PART III. OF THE SOURCE, CREATION, AND GOD has given the earth to the children of men, and he has, undoubtedly, in giving it to them, given them what is abundantly sufficient for all their exigencies: not a scanty, but a most liberal provision for them all. The Author of our nature has written it strongly in that nature, and has promulgated the same law in his written Word, that man shall eat his bread by his labour; and I am persuaded that no man, and no combinations of men, for their own ideas of their particular profit, can, without great impiety, undertake to say, that he shall not do so; that they have no sort of right either to prevent the labour, or to withhold the bread.-Burke. CHAPTER I. OF LABOUR. THE soil, say the Economists, is the, source of all wealth. But, to prevent this assertion from leading us into erroneous conclusions, it will be necessary to explain it. The materials of all wealth originate primarily in the bosom of the earth; but it is only by the aid of labour that they can ever truly constitute wealth. The earth furnishes the means of wealth; but wealth itself cannot possibly have any existence, unless through that industry and labour which modifies, divides, connects, and combines the various productions of the soil, so as to render them fit for consumption. Commerce, indeed, regards those rude productions as real wealth; but it is only from the consideration, that the proprietor has it always in his power to convert them, at will, into consumable goods, by submitting them to the necessary operations of manufacture. They possess, as yet, merely the virtual value of a promissory note, which passes current, because the bearer is assured that he can, at pleasure, convert it into cash. Many gold mines, which are well known, are not worked, because their whole produce would not cover the incidental expenses; but the gold which they contain is, in reality, the same with that of our coin; and yet no one would be foolish enough to call it wealth, for there is no probability it will ever be extracted from the mine, or purified; and, of course, it possesses no value. The wild fowl becomes wealth the moment it is in possession of the sportsman; while those of the very same species, that have escaped his attempts, remain without any title to the term.-M. Garnier. Every necessary, convenience, and comfort of life is obtained by human labour. Ist, By labour in cultivating the earth itself. 2d, By labour in preparing, making fit, and appropriating the produce of the earth to the purposes of life. 3d, By labour in distributing the produce of both the former kinds of labour. These are the three grand occupations of life; to which may be added three others; the government or protection of society; the office of amusing and instructing mankind; and the medical profession. Every member of the community who is not engaged in one of the two former classes of occupation is an UNPRODUCTIVE member of society. Every unproductive member of society is a DIRECT TAX upon the productive classes. Every unproductive member of society is also an USELESS member of society, unless he gives an EQUIVALENT for that which he consumes.-Gray. The produce of labour constitutes the natural recompense or wages of labour. In that original state of things which precedes both the appropriation of land, and the accumulation of stock, the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer. He has neither landlord nor master to share with him. Had this state continued, the wages of labour would have augmented with all those improvements in its productive powers, to which the division of labour gives occasion. All things would gradually have become cheaper. They would have been produced by a smaller quantity of labour; and as the commodities produced by equal quantities of labour would naturally in this state of things be exchanged for one another, they would have been purchased likewise with the produce of a smaller quantity....... As soon as the land becomes private property, the landlord demands a share of almost all the produce which the labourer can either raise or collect from it. His rent makes the first deduction from the produce of the labour which is employed upon the land.—-Adam Smith. Productive labour, as that of the manufacturer, adds to the value of the subject on which it is bestowed. Unproductive labour, as that of the menial servant, has no such effect. The manufacturer is no expense to his master, his wages being restored with a profit. The maintenance of a menial servant never is restored. The labour of the latter, however, has its value. The labour of the manufacturer realizes itself in some vendible commodity which lasts after the labour is past: that of the menial servant perishes in the very instant of performance. The labour of some of the most respectable orders of society is like that of menial servants. The sovereign, and all the officers of justice and war, are unproductive labourers. They are servants of the public, and maintained by the industry of the people. Their service produces nothing for which an equal quantity of service can afterwards be procured. In the same class must be ranked, churchmen, lawyers, physicians, men of letters, players, buffoons, opera singers, &c. Productive and unproductive labourers, and those who do not labour at all, are all maintained by the annual produce of the country. This produce has its limits, and is the effect of productive labour.— Idem. SECTION I. THE DIVISION OF LABOUR. THE greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill with which it is anywhere directed or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour. These effects, in the business of society, will be better understood by considering how it operates in some particular manufactures. It is commonly supposed that the division of labour is carried farthest in some trifling manufactures, which is probably an error founded upon this circumstance; that the number of workmen, in every branch of these manufactures, being small, may be collected in the same workhouse, and placed at once under the view of the spectator; whereas in those manufactures destined to supply the great wants of the people, we can seldom see, at once, more than those employed in one single branch. Therefore, the division may be greater, and yet not so obvious. Example. A person unacquainted with the business of pin-making, could scarcely make a single pin a day; but by dividing the business into various branches, which are now distinct trades, each person may be considered as making 4,800 pins in one day. In all other manufactures the effects of the division of labour are similar to what they are in this, though they may not be reducible to so great simplicity: hence the increase of the productive powers of labour; the advantages of which have caused the separation of different employments. This separation is carried farthest in countries most improved: what is the work of one man in a rude state of society, being, generally, that of several in an improved one. Hence the different trades in the woollen and linen manufactures, from the growers of the wool or flax, to the dressers of the cloth. Agriculture does not admit of so many subdivisions of labour as manufactures; the different sorts of labour, in the former, returning with the seasons, no man can be constantly employed in any one of them; hence its unimproved state, in all countries, compared with manufactures. In agriculture, the labour of the rich country is not always much more productive than that of the The corn poor. of Poland is generally as good, and as cheap, as that of England, notwithstanding the improved state of the latter. But in manufactures, Poland can pretend to no such competition. The increase in the quantity of work, which, in conse quence of the division of labour, the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances. (1.) To the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; by reducing every man's business to one simple operation, and by making this operation the sole employment of his life. A common smith, unaccustomed to the making of nails, cannot make more than two or three hundred nails a day; whereas lads, under twenty years of age, who never exercised any other trade but that of making nails, can make 2,300 nails in a day. Neither is this one of the simplest operations, and of course not one where the dexterity of the workman is the greatest. (2.) To the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another. It is impossible to pass very quickly from one kind of work to another. A country weaver, who cultivates a small farm, must lose a deal of time in passing from the loom to the field. A man commonly saunters a little in turning his hand from one employment to another; and when he first begins the new work, it is seldom with spirit; hence the habit of indolent, careless application acquired by every country workman, who is obliged to change his tools and work every half-hour. (3.) Labour is much abridged by the application of proper machinery. The invention of those machines, by which labour is so much facilitated and abridged, seems to have been owing to the division of labour: for men are likely to discover the readier methods of attaining any object, when their whole attention is directed towards that single object. It is natural also, that out of many workmen employed in each branch of labour, some one or other should find the readiest method of performing his own particular work. It is a fact, that a great part of the machines, used in those manufactures in which labour is most sub-divided, were the inventions of common workmen. In steam engines, one of the greatest improvements was discovered by a boy who wanted to save his labour. Many improvements in machinery have been made by the ingenuity of the makers of machines; and not a few by philosophers, or men of speculation; whose trade is not to do any thing, but to observe every thing. Philosophy, like other employments, is not only a trade, but is subdi |