able capital. But in other respects, the parallel is less favourable to the cotton manufacture. From its dependence on foreign demand, it bears many cha racteristics of a business of speculation ; the work men being at one time in great request, at another reduced to wages quite inadequate to the mainte nance of their families; hence that frequent recur rence of complaint and combination against the masters.
We have already noticed the surprising increase in the produce of our iron mines since 1780. This in crease of the raw material, joined in some cases to the command of coal in the vicinity, and in all to a faci lity of conveyance of coal and iron by canals, has given, in the last forty years, a great extension to our hardware manufacture. In it we take as decidedly the lead of foreigners as in our cottons; and if the re. tio of increase has not been altogether so rapid, it is owing, not to inferior ingenuity in the workmen, but to radical differences in the two manufactures. In no department has the subdivision of employment been carried to so great a length ; in none are its effects in cheapening production so conspicuous. Birming ham and Sheffield are the two great work-shops for our hardware ; the latter is confined to iron and steel; while, in the former, not only iron and steel, but copper and brass, constitute the materials of la bour. Sheffield fabricates articles which are less for ornament than utility, and which possess, in general, a certain bulk, such as grates, spades, sickles, files, knives, fenders, fire-irons ; while in Birmingham, there is, in addition to articles of solidity, a surpris ing variety of toys, fancy goods, and petty manufac tures; each trifling when considered separately, but the whole forming an aggregate of great value. The most insignificant of these, such as a brass-cock or a button shank, passes through a number of hands; each artisan performing only a single operation. He thus acquires an extraordinary dexterity in his limit ed department, and, in the course of a day, dispatches several hundred, perhaps a thousand articles, through his particular stage, the result of all which is, that the price, when sold in quantities, is incredibly low. Another and very interesting feature in the situation of Birmingham, is the populousness of its neighbour hood. The manufacturing district, extending about sixteen miles, is estimated to contain 300,000 inha bitants, in addition to nearly 100,000 in the town.
(Committee on Repeal of Orders in Council, 1812.) Yet in none of our large towns is living less expen sive; an advantage owing partly to the abundance of coal, partly to the ready supply of milk and vege tables consequent on the wide space occupied by these extraordinary numbers.
The nail trade is carried on, not in the town of Birmingham, but in a part of the district just de scribed; it is computed to employ 30,000 men, wo men, and children ; for even this heavy article admits of a subdivision of employment, which lightens the labour, and enables a workman to avail himself of the aid of his family. Of the two towns, Sheffield is by much the more ancient; the.command of coal and iron in the same neighbourhood having rendered it, so far back as the thirteenth or fourteenth century, a place for the fabrication of the homely articles used in these days of our ancestors. It is about a century since its razors, knives, and files began to take a more delicate shape. Birmingham embraced a wid er range, and advanced with much greater rapidity; but Sheffield also has its adjacent district inhabit ed by manufacturers, though to a much less extent than the vicinity of Birmingham, This district, cal led Hallamshire, extends six or seven miles to the west of Sheffield.
Hardware is made in several other places, such as Wolverhampton, Dudley, and Walsall. Each of these towns is situated in Staffordshire, and, in point of manufactUre, is small only in comparison with Bir mingham or Sheffield. Articles, apparently very trifling, are made to a surprising extent in different places ; such as pins at Gloucester ; needles at Red ditch in Worcestershire ; watch movements and main' springs at Prescott in Lancashire. The total value of our articles of iron, steel, brass, and copper, in cluding the manufacture from its earliest to its most finished stage, is necessarily fluctuating, but may be computed at L.I5,000,000 annually; two-thirds of which appear to be consumed among ourselves, while the other third is exported to two great mar kets, the Continent of Europe and the United States. A return during three years of peace, but of unequal mercantile prosperity, will suffice to show the average of annual export.