No. 216.] 369 



are the most profitable, or whose products in proportion to the labor 

 and capital expended in their production, command the highest rela- 

 tive price. 



It is a principle, established in all civilized nations, that artisan 

 labor is more valuable than agricultural, and though from the neces- 

 sities of our nature, in all countries, agricultural labor must occupy 

 the great body of the nation, still it is artisan labor emphatically, 

 which rapidly accumulates wealth whenever it advances to great de- 

 velopment and consequent high civilization. This may be seen by a 

 reference to nations as well as to individuals; the fact is rendered ob- 

 vious by a comparison of the value of artisan and agricultural la- 

 bor in all sections of our own country, as well as in Europe, while 

 manufacturing nations are uniformly wealthy as compared with their 

 agricultural neighbors. 



It is quite too late in the day to decry the artisan as an inferior 

 class in society, or to represent his pursuits as tending to its demo- 

 ralization; the age of shepherds and shepherdesses has passed away. 

 In Europe, as in this country, the morals and intelligence of the ar- 

 tisan class are in advance of the agricultural. This is a perfectly 

 natural result of their more profitable employment; the condition of 

 classes, as well as individuals, being determined by what they can 

 command of leisure for their intellectual improvement, and of com- 

 forts and elegancies, as the reward of their labor. 



Next, as agricultural and artisan labor produce the materials 

 which the wants of society require; the more they can be brought 

 into contact with each other, the less of labor will be required for 

 their transfer from the producer to the consumer, and thus the general 

 wealth be increased by avoiding the non-productive employment of 

 exchange, the importance of which it is the habit of society to 

 overrate. 



The commonwealth, constituted of the general condition and pro- 

 perty of the individuals who compose the nation, must be governed 

 by the principles which are true in the detail. What is true in re- 

 lation to the individual, must be true as to the public in all 'produc- 

 tive pursuits, and no individual or sectional department of labor can 

 prosper, if that labor is productive, without promoting the interest 

 of the whole commonwealth. The non-productive laborer may tem- 

 porarily thrive upon the injury of society, the productive -never; 

 whatever he does inures to the public benefit in proportion to its 

 value and importance. 



[Am. Inst.] Y 



