56 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



Political duction of them. Hence one of the great and con- 

 Economy. s t an t objects of governments has been, to increase this 

 ""~ r ~* * difference, that their manufacturers might be enabled 

 to produce cheap, and so find many buyers, and to 

 sell dear to such as could not buy elsewhere, and so gain 

 a large profit. The progress of society generally en- 

 ables civilized nations to produce cheaper; the almost 

 ever injudicious protection of government often gives 

 them means of selling dearer. 



The low price of workmanship is the first cause of 

 manufacturing profit; but this low price is never a 

 national advantage, except when it is produced by 

 superiority of climate, greater fertility of soil, or 

 abundance of provision. On the contrary, when it 

 arises from the difficulty of communication which pre- 

 vents cultivators from reaping all the profit of their 

 wares, it can only be regarded as a private advan- 

 tage, acquired at the expence of the national ad- 

 vantage. When the low price of workmanship arises 

 from the poverty of day-labourers, forced by competi- 

 tion to content themselves with what is necessary, or 

 less than necessary for life ; though commerce may 

 profit by the circumstance, it is nothing better than a 

 national calamity. 



Abundance of capital, and the consequen'ce of this, 

 a low price of interest, likewise doubly contribute to 

 diminish the price of production. With more capital, 

 the manufacturer and merchant transact their pur- 

 chases and sales at a more favourable moment; they 

 are not pressed by either operation, or compelled to 

 provide for the present by a sacrifice of future advan- 

 tage. Executing all kinds of labour more on the great 

 scale, they save time, and all those incidental charges, 

 which are the same for a great and for a small sum. 

 But as to the saving made by the merchant on the in- 

 terest of money, it is made at the expence of a par- 

 ticular class, deriving their revenue from trade ; it does 

 not enrich the nation any more than the diminution of 

 wages enriched it; it only gives to one what it takes 

 from another. 



The increasing division of labour forms, as we have 

 seen, the chief cause of increase in its productive pow- 

 ers ; each makes better what he is constantly engaged 

 in making, and when at length his whole labour is re- 

 duced to the simplest operation, he comes to perform 

 it with such ease and rapidity, that the eye cannot 

 make us comprehend how the address of man should 

 arrive at such precision and promptitude. Often also 

 this division leads to the discovery, that as the work- 

 man is now worth nothing more than a machine, a 

 machine may in fact supply his place. Several import- 

 ant inventions in mechanics applied to the arts, have 

 thus sprung from the division of labour ; but by the in- 

 fluence of this division man has lost in intelligence all 

 that he has gained in the power of producing wealth. 



It is by the variety of its operations that our soul 

 is unfolded; it is to procure citizens that a nation 

 wishes to have men, not to procure machines fit for 

 operations a little more complicated than those per- 

 formed by fire or water. The division of labour has con- 

 ferred a value on operations so simple, that children, 

 from the tenderest age, are capable of executing them ; 

 and children, before having developed any of their facul- 

 ties, before having experienced any enjoyment of life, 

 are accordingly condemned to put a wheel in mption, 

 to turn a spindle, to empty a bobbin. More lace, more 

 pins, more threads, and cloth of cotton or silk, are the 

 fruit of this great division of labour; but how dearly 



have we purchased them, if it is by this moral sacrifice Political 

 of so many millions of human beings. Economy. 



The employment of machinery in place of men, has 

 contributed generally to lessen the price of produc- 

 tion. At the renovation of arts and civilization, there 

 was so much work to be done, and so few hands to 

 do it; oppression had so far reduced the poor class; 

 there remained so much uncultivated land in the 

 country, so many ill-supplied trades in towns ; and so- 

 vereigns required so many soldiers for war, that it 

 seemed workmanship could never be economized 

 enough, since an artisan, sent away from one trade, 

 would always find ten others ready to receive him. 

 Circumstances are not now the same ; our labour is 

 scarcely sufficient for the labourers. We shall en- 

 deavour, in another place, to explain the cause of 

 this fact; in the mean time, surely none will main- 

 tain that it can be advantageous to substitute a ma- 

 chine for a man, if this man cannot find work else- 

 where; or that it is not better to have the population 

 composed of citizens than of steam-engines, even 

 though the cotton cloth of the first should be a little 

 dearer than that of the second. 



The application of science to art is not limited to 

 the invention of machinery ; its result is the discovery 

 of raw materials, dyeing ingredients, preservative me- 

 thods more sure and economical. It has produced 

 better work at a cheaper rate ; it has protected the 

 health of labourers, as well as their produce ; and its 

 effect in augmenting wealth has almost always been 

 beneficial to humanity. 



Finally, the different quarters of the globe possess 

 advantages of climate, soil, exposure, which not only 

 render the subsistence of man more easy or cheaper, 

 but also place within his reach certain raw materials, 

 which other nations cannot procure at the same price. 

 Hence results in their favour a kind of monopoly, 

 which they exercise over others, and of which it is 

 rare that they do not take advantage. There is also 

 in some degree, a natural advantage in the superio- 

 rity of the people itself in certain climates ; the 

 bounty of nature seems to have reserved for those 

 who inhabit them a superiority of industry, intel- 

 ligence, strength of body, or constancy in labour, 

 which do not even require to be developed by edu- 

 cation. But other qualities, other virtues, which appear 

 to contribute more effectually still to the increase of 

 riches, as well as to the happiness of society the 

 love of order, economy, sobriety, justice are almost al- 

 ways the work of public institutions. Religion, educa- 

 tion, government, and principles of honour, change 

 the nature of men ; and as they make good or bad 

 citizens of them, they advance or retard their approach 

 to the object proposed by political economy. 



But governments have rarely been satisfied with 

 such advantages as the trade of their states might owe 

 to nature, or to the progress of society. They have 

 attempted to favour the increase of commercial wealth; 

 and their different expedients have most frequently 

 tended to assist the merchant in selling dear, rather 

 than producing cheap. With the latter object, how- 

 ever, we have seen the exportation of raw materials 

 prohibited, the rate of interest fixed, and laws enacted 

 to lower the wages of labour. 



These three expedients had a common fault, that of 

 sacrificing one class to another, and founding the pro- 

 fit of trade, not on the advantage of consumers, but 

 on the loss of cultivators, capitalists, or workmen ; 



