not the desire of wealth that needs to be taught, but the use of wealth, and appreciation of the objects of desire which wealth cannot purchase, or for attaining which it is not required. Every real improvement in the character of the English, whether it consist in giving them higher aspirations, or only a juster estimate of the value of their present objects of desire, must necessarily moderate the ardour of their devotion to the pursuit of wealth. There is no need, however, that it should diminish the strenuous and business-like application to the matter in hand, which is found in the best English workmen, and is their most valuable quality. The desirable medium is one which mankind have not often known how to hit: when they labour, to do it with all their might, and especially with all their mind; but to devote to labour, for mere pecuniary gain, fewer hours in the day, fewer days in the year, and fewer years of life. § 4. The third element which determines the productiveness of the labour of a community, is the skill and knowledge therein existing; whether it be the skill and knowledge of the labourers themselves, or of those who 'direct their labour. No illustration is requisite to show how the efficacy of industry is promoted by the manual dexterity of those who perform mere routine processes; by the intelligence of those engaged in operations in which the mind has a considerable part; and by the amount of knowledge of natural powers and of the properties of objects, which is turned to the purposes of industry. That the productiveness of the labour of a people is limited by their knowledge of the arts of life, is self-evident; and that any progress in those arts, any improved application of the objects or powers of nature to industrial uses, enables the same quantity and intensity of labour to raise a greater produce. One principal department of these improvements consists in the invention and use of tools and machinery. The manner in which these serve to in crease production and to economize labour, needs not be specially detailed in a work like the present: it will be found explained and exemplified, in a manner at once scientific and popular, in Mr. Babbage's well-known "Economy of Machinery and Manufactures." An entire chapter of Mr. Babbage's book is composed of instances of the efficacy of machinery in exerting forces too great for human power, and executing operations too delicate for human touch." But to find examples of work which could not be performed at all by unassisted labour, we need not go so far. Without pumps, worked by steam-engines or otherwise, the water which collects in mines could not in many situations be got rid of at all, and the mines, after being worked to a little depth, must be abandoned: without ships or boats the sea could never have been crossed; without tools of some sort, trees could not be cut down, nor rocks excavated; a plough, or at least a hoe, is necessary to any tillage of the ground. Very simple and rude instruments, however, are sufficient to render literally possible most works hitherto executed by man kind; and subsequent inventions have chiefly served to enable the work to be performed in greater perfection, and, above all, with a greatly diminished quantity of labour: the labour thus saved becoming disposable for other employment. The use of machinery is far from being the only mode in which the effects of knowledge in aiding production are exemplified. In agriculture and horticulture, machinery is only now beginning to show that it can de anything of importance, beyond the invention and progressive improvement of the plough and a few other simple instruments. The greatest agricultural inventions have consisted in the direct application of more judicious processes to the land itself, and to the plants growing on it: such as rotation of crops, to avoid the necessity of leaving the land uncultivated for one season in every two or three; improved manures, to renovate its fertility when exhausted by cropping; ploughing ana draining the subsoil as well as the surface; conversion of bogs and marshes into cultivable land; such modes of pruning, and of training and propping up plants and trees, as experience has shown to deserve the preference; in the case of the more expensive cultures, planting the roots or seeds further apart, and more completely pulverizing the soil in which they are placed, &c. In manufactures and commerce, some of the most important improvements consist in economizing time; in making the return follow more speedily upon the labour and outlay. There are others of which the advantage consists in economy of material. 5. But the effects of the increased knowledge of a community in increasing its wealth, need the less illustration as they have become familiar to the most uneducated, from such conspicuous instances as railways and steam-ships. A thing not yet so well understood and recognised, is the economical value of the general diffusion of intelligence among the people. The number of persons fitted to direct and superintend any industrial enterprise, or even to execute any process which cannot be reduced almost to an affair of memory and routine, is always far short of the demand; as is evident from the enormous difference between the salaries paid to such persons, and the wages of ordinary labour. The deficiency of practical good sense, which renders the majority of the labouring class such bad calculators which makes, for instance, their domestic economy so improvident, lax, and irregular-must disqualify them for any but a low grade of intelligent labour, and render their industry far less productive than with equal energy it otherwise might be. The importance, even in this limited aspect of popular education, is well worthy of the attention of politicians, especially in England; since competent observers, accustomed to employ labourers of various nations, testify that in the workmen of other countries they often find great intelligence wholly apart from instruction, but that if an English labourer is anything but a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, he is indebted for it to education, which in his case is almost always self-education. Mr. Escher, of Zurich, (an engineer and cotton manufacturer employing nearly two thousand working men of many different nations,) in his evidence annexed to the Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, in 1840, on the training of pauper children, gives a character of English as contrasted with Continental workmen, which all persons of similar experience will, I believe, confirm. As "The Italians' quickness of percep tion is shown in rapidly comprehending any new descriptions of labour put into their hands, in a power of quickly comprehending the meaning of their employer, of adapting themselves to new circumstances, much beyond what any other classes have. The French work men have the like natural characteristics, only in a somewhat lower degree. The English, Swiss, German, and Dutch workmen, we find, have all much slower natural comprehension. workmen only, the preference is undoubtedly due to the English; because, as we find them, they are all trained to special branches, on which they have had comparatively superior training, and have concentrated all their thoughts. As men of business or of general usefulness, and as men with whom an employer would best like to be surrounded, I should, however, decidedly prefer the Saxons and the Swiss, but more especially the Saxons, be cause they have had a very careful general education, which has extended their capacities beyond any special employment, and rendered them fit to take up, after a short preparation, any employment to which they may be called. If I have an English work. man engaged in the erection of a steam-engine, he will understand that, and nothing else; and for other cir cumstances or other branches of me. chanics, however closely allied, he will be comparatively helpless to adapt himself to all the circumstances that may arise, to make arrangements for them, and give sound advice or write clear statements and letters on his work in the various related branches of mechanics." borne out by experience in England itself. As soon as any idea of equality enters the mind of an uneducated English working man, his head is turned by it. When he ceases to be servile, he becomes insolent. On the connexion between mental cultivation and moral trustworthiness in the labouring class, the same witness says, "The better educated work- The moral qualities of the labourers men, we find, are distinguished by are fully as important to the efficiency superior moral habits in every respect. and worth of their labour, as the inIn the first place, they are entirely so- tellectual. Independently of the effects ber; they are discreet in their enjoy- of intemperance upon their bodily and ments, which are of a more rational mental faculties, and of flighty unand refined kind; they have a taste steady habits upon the energy and confor much better society, which they tinuity of their work (points so easily approach respectfully, and consequently understood as not to require being infind much readier admittance to it; sisted upon), it is well worthy of medithey cultivate music; they read; they tation, how much of the aggregate enjoy the pleasures of scenery, and effect of their labour depends on their make parties for excursions in the trustworthiness. All the labour now country; they are economical, and expended in watching that they fulfil their economy extends beyond their their engagement, or in verifying that own purse to the stock of their master; they have fulfilled it, is so much withthey are, consequently, honest and drawn from the real business of protrustworthy." And in answer to a duction, to be devoted to a subsidiary question respecting the English work- function rendered needful not by the men, "Whilst in respect to the work necessity of things, but by the disto which they have been specially honesty of men. Nor are the greatest trained they are the most skilful, they outward precautions more than very are in conduct the most disorderly, de- imperfectly efficacious, where, as is now bauched, and unruly, and least respect- almost invariably the case with hired able and trustworthy of any nation labourers, the slightest relaxation of whatsoever whom we have employed; vigilance is an opportunity eagerly and in saying this, I express the expe- seized for eluding performance of their rience of every manufacturer on the contract. The advantage to mankind Continent to whom I have spoken, and of being able to trust one another, penespecially of the English manufactu- etrates into every crevice and cranny rers, who make the loudest complaints. of human life: the economical is perThese characteristics of depravity do haps the smallest part of it, yet even not apply to the English workmen who this is incalculable. To consider only have received an education, but attach the most obvious part of the waste of to the others in the degree in which wealth occasioned to society by human they are in want of it. When the un-improbity; there is in all rich commueducated English workmen are released from the bonds of iron discipline in which they have been restrained by their employers in England, and are treated with the urbanity and friendly feeling which the more educated workmen on the Continent expect and receive from their employers, they, the English workmen, completely lose their balance: they do not understand their position, and after a certain time become totally unmanageable and useless."* This result of observation is The whole evidence of this intelligent nities a predatory population, who live by pillaging or over-reaching other people; their numbers cannot be authentically ascertained, but on the lowest estimate, in a country like England, it is very large. The sup port of these persons is a direct burthen on the national industry. The police, and the whole apparatus of punishment, and of criminal and partly of and experienced employer of labour is deserving of attention; as well as much testimony on similar points by other witnesses, contained in the same volume. war. civil justice, are a second burthen ren- | the producers and dealers of such a dered necessary by the first. The ex- town from their own integrity. "The orbitantly-paid profession of lawyers, influence of established character in so far as their work is not created by producing confidence operated in a defects in the law of their own contri- very remarkable manner at the time of ving, are required and supported prin- the exclusion of British manufactures cipally by the dishonesty of mankind. from the Continent during the last As the standard of integrity in a com- One of our largest establishmunity rises higher, all these expenses ments had been in the habit of doing become less. But this positive saving extensive business with a house in the would be far outweighed by the im- centre of Germany: but on the closing mense increase in the produce of all of the Continental ports against our kinds of labour, and saving of time and manufactures, heavy penalties were expenditure, which would be obtained inflicted on all those who contravened if the labourers honestly performed the Berlin and Milan decrees. The what they undertake; and by the in- English manufacturer continued, nevercreased spirit, the feeling of power theless, to receive orders, with direcand confidence, with which works of tions how to consign them, and appointall sorts would be planned and carried ments for the time and mode of pay on by those who felt that all whose aid ment, in letters, the handwriting of was required would do their part faith- which was known to him, but which fully according to their contracts. Conwere never signed except by the joint action is possible just in propor- Christian name of one of the firm, and tion as human beings can rely on each even in some instances they were other. There are countries in Europe, without any signature at all. These of first-rate industrial capabilities, orders were executed, and in no inwhere the most serious impediment to stance was there the least irregularity conducting business concerns on a in the payments."* large scale, is the rarity of persons who are supposed fit to be trusted with the receipt and expenditure of large sums of money. There are nations whose commodities are looked shily upon by merchants, because they cannot depend on finding the quality of the article conformable to that of the sample. Such short-sighted frauds are far from unexampled in English exports. Every one has heard of "devil's dust:" and among other instances given by Mr. Babbage, is one in which a branch of export trade was for a long time actually stopped by the forgeries and frauds which had occurred in it. On the other hand the substantial advantage derived in business transactions from proved trustworthiness, is not less remarkably exemplified in the same work. At one of our largest towns, sales and purchases on a very extensive scale are made daily in the course of business without any of the parties ever exchanging a written document." Spread over a year's transactions, how great a return, in saving of time, trouble, and expense, is brought in to แ * Some minor instances noticed by Mr. Babbage may be cited in further illustration of the waste occasioned to society through the inability of its members to trust one another. "The cost to the purchaser is the price he pays for any article, added to the cost of verifying the fact of its having that degree of goodness for which he contracts. In some cases, the goodness of the article is evident on mere inspection; and in those cases there is not much difference of price at different shops. The goodness of loaf sugar, for instance, can be discerned almost at a glance; and the consequence is, that the price is so uniform, and the profit upon it so small, that no grocer is at all anxious to sell it; whilst on the other hand, tea, of which it is exceedingly difficult to judge, and which can be adulterated by mixture so as to deceive the skill even of a practised eye, has a great variety of different prices, and is that article which every grocer is most anxious to sell to his customers. The difficulty and expense of verification are in some instances so great as to justify the deviation from well-established principles. Thus it is a general maxim that Government can purchase any article at a cheaper rate than that at which they can manufacture it themselves. But it has, nevertheless, been considered more econo mical to build extensive flour-mills (such as those at Deptford), and to grind their own corn, than to verify each sack of purchased flour, and to employ persons in devising me 6. Among the secondary causes which determine the productiveness of productive agents, the most important is Security. By security I mean the completeness of the protection which society affords to its members. This consists of protection by the government, and protection against the government. The latter is the more important. Where a person known to possess anything worth taking away, can expect nothing but to have it torn from him, with every circumstance of tyrannical violence, by the agents of a rapacious government, it is not likely that many will exert themselves to produce much more than necessaries. This is the acknowledged explanation of the poverty of many fertile tracts of Asia, which were once prosperous and populous. From this to the degree of security enjoyed in the best governed thods of detecting the new modes of adulteration which might be continually resorted to." A similar want of confidence might deprive a nation, such as the United States, of a large export trade in flour. Again: "Some years since, a mode of preparing old clover and trefoil seeds by a process called doctoring became so prevalent as to excite the attention of the House of Commons. It appeared in evidence before a Committee, that the old seed of the white clover was doctored by first wetting it slightly, and then drying it by the fumes of burning sulphur; and that the red clover seed had its colour improved by shaking it in a sack with A small quantity of indigo but this being detected after a time, the doctors then used a preparation of logwood, fined by a little copperas, and sometimes by verdigris; thus at once improving the appearance of the old seed, and diminishing, if not destroying, its vegetative power, already enfeebled by age. Supposing no injury had resulted to good seed so prepared, it was proved that, from the improved appearance, the market price would be enhanced by this process from five to twenty-five shillings a hundred-weight. But the greatest evil arose from the circumstance of these processes rendering old and worthless seed equal in appearance to the best. One witness had tried some doctored seed, and found that not above one grain in a hundred grew, and that those which did vegetate died away afterwards; whilst about eighty or ninety per cent of good seed usually grows. The seed so treated was sold to retail dealers in the country, who of course endeavoured to purchase at the cheapest rate, and from them it got into the hands of the farmers, neither of these classes being ca pable of distinguishing the fraudulent from the genuine seed. Many cultivators in consequence diminished their consumption of the of parts of Europe, there are numerous gradations. In many provinces France, before the Revolution, a vicious system of taxation on the land, and still more the absence of redress against the arbitrary exactions which were made under colour of the taxes, rendered it the interest of every cultivator to appear poor, and therefore to cultivate badly. The only insecurity which is altogether paralyzing to the active energies of producers, is that arising from the government, or from persons invested with its authority. Against all other depredators there is a hope of defending oneself. Greece and the Greek colonies in the ancient world, Flanders and Italy in the Middle Ages, by no means enjoyed what any one with modern ideas would call security: the state of society was most unsettled and turbulent; person and property articles, and others were obliged to pay a higher price to those who had skill to distinguish the mixed seed, and who had integrity and character to prevent them from dealing in it." The same writer states that Irish flax, though in natural quality inferior to none, sells, or did lately sell, in the market at a penny to twopence per pound less than foreign or British flax; part of the difference arising from negligence in its preparation, but part from the cause mentioned in the evidence of Mr. Corry, many years Secretary to the Irish Linen Board: "The owners of the flax, who are almost always people in the lower classes of life, believe that they can best advance their own interests by imposing on the buyers. Flax being sold by weight, various expedients are used to increase it; and every expedient is injurious, particularly the damping of it; a very common practice, which makes the flax afterwards heat. inside of every bundle (and the bundles all vary in bulk) is often full of pebbles, or dirt of various kinds, to increase the weight. this state it is purchased and exported to Great Britain." The In It was given in evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons that the lace trade at Nottingham had greatly failen off, from the making of fraudulent and bad articles that "a kind of lace called singlepress was manufactured," (I still quote Mr. Babbage) "which, although good to the eye, became nearly spoiled in washing by the slipping of the threads; that not one person in a thousand could distinguish the difference between single-press and double-press lace; that even workmen and manufacturers were obliged to employ a magnifying-glass for that purpose; and that in another similar article, called warp-lace, such aid was essential." |