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division can only be extended as capital is more and more accumulated." Hence, the improvement of society, and the amelioration of the condition of the labourer, does not solely depend on the accomplishment of that arduous, and, to most persons, hopeless task of becoming rich. Happily, an increase in the productive powers of the labourer, and his certainty of procuring a comfortable subsistence, depend on circumstances which, if political measures were favourable, would be of less difficult attainment. This increase may arise from an extension of the division of labour; from a more concentrated and condensed population; greater freedom of exertion; greater facilities of communication and interchange; but, above all, from greater skill and knowledge.

That an increase of capital is not always necessary to a greater division of employment, will plainly appear if we take the case of two independent savages, who should agree between themselves that, instead of both of them going to the chase or fishing, one only should go, while the other occupied himself at home in making bows, arrows, fishing-hooks, and other weapons. It is obvious that, in this case, tools for making these weapons would be required for one man only instead of two, and that the same quantity of food would support the two, whether they should go to the chase together, and at other times both engage in making arrows, or one only should always go, while the other always remained at home and made the arrows.

Notwithstanding that an extended division of labour affords the greatest facilities to industry, and increases in an astonishing degree the powers and enjoyments of mankind, yet it is said that an extreme division is not unattended with evil, in that it degrades in some degree the faculties of man in his individual capacity; incapacitates him from every other occupation than the repetition of that single and uniform operation to which his whole life is devoted; and from the want of exercise to his other faculties, both corporeal and intellectual, and his having nothing to excite their energies, blunts or extinguishes them altogether, reducing him to the condition of a mere machine. These views, so generally received, seem to call for a few remarks. It is true, that in the progress of this division of employments, a man

becomes individually weaker, and more dependent on the general arrangements of society; though the mass acquires strength through this arrangement. Doubtless some variety of occupation must promote the bodily and mental strength of the labourer, by giving exercise to his different faculties: a change and variety, too, may conduce to alacrity of mind. As the agricultural labourer would find his pecuniary interest in being able to practise some art which may be carried on in-doors during the intervals of want of out-door work, through change of seasons or unfavourable weather; so likewise the in-door workman, whose constant employ is in manufactures, or manual trade, may find his health and strength improved by the cultivation of a garden, or occasionally working in the fields in harvest or other busy times for out-door work. But to say, "It is a sorry account for a human being to give of his existence, to have never done anything but make the eighteenth part of a pin," can cast no reflection on him, when both his individual and the public interest are most promoted by his making the eighteenth part rather than the whole pin; as, most probably, he would not be able to make the whole pin in any tolerable manner. The social interest, and thereby the individual interest, of every person, is to be promoted by each performing a particular part, and performing it well; not by every one attempting to perform many parts, and not succeeding in any. What more honour can there be in performing two parts badly, than one well? That which ennobles a man is the performance with zeal and ability of the several duties which devolve on him in the particular station in which he is placed. Before a distribution of employments was established, it was necessary for each man to perform many parts, and amongst others to defend the freedom of his country; but since the establishment of this distribution, it is found that the country is both better and more cheaply defended by allotting this duty to the professional soldier. It is better for the pinmaker to be able to make good pins, and contribute to the maintenance of the soldier, though himself unable efficiently to act in the public defence, while the soldier performs his duty well, though unable to make a pin; than for each to be at once pinmaker, soldier, and of a hundred other occupations, yet unable

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to act in any capacity with efficiency. With regard to the intellectual and moral faculties, these are most likely to be improved, by those measures which afford the means and the leisure for improving them; that is, by all such as contribute to heighten the efficiency of labour, save time, and promote individual and public opulence: in other words, by the most extended division of labour. Nothing here said, however, is meant to detract from the utility of cultivating the corporeal powers; much less to affirm that it is not incumbent on a man to be able to act on emergency in defence of his country, or fellow-men, and to perform a variety of offices, both public and private, which circumstances may call for at his hands. All that is contended for is, that the degradation of the labourer is not a necessary accompaniment of a minute division of labour; that such a degradation is the abuse, and not the proper use of it; and that we ought not to think lightly of the advantages of that division, in ameliorating the condition of man, and raising him in the scale of moral and intellectual beings, because an evil may attend its being carried to excess.

Again, it is said that the incapacity for the performance of any other than a single occupation, reduces the individual importance and independence of the labourer, when separated from his fellow-labourers; places him more within the power of the master, and renders him less able to enforce his right to an equitable portion of the produce of his labour. This view of the matter originates in an erroneous apprehension of the circumstances which determine the rate of wages. But as these circumstances will be more conveniently discussed in another place, it will only be mentioned here, that one of the most important means by which the rewards of labour may be augmented is, heightening the effectiveness of that labour. However, in a minute division of labour, the wages which a workman is really entitled to are less than they would be under some other circumstances, because, in this case, less time and expense are necessary to acquire the ability to perform the part assigned him. Less time must be required, as well as a shorter and less expensive apprenticeship, in learning to perform one of the eighteen operations in the manufacture of a pin, than to perform the whole

eighteen; and, consequently, less expense must be incurred. The individual importance in relation to other men of the workman who performs one only of these eighteen operations, is inferior to what it would be if he were able to perform the whole; he is less superior in skill to a common labourer, and his place might more easily be supplied by others. But to facilitate and cheapen the acquisition of the skill to labour, as has been said already, so far from being a disadvantage, is a public benefit of inestimable value; for more poor persons are thereby enabled to engage in the skilled occupations; the money expended in learning trades is lessened, and the saving is available for profitable occupation in other ways. Instead of a few pin-makers with high wages, we have a great many pin-makers with moderate wages. But what is of more importance, instead of a scanty supply of bad and dear pins, we have an abundant supply of excellent pins, which are very cheap. With regard to wages, and the ability to enforce a claim to an equitable portion of the product, although cheapening the acquisition of the requisite qualifications in the workman has a tendency to lower wages in his particular trade, yet it at the same time raises the real rewards of labour, though not the money payment, in all those other occupations the wages of which are expended partly in the purchase of the goods he makes, which are thereby furnished of better quality and at a cheaper rate.

As it is the power of exchanging commodities that allows of the division of labour, so the extent of this division must always be limited by the extent of that power; that is, by the extent of the market. When the market is very small, a man cannot devote himself to one single occupation, for want of the power to exchange all that surplus produce of his own labour, beyond what is wanted for his own consumption, for such of the produce of other men's labour as he has occasion for.

There are some occupations which can be followed nowhere but in large towns. The trade of a nailer, for example, could not be carried on in a remote country place, where the inhabitants are thinly scattered over a great extent of country. Such a workman would make more nails in a day, than he would be able to dispose of in such a situation in a year. Country work

men are almost everywhere obliged to apply themselves to all the different branches of industry that have so much affinity to one another as to be employed about the same sort of materials. A country carpenter does every kind of work that is required in wood; he is not only carpenter, but joiner, cabinet-maker, and carver in wood, as well as wheelwright, ploughwright, cart and waggon-maker. The country smith does every kind of work that is wanted in iron, and his employments are still more various than the other. The country shopkeeper is grocer, teadealer, cheesemonger, tallow-chandler, linen-draper, and vender of an almost endless variety of other articles; each of which in populous towns forms a distinct business, and is carried on by different persons. In these towns, sometimes, a single article of grocery forms the only commodity in which a man deals.

As population increases and becomes more congregated into dense masses in populous towns and cities, occasion is given to extend the division of labour. Whence the powers of industry become more effective; superfluities in consequence are more abundantly supplied and diversified; trades and employments are multiplied, and become as numerous as the varieties of human indulgence, and the caprices of human taste and fancy.

CHAPTER IX.

ON THE FREEDOM OF INDUSTRY.

THE products of industry which a nation may acquire, both by the immediate exercise of its own industry, and by exchanging with other nations its domestic for foreign productions, will be more in quantity, better in quality, and more suited to the wants and wishes of the consumers, in proportion as its industry is freer from the control, whether of legislative regulations connected with public revenue, or of such as are improperly called

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