, thirty, or even forty times less than 
 the present number. But there would have 
 been another result. Think you that the 
 great body of the people of Europe would 
 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 goes before. The people of France, and 
 Germany, 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 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 185 
 
 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 exclusion 
 of all English produce from the continent of 
 Europe. But our merchants laughed at him. 
 The whqle coast of France, and Ilolland, 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-spin- 
 ners of Lancashire had triumphed sixty years 
 ago over Arkwright’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 Eng- 
 land would have been at an end. The same 
 thing would have happened if the power-loom, 
 twenty years ago, had been put down by com- 
 bination; that is, if the hand-loom weavers 
 Q 2 
 
186 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY, 
 
 had not been as well-informed and as reason- 
 able 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 this kingdom ; without the power-looms the 
 manufactories must be annihilated entirely, for 
 the Americans are making use of the power- 
 loom.” 
 
 Those who have taken a superficial view of 
 the question of machinery say, that, whenever 
 Ihere is a greater demand than the existing 
 means can supply, every new discovery in me- 
 chanics is a benefit to society, because it gives 
 the means of satisfying the existing wants. 
 They add, that, on the contrary, whenever the 
 things produced are sufficient for the consum- 
 ers, the discovery is a calamity, 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 
 unsupported 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 consum- 
 ers. The great mass of facts which we have 
 brought together in this book must have 
 shown you, that the cheaper an article of ne- 
 cessity becomes, the more of it is used ; that 
 when the most pressing w;ants are supplied, 
 and supplied amply by cheapness, the con- 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 187 
 
 sumer has money to lay out upon new wants ; 
 and when these new wants are supplied cheap- 
 ly, 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 favor as a consumer, than the question 
 of dearness of production to be decided in his 
 favor as a producer. The truth is, every man 
 tries to get as much as he can for his own 
 labor, and to pay as little as he can for the 
 labor of others. If a mechanic, succeeding 
 in stopping the 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 eighteen-pence ; when he was told 
 by the hosier that his worsted stockings were 
 advanced from a shilling a pair to five shil- 
 lings ; when, in fact, the price of every article 
 that he uses should be doubled, trebled, and, 
 
188 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 in nine cases out of ten, put beyond the 
 possibility of attainment ; — what, we ask, 
 would be the use to him of his advance in 
 wages 1 Let us never forget that it is not for 
 the employment of laborers, but for the 
 benefit of consumers, that labor is employed 
 at all. The steam-engines are not working 
 in the coal-pits of Northumberland, 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 without 
 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 of you may 
 say, is a question that more affects the rich 
 than it affects us. 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 of you, in regard to a great 
 many comforts, far above the condition of the 
 rich four hundred years ago, but absolutely to 
 place you, in many things, upon a level with 
 the rich of your own day. You are surrounded, 
 as we have constantly shown you throughout 
 this book, with an infinite number of comforts 
 and conveniences which had no existence two 
 or three centuries ago ; and those comforts 
 and conveniences are not used only by a few, 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 189 
 
 but are within the reach of almost all men. 
 Every day is adding something to your com- 
 fort. Your houses are better built, — your 
 clothes are cheaper, — you have an infinite num- 
 ber of domestic utensils, whose use even was 
 unknown to your ancestors, — you 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. Above all, you are not 
 only advancing steadily to the same level in 
 point of many comforts with the rich, but you 
 are gaining that knowledge, which was for- 
 merly their exclusive possession. Keep fast 
 hold of that last and best power ; and you will 
 learn what your true individual interest is, in 
 every situation in which you can be placed : 
 you will learn now, that it is useless in any 
 way to struggle against that progress of society, 
 whose tendencies are to make all of us more 
 comfortable, more instructed, more virtuous, 
 and, therefore, more happy. 
 
 We have endeavored to show, throughout 
 this book, that the one great result of machi- 
 nery, and of every improvement 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 you all along, that cheap 
 production gives increased employment. 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 
 
190 the results of machinery. 
 
 steam-engines did put out the men ; but inas- 
 much as they increase the productions by 
 which men are maintained, they increase the 
 men. What has increased the population of 
 England nearly ten-fold 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 productions of industry mul- 
 tiply, the means of acquiring those productions 
 multiply also. The productions which are 
 created by one producer, furnish the means of 
 purchasing the productions created by another 
 producer ; and, in consequence of this double 
 production, the necessities of both the one and 
 the other are better supplied. The multiplica- 
 tion of produce multiplies the consumers of 
 produce. There are, probably, upon the aver- 
 age, no more hats made in the year than there 
 are heads to wear them ; but as there are fif- 
 teen millions of heads of the British subjects 
 of King William IV., 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 work as they had a cen- 
 tury 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 pro- 
 duce, — the trebling of the means of maintain- 
 ing that population. 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 191 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 If you have rightly considered the various 
 facts which we have thus presented to you, 
 you 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 for- 
 ward. You will also have perceived, that the 
 exercise of this natural right, this proud dis- 
 tinction, of man, to carry on the work of im- 
 provement to the fullest extent of his capacity 
 and knowledge, can never be wholly stopped, 
 however it may be opposed. It may be sus- 
 pended by the ignorance of a government — it 
 may be clamored 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 par- 
 ticular 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 in- 
 terests of capitalists as well as of workmen. In a 
 commercial country, in a highly civilized com- 
 munity, improvement is hourly producing some 
 change which affects some interests Every 
 
192 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 new pattern which is introduced in hardware 
 deranges for a moment the interests 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 1 Is every improvement, which thus 
 produces a slight partial injury, to be discoun- 
 tenanced, 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 improvement brings healing upon its 
 wings, even to those for whom it is a momentary 
 evil ; — that if it displaces their labor or their 
 capital for a season, it gives new springs to 
 the general industry, and calls forth all labor 
 and all capital to higher and more successful 
 exertions ? 
 
 At every advance which improvement makes, 
 the partial and temporary evils of improve- 
 ment are more and more lessened. In the 
 early stages of social refinement, when a 
 machine for greatly diminishing labor is for 
 the first tijne introduced, its effects in dis- 
 placing labor 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 employ ; — they had to seek new em- 
 ploy. 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 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 193 
 
 happen in any of the principal branches of 
 human industry ; but it may be said, that the 
 difficulty of introducing more expeditious and 
 cheaper modes of manufacture is daily in- 
 creasing. 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, doubt- 
 less ; but ingenuity will have a much narrower 
 range to work in. It may perfect the ma- 
 chines 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 man- 
 kind 1 Who can doubt whether, instead of a 
 state of society where the laborers were few 
 and wretched, wasting human strength, un- 
 aided by art, in labors 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 society where the laborers would be 
 many and lightly tasked, exerting human 
 power in its noblest occupation, that of giv- 
 ing a direction by its intelligence to the mere 
 physical power which it had conquered 1 Surely, 
 a nation so advanced as to apply the labor 
 of its people to occupations where a certain 
 degree of intelligence was required, leaving 
 all that was purely mechanical to machines 
 and to inferior animals, would produce for it-, 
 self the greatest number of articles of necessity 
 and convenience, of luxury and taste, at the 
 R 
 
194 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 cheapest cost. But it would do more. It would 
 have its population increasing with the in- 
 crease of those productions ; and that popula- 
 tion employed in those labors alone which 
 could not be carried on without that great 
 power of man, by which he subdues all other 
 power to his use, — his reason. 
 
 But while we are approaching towards this 
 condition, the state of change, which always 
 follows a state of improvement, has more or 
 less in it of the positive suffering and the 
 heart- wearing uncertainty which belong to all 
 changes. It is not for us to point out what 
 may be expected from the collective exertions 
 of society^ to mitigate or to remove the partial 
 and temporary evils which follow in the train 
 even of improvement. Of one thing we are 
 certain. Society can never interfere to stop 
 the improvement; and if any portion of so- 
 ciety, who feel the individual suffering, but 
 cannot see the general good, should interfere, 
 with an unavailing violence, to attempt ta 
 check that which must go forward, then the 
 laws of society must step in to protect us all, 
 themselves amongst the number, from the 
 consequences of lawless acts. Beyond this 
 observation, we shall not attempt to discuss 
 that part of the question which belongs to the 
 duty of a government. Our business is with 
 the people themselves — with the working peo- 
 ple ; and to them we would offer a few con* 
 eluding observations upon the means which 
 they possess, in themselves^ to remedy the in- 
 convenience of any state of change. 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 195 
 
 The first thing that we say to every work- 
 ing-man is, get knowledge. By knowledge, 
 we do not mean the arts alone of reading 
 and writing, which are only the keys to know- 
 ledge ; but that sound practical acquaintance 
 with the elements of science, both moral and 
 physical, which may give working-men a 
 right knowledge of the things by which they 
 are surrounded, and enable them to form a 
 right estimate of their own capabilities and 
 their own duties. By knowledge, neither do 
 we mean only that acquaintance with books 
 which refines and elevates the mind ; but an 
 acquaintance with every thing about them, 
 and especially with the mechanical arts which 
 properly belong to, or are allied with, their 
 own trade. The first employment which we 
 ask them to make of this practical knowledge, 
 is to acquire the readiness of shifting their 
 occupation. It is not the increase of ma- 
 chinery, or the occasional glut of laborers, 
 which alone compel the working-man to pass 
 through a state of change. The caprices of 
 fashion, which, upon the whole, create employ- 
 ment, also make that employment irregular. 
 A change from metal buttons to silk buttons 
 is alone sufficient to derange the industry 
 of hundreds of workmen. What then is the 
 remedy ? Knowledge. The power of know- 
 ing what employments are in any degree 
 allied to your own employments, and how 
 your own employments may receive a new 
 impulse from your own ingenuity. There are 
 constant fluctuations, for instance, between 
 
196 THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 
 
 the demands for silk and the demands for cot- 
 ton. The spinners and weavers have learnt 
 to adapt themselves to these fluctuations. 
 At Manchester, at the present moment, there 
 are twenty thousand men working at silk, 
 who, two years ago, were working at cotton. 
 We have seen how the lace-makers of Marlow, 
 instead of struggling against the lace-machine, 
 applied themselves to embroider caps. In both 
 these cases, these salutary changes of employ- 
 ment could not have been effected without a 
 certain degree of knowledge. But the great 
 advantage of such practical knowledge to you 
 all, is that you may strike out new sources of 
 industry. Whenever you can do a thing bet- 
 ter, — that is, when you can improve the quality 
 of an article and add to its cheapness, — you 
 may be sure of creating a demand for it. We 
 have shown you that there is no limit to the 
 wants of society ; and that whatever increases 
 the quantity of productions also increases the 
 number of consumers. It is the duty of fe- 
 males, especially, to apply that ingenuity which 
 peculiarly belongs to them, to the produce of 
 articles which may add to the stock of human 
 comfort. Some of their old domestic labors 
 are almost entirely displaced by machinery. 
 There are infinitely more females, certainly, 
 employed in conjunction with machinery ; 
 and as there are more clothes worn, there is 
 more employ for the female makers of clothes. 
 But still, females are greatly affected by 
 changes of fashion ; and the only way to 
 meet these changes is to be in the constant 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 197 
 
 habit of exercising their taste and their inge- 
 nuity, to create new changes, and, therefore, 
 new employment. 
 
 But, you will say, “ While the grass grows 
 the steed starves.” Certainly, if there be no 
 provision of former grass. A change is 
 necessary for your employment. There is a 
 less demand for the article you are engaged 
 in producing. There is a glut of laborers in 
 the market. If you continue in the market 
 of labor during this glut, your wages must 
 fail. What is the remedy 1 To go out of the 
 market. When wheat falls five shillings a 
 quarter at Mark Lane, the farmer receives a 
 hint that the supply is beyond the demand ; he 
 holds back for a few weeks, and prices regain 
 their former level. What enables . the farmer 
 to hold back his corn ? He has something 
 to fall back upon ; he is not compelled to sell 
 his corn that week or that month ; he is a capi- 
 talist. Endeavor to acquire the same power 
 yourselves. Become capitalists. When there 
 is too much labor in the market, and wages are 
 too low, do not combine to raise the wages ; 
 do not combine with the vain hope of com- 
 pelling the employer to pay more for labor 
 than there are funds for the maintenance of 
 labor : but go out of the market. Leave the 
 relations between wages and labor to equalize 
 themselves. You can never be permanently 
 kept down in wages by the profits of capital ; 
 for if the profits of capital are too high, the 
 competition of other capital immediately 
 comes in to set the matter right. But you 
 R2 
 
198 the results op machinery. 
 
 may be kept down, and you are kept down, by 
 yourselves. When wages fall by a glut of la- 
 bor, you not only continue to work, but you 
 work harder; and thus you increase the evil. 
 You have, in too many cases, nothing but your 
 labor for your support. We say to you, get 
 something else ; acquire something to fall back 
 upon. When there is a glut of labor, go at once 
 out of the market ; become yourselves capital- 
 ists. How is this to be done ? We will tell 
 you. 
 
 In England, Wales, and Ireland, there are 
 about four hundred and eighty banks for sav- 
 ings. The sum of money deposited in these 
 banks is fourteen millions five hundred thou- 
 sand pounds. The number of depositors is 
 four hundred and ten thousand. The average 
 amount of the sum deposited by each person 
 is thirty-five pounds. The greater number of 
 persons who are depositors in savings’ banks 
 are working-men and women. They are the 
 capitalists, who, together, have accumulated a 
 capital of above fourteen millions of money, 
 and receive an annual interest upon that capi- 
 tal of about half a million. How has this 
 great sum of money been accumulated? By 
 small savings. The man who, at the age of 
 twenty-one, puts only one shilling a-week in a 
 savings’-bank, and continues to do so till he 
 is thirty years of age, has acquired a capital 
 of above thirty pounds. If he has saved, 
 during the same time, two shillings a-week, 
 he has a capital of above sixty pounds. If 
 three shillings a-week, he has acquired a hun- 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 199 
 
 dred pounds.* How many working-men are 
 there who are compelled to glut and over- 
 stock the market for labor, because they have 
 not the means to go out of that market even 
 for a few weeks ! And yet we see that if 
 a single man steadily lays by three shillings 
 a-week for nine years, at the end of that time 
 he has capital enough to live upon, without 
 working at all, for at least three years. But 
 he will not live long upon his capital. The 
 same habits which made him frugal, have also 
 made him honest, sober, and industrious. 
 He may suffer for a season by some change 
 in the trade to which he has applied himself ; 
 but his capital enables him to look about him, 
 without undergoing any serious privations. 
 He strikes into some new line of labor; or 
 he resolves to see what his capital and labor 
 will do together as a workman on his own 
 account ; or he waits patiently till the change 
 has passed over, and then takes back his 
 labor to a market which, demanding it, is 
 ready abundantly to pay for it. Who, on the 
 contrary, is always the first and the last to 
 suffer by every change in the demand for la- 
 bor? The unskilful workman, the drunken 
 workman, the unthrifty workman, the work- 
 man, in fact, who only got employ at all 
 when there was more labor to be done than 
 there were good workmen to do it; the 
 workman who did not avail himself of that 
 golden opportunity to acquire skill, and to 
 learn prudence; the workman, who, in nine 
 
 * See Appendix, No. VIII. p. 216. 
 
200 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 cases out of ten, has compelled capitalists to 
 set up machines, that they, as well as the steady 
 industrious men whom they cherish, may be 
 independent of the unsteady and the idle men ; 
 — the workman, in a word, who would die in a 
 ditch, whether he lived in a country with ma- 
 chines or without machines, because he is 
 without the power of intellectual exertion, and 
 possesses not the best thing which that power 
 gives, moral conduct. 
 
 It is a prayer in which all good men unite, 
 that the condition of the working-classes may 
 be improved, — that their outward circum- 
 stances may be made better. But those who 
 labor the steadiest, and the most zealously, in 
 the endeavor to realize this hope, feel, that 
 the day of this amelioration is far removed by 
 the clamors of anarchy and misrule. They 
 know that every improvement in the arts of 
 life improves also the condition of the humblest 
 working-man in the land ; and they also know 
 that every successive improvement has a ten- 
 dency to lessen the inequality in the distribu- 
 tion of wealth. But, if the condition of the 
 working-men of these kingdoms is to be per- 
 manently improved, — if they are to obtain a 
 full share of the blessings which science and 
 industry confer upon mankind, — they must 
 win those blessings by their own moral eleva- 
 tion. They cannot snatch them by outrage 
 and violence ; they must win them by peaceful 
 and steady exertion. This great triumph, to 
 use the language of a wise and most be- 
 nevolent minister of religion, Dr. Chalmers, 
 
THE RESULTS OP MACHINERY. 201 
 will not be the achievement of desperadoes. 
 It will be come at through a more peaceful 
 medium — through the medium of a growing 
 worth and growing intelligence among the 
 people. It will bless and beautify that coming 
 period, when a generation, humanized by let- 
 ters, and elevated by the light of Christianity, 
 shall, in virtue of a higher taste, and a larger 
 capacity than they now possess, cease to 
 grovel among the sensualities of a reckless 
 dissipation.” When the working-men of this 
 country shall feel, as many of them already 
 feel, that knowledge is power, they will next 
 set about to see how that power shall be exer- 
 cised. The first tyranny which that power 
 must hold in check is the tyranny of their 
 own evil habits — those habits, which, looking 
 only to the present hour, at one time plunge 
 them into all the thoughtless extravagance 
 which belongs to a state of high wages — at 
 another, throw them prostrate before their 
 employers, in all the misery and degradation 
 which accompany a state of low wages, with- 
 out a provision for that state. It is for them, 
 and for them alone, to equalize the two con- 
 ditions. The changes of trade, in a highly 
 commercial country like this, must be in- 
 cessant. It is for the workmen themselves to 
 put a governor^"* on the commercial machine, 
 as far as they are concerned ; in a season of 
 prosperity, to accumulate the power of capital — 
 I in a season of adversity, to use effectively, be- 
 i cause temperately, that power which they have 
 ! won for themselves. 
 
202 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 And do not let it be imagined, that when 
 we advocate frugality, we would cut off from 
 the working-man one single real comfort or 
 enjoyment which he now possesses. We would 
 rather say, add in every way that you possibly 
 can to the stock of your real comforts and en- 
 joyments. Do not be satisfied with a mud 
 hovel, when you can get a snug cottage. Do 
 not be satisfied with a ragged coat when you 
 can get a decent one. Do not be satisfied with 
 dirt when you can get cleanliness. Do not 
 be satisfied with ignorance when you can get 
 knowledge. Extend, as much as you can, the 
 range of your lawful desires, and your lawful 
 enjoyments. Cultivate your understandings, 
 elevate your tastes. You will find, when you 
 come rightly to know their value, that those 
 things which afford you the purest and most en- 
 during pleasures, are infinitely less costly than 
 those gratifications which are sensual and tran- 
 sitory. We would raise your standard of en- 
 joyment. We would make it impossible that 
 you should feel any enjoyment in what is grov- 
 elling and vicious. 
 
 We ask you to reduce these general maxims 
 to the test of your own experience. You must 
 have observed amongst your own acquaint- 
 ances, you must have seen amongst the 
 workmen of your own trade, some one man 
 who always had a good coat on his back ; wha 
 had a decent house ; supported well-fed and 
 well-clothed children ; and, as far as you could 
 judge, possessed not only all the ordinary com- 
 forts of his station, but many little luxuries and 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 203 
 
 conveniences, which, somehow or other, he was 
 able to acquire, and not ready to lose. This 
 man had no higher wages than his fellow- 
 workmen ; and he did not work more hours 
 than it was the custom of the trade to work. 
 But you never saw him lose any time ; — you 
 never saw him at the gin-shop or the ale- 
 house; — his comforts were in his home, and 
 he was determined that his home should be 
 comfortable. If there Avas a slackness of 
 work in your trade, that man was the last to 
 be discharged by his employers. In fact, 
 every expedient was used to find him employ. 
 There was a natural connexion between that 
 man and his employers, which it seemed im- 
 possible to sever. Was that man servile to 
 his employers ? Was he not rather the most 
 independent of you all ? If an act of oppres- 
 sion was ever meditated against him, was he 
 not the first to say, I shall not submit to it ? 
 And did not his quiet resistance always con- 
 quer in the end 1 
 
 We ask you, now, to direct your attention 
 another way. Your own experience must 
 have often shown you too many men whose 
 condition was the entire opposite of that of 
 the man we have described. You must have 
 seen some one man who never had a good 
 coat on his back; whose house was ruinous 
 and filthy ; whose children were dirty and in 
 rags; who, as far as you could judge, had 
 very few of the common comforts of his 
 station, and who had no luxuries and conve- 
 niences at all. This man had no lower wages 
 
204 THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 
 
 than his fellow- workmen ; he did not work 
 fewer hours than was the custom of his trade ; 
 but, somehow, he never got on. He seemed to 
 feel that he could not get on. He spent his 
 evenings always at the ale-house ; he had no 
 comforts at home, and he did not appear to 
 wish that his home should be made comfortable. 
 When there came a slackness of work in the 
 trade, this man was the first to be sent off. 
 There appeared to be no strong natural bond 
 between him and his employers ; it was snapt 
 in a minute when the day of adversity came. 
 Was not this man the most timid and slavish 
 of you all? Was he not the first to break 
 forth in complaints when there was plenty of 
 work and few to do it ; and the first to submit 
 to any act of oppression when there was little 
 work and a great many striving to do it ? 
 
 What constituted the great difference in the 
 character of these two men ? The difference 
 was this. The standard of enjoyment in the 
 one man was high ; the standard of enjoyment 
 in the other was low. The one man was 
 determined, early in life, not to be satisfied 
 with poverty if he could get wealth — not to be 
 satisfied with discomforts, if he could get com- 
 forts. But he knew that it was as necessary 
 for him to make himself secure^ as far as human 
 beings can obtain security, that what he ac- 
 quired should not be taken away from him. 
 The power by which he accomplished this — 
 the barrier which he set up against ill-fortune — 
 was frugality. He first learnt to prefer real 
 comforts to low dissipation ; and, by avoiding 
 
THE RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 205 
 
 the expense of that low dissipation, he not only 
 got more real comforts, but he elevated his 
 mind to desire, whilst he saved the means of 
 procuring, those luxuries and conveniences 
 which were somewhat above the ordinary pos- 
 sessions of his station. In one word, he was 
 an intelligent man, and he was a prudent man. 
 He saw what was good, and he applied himself 
 to obtain it, and to preserve it when it was ob- 
 tained. He saw, for instance, that it was good 
 to marry ; but he also saw, that if he married 
 before he had saved something against an evil 
 day, he should not only put his own happiness 
 in peril, but he should endanger the happiness 
 of other beings. He would not marry to lower 
 his standard of enjoyment ; he did not marry, 
 till he had taken care that the wants of a fami- 
 ly did not lower him in the scale of respecta- 
 bility. It is not necessary for us to follow up 
 the comparison between the one man and the 
 other, to whom we directed your attention. 
 He acted upon entirely different principles ; 
 and his condition through life was entirely dif- 
 ferent. 
 
 What is the lesson which we ask you, the 
 working men of this country, to draw fVom the 
 exhibition of these familiar examples ? We ask 
 you, as a hody^ to strive with all your power to 
 raise the standard of your enjoyment. You 
 have within your reach, through the progress 
 of invention, an infinitely greater share of the 
 comforts and conveniences of life than your 
 forefathers enjoyed. When you set out in the 
 world, determine to have your full share of 
 S 
 
206 the results of machinery. 
 
 these comforts and accommodations. You can- 
 not make the determination without perceiving 
 how the end is to be obtained. Knowledge, 
 industry, and prudence, are the tools by which 
 you must work out this good. “This,” says 
 the reverend author whom we have just quoted, 
 “ is one of those felicitous cases, in which the 
 desire of good things is at length follow^ed up 
 by the power of obtaining them. It is thus 
 that workmen can enforce their demand for 
 higher wages. Those distempered outbreak- 
 ings which approach to the character of rebel- 
 lion will retard instead of forwarding their 
 cause. But nothing can arrest the march of 
 light among the people ; and when this light is 
 conjoined with virtue, it will guide their as- 
 cending way to a vantage-ground, where they 
 will make good the precise condition to which 
 their worth shall entitle them.” 
 
 London^ Dec. 28, 1830. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 %* As references are constantly made in the pre- 
 ceding work to Parliamentary Returns, and other 
 Tables, we select a few of the more important. 
 
 I. — Population. 
 
 The United Kingdom contains, according to the 
 returns for Great Britain made in 1821, and the best 
 returns for Ireland, 117 county towns, and 13,885 
 parishes, and possesses a population of 21,238,580 
 souls, constituting 4,253,416 families employed as 
 follows : 
 
 In agriculture 1,198,186 families. 
 
 Trade, manufactures, &c. . 1,677,886 
 
 Not comprised in either of the 
 preceding classes .... 1,377,344 
 
 Total 4,253,416 
 
 II. — ^Population throughout the last 
 Century. 
 
 England and Wales. 
 
 In what year. Population. In what year. Population, 
 
 1700 . , 
 
 . . 5,475,000 
 
 1760. 
 
 . . 6,736,000 
 
 1710., 
 
 ..5,240,000 
 
 1770., 
 
 . . 7,428,000 
 
 1720 . . 
 
 . . 5,565,000 
 
 1780 . , 
 
 . . 7,953,000 
 
 1730 . 
 
 ..5,796,000 
 
 1790., 
 
 . . 8,675,000 
 
 1740 . . 
 
 , . 6,064,000 
 
 1801.. 
 
 ..9,168,000 
 
 1750 . . 
 
 . . 6,467,000 
 
 
 
 III. — Land in the United Kingdom. 
 
 In the third report of the Emigration Committee, 
 the following Table for Great Britain is given : — 
 
208 APPENDIX. 
 
 General Statement of Cultivated, Uncultivated, and Un- 
 profitable Land of the United Kingdom. 
 
 
 Cultivated. 
 
 Uncultivated , 
 Wastes capable 
 of Improve- 
 ment. 
 
 Unprofitable. 
 
 Total. 
 
 England 
 
 Wales 
 
 ACRES. 
 
 25,632,0(]0 
 
 3.117.000 
 
 5.205.000 
 12,125,280 
 
 383,690 
 
 ACRES. 
 
 3.454.000 
 
 530.000 
 
 5.950.000 
 
 4.900.000 
 
 166.000 
 
 ACRES. 
 
 3,256,400 
 
 4,105,000 
 
 8,523,930 
 
 2,416,664 
 
 569,469 
 
 ACRES. 
 
 32,342,400 
 
 4,752,000 
 
 19,738,930 
 
 19,441,944 
 
 1,119,159 
 
 Scotland 
 
 Ireland 
 
 British Islds. . 
 
 
 46,522,970 
 
 15,000,000 
 
 15,871,463 
 
 77,394,433 
 
 Of the cultivated land in Great Britain, it has 
 been estimated that 14 millions of acres are arable, 
 and 20 millions meadow and pasture. 
 
 IV. — Comparative Estimate of the Amount of 
 Animate and Inanimate Force applied to Ag- 
 riculture AND THE Arts, in France and Great 
 Britain. 
 
 {Abridged from M. Charles Dupin, and published 
 in the Companion to the Almanac for 1829.) 
 
 The 31,800,000 inhabitants, which now constitute 
 the population of France, are equivalent to a power 
 of 12,609,057 individuals of the male sex, at the age 
 of full vigor. It is a position generally admitted in 
 France, that two-thirds of the population are em- 
 ployed in agriculture ; and that a third only is occu- 
 pied in manufacturing and commercial pursuits. 
 Hence it results that France possesses 
 
 A human agricultural power equivalent 
 
 to that of 
 
 And a power of industry, manufacturing 
 and commercial, equal to ... . 
 
 Total 12,609,057 
 
 Were it not that the industry of man had found 
 
 Laboring Men. 
 
 I 8,406,038 
 I 4,203,019 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 209 
 
 the means of calling extraneous force to its aid, its 
 means would be confined to the amount of power 
 above enumerated: but man employs other forces 
 than his own in agricultural labors, and principally 
 that of the horse, of the ass, of the mule, the* ox, 
 and the cow ; and with the help of these, the ani- 
 mate agricultural force of France has increased to 
 the following sum : — 
 
 Effective Laborers. 
 
 Human race . . 21,056,667 equivalent to 8,406,038 
 
 Horses . . . 1,600,000 11,200,000 
 
 Oxen and cows . 6,973,000 17,432,000 
 
 Asses . ^ . 240,000 240,000 
 
 Total 37,278,038 
 On making similar calculations of the agricultural 
 force of Great Britain, and stating at 15,000,000 the 
 number of inhabitants of England and Scotland, of 
 whom a third only are employed in agriculture, and 
 the other two-thirds in commerce and manufactures, 
 we shall have. 
 
 Effective Working Men. 
 
 Agricultural force 2,132,446 
 
 Artisans of all professions , . . 4,264,893 
 
 Total 6,397,339 
 
 If we proceed in the same way with regard to 
 Great Britain, as we have done with respect to 
 France, and make a comparative calculation of the 
 power in men, and the power in other animals, en- 
 gaged in agriculture, we shall find. 
 
 Effective Laborers. 
 
 Human race . . 5,000,000 equivalent to 2,132,446 
 Horses of full growth 1,250,000 8,750,000 
 
 Oxen, cows, &c. , 5,500,000 13,750,000 
 
 Total 24,632,446 
 Ireland ; approximating estimate 7,455,701 
 
 Total for the United Kingdom 32,088,147 
 S 2 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 210 
 
 Taking the proportion of this total force of 
 24,632,446, to the human force applicable to agri- 
 culture, we find it to be as 12. Whence it appears 
 that the agriculturists of England and Scotland 
 have discovered the means of creating a force, 
 twelve times the amount of their personal corporeal 
 force, by the use they make of domestic animals; 
 while the additional force obtained through similar 
 means by the French agriculturists, does not amount 
 to five times their own. It is calculated that in 
 France there are 46,000,000 hectares of land made to 
 yield produce; so that there is an animate power equal 
 to that of 810 laborers, for the cultivation of every 
 thousand hectares. The total number of hectares 
 of productive land in Great Britain is 21,643,000; 
 so that there is an animate power equal to that of 
 1138 working men for every thousand hectares. 
 The produce of the land, in the respective coun- 
 tries, is in proportion to the power employed respec- 
 tively in its cultivation. The case is the same in 
 regard to manufactures. 
 
 The human force in France employed in commer- 
 cial and manufacturing industry is equivalent, accord- 
 ing to the calculations already stated, to 4,203,019 
 effective working men ; to this power must be added 
 that supplied by the use of horses, the number of 
 which is computed at 300,000 employed in trans- 
 port, for the saddle, in draught, &c. whereby the 
 animate force of France is raised to 6,303,019 power 
 of men. 
 
 The human force of Great Britain employed in 
 commerce and manufactures, is equivalent to 
 4,264,893 effective men ; to this power there must 
 also be added the power of 250,000 animals, em- 
 ployed in divers works of industry. These will 
 raise the animate force of England and Scotland to 
 6,014,893 : to which there must be superadded the 
 approximating value of 1,260,604 effective men for 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 211 
 
 Ireland : so that the commercial and manufacturing 
 animate power of the United Kingdom must be 
 computed at 7,275,497 laboring men. 
 
 To these animate powers should be joined also, in 
 the case of both the countries, the inanimate powers, 
 or the force supplied by water, wind, and steam: 
 and the whole productive and commercial manufac- 
 turing power of England and France will be ascer- 
 tained. 
 
 The total number of mills in France has been 
 computed by the French authors on statistics at 
 76,000, of which about 10,000 may be set down as 
 windmills; the total force of liydraulic machines 
 employed for forges, furnaces, and machinery of 
 every kind, is equal to the third part of that of the 
 10,000 windmills ; the wind as employed in naviga- 
 tion is equivalent to the power of 3,000,000 of men ; 
 and, lastly, the steam-engines in operation in France 
 exceed the power of 60,000 dynames, equivalent to 
 the power of 480,000 working men turning a winch. 
 
 It has been calculated also, by the same writers, 
 that besides windmills, hydraulic machines, &c., 
 Great Britain possesses in steam-engines alone a 
 moving power of at least 800,000 dynames, the 
 effect of which is equal to the power of 6,400,000 
 men employed at the windlass. The commercial 
 and manufacturing power of France is, therefore, in 
 proportion to that of Great Britain, as follows : — 
 
 France. Great Britain. 
 Men power. Men power. 
 
 
 Animate force . . . 
 
 6,303,019 
 
 7,275,497 
 
 s 
 
 cd o5 1 
 
 ( Mills & Hydrau. engines 1,500,000 
 
 1,200,000 
 
 s s 
 
 1 Windmills . . . . 
 
 253,333 
 
 240,000 
 
 ‘i i ; 
 
 j Wind and navigation . 
 
 3,000,000 
 
 12,000,000 
 
 C 1 
 
 ^ Steam-engines . . . 
 
 480,000 
 
 6,400,000 
 
 Total force 11,536,352 27,115,497 
 Ireland 1,002,667 
 
 Total 28,118,164 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 212 
 
 Thus, the total of the inanimate force applied to 
 the arts of all descriptions in France, scarcely ex- 
 ceeds the fourth of the same power applied to the 
 same purposes in Great Britain ; and the whole ani- 
 mate and inanimate power of Great Britain, applied 
 to manufactures and commerce, is nearly treble the 
 amount of that so applied in France. The agricul- 
 tural power and the manufacturing and commercial 
 power of the two countries bear a corresponding 
 proportion to the total of the agricultural and manu- 
 factured produce, and their value in commerce. 
 
 Note. — A hectare contains 10,000 square metres, or 100 ares. 
 An English acre is very nearly equal to 40 ares; therefore a 
 hectare is about 2^ acres. 
 
 A dyname is equal to a thousand killograms raised to the height 
 of 1000 metres; eight men employed at a winch can in one day 
 raise a thousand killograms to the height of a thousand metres, 
 or in other words, can produce a dyname of labor. 
 
 V. — Quaistities and Declared Value op British 
 AND Irish Produce and Manufactures export- 
 ed IN 1828. 
 
 
 
 Quantity. 
 
 Declared value. 
 £ 
 
 Apparel, slops, and haberdashery 
 
 910,090 
 
 Ai.rms and ammunition 
 
 
 — 
 
 335,761 
 
 Bacon and hams . . 
 
 cwts. 
 
 8,333 
 
 28,809 
 
 Beef and pork . . . 
 
 barrels 
 
 33,451 
 
 113,906 
 
 Beer and .ale . . . 
 
 tuns 
 
 11,374 
 
 245,496 
 
 Books, printed . . . 
 
 cwts. 
 
 4,336 
 
 102,874 
 
 Brass and copper manu- 
 factures .... 
 
 1 cwts. 
 
 128,106 
 
 678,786 
 
 Butter and cheese . . 
 
 cwts. 
 
 94,623 
 
 352,615 
 
 Coals, culm, and cinders tons 
 
 357,864 
 
 145,943 
 
 Cordage 
 
 cwts. 
 
 52,420 
 
 119,652 
 
 Cotton Manufactures, — 
 entered by the yard 
 
 i yds. 363,328,431 
 
 12,483,249 
 
 Cotton hosiery, lace, and 
 small wares . . . 
 
 
 — 
 
 1,165,763 
 
 Cotton twist and yarn 
 
 ’ lbs. 
 
 50,505,751 
 
 3,595,405 
 
 Fiarthenware of all sorts 
 
 pieces 
 
 38,136,479 
 
 502,215 
 
 Fish — herrings . . 
 
 barrels 
 
 134,137 
 
 157,532 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 213 
 
 
 
 Quantity. 
 
 Declared value. 
 £ 
 
 Glass, entered by weight cwts. 
 
 216,895 
 
 491,211 
 
 , entered at value 
 
 . . . 
 
 — 
 
 9,145 
 
 Hardware and cutlery 
 
 cwts. 
 
 242,272 
 
 1,387,204 
 
 Hats, beaver and felt 
 
 dozens 
 
 83,114 
 
 197,581 
 
 Iron and steel, wrought 
 and unwrought 
 
 1 tons 
 
 100,403 
 
 1,226,617 
 
 Lead and shot . . . 
 
 , tons 
 
 10,021 
 
 177,983 
 
 Leather manufactures . 
 
 . lbs. 
 
 1,321,542 
 
 273,976 
 
 Saddlery and harness . 
 
 . . 
 
 — 
 
 89,600 
 
 Linen manufactures 
 
 yds. 
 
 60,287,814 
 
 2,120,276 
 
 Linen threads, tapes, &c. . . 
 
 — 
 
 66,146 
 
 Machinery and mill-work 
 
 — 
 
 262,115 
 
 Painters’ colors . . . 
 
 . 
 
 — 
 
 138,669 
 
 Plate, plated ware, jewel- 
 
 i 
 
 
 181,973 
 
 lery, and watches 
 
 s 
 
 
 
 Salt 
 
 bushels 
 
 8,993,124 
 
 154,245 
 
 Silk manufactures . . 
 
 , . . 
 
 — 
 
 255,871 
 
 Soap and candles . . 
 
 lbs. 
 
 10,902,713 
 
 269,109 
 
 Stationary of all sorts . 
 
 . . 
 
 — 
 
 208,532 
 
 Sugar 
 
 cwts. 
 
 456,844 
 
 1,038,569 
 
 Tin, unwrought . . . 
 
 do. 
 
 41,427 
 
 147,131 
 
 Tin and pewter wares . 
 
 . . 
 
 — 
 
 266,651 
 
 Wool 
 
 lbs. 
 
 1,669,389 
 
 76,881 
 
 Woollen manufactures 
 
 pieces 
 
 1,820,631 
 
 4,397,291 
 
 Ditto 
 
 yds. 
 
 6,816,407 
 
 527,476 
 
 Woollen hosiery and small wares 
 
 201,216 
 
 All other articles . . . 
 
 
 — 
 
 1,709,192 
 
 
 Total . . i;36,812,756 
 
 VI. — Travelling in England a Century ago. 
 
 In December, 1703, Charles III., King of Spain, 
 slept at Petworth on liis way from Portsmouth to 
 Windsor, and Prince George of Denmark went to 
 meet him there by desire of the Queen. The distance 
 from Windsor to Petworth is about forty miles. In 
 the relation of the journey given by one of the 
 Prince’s attendants, he states — “We set out at six 
 in the morning, by torchlight, to go to Petworth, and 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 214 
 
 did not get out of the coaches (save only when we 
 were overturned or stuck fast in the mire) till we 
 arrived at our journey’s end. ’Twas a hard service 
 for the Prince to sit fourteen hours in the coach that 
 day without eating any thing, and passing through 
 the worst ways I ever saw in my life. We were 
 thrown but once, indeed, in going, but our coach, 
 which was the leading one, and his Highness’s body 
 coach, would have suffered very much, if the nimble 
 boors of Sussex had not frequently poised it, or sup- 
 ported it with their shoulders, from Godaiming almost 
 to Petworth, and the nearer we approached the 
 Duke’s house the more inaccessible it seemed to be. 
 The last nine miles of the way cost us six hours’ 
 time to conquer them; and indeed we had never 
 done it, if our good master had not several times 
 lent us a pair of horses out of his own coach, where- 
 by we were enabled to trace out the way for him.” 
 Afterwards, writing of his departure on the follow- 
 ing day from Petworth to Guildford, and thence to 
 Windsor, he says — “ I saw him (the Prince) no more, 
 till I found him at supper at Windsor ; for there we 
 were overturned (as we had been once before the 
 same morning), and broke our coach ; my Lord De- 
 lawarre had the same fate, and so had several others.” 
 — Annals of Queen Anne, YoL iL Appendix, No. 3. 
 
 VII. — ^Increase of Accommodations. 
 
 “ Neither do I speak this reproach of any man, 
 as God is my judge, but rather I do rejoice to see 
 how God has blest us with his good gifts, and to 
 behold how that, in a time where all things are 
 grown to such excessive prices, we do yet find the 
 means to obtain and achieve such furniture as here- 
 tofore has been found impossible. There are old 
 men yet dwelling in the village where I remain, 
 who have noted three things to be marvellously 
 altered in England within their sound remembrance. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 215 
 
 One is the multitude of chimnies lately erected, 
 whereas in their young days there were but two or 
 three, if so many, in most uplandish towns of the 
 realm, the religious houses and manor houses of 
 their lords always excepted, and peradventure some 
 great personage. But each made his fire against a 
 rere dosse in the hall where he dined, and dressed 
 his meat The second is the great amendment in 
 lodging: for, said they, our fathers and ourselves 
 have lain full oft on straw pallets, covered only with 
 a sheet, under coverlets of dog’s waine and hop har- 
 lots (I use their own terms), and a good round log 
 under their head as a bolster. If it were so that the 
 father or good man of the house had a mattress or 
 flock bed, and thereon a sack of chaff to rest his 
 head upon, he thought himself as well lodged as the 
 lord of the town. Pillows, said they, are thought fit 
 only for sick women ; as for servants, if they had any 
 sheet above them it was well, for seldom had they 
 any under their bodies to keep them from the prick- 
 ing straws that ran ofl through the canvas and rased 
 their hardened hides. The third thing they tell of 
 is the exchange of trene platters (so called from tree, 
 wood) into pewter, and wooden spoons into silver or 
 tin ; for so common were all sorts of trene vessels 
 in those times, that a man could hardly find four 
 pieces of pewter (of which one was peradventure a 
 salt) in a good farm-house.” — Hollingshed's Chron. 
 
Vni.— S avings’ Bank. 
 
 In England, Wales, and Ireland, there were, on the 20th of November, 1829, 487 Savings’ 
 Banks ; from Nineteen Returns have not been made ; the remaining contain 
 
 216 
 
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