POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



75 



Political long suffering, and save the manufacturer only at the 

 Kronomy. expt-Mce of those whom that manufacturer should sup- 



"""^ port. 



The guardian population presents the same species 

 of suffering in another rank of society. War multi- 

 plies the commissions of officers in the army and navy; 

 the complicacy of administration multiplies the places 

 of judges and civil agents of all kinds. Religious zeal 

 multiplies the places for pastors. All of them live on 

 pensions with a certain degree of opulence ; none of 

 them knows, or is able to insure the fund which af- 

 fords him subsistence. They reckon on ushering their 

 children into the same career witli themselves ; they 

 bring them up, multiply their families in proportion to 

 their actual opulence, and blindly repose on the future. 

 Their pension however finishes with their life ; and at 

 death they leave their children in a state of indigence, 

 the suffering of which is farther aggravated by the 

 possession of a liberal education. The laws which ob- 

 struct the marriage of officers, judges, clergymen, and 

 generally of all such as live on pensions, how hard 

 soever those laws may appear at their first establish- 

 ment, are justifiable, because they save from poverty 

 the class to which its torments would be most pierc- 

 ing. 



But an inordinate increase of population is not the 

 only cause of this national suffering. The demand for 

 labour may decrease, and the population continue sta- 

 tionary. Consumption may be arrested, revenues dis- 

 sipated, capital destroyed, and the number of hands 

 formerly occupied may no longer be able to find a 

 sufficient employment. The population immediately 

 follows the revolution of the capitals destined to sup- 

 port it. As day-labourers are more eager to receive 

 even the smallest wage, than merchants to employ 

 their money, the former are laid under conditions more 

 and more hard, as the demand on the capital dimi- 

 nishes ; and they conclude by contenting themselves 

 with so miserable a remuneration, as is scarcely suffi- 

 cient to maintain them alive. No enjoyment is any 

 longer attached to the existence of this unhappy 

 class ; hunger and suffering stifle in them all the moral 

 affections. When every hour is a struggle for life, all 

 passions are concentrated in selfishness ; each forgets 

 the pain of others in what himself suffers ; the sen- 

 timents of nature are blunted ; a constant, obstinate, 

 uniform labour debases all the faculties. One blushes 

 for the human species, to see how low on the scale 

 of degradation it can descend ; how much beneath the 

 condition of animals it can voluntarily submit to main- 

 tain life ; and notwithstanding all the benefits of social 

 order, notwithstanding the advantages which man has 

 gained from the arts, one is sometimes tempted to exe- 

 crate the division of labour, and the invention of manu- 

 factures, on beholding to what extremes of wretched- 

 ness they have reduced beings created equal with our- 

 selves. 



The misery of the savage hunter, who dies so fre- 

 quently ot hunger, is not equal to that of millions of 

 families, whom a manufacture sometimes dismisses ; 

 because at least there remains to the former all the 

 energy and all the intelligence, which he has put to 

 proof during all his life. When he dies for want 

 of finding game, he yields to a necessity which nature 

 herself presents, and to which he knew from the be- 

 ginning, he must submit as to sickness or to old age. 

 But the artisan, dismissed from his workshop with his 

 wife and children, has beforehand lost the strength 

 of his soul and his body ; he is still surrounded with 

 2 



riches ; he still see* beside him, at every step, the 

 food which he requires; and if society refuse* him 

 the labour by which he offers till his last moment to 

 purchase bread, it is men, not nature, that he blame*. 



Even when persons do not actually die of hunger; 

 even when the aids of charity are eagerly administered 

 to all indigent families, discouragement and suffering 

 produce their cruel effects on the poor, the disease* of 

 the soul are communicated to the body, epidemic* are 

 multiplied, children die in a few months after their 

 birth, and the suppression of labour causes more cruel 

 ravages than the cruellest war: beside*, fatal habits, 

 either of mendicity or idleness, take root in the popu- 

 lation; another course is given to trade, another di- 

 rection to fashion, and even after death has cleared the 

 ranks of workmen, those who remain are no longer in 

 a condition to support the competition of foreigner*. 



The causes of diminution in the demand for labour, 

 often belong to polity, properly so called, rather than 

 to political economy. There is perhaps none more ef- 

 ficacious than the loss or diminution of liberty. When 

 a nation begins to alienate this precious possession, 

 each citizen thinks himself less secure of his fortune 

 or the fruits of his labour ; each abates something of 

 the activity of his mind, and his spirit of industry. 

 The virtues which accompany labour, sobriety, con- 

 stancy, economy, give place to the vices of idleness, 

 to intemperance, dissipation, and forgetfulness of the 

 future. Trade, industry, activity, are regarded with 

 contempt, in a state where the people are nothing, 

 whilst all distinction, all honours, are reserved for 

 noble indolence. Favour, intrigue, flattery, and all 

 the arts of courtiers, which debase the soul, are roads 

 to fortune, much more sure and rapid than strength 

 of character, bold and enterprising activity, or a spirit 

 of speculation. Intriguers are multiplied daily ; they 

 regard with contempt those who follow the only ho- 

 nourable path to fortune, that in which none makes 

 progress except by his merit or his labour. 



One cause of depopulation is, however, presented, 

 which lies within the narrowest range of political 

 economy. The progress of the arts, the progress of 

 industry, and hence even that of wealth and prosperity, 

 discover economical methods of producing all the fruits 

 of labour by employing a smaller number of workmen. 

 Animals are substituted for men in almost all the details 

 of agriculture; and machines are substituted for men in 

 all the operations of manufactures. So long as a nation 

 finds within its reach a market sufficiently extensive to 

 secure for all its productions a prompt and advantageous 

 circulation, each of those discoveries is an advantage, 

 because instead of diminishing the number of workmen, 

 it augments the mass of labour and its produce. A na- 

 tion which happens to originate discoveries, succeeds 

 for a long time in extending its market in proportion 

 to the number of hands set free by every new inven- 

 tion. It immediately employs them in augmenting the 

 produce, which the discovery promises to furnish at a 

 cheaper rate. But a period arrives at last, when the 

 whole civilized world is but one market, and when 

 new customers cannot be found in new nations. The 

 demand of the universal market is then a precise quanti- 

 ty, which the different industrious nations dispute with 

 each other; if one furnish more, another must furnish 

 less. The total sale can only be increased by the pro- 

 gress of general opulence, or because conveniences 

 formerly confined to the rich, are brought within the 

 reach of the poor. 



The invention of the stocking-frame, by means of 



