CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



The employment of labour is therefore, in more 

 than one respect, measured by the amount of 

 capital available for productive employment. In 

 the first place, it is dependent on fixed capital, 

 seeking to be employed productively, without 

 which, in the shape of natural agents or of ma- 

 chinery, the demand for labour would be small. I n 

 the second place, floating capital is required in 

 the form of materials, manufactured goods in the 

 course of being exchanged, and wages ; and the 

 amount of capital devoted to each of these pur- 

 poses must be arranged so that they may work 

 in harmony. 



The amount of capital productively employed, 

 or seeking to be so employed, is itself continually 

 fluctuating ; and although many of these fluctua- 

 tions occur independently of the agency of man, 

 :nany are directly attributable to his resolves ; 

 as must be pretty obvious, when it is considered 

 how free man is to direct his labour towards the 

 production of any one in preference to any other 

 object of desire ; nor is it wonderful that fre- 

 quently he should fall into misapprehensions 

 and miscalculations, sometimes attended with dis- 

 astrous results. A common mistake is a too 

 rapid increase in the fixed capital of a country, 

 as compared with the floating capital. Instead 

 of applying labour to the production of com- 

 modities required for the direct support of the 

 community, people may apply an excessive pro- 

 portion of that labour to the construction of rail- 

 ways, canals, and machinery; and though these 

 may be of great permanent use, yet serious de- 

 rangement may result for the time from pushing 

 their construction too far, straitening the capital 

 available for the support of present labour. Rail- 

 ways, machinery, and other fixed works are useful 

 only in aid of, or by acting in conjunction with, 

 ordinary labour, and a restriction of the latter 

 nullifies the value of the former. Besides, if there 

 be not sufficient capital left to support the ordinary 

 labour on which the community is dependent, 

 severe calamity may arise, even amounting to 

 famine. A like disaster occurs when capital is lost 

 by producing what may be supposed at the time 

 to be marketable, but is afterwards found to be 

 unsaleable ; or by any other causes diminish- 

 ing or destroying the capital available for the 

 labourer's support. 



Credit. 



Many manufacturers and merchants are their 

 own capitalists, but it is not always so. They 

 frequently receive loans, and as frequently give 

 them. To say that a man has a loan, is substan- 

 tially to say that the various commodities he pos- 

 sesses belong to a certain extent to the person 

 from whom the loan is obtained. A merchant holds 

 goods to the value of ^1000 ; the circumstance of 

 his having a loan of ;6oo from another person 

 does not increase or diminish the capital of the 

 community ; the lender just has a substantial 

 right to ;6oo worth of the borrower's goods. 



The amount of floating capital belonging to a 

 merchant is the goods in his possession at any- 

 one time in the course of their passage from the 

 persons from whom he buys to the persons to 

 whom he sells. But this rule only holds good, 

 supposing the purchase or sale to be a real act 

 of exchange. If credit be given by the person 

 from whom the goods are bought, they still 



substantially form part of that person's capital, 

 and so if the merchant sell to others on credit. 



A capitalist may lend to a person who may em- 

 ploy the means productively, or to one who may 

 employ them unproductivcly. In either case, the 

 capitalist receives interest for the use of his capital, 

 and to him, in either case, it is productive in that 

 sense. But taking the resources of the community 

 as a whole, we must regard the end to which the 

 funds lent are ultimately applied. A capitalist 

 lends some thousand pounds to a land-owner, who 

 spends the sum in riotous living. In these circum- 

 stances, the capital originally consisted, first, of 

 the land, second, of the cash given by the lender ; 

 the latter sum, being spent by the borrower in 

 riotous living, is spent unproductively, and is 

 extinguished. The land remains ; but the lender 

 has a substantial right to it to the extent of his 

 loan, and to the revenue of that land to the extent 

 of his interest. The land, again, so far as used 

 by the landowner as a pleasure-ground, is used 

 unproductively ; so far as it is tilled, it is used 

 productively, the produce being divided between 

 the landowner and the lender, according to their 

 rights. 



Benefits of Increased Production. 



It is not beneficial for the individual only to 

 increase the productiveness of his labour ; it is 

 beneficial to the whole community that the sum- 

 total of industry should be as productive as pos- 

 sible. It would be a benefit, if the crops of wheat, 

 and cotton, and rice, the produce of the fisheries, 

 of the mines, and of the manufactories, during the 

 next year, should with the same labour be doubled, 

 so that we might by a day's labour procure twice 

 as much bread-stuffs, fuel, clothing, and of every 

 necessary and comfort of life, as we are able to 

 procure at present The aim of machinery and of 

 division of labour is to bring about such a result. 



Yet more the benefit of this change is spe- 

 cially realised by the labouring-classes. The rich 

 in all countries always have commanded an 

 abundance of comforts and luxuries ; and compara- 

 tively, therefore, they are but slightly benefited 

 by an improvement in the productiveness of 

 labour. It is the labourer who is chiefly benefited. 

 Every improvement brings within his reach some 

 convenience which was previously beyond it. 

 What difference does it make to a man worth a 

 hundred thousand a year, whether coal cost one 

 pound or two pounds a ton, and cotton cloth four- 

 pence or two shillings a yard ? At either price, 

 he can procure abundance. But to the man worth 

 but fifty or a hundred pounds a year, the differ- 

 ence is of immense consequence ; at one price he 

 can supply himself abundantly, at the other price 

 he can supply himself but scantily if at all. 

 Hence, improvements in machinery, by which the 

 productiveness of labour is increased, are specially 

 for the benefit of those obliged to work for their 

 bread. 



But by increasing the productiveness of labour, 

 do we not diminish the demand for labour, and 

 throw labourers out of employment ? This ques- 

 tion deserves consideration, as it has led not only 

 ;o erroneous views in theory, but to serious mis- 

 takes in practice. 



Let us examine the facts. What are the manu- 

 factures which now employ the greatest number 

 of workmen, and in which the number of workmen 



