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 supe riority of climate, greater fertility of soil, or abundance of provision. On the contrary, when it arises from the diffi culty of communication, which prevents cultivators from reaping all the profit of their wares, it can only be regard ed as a private advantage, acquired at the expense of the national advantage. When the low price of workmanship arises from the poverty of day-labourers, forced by com petition 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 consequence of this, a low price of interest, likewise doubly contribute to di minish the price of production. With more capital, the manufacturer and merchant transact their purchases and sales at a more favourable moment ; they are not pressed by either operation, or compelled to provide for the pre sent by a sacrifice of future advantage. 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 interest of money, it is made at the expense of a particular class, deriving their revenue from trade ; it does not enrich the nation any more than the di minution 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 powers; each makes better what he is constantly engaged in mak ing, and when, at length, his whole labour is reduced to the simplest operation, he comes to perform it with such ease and rapidity, that the eye cannot make us compre hend how the address of man should arrive at such pre cision and promptitude. Often also this division leads to the discovery, that as the workman is now worth nothing more than a machine, a machine may in fact supply his place. Several important inventions in mechanics applied to the arts, have thus sprung from the division of labour; but, by the influence of this division, man has lost in in telligence all that he has gained in the power of producing wealth.
It is by the variety of its operations that our soul is un. folded ; it is to procure citizens that a nation wishes to have men, not to procure machines fit for operations a lit tle more complicated than those performed by fire or water. The division of labour has conferred 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 faculties, before having ex perienced any enjoyment of life, are accordingly condemn ed to put a wheel in motion, 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 of so many millions of human beings ! The employment of machinery in place of men, has contributed generally to lessen the price of production. 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-sup plied trades in towns; and sovereigns 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 arc 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 maintain that it can be advantageous to substitute a machine for a man, if this man cannot find work elsewhere ; 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 methods 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 ad vantages 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 monoply, 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 ad vantage in the superiority of the people itself, in certain climates; the bounty of nature seems to have reserved for those who inhabit them a superiority of industry, intelli gence, strength of body, or constancy in labour, which do not even require to be developed by education. 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, sobrie ty, justice—are almost always the work of public institu tions. Religion, education, government, and principles of honour, change the nature of men ; and as they make good or bad citizens of thitn, they advance or retard their approach to the object proposed by political eco nomy.