[! - • ' . . • . . ' . ' - 1 1 THE WORLDS GREAT CLASSICS J^y-i -JTZ -L4 «iar-gg, pi,*! oj. iiJL »uc om.ouiotA. aa. jjla *»ji 'Jll ^:oolwx^I21 -^ : *i # % \ia ^ir^rii-xdTTra »m. -r-r *>x ** -xx •TH E COLON IAL• PR.E 5 S • • NEW YORK MDCCCXC1X • Lit BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRA}. CHESTNUT HILL. MASS* » % n 145239 Hi? )K JOHN STUART MILL . Photogravure from a steel engraving. QtXX3atXXXXXXXXJUOOOODOOOOXKXX3UU.K XXKXUXXWUJU » PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY ww»^>'icyi 1 ^ I >< a M H o WITH SOME OF THEIR APPLICATIONS TO SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY BY JOHN STUART MILL WITH A SPECIAL INTRODUCTION BY ARTHUR T. HADLEY, LL.D. PRESIDENT OF YALE UNIVERSITY; UNTIL 1899, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY REVISED EDITION VOLUME I MCAWMCWOXf/ .)xt>)x(>)x cox wq Trl E ,b?o W 5S53 >*\ r i1 n o one would , make or use ploughs for any other reason than because the in¬ c reased returns, thereby obtained from the ground, afforded a source from which an adequate equivalent could be assigned for the labor of the plough-maker.. If the produce is to be used or consumed in the form of bread, it is from the bread that this equivalent must come. The bread must suffice to remunerate 3° POLITICAL ECONOMY all these laborers, and several others; such as the carpenters and bricklayers who erected the farm buildings; the hedgers and ditchers who made the fences necessary for the protection of the crop; the miners and smelters who extracted or pre¬ pared the iron of which the plough and other implements were made. These, however, and the plough-maker, do not depend for their remuneration upon the bread made from the produce of a single harvest, but upon that made from the produce of all the harvests which are successively gathered until the plough, or the buildings and fences, are worn out. We must add yet another kind of labor; that of transporting the produce from the place of its production to the place of its destined use: the labor of carrying the corn to market, and from market to the miller’s, the flour from the miller’s to the baker’s, and the bread from the baker’s to the place of its final consumption. This labor is sometimes very considerable: flour is transported to England from beyond the Atlantic, corn from the heart of Russia; and in addition to the laborers immediately employed, the wagoners and sailor^, there are also costly instruments, such as ships, in the construction of which much labor has been expended: that labor, however, not depending for its whole remuneration upon the bread, but for a part only; ships being usually, during the course of their existence, employed in the transport of many different kinds of commodities. ^0 estimate^ therefore, the labor of which any given co m¬ modity is the result, is far from a simple operation . The items in the calculation are very numerous—as it may seem to some persons, infinitely so; for if, as a part of the labor employed in making bread, we count the labor of the blacksmith who made the plough, why not also (it may be asked) the labor of making the tools used by the blacksmith, and the tools used in making those tools, and so back to the origin of things? But after mounting one or two steps in this ascending scale, we come into a region of fractions too minute for calculation. Suppose, for instance, that the same plough will last, before being worn out, a dozen years. Only one-twelfth of the labor of making the plough must be placed to the account of each year’s harvest. A twelfth part of the labor of making a plough is an appre¬ ciable quantity. But the same set of tools, perhaps, suffice to the plough-maker for forging a hundred ploughs, which serve during the twelve years of their existence to prepare the soil of LABOR AS AN AGENT OF PRODUCTION 3i as many different farms. A twelve-hundredth part of the labor of making his tools, is as much, therefore, as has been ex¬ pended in procuring one year’s harvest of a single farm: and when this fraction comes to be further apportioned among the , various sacks of corn and loaves of bread, it is seen at once that such quantities are not worth taking into the account for any practical purpose connected with the commodity. It is true that if the tool-maker had not labored, the corn and bread never would have been produced; but they will not be sold a tenth part of a farthing dearer in consideration of his labor. § 2. Another of the modes in which labor is indirectly or remote l y instrumental to the production of a thing, requi res particular notice: namely, when it is employed in producing subsistence, to maintain the laborers while they are engage d in the production. This previous employment of labor is an indispensable condition to every productive operation, on a ny other than the very smallest scale . Except the labor of the hunter and fisher, there is scarcely, any kind of labor to which the returns are immediate. Productive operations require to be continued a certain time, before their fruits are obtained. Unless the laborer, before commencing his work, possesses a store of food, or can obtain access to the stores of some one else, in sufficient quantity to maintain him until the produc¬ tion is completed, he can undertake no labor but such as can be carried on at odd intervals, concurrently with the pursuit of his subsistence. Pie cannot obtain food itself in any abun¬ dance ; for every mode of so obtaining it, requires that there be already food in store. Agriculture only brings forth food after the lapse of months ; and though the labors of the agriculturist are not necessarily continuous during the whole period, they must occupy a considerable part of it. Not only is agriculture impossible without food produced in advance, but there must, be a very great quantity in advance to enable any considerable community to support itself wholly by agriculture. A country like England or France is only able to carry on the agriculture of the present year, because that of past years has provided, in those countries or somewhere else, sufficient food to sup¬ port their agricultural population until the next harvest. They are only enabled to produce so many other things besides food, because the food which was in store at the close of the last har¬ vest suffices to maintain not only the agricultural laborers, but a large industrious population besides. 3 2 POLITICAL ECONOMY The labor employed in producing this stock of subsistence, forms a great and important part of the past labor which has been necessary to enable present labor to be carried on. But there is a di fference, requiring particular notice, between thi s ^nd the other kinds of previous orjpreparato'ry lalJo r^The miller, the reaper, the ploughman, the plou gh-maker, the^ wag¬ oner and'w^on'mTffkeTTTvenTHFTailor andshipbuilder when dftyM6yed, derive TftgtT fenumeration irom the ultimate product —the bread made Irom the*cbrtl Oil which they have severally operated, or supplied tne instruments lor operating. The labor thaFproduced the food which led all these laborers, is as necessary to the ultimate result, the bread of the present har¬ vest, as any of those other portions of labor; but is not, like * them, remunerated from it. That previous labor has received its remuneration from the previous food. In order to raise any product, there are needed labor, tools, and materials, and food to feed the laborers. But the tools and materials are of * no use except for obtaining the product, or at least are to be applied to no other use, and the labor of their construction can be remunerated only from the product when obtained. The food, on the contrary, is intrinsically useful, and is applied to the direct use of feeding human beings. The labor expended in producing the food, and recompensed by it, needs not be remunerated over again from the produce of the subsequent labor which it has fed. If we suppose that the same body of laborers carried on a manufacture, and grew food to sustain themselves while doing it, they have had for their trouble the food and the manufactured article; but if they also grew the material and made the tools, they have had nothing for that trouble but the manufactured article alone. The claim to remuneration f ound ed on the possession of food, available for the maintenance of laborers, is of anothe r I Findf remu nerationTfor abstinence, not for labor. Tf a person has a store of food, he has it in his power to consume it him- self in idleness , or in feedin g others to attend on him, or to fight for hi m, or to sing or dance for him. If, instead of these; t hings, he gives it to productive laborers to support them dur¬ in g their wo rk, he can, and naturally will, claim a rem unera- . tion from the produce. He will not be content with simple Re¬ p ayment ; if he receives merely that, he is only in the same situation as at first, and has derived no advantage from delay- LABOR AS AN AGENT OF PRODUCTION 33 ing to apply his savings to his own benefit or pleasure. He will look for some equivalent for this forbearance: he will expect his advance of food to come back to him with an increase, called in the language of business, a profit ; and the hope of this profit will generally have been a part of the inducement which made him accumulate a stock, by economizing in his own consump¬ tion ; or, at any rate, which made him forego the application of it, when accumulated, to his personal ease or satisfaction. The food also which maintained other workmen while produc¬ ing the tools or materials, must have been provided in advance by some one, and he, too, must have his profit from the ulti¬ mate product; but there is this difference, that here the ulti¬ mate product has to supply not only the profit, but also the remuneration of the labor. The tool-maker (say, for instance, the plough-maker) does not indeed usually wait for his pay¬ ment until the harvest is reaped; the farmer advances it to him, and steps into his place by becoming the owner of the plough. Nevertheless, it is from the harvest that the payment is to come, since the farmer would not undertake this outlay unless he expected that the harvest would repay him, and with a profit too on this fresh advance; that is, unless the harvest would yield, besides the remuneration of the farm laborers (and a profit for advancing it), a sufficient residue to remunerate the plough-maker’s laborers, give the plough-maker a profit, and a profit to the farmer on both. § 3. From these considerations it appears, that in an enu¬ meration and classification of the kinds of industry which are intended for the indirect or remote furtherance of other prq - ductive labo r, we need not include the labor of producing sub¬ sistence or other necessaries of life to be consumed by produc¬ tive laborers; for the main end and purpose of this labor is the subsistence itself; and though the possession of a store of it enables other work to be done, this is but an incidental consequence. The remaining modes in which l abor is indi¬ rectly instrumental t o production, mav be arranged under fivg heads. -- FirsL Labor employed in producing material s, on which industry is to be afterwards employed. This is, in many cases, a labor of mere appropriation; extractive industry , as it has been aptly named by M. Dunoyer. The labor of the miner, for example, consists of operations for digging out of the earth Vol. I.—3 34 POLITICAL ECONOMY substances convertible by industry into various articles fitted for human use. Extractive industry, however, is not confined to the extraction of materials. Coal, for instance, is employed, not only in the processes of industry, but in directly warming human beings. When so used, it is not a material of produc¬ tion, but is itself the ultimate product. So, also, in the case of a mine of precious stones. These are to some small extent employed in the productive arts, as diamonds by the glass-cut¬ ter, emery and corundum for polishing, but their principal destination, that of ornament, is a direct use; though they commonly require, before being so used, some process of man¬ ufacture, which may perhaps warrant our regarding them as materials. Metallic ores of all sorts are materials merely. Under the head, production of materials, we must include the industry of the wood-cutte r, when employed in cutting and preparing timber for building, or wood for the purpose of the carpenter’s or any other art. In the forests of America, Nor¬ way, Germany, the Pyrenees, and Alps, this sort of labor is largely employed on trees of spontaneous growth. In other cases, we must add to the labor of the wood-cutter that of the planter and cultivator. Under the same head are also comprised the labors of the agriculturists in growing flax, hemp, cotton, feeding silk¬ worms, raisin g food for cattle, producing bark, dye-stuffs, some oleaginous plants, and many other things only useful because required in other departments of industry. So, too, the labor of the hunter, as far as his object is furs or feathers; of the shepherd and the cattle-breeder, in respect of wool, hides, horn, bristles, horse-hair, and the like. The things used as materials in some process or other of manufacture are of a most miscel¬ laneous character, drawn from almost every quarter of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. And besides this, the finished products of many branches of industry are the ma¬ terials of others. The thread produced by the skinner is applied to hardly any use except as material for the weaver. Even the^ product of the loom is chiefly used as material for the fabrica¬ tors of articles of dress or furniture, or of further instruments of productive industry, as in the case of the sail-maker. The currier and tanner find their whole occupation in converting raw material into what may be termed prepared material. In strictness of speech, almost all food, as it comes from the hands LABOR AS AN AGENT OF PRODUCTION 35 of the agriculturist, is nothing more than material for the occu¬ pation of the baker or the cook. § 4. The second kind of indire ct labor is that e mployed in making tools or implements for the assistance of labor. I use these terms in their most comprehensive sense, embracing all permanent instruments or helps to production, from a flint and steel for striking a light, to a steamship, or the most complex apparatus of manufacturing machinery. There may be some hesitation where to draw the line between implements and ma¬ terials; and some things used in production (such as fuel) would scarcely in common language be called by either name, popular phraseology being shaped out by a different class of necessities from those of scientific exposition. To avoid a multiplication of classes and denominations answering to dis¬ tinctions of no scientific importance, political economists gen¬ erally include all things which are used as immediate means of production (the means which are not immediate will be con¬ sidered presently) either in the class of implements or in that of materials. Perhaps the line is most usually and most con¬ veniently drawn, by considering as a material every instrument of production which can only be used once, being destroyed (at least as an instrument for the purpose in hand) by a single employment. Thus fuel, once burnt, cannot be again used as fuel; what can be so used is only any portion which has re¬ mained unburnt the first time. And not only it cannot be used without being consumed, but it is only useful by being con¬ sumed ; for if no part of the fuel were destroyed, no heat would be generated. A fleece, again, is destroyed as a fleece by being spun into thread; and the thread cannot be used as thread when woven into cloth. But an axe is not destroyed as an axe by cutting down a tree: it may be used afterwards to cut down a hundred or a thousand more; and though deteriorated in some small degree by each use, it does not do its work by being deteriorated, as the coal and the fleece do theirs by being de¬ stroyed ; on the contrary, it is the better instrument the better it resists deterioration. There are some things, rightly classed as materials, which may be used as such a second and a third time, but not while the product to which they at first contrib¬ uted remains in existence. The iron which formed a tank or a set of pipes may be melted to form a plough or a steam en¬ gine ; the stones with which a house was built may be used after 3^ POLITICAL ECONOMY it is pulled down, to build another. But this cannot be done while the original product subsists; their function as materials is suspended, until the exhaustion of the first use. Not so with the things classed as implements; they may be used repeatedly for fresh work, until the time, sometimes very distant, at which they are worn out, while the work already done by them may subsist unimpaired, and when it perishes, does so by its own laws, or by casualties of its own.* The only practical difference of much importance arising from the distinction between materials and implements, is one which has attracted our attention in another case. Since ma¬ terials are destroyed as such by being once used, the whole of the labor required for their production, as well as the absti¬ nence of the person who supplied the means of carrying it on, must be remunerated from the fruits of that single use. Imple¬ ments, on the contrary, being susceptible of repeated employ¬ ment, the whole of the products which they are instrumental in bringing into existence are a fund which can be drawn upon to remunerate the labor of their construction, and the absti¬ nence of those by whose accumulations that labor was sup¬ ported. It is enough if each product contributes a fraction, commonly an insignificant one, towards the remuneration of that labor and abstinence, or towards indemnifying the imme¬ diate producer for advancing that remuneration to the person who produced the tools. § 5 - Thirdly : Besides materials for industry to employ itself on, and implements to aid it, provision must be made to pre¬ vent its operations from being disturbed and its products in¬ jured, either by the destroying agencies of nature, or by the violence or rapacity of men. This gives rise to another mode in which labor not employed directly about the product itself, is instrumental to its production; namely, when employed for the protection of industry. Such is the object of all build- ings for industrial purposes; all manufactories, warehouses, * The able and friendly reviewer of this treatise in the Edinburgh “ Review ” (October, 1848) conceives the distinction between materials and implements rather differently: proposing to con¬ sider as materials “ all the things which, after having undergone the change im¬ plied in production, are themselves mat¬ ter of exchange,” and as implements (or instruments) “ the things which are em¬ ployed in producing that change, but do not themselves become part of the ex¬ changeable result.” According to these definitions, the fuel consumed in a man¬ ufactory would be considered, not as a material, but as an instrument. This use of the terms accords better than that proposed in the text, with the primitive physical meaning of the word “ mate¬ rial ”; but the distinction on which it is grounded is one almost irrelevant to political economy. LABOR AS AN AGENT OF PRODUCTION 37 docks, granaries, barns, farm buildings devoted to cattle, or to the operations of agricultural labor. I exclude those tn which the laborers live, or which are destined for their personal accommodation: these, like their food, supply actual wants, and must be counted in the remuneration of their labor. There are many modes in which labor is still more directly applied to the protection of productive operations. The herdsman has little other occupation than to protect the cattle from harm: the positive agencies concerned in the realization of the prod¬ uct, go on nearly of themselves. I have already mentioned the labor of the hedger and ditcher, of the builder of walls or dikes. To these must be added that of the soldier, the police¬ man, and the judge. These functionaries are not indeed em¬ ployed exclusively in the protection of industry, nor does their payment constitute, to the individual producer, a part of the ex¬ penses of production. But they are paid from the taxes, which are derived from the produce of industry; and in any tolerably governed country they render to its operations a service far more than equivalent to the cost. To society at large they are, therefore, part of the expenses of production: and if the re¬ turns to production were not sufficient to maintain these labor¬ ers in addition to all the others required, production, at least in that form and manner, could not take place. Besides, if the protection which the government affords to the operations of industry were not afforded, the producers would be under a necessity of either withdrawing a large share of their time and labor from production, to employ it in defence, or of engaging armed men to defend them; all which labor, in that case, must be directly remunerated from the produce; and things which could not pay for this additional labor, would not be produced. Under the present arrangements, the product pays its quota towards the same protection, and, notwithstanding the waste and prodigality incident to government expenditure, obtains it of better quality at a much smaller cost. § 6. Fourthly : There is a very great amount of labor em ¬ ployed, not in bringing the product into existence, but in re n¬ dering it, when in existence, accessible to those for whose use it is intended. Many important classes of laborers find their sole employment in some function of this kind. There is first the whole class of carriers, by land or water: muleteer s, wag- oners, bargemen, sailors, wharfmen, coal-heavers, porters, 38 POLITICAL ECONOMY railway establishments, and the lik^ Next, there are the con¬ structors of all the implements of transport; ships, barges, carts, locomotives, etc., to which must be added roads, canals, and railways. Roads are sometimes made by the government, and opened gratuitously to the public; but the labor of making them is not the less paid for from the produce. Each producer, in paying his quota of the taxes levied generally for the con¬ struction of roads, pays for the use of those which conduce to his convenience; and if made with any tolerable judgment, they increase the returns to his industry by far more than an equivalent amount. Another numerous class of laborers employed in rendering the things produced accessible to their intended consumers, is the class of dealers and traders , or, as they may be termed, .diSi tributor s. There would be a great waste of time and trouble, and an inconvenience often amounting to impracticability, if consumers could only obtain the articles they want by treating directly with the producers. Both producers and consumers are too much scattered, and the latter often at too great a dis¬ tance from the former. To diminish this loss of time and labor, the contrivance of fairs and markets was early had re¬ course to, where consumers and producers might periodically meet, without any intermediate agency; and this plan answers tolerably well for many articles, especially agricultural produce, agriculturists having at some seasons a certain quantity of spare time on their hands. But even in this case, attendance is often very troublesome and inconvenient to buyers who have other occupations, and do not live in the immediate vicinity; while, for all articles the production of which requires contin¬ uous attention from the producers, these periodical markets must be held at such considerable intervals, and the wants of the consumers must either be provided for so long beforehand, or must remain so long unsupplied, that even before the re¬ sources of society admitted of the establishment of shops, the supply of these wants fell universally into the hands of itinerant dealers; the pedler, who might appear once a month, being preferred to the fair, which only returned once or twice a year. In country districts, remote from towns or large villages, the industry of the pedler is not yet wholly superseded. But a dealer who has a fixed abode and fixed customers is so much* more to be depended on, that consumers prefer resorting to LABOR AS AN AGENT OF PRODUCTION 39 him if he is conveniently accessible; and dealers, therefore, find their advantage in establishing themselves in every local¬ ity where there are sufficient consumers near at hand to afford them a remuneration. In many cases the producers and dealers are the same per¬ sons, at least as to the ownership of the funds and the control of the operations. The tailor, the shoemaker, the baker, and many other tradesmen, are the producers of the articles they deal in, so far as regards the last stage in the production. This union, however, of the functions of manufacturer and retailer, is only expedient when the article can advantageously be made at or near the place convenient for retailing it, and is, besides, manufactured and sold in small parcels. When things have to be brought from a distance, the same person cannot effectu¬ ally superintend both the making and the retailing of them: when they are best and most cheaply made on a large scale, a single manufactory, requires so many local channels to carry off its supply, that the retailing is most conveniently delegated to other agency: and even shoes and coats, when they are to be furnished in large quantities at once, as for the supply of a regiment or of a workhouse, are usually obtained not directly from the producers, but from intermediate dealers, who make it their business to ascertain from what producers they can be obtained best and cheapest. Even when things are destined to be at last sold by retail, convenience soon creates a class of wholesale dealers. When products and transactions have mul¬ tiplied beyond a certain point; when one manufactory sup¬ plies many shops, and one shop has often to obtain goods from many different manufactories, the loss of time and trouble both to the manufacturers and to the retailers by treating directly with one another, makes it more convenient to them to treat with a smaller number of great dealers or merchants, who only buy to sell again, collecting goods from the various producers, and distributing them to the retailers, to be by them further distributed among the consumers. Of these various element s is com posed the Distributing Class, whose agency is supple¬ mentary to that of the Producing Gl ass: and the produce so distributed, or its price, is the source from which the distrib¬ utors are remunerated for their exertions, and for the ab¬ stinence which enabled them to advance the funds needful for the business of distribution. 40 POLITICAL ECONOMY § 7. We have now completed the enumeration of the modes in which labor employed on external nature is subservient to production. But there is yet another mode of employing labor which conduces equally, though still more remotely, to that end: this is, labor of which the subject is hu man being s. Every human being has been brought up from infancy at the expense of much labor to some person or persons, and if this labor or part of it had not been bestowed, the child would never have attained the age and strength which enable him to become a laborer in his turn. To the community at large, the labor and expense of rearing its infant population form a part of the out¬ lay which is a condition of production, and which is to be re¬ placed with increase from the future produce of their labor. By the individuals, this labor and expense are usually incurred from other motives than to obtain such ultimate return, and, for most purposes of political economy, need not be taken into account as expenses of production. But Ijie technical or in¬ dustrial education of the co mmunity; the l abor employed i n l earning an d in teaching the arts of production, in acquiring and communicating skill m those arts^ this labor is reall y, and in general solely, undergone fo r the sake of t he g reater or more valuable produce thereby attained, and in order that a remuneration, equival ent or more than equivalent, may be reaped by the learner, besides an adequate r emuneration fo r t fie laboF o f tfie teacher, when a te acher has been employed. As the labor which confers productive powers'whether of hand or of head, may be looked upon as part of the labor by which society accomplishes its productive operations, or in other words, as part of what the produce costs to society, so, too, may the labor employed in keeping up productive powers ; in preventing them from being destroyed or weakened by acci¬ dent or disease. The lab or of a physician o r surgeon , when made use of by persons engaged in industry, must be regarded in the economy of society as a sacrifice incurred, to preserve from perishing by death or infirmity that portion of the produc¬ tive resources of society which is fixed in the lives and bodily or mental powers of its productive members. To the individuals, indeed, this forms but a part, sometimes an imperceptible part, of the motives that induce them to submit to medical treatment: it is not principally from economical motives that persons have a limb amputated, or endeavor to be cured of a fever, though LABOR AS AN AGENT OF PRODUCTION 4i when they do so there is generally sufficient inducement for it even on that score alone. This is, therefore, one of the cases of labor and outlay which, though conducive to production, yet not being incurred for that end, or for the sake of the re¬ turns arising from it, are out of the sphere of most of the gen¬ eral propositions which political economy has occasion to as¬ sert respecting productive labor: though, when society and not the individuals are considered, this labor and outlay must be regarded as part of the advance by which society effects its productive operations, and for which it is indemnified by the produce. § 8. Another kind of labor, usually classed as mental, but conducing to the ultimate product as directly, though not so immediately, as manual labor itself, is the labor of the inventors of industrial processes. I say, usually classed as mental, be¬ cause in reality it is not exclusively so. All human exertion is compounded of some mental and some bodily elements. The stupidest hodman, who repeats from day to day the mechanical act of climbing a ladder, performs a function partly intellectual; so much so, indeed, that the most intelligent dog or elephant could not, probably, be taught to do it. The dullest human be¬ ing, instructed beforehand, is capable of turning a mill; but a horse cannot turn it without somebody to drive and watch him. On the other hand, there is some bodily ingredient in the labor most purely mental, when it generates any external result. Newto n could not have produced the “ Principia ” without the bodily exertion either of penmanship or of dictation; and he must have drawn many diagrams, and written out many calculations and demonstrations, while he was preparing it in his mind. Inventors, besides the labor of their brains, generally go through much labor with their hands, in the models which they construct and the experiments they have to make before their idea can realize itself successfully in act. Whether men¬ tal, however, or bodily, their labor is a part of that by which the production is brought about. The labor of Wattp n contriving the steam-engin e was as essential a part of production as that of the mechanics who build or the engineers who work the instrument; and was undergone, no less than theirs, in the prospect of a remuneration from the produce. The labor of invention is often estimated and paid on the very same plan as that of execution. Many manufacturers of ornamental 42 POLITICAL ECONOMY goods have inventors in their employment, who receive wages or salaries for designing patterns, exactly as others do for copying them. All this is strictly part of the labor of produc¬ tion ; as the labor of the author of a book is equally a part of its production with that of the printer and binder. In a national, or universal point of view, the labor of the savant, or speculative thinker, is as much a part of production in the very narrowest sense, as that of the inventor of a practical art; many such inventions having been the direct consequences of theoretic discoveries, and every extension of knowledge of the powers of nature being fruitful of applications to the pur¬ poses of outward life. The electro-magnetic telegraph was the wonderful and most unexpected consequence of the experi¬ ments of CErsted and the mathematical investigations of Am¬ pere : and the modern art of navigation is an unforeseen emana¬ tion from the purely speculative and apparently merely curious inquiry, by the mathematicians of Alexandria, into the prop¬ erties of three curves formed by the intersection of a plane surface and a cone. No limit can be set to the importance, even in a purely productive and material point of view, of mere thought. Inasmuch, however, as these material fruits, though the results are seldom the direct purpose of the pursuits of savants, nor is their remuneration in general derived from the increased production which may be caused incidentally, and mostly after a long interval, by their discoveries; this ulti¬ mate influence does not, for most of the purposes of political economy, require to be taken into consideration; and specula¬ tive thinkers are generally classed as the producers only of the books, or other usable or salable articles, which directly ema¬ nate from them. But when (as in political economy one should always be prepared to do) we shift our point of view, and con¬ sider not individual acts, and the motives by which they are determined, but national and universal results, intellectual speculation must be looked upon as a most influential part of the productive labor of society, and the portion of its resources employed in carrying on and in remunerating such labor, as a highly productive part of its expenditure. § 9* In the foregoing survey of the modes of employin g labor in furtherance of pr oductio n, I have made little use of th e popular distinction of indust ry into agricultural, manufac tur¬ ing, and commercial. For, in truth, this division fulfils very LABOR AS AN AGENT OF PRODUCTION 43 badly the pur poses of a classification . Many great branches of productive industry find no place m it, or not without much straining; for example (not to speak of hunters or fishers) the mine r, the road-ma ker, and the .sailo r. The limit, too, between agricultural and manufacturing industry cannot be precisely drawn. The miller , for instance, and the baker —are they to be reckoned among agriculturists, or among manufacturers? Their occupation is in its nature manufacturing; the food has finally parted company with the soil before it is handed over to them: this, however, might be said with equal truth of the thresher, the winnower, the makers of butter and cheese; operations always counted as agricultural, probably because it is the custom for them to be performed by persons resident on the farm, and under the same superintendence as tillage. For many purposes, all these persons, the miller and baker inclu¬ sive, must be placed in the same class with ploughmen and reapers. They are all concerned in producing food, and depend for their remuneration on the food produced: when the one class abounds and flourishes, the others do so too; they form collectively the “ agricultural interest ”; they render but one service to the community by their united labors, and are paid from one common source. Even the tillers of the soil, again, when the produce is not food, but the materials of what are commonly termed manufactures, belong in many respects to the same division in the economy of society as manufacturers. The cotton-planter of Carolina, and the wool-grower of Aus¬ tralia, have more interests in common with the spinner and weaver than with the corn-grower. But, on the other hand, the industry which operates immediately upon the soil has, as we shall see hereafter, some properties on which many impor¬ tant consequences depend, and which distinguish it from all the subsequent stages of production, whether carried on by the same person or not; from the industry of the thresher and winnower, as much as from that of the cotton-spinner. When I speak, therefore, of agricultural labor, I shall generally mean this, and this exclusively, unless the contrary is either stated or implied in the context. The term manufacturing is too vague to be of much use when precision is required, and when I employ it, I wish to be understood as intending to speak popularly rather than scientifically. 44 POLITICAL ECONOMY Chapter III.—Of Unproductive Labor. § i. Labor is indispensable to production, but has not always production for its effect. There is much labor, and of a high order of usefulness, of which production is not the object. Labor has accordingly been distinguished into Productive and Unproductive. There has been not a little controversy among political economists on the question, what kinds of labor should be reputed to be unproductive; and they have not always per¬ ceived that there was in reality no matter of fact in dispute be¬ tween them. Many writers have been unwill i ng to class any labor as pro ¬ ductive, unless its result is palpable in some material object , capable of being transf erred from one person to another. T here are others /among whom are M r. MUulloch and M. Sav_) w ho lo oking upon t he word un ment, re mons trate ag ainst js regat ded as useful—which produces a benefit or a pleasure worth the cost. *rhe l ab or of officers of government, of the army and navy, of physicians, lawyers, teachers, musicians / dancers, actors, domestic servants, etc., when they really ac ¬ complish what they are paid for, and are not mor e numerou s than is required for its performance, ought not, say these writ ¬ ers, to be “ stigmatized ” as unproductive, an expression wh ich they appear to regard as synonymous with wasteful or worth ¬ less. But this seems to be a misunderstanding of the matt er i n dispute. Production not being the sole end of human exis t¬ ence, the term unproductive does not necessarily imply any stigma; nor was ever intended to do so in the present case . The question is one of mere language and classification. Dif- /erences~of language however, are by no means unimportant L even when not grounded on differences of opinion; for, though either of two expressions may be consistent with the whole truth, they generally tend to fix attention upon different parts of it. We must therefore enter a little into the consideration of the various meanings which may attach to the words pro¬ ductive and unproductive when applied to labor. In the first place, even in what is called the production of material objects, it must be remembered that what is produced is not the matter composing them. All the labor of all the human beings in the world could not produce one particle of productive as a term of disparage- imposing it upon any labor whicfi UNPRODUCTIVE LABOR 45 matter. To weave broadcloth is but to rearrange, in a peculiar manner, the particles of wool; to grow corn is only to put a portion of matter called a seed, into a situation where it can draw together particles of matter from the earth and air, to form the new combination called a plant. Though we cannot create matter, we can cause it to assume properties, by which, from having been useless to us, it becomes useful. What we produce, or desire to produce, is always, as M. Say rightly terms it, a utility. Labor is not creative of objects, but of utilities. Neither, again, do we consume and destroy the ob¬ jects themselves; the matter of which they were composed re¬ mains, more or less altered in form: what has really been con¬ sumed is only the qualities by which they were fitted for the purpose they have been applied to. It is, therefore, pertinently asked by M. Say and others—since, when we are said to pro¬ duce objects, we only produce utility, why should not all labor which produces utility be accounted productive? Why refuse that title to the surgeon who sets a limb, the judge or legislator who confers security, and give it to the lapidary who cuts and polishes a diamond? Why deny it to the teacher from whom I learn an art by which I can gain my bread, and accord it to the confectioner who makes bonbons for the momentary pleas¬ ure of a sense of taste? It is quite true that all these kinds of labor are productive of utility; and the question which now occupies us could not have been a question at all, if the production of utility were enough to satisfy the notion which mankind have usually formed of productive labor. Production, and productive, are, of course, elliptical expressions, involving the idea of a some¬ thing produced; but this something, in common apprehension, I conceive to be, not utility, but Wealth. Productive labo r mean s labor productive of wealth .* We are recalled, therefore, to the question touched upon in our first chapter, what Wealth is, and whether only material produ cts, or all useful products . are to be included in it. § 2. Now, the utilities produced by labor are of three kinds. They are, First, utilities fixed and embodied in outward objects; by labor employed in investing external material things with properties which render them serviceable to human beings. This is the common case, and requires no illustration. 46 POLITICAL ECONOMY Secondly, utilities fixed and embodied in human beings; the labor being in this case employed in conferring on human beings qualities which render them serviceable to themselves and others. To this class belongs the labor of all concerned in education; not only schoolmasters, tutors, and professors, but governments, so far as they aim successfully at the improve¬ ment of the people; moralists, and clergymen, as far as pro¬ ductive of benefit; the labor of physicians, as far as instru¬ mental in preserving life and physical or mental efficiency; of the teachers of bodily exercises, and of the various trades, sciences, and arts, together with the labor of the learners in acquiring them ; and all labor bestowed by any persons, through¬ out life, in improving the knowledge or cultivating the bodily or mental faculties of themselves or others. Thirdly and lastly, utilities not fixed or embodied in any object, but consisting in a mere service rendered; a pleasure given, an inconvenience or a pain averted, during a longer or a shorter time, but without leaving a permanent acquisition in the improved qualities of any person or thing; the labor being employed in producing a utility directly, not (as in the two former cases) in fitting some other thing to afford a utility. Such, for example, is the labor of the musical performer, the actor, the public declaimer or reciter, and the showman. Some good may no doubt be produced, and much more might be pro¬ duced, beyond the moment, upon the feelings and disposition, or general state of enjoyment of the spectators; or instead of good there may be harm; but neither the one nor the other is the effect intended, is the result for which the exhibitor works and the spectator pays; nothing but the immediate pleasure. Such, again, is the labor of the army and navy; they, at the best, prevent a country from being conquered, or from being injured or insulted, which is*a service, but in all other respects leave the country neither improved nor deteriorated. Such, too, is the labor of the legislator, the judge, the officer of justice, and all other agents of government, in their ordinary functions, apart from any influence they may exert on the improvement of the national mind. The service which they render is to maintain peace and security; these compose the utility which they produce. It may appear to some that carriers and mer¬ chants or dealers should be placed in this same class, since their labor does not add any properties to objects: but I reply UNPRODUCTIVE LABOR 47 that it does; it adds the property of being in the place where they are wanted, instead of being in some other place: which is a very useful property, and the utility it confers is embodied in the things themselves, which now actually are in the place where they are required for use, and in consequence of that increased utility could be sold at an increased price, proportioned to the labor expended in conferring it. This labor, therefore, does not belong to the third class, but to the first. § 3. We have now to consider which of these three classes of labor should be accounted productive of wealth, since that is what the term productive, when used by itself, must be un¬ derstood to import. Utilities of the third class, consisting in pleasures which only exist while being enjoyed, and services which only exist while being performed, cannot be spoken of as wealth, except by an acknowledged metaphor. It is essen¬ tial to the idea of wealth to be susceptible of accumulation: things which cannot, after being produced, be kept for some time before being used, are never, I think, regarded as wealth, since, however much of them may be produced and enjoyed, the person benefited by them is no richer, is nowise improved in circumstances. But there is not so distinct and positive a violation of usage in considering as wealth any product which is both useful and susceptible of accumulation. The skill, and the energy and perseverance, of the artisans of a country, are reckoned part of its wealth, no less than their tools and ma¬ chinery.* According to this definition, we should regard all labor as productive which is employed in creating permanent utilities, whether embodied in human beings, or in any other animate or inanimate objects. This nomenclature I have, in * Some authorities look upon it as an essential element in the idea of wealth, that it should be capable not solely of being accumulated, but of being trans¬ ferred; and inasmuch as the valuable qualities, and even the productive capac¬ ities, of a human being cannot be de¬ tached from him and passed to some one else, they deny to these the appellation of wealth, and to the labor expended in acquiring them the name of productive labor. It seems to me, however, that the skill of an artisan (for instance) being both a desirable possession and one of a certain durability (not to say productive even of material wealth), there is no better reason for refusing to it the title of wealth because it is attached to a man, than to a coalpit or a manufactory because they are attached to a place. Besides, if the skill itself cannot be parted with to a purchaser, the use of it may; if it cannot be sold it can be hired; and it may be, and is, sold outright in all countries whose laws permit that the man himself should be sold along with it. Its defect of transferability does not result from a natural, but from a legal and moral obstacle. The human being himself (as formerly observed) I do not class as wealth. He is the purpose for which wealth exists. But his acquired capacities, which exist only as means, and have been called into existence by labor, fall rightly, as it seems to me, within that designation. 48 POLITICAL ECONOMY a former publication,* recommended as the most conducive to the ends of classification; and I am still of that opinion. But in applying the term wealth to the industrial capacities of human beings, there seems always, in popular apprehension, to be a tacit reference to material products. The skill of an artisan is accounted wealth, only as being the means of acquir¬ ing wealth in a material sense; and any qualities not tending visibly to that object are scarcely so regarded at all. A country would hardly be said to be richer, except by a metaphor, how¬ ever precious a possession it might have in the genius, the virtues, or the accomplishments of its inhabitants; unless in¬ deed these were looked upon as marketable articles, by which it could attract the material wealth of other countries, as the Greeks of old, and several modern nations have done. While, therefore, I should prefer, were I constructing a new technical language, to make the distinction turn upon the permanence rather than upon the materiality of the product, yet when em¬ ploying terms which common usage has taken complete pos¬ session of, it seems advisable so to employ them as to do the least possible violence to usage; since any improvement in ter¬ minology obtained by straining the received meaning of a pop¬ ular phrase, is generally purchased beyond its value, by the obscurity arising from the conflict between new and old asso¬ ciations. I shall, therefore, in this treatise, when speaking of wealth , understand by it only what is called material wealth, and by prod uctive labor only those kinds of exertion which produ ce qtilities embodi ed in material object s. But in limiting myself to this sense of the word, I mean to avail myself of the full extent of that restricted acceptation, and I shall not refuse the appellation productive, to labor which yields no material prod¬ uct as its direct result, provided that an increase of material products is its ultimate consequence. Thus, labor expended in the acquisition of manufacturing skill I class as productive, not in virtue of the skill itself, but of the manufactured products created by the skill, and to the creation of which the labor of learning the trade is essentially conducive. The labor of officers of government, in affording the protection which, afforded in some manner or other, is indispensable to the prosperity of in- * Essays on some Unsettled Questions the words Productive and Unproduc- of “ Political Economy.” Essay III. On tive. UNPRODUCTIVE LABOR 49 dustry, must be classed as productive even of material wealth, because without it, material wealth, in anything like its present abundance, could not exist. Such labor may be said to be pro¬ ductive indirectly or mediately, in opposition to the labor of the ploughman and the cotton-spinner, which are productive imme¬ diately. They are all alike in this, that they leave the commu¬ nity richer in material products than they found it; they in¬ crease, or tend to increase, material wealth. § 4. By Unproductive Labor , on the contrary, will be under¬ stood l abor which does not terminate in the creation of material wealth; which, however largely or successfully practised, does pot render the community and the world atlarge richer in matq- pal pro d ucts, hut poorer hy all thpt is consumed by the laborers yhile so employed. All labor is, in the language of political economy, unproduc¬ tive, which ends in immediate enjoyment, without any increase of the accumulated stock of permanent means of enjoyment. And all labor, according to our present definition, must be classed as unproductive, which terminates in a permanent bene¬ fit, however important, provided that an increase of material products forms no part of that benefit. The labor of saving a friend’s life is not productive, unless the friend is a productive laborer and produces more than he consumes. To a religious person the saving of a soul must appear a far more important service than the saving of a life; but he will not therefore call a missionary or a clergyman productive laborers, unless they teach, as the South Sea Missionaries have in some cases done, the arts of civilization in addition to the doctrines of their re¬ ligion. It is, on the contrary, evident that the greater number of missionaries or clergymen a nation maintains, the less it has to expend on other things; while the more it expends judi¬ ciously in keeping agriculturists and manufacturers at work, the more it will have for every other purpose. By the former it diminishes, cceteris paribus, its stock of material products; by the latter, it increases them. Unproductive may be as useful as productive labor: it may be more useful, even in point of permanent advantag e; or its use may consist only in pleasurable sensation, which, when gone, leaves no trace; or it may not afford even this, but may be absolute waste. Jn any case society or mankind gr o w no ric her by it, but poorer . All material products consumed by anyone VoL. I —4 5° POLITICAL ECONOMY while he produces nothing are so much subtracted, for the time, from the material products which society would otherwise have possessed. But, though society grows no richer by unproduc¬ tive labor, the individual may. An unproductive laborer may receive for his labor, from those who derive pleasure or benefit from it, a remuneration which may be to him a considerable source of wealth; but his gain is balanced by their loss; they may have received a full equivalent for their expenditure, but they are so much poorer by it. When a tailor makes a coat and sells it there is a transfer of the price from the customer to the tailor, and a coat besides which did not previously exist; but what is gained by an actor is a mere transfer from the spec¬ tator’s funds to his, leaving no article of wealth for the spec¬ tator’s indemnification. Thus the community collectively gains nothing by the actor’s labor; and it loses, of his receipts, all that portion which he consumes, retaining only that which he lays by. A community, however, may add to its wealth by unproductive labor, at the expense of other communities, as an individual may at the expense of other individuals. The gains of Italian opera singers, German governesses, French ballet dancers, etc., are a source of wealth, as far as they go, to their respective countries, if they return thither. The petty states of Greece, especially the ruder and more backward of those states, were nurseries of soldiers, who hired themselves to the princes and satraps of the East to carry on useless and destruc¬ tive wars, and returned with their savings to pass their declining years in their own country: these were unproductive laborers, and the pay they received, together with the plunder they took, was an outlay without return to the countries which furnished it; but, though no gain to the world, it was a gain to Greece. At a later period the same country and its colonies supplied the Roman empire with another class of adventurers, who, under the name of philosophers or of rhetoricians, taught to the youth of the higher classes what were esteemed the most valuable accomplishments: these were mainly unproductive laborers, but their ample recompense was a source of wealth to their own country. In none of these cases was there any accession of wealth to the world. The services of the laborers,' if useful, were obtained at a sacrifice to the world of a portion of material wealth; if useless, all that these laborers consumed was, to the world, waste. UNPRODUCTIVE LABOR 5i To be wasted, however, is a liability not confined to unpro¬ ductive labor. Productive labor may equally be wasted if more of it is expended than really conduces to production. If defect of skill in laborers, or of judgment in those who direct them, causes a misapplication of productive industry; if a farmer persists in ploughing with three horses and two men, when ex¬ perience has shown that two horses and one man are sufficient, the surplus labor, though employed for purposes of production, is wasted. If a new process is adopted which proves no better, or not so good as those before in use, the labor expended in perfecting the invention and in carrying it into practice, though employed for a productive purpose, is wasted. Productive labor may render a nation poorer, if the wealth it produces—that is, the increase it makes in the stock of useful or agreeable things— be of a kind not immediately wanted: as when a commodity is unsalable, because produced in a quantity beyond the present demand; or when speculators build docks and warehouses be¬ fore there is any trade. The bankrupt states of North America, with their premature railways and canals, have made this kind of mistake; and it was for some time doubtful whether Eng¬ land, in the disproportionate development of railway enterprise, had not, in some degree, followed the example. Labor sunk in expectation of a distant return, when the great exigencies or limited resources of the community require that the return be rapid, may leave the country not only poorer in the meanwhile, by all which those laborers consume, but less rich even ulti¬ mately than if immediate returns had been sought in the first instance, and enterprises for distant profit postponed. § 5. The distinction of Productive and Unproductive is ap¬ plicable to consumption as well as to labor. All the members of the community are not laborers, but all are consumers, and consume either unproductively or productively. Whoever con¬ tributes nothing directly or indirectly to production, is an un¬ productive consumer. The only productive consumers are pro¬ ductive laborers, the labor of direction being of course included, as well as that of execution. But the consumption even of pro¬ ductive laborers is not all of it productive consumption. There is unproductive consumption by productive consumers. What they consume in keeping up or improving their health, strength, and capacities of work, or in rearing other productive laborers to succeed them, is productive consumption. But consumption on 5 2 POLITICAL ECONOMY pleasures or luxuries, whether by the idle or by the industrious, since production is neither its object nor is in any way advanced by it, must be reckoned unproductive: with a reservation, per¬ haps, of a certain quantum of enjoyment which may be classed among necessaries, since anything short of it would not be consistent with the greatest efficiency of labor. That alone is productive consumption which goes to maintain and increase the productive powers of the community; either those residing in its soil, in its materials, in the number and efficiency of its instruments of production, or in its people. There are numerous products which may be said not to admit of being consumed otherwise than unproductively. The annual consumption of gold lace, pineapples, or champagne must be reckoned unproductive, since these things give no as¬ sistance to production, nor any support to life or strength, but what would equally be given by things much less costly. Hence it might be supposed that the labor employed in producing them ought not to be regarded as productive in the sense in which the term is understood by political economists. I grant that no labor tends to the permanent enrichment of society which is employed in producing things for the use of unproductive con¬ sumers. The tailor who makes a coat for a man who produces nothing is a productive laborer; but in a few weeks or months the coat is worn out, while the wearer has not produced any¬ thing to replace it, and the community is then no richer by the labor of the tailor than if the same sum had been paid for a stall at the opera. Nevertheless, society has been richer by the labor while the coat lasted—that is, until society, through one of its unproductive members, chose to consume the produce of the labor unproductively. The case of the gold lace or the pineapple is no further different than that they are still further removed than the coat from the character of necessaries. These things also are wealth until they have been consumed. § 6. We see, however, by this that there is a distinction, more important to the wealth of a community than even that between productive and unproductive labor—the distinction, namely, be¬ tween labor for the supply of productive, and for the supply of unproductive consumption; between labor employed in keeping up or in adding to the productive resources of the country, and that which is employed otherwise. Of the produce of the coun¬ try, a part only is destined to be consumed productively; the UNPRODUCTIVE LABOR 53 remainder supplies the unproductive consumption of producers and the entire consumption of the unproductive classes. Sup¬ pose that the proportion of the annual produce applied to the first purpose amounts to half; then one-half the productive laborers of the country are all that are employed in the opera¬ tions on which the permanent wealth of the country depends. The other half are occupied from year to year, and from gen¬ eration to generation, in producing things which are consumed and disappear without return; and whatever this half consume is as completely lost, as to any permanent effect on the national resources, as if it were consumed unproductively. Suppose that this second half of the laboring population ceased to work, and that the government or their parishes maintained them in idle¬ ness for a whole year: the first half would suffice to produce, as they had done before, their own necessaries and the neces¬ saries of the second half, and to keep the stock of materials and implements undiminished; the unproductive classes, indeed, would be either starved or obliged to produce their own sub¬ sistence, and the whole community would be reduced during a year to bare necessaries ; but the sources of production would be unimpaired, and the next year there would not necessarily be a smaller produce than if no such interval of inactivity had occurred; while, if the case had been reversed, if the first half of the laborers had suspended their accustomed occupations, and the second half had continued theirs, the country at the end of the twelvemonth would have been entirely impoverished. It would be a great error to regret the large proportion of the annual produce which, in an opulent country, goes to sup¬ ply unproductive consumption. It would be to lament that the community has so much to spare from its necessities for its pleasures and for all higher uses. This portion of the produce is the fund from which all the wants of the community, other than that of mere living, are provided for—the measure of its means of enjoyment and of its power of accomplishing all pur¬ poses not productive. That so great a surplus should be avail¬ able for such purposes, and that it should be applied to them, can only be a subject of congratulation. The things to be re¬ gretted, and which are not incapable of being remedied, are the prodigious inequality with which this surplus is distrib¬ uted, the little worth of the objects to which the greater part of it is devoted, and the large share which falls to the lot of persons who render no equivalent service in return. 54 POLITICAL ECONOMY Chapter IV.—Of Capital § i. It has been seen in the preceding chapters that, besides the primary and universal requisites of production, labor an d natural agents, there is another requisite without which no productive operations beyond the rude and scanty beginnings of primitive industry are possible, namely, a stock, previously accumulated, of the products of former labor. This accumu ¬ lated s tock of the produce of labor is termed Capital. The function'oFCapTfalTrTproduction it is of the utmost importance thoroughly to understand, since a number of the erroneous notions with which our subject is infested originate in an im¬ perfect and confused apprehension of this point. Capital, by persons wholly unused to reflect on the subject, is supposed to be synonymous with money. To expose this mis¬ apprehension would be to repeat what has been said in the introductory chapter. Money is no mpjrejsynony mous with cap ¬ ital than jt_ is with wealth. Money cannot itself perform any part of the office of capital, since it can afford no assistance to production. To do this it must be exchanged for other things; and anything which is susceptible of being exchanged for other things is capable of contributing to production in the same de¬ gree. Wha t capital does for production, is to afford the shelter, protection, tools, and materials which the work requires, and to feed and otherwise maintain the laborers during the proc ess. These are the services which present labor requires from pas t, and fr om the produc e o f past, labor. Whatever things are destined for this use —destined to supply productive labor with these various prerequisites:—are Capita l. To familiarize ourselves with the conception, let us consider what is done with the capital invested in any of the branches of business which compose the productive industry of a country. A manufacturer, for example, has one part of his capital in the form of buildings fitted and destined for carrying on his branch of manufacture. Another part he has in the form of machinery. A third consists, if he be a spinner, of raw cotton, flax, or wool; if a weaver, of flaxen, woollen, silk, or cotton thread; and the like, according to the nature of the manufact¬ ure. Food and clothing for his operatives it is not the custom of the present age that he should directly provide; and few capitalists, except the producers of food or clothing, have any CAPITAL 55 portion worth mentioning of their capital in that shape. In¬ stead of this, each capitalist has money, which he pays to his work-people, and so enables them to supply themselves: he has also finished goods in his warehouses, by the sale of which he obtains more money, to employ in the same manner, as well as to replenish his stock of materials, to keep his buildings and machinery in repair, and to replace them when worn out. His money and finished goods, however, are not wholly capital, for he does not wholly devote them to these purposes: he employs a part of the one, and of the proceeds of the other, in supplying his personal consumption and that of his family, or in hiring grooms and valets, or maintaining hunters and hounds, or in educating his children, or in paying taxes, or in charity. What then is his capital ? Precisely that part of his possessions, what¬ ever it be, which is to constitute his fund for carrying on fresh production. It is of no consequence that a part, or even the whole of it, is in a form in which it cannot directly supply the wants of laborers. Suppose, for instance, that the capitalist is a hardware man¬ ufacturer, and that his stock in trade, over and above his ma¬ chinery, consists at present wholly in iron goods. Iron goods cannot feed laborers. Nevertheless, by a mere change of the destination of these iron goods, he can cause laborers to be fed. Suppose that with a portion of the proceeds he intended to maintain a pack of hounds, or an establishment of servants; and that he changes his intention, and employs it in his busi¬ ness, paying it in wages to additional work-people. These work-people are enabled to buy and consume the food which would otherwise have been consumed by the hounds or by the servants; and thus without the employer’s having seen or touched one particle of the food, his conduct has determined that so much more of the food existing in the country has been devoted to the use of productive laborers, and so much less consumed in a manner wholly unproductive. Now vary the hypothesis, and suppose that what is thus paid in wages would otherwise have been laid out not in feeding servants or hounds, but in buying plate and jewels, and in order to render the effect perceptible, let us suppose that the change takes place on a considerable scale, and that a large sum is diverted from buying plate and jewels to employing productive laborers, whom we shall suppose to have been previously, like the Irish peasantry, 56 POLITICAL ECONOMY only half employed and half fed. The laborers, on receiving their increased wages, will not lay them out in plate and jewels, but in food. There is not, however, additional food in the country; nor any unproductive laborers or animals, as in the former case, whose food is set free for productive purposes. Food will therefore be imported if possible; if not possible, the laborers will remain for a season on their short allowance: but the consequence of this change in the demand for com¬ modities, occasioned by the change in the expenditure of the capitalists from unproductive to productive, is that next year more food will be produced, and less plate and jewelry. So that again, without having had anything to do with the food of the laborers directly, the conversion by individuals of a por¬ tion of their property, no matter of what sort, from an unpro¬ ductive destination to a productive, has had the effect of causing more food to be appropriated to the consumption of productive laborers. The distinction, then, between Capital and Not-capi- tal, does not lie in the kind of commodities, but in the mind of the capitalist—in his will to employ them for one purpose rather than another; and all property, however ill adapted in itself for the use of laborers, is a part of capital, so soon as it, or the value to be received from it, is set apart for productive reinvestment. The sum of all the values so destined by their respective possessors, composes the capital of the country. Whether all those values are in a shape directly applicable to productive uses, makes no difference. Their shape, whatever it may be, is a temporary accident; but, once destined for pro¬ duction, they do not fail to find a way of transforming them¬ selves into things capable of being applied to it. § 2. As whatever of the produce of the country is devoted to production is capital, so, conversely, the whole of the capital of the country is devoted to production. This second proposi¬ tion, however, must be taken with some limitations and explana¬ tions. A fund may be seeking for productive employment, and find none, adapted to the inclinations of its possessor: it then is capital still, but unemployed capital. Or the stock may consist of unsold goods, not susceptible of direct application to produc¬ tive uses, and not, at the moment, marketable: these, until sold, are in the condition of unemployed capital. Again, artificial or accidental circumstances may render it necessary to possess a larger stock in advance, that is, a larger capital before entering CAPITAL 57 on production, than is required by the nature of things. Sup- post that the government lays a tax on the production in one of its earlier stages, as for instance by taxing the material. The manufacturer has to advance the tax, before commencing the manufacture, and is therefore under a necessity of having a larger accumulated fund than is required for, or is actually em¬ ployed in, the production which he carries on. He must have a larger capital, to maintain the same quantity of productive labor; or (what is equivalent) with a given capital he main¬ tains less labor. This mode of levying taxes, therefore, limits unnecessarily the industry of the country: a portion of the fund destined by its owners for production being diverted from its purpose, and kept in a constant state of advance to the govern¬ ment. For another example: a farmer may enter on his farm at such a time of the year, that he may be required to pay one, two, or even three quarters’ rent before obtaining any return from the produce. This, therefore, must be paid out of his capital. Now rent, when paid for the land itself, and not for improve¬ ments made in it by labor, is not a productive expenditure. It is not an outlay for the support of labor, or for the provision of implements or materials the produce of labor. It is the price paid for the use of an appropriated natural agent. This natural agent is indeed as indispensable (and even more so) as any implement: but the having to pay a price for it, is not. In the case of the implement (a thing produced by labor) a price of some sort is the necessary condition of its existence: but the land exists by nature. The payment for it, therefore, is not one of the expenses of production ; and the necessity of making the payment out of capital, makes it requisite that there should be a greater capital, a greater antecedent accumulation of the produce of past labor, than is naturally necessary, or than is needed where land is occupied on a different system. This extra capital, though intended by its owners for production, is in reality employed unproductively, and annually replaced, not from any produce of its own, but from the produce of the labor supported by the remainder of the farmer’s capital. Finally, that large portion of the productive capital of a coun¬ try which is employed in paying the wages and salaries of labor¬ ers, evidently is not, all of it, strictly and indispensably necessary for production. As much of it as exceeds the actual necessaries POLITICAL ECONOMY 58 of life and health (an excess which in the case of skilled la¬ borers is usually considerable) is not expended in supporting labor, but in remunerating it, and the laborers could wait for this part of their remuneration until the production is com¬ pleted : it needs not necessarily pre-exist as capital: and if they unfortunately had to forego it altogether, the same amount of production might take place. In order that the whole re¬ muneration of the laborers should be advanced to them in daily or weekly payments, there must exist in advance, and be appro¬ priated to productive use, a greater stock, or capital, than would suffice to carry on the existing extent of production: greater, by whatever amount of remuneration the laborers receive, beyond what the self-interest of a prudent slave-master would assign to his slaves. In truth, it is only after an abundant capital had already been accumulated, that the practice of paying in ad¬ vance any remuneration of labor beyond a bare subsistence, could possibly have arisen: since whatever is so paid, is not really applied to production, but to the unproductive consump¬ tion of productive laborers, indicating a fund for production sufficiently ample to admit of habitually diverting a part of it to a mere convenience. It will be observed that I have assumed, that the laborers are always subsisted from capital: and this is obviously the fact, though the capital needs not necessarily be furnished by a person called a capitalist. When the laborer maintains himself by funds of his own, as when a peasant-farmer or proprietor lives on the produce of his land, or an artisan works on his own account, they are still supported by capital, that is, by funds provided in advance. The peasant does not subsist this year on the produce of this year’s harvest, but on that of the last. The artisan is not living on the proceeds of the work he has in hand, but on those of work previously executed and dis¬ posed of. Each is supported by a small capital of his own, which he periodically replaces from the produce of his labor. The large capitalist is, in like manner, maintained from funds provided in advance. If he personally conducts his operations, as much of his personal or household expenditure as does not exceed a fair remuneration of his labor at the market price, must be considered a part of his capital, expended, like any other capital, for production: and his personal consumption, so far as it consists of necessaries, is productive consumption. CAPITAL 59 § 3. At the risk of being tedious, I must add a few more illustrations, to bring out into a still clearer and stronger light the idea of Capital. As M. Say truly remarks, it is on the very elements of our subject that illustration is most usefully be¬ stowed, since the greatest errors which prevail in it may be traced to the want of a thorough mastery over the elementary ideas. Nor is this surprising: a branch may be diseased and all the rest healthy, but unsoundness at the root diffuses un¬ healthiness through the whole tree. Let us therefore consider whether, and in what cases, the property of those who live on the interest of what they possess, without being personally engaged in production, can be re¬ garded as capital. It is so called in common language, and, with reference to the individual, not improperly. All funds from which the possessor derives an income, which income he can use without sinking and dissipating the fund itself, are to him equivalent to capital. But to transfer hastily and incon¬ siderately to the general point of view, propositions which are true of the individual, has been a source of innumerable errors in political economy. In the present instance, that which is virtually capital to the individual, is or is not capital to the nation, according as the fund which by the supposition he has not dissipated, has or has not been dissipated by somebody else. For example, let property of the value of ten thousand pounds belonging to A, be lent to B, a farmer or manufacturer, and employed profitably in B’s occupation. It is as much cap¬ ital as if it belonged to B. A is really a farmer or manufacturer, not personally, but in respect of his property. Capital worth ten thousand pounds is employed in production—in maintaining laborers and providing tools and materials; which capital be¬ longs to A, while B takes the trouble of employing it, and re¬ ceives for his remuneration the difference between the profit which it yields and the interest he pays to A. This is the simplest case. Suppose next that A’s ten thousand pounds, instead of being lent to B, are lent on mortgage to C, a landed proprietor, by whom they are employed in improving the productive powers of his estate, by fencing, draining, road-making, or permanent manures. This is productive employment. The ten thousand pounds are sunk, but not dissipated. They yield a permanent return; the land now affords an increase of produce, sufficient,, 6o POLITICAL ECONOMY in a few years, if the outlay has been judicious, to replace the amount, and in time to multiply it manifold. Here, then, is a value of ten thousand pounds, employed in increasing the produce of the country. This constitutes a capital, for which C, if he lets his land, receives the returns in the nominal form f of increased rent; and the mortgage entitles A to receive from these returns, in the shape of interest, such annual sum as has been agreed on. We will now vary the circumstances, and suppose that C does not employ the loan in improving his land, but in paying off a former mortgage, or in making a provision for children. Whether the ten thousand pounds thus employed are capital or not, will depend on what is done with the amount by the ultimate receiver. If the children invest their fortunes in a productive employment, or the mortgagee on being paid off lends the amount to another landholder to improve his land, or to a manufacturer to extend his business, it is still capital, because productively employed. Suppose, however, that C, the borrowing landlord, is a spend¬ thrift, who burdens his land not to increase his fortune but to squander it, expending the amount in equipages and enter¬ tainments. In a year or two it is dissipated, and without return. A is as rich as before; he has no longer his ten thousand pounds, but he has a lien on the land, which he could still sell for that amount. C, however, is ten thousand pounds poorer than former¬ ly ; and nobody is richer. It may be said that those are richer who have made profit out of the money while it was being spent. No doubt if C lost it by gaming, or was cheated of it by his ser¬ vants, that is a mere transfer, not a destruction, and those who have gained the amount may employ it productively. But if C has received the fair value for his expenditure in articles of subsistence or luxury, which he has consumed on himself, or by means of his servants or guests, these articles have ceased to exist, and nothing has been produced to replace them: while if the same sum had been employed in farming or manufactur¬ ing, the consumption which would have taken place would have been more than balanced at the end of the year by new products, created by the labor of those who would in that case have been the consumers. By C’s prodigality, that which would have been consumed with a return, is consumed without return. C’s tradesmen may have made a profit during the process; but if the capital had been expended productively, an equivalent CAPITAL 61 profit would have been made by builders, fencers, toolmakers, and the tradespeople who supply the consumption of the labor¬ ing classes; while at the expiration of the time (to say nothing of any increase), C would have had the ten thousand pounds or its value replaced to him, which now he has not. There is, therefore, on the general result, a difference to the disadvantage of the community, of at least ten thousand pounds, being the amount of C’s unproductive expenditure. To A, the difference is not material, since his income is secured to him, and while the security is good, and the market rate of interest the same, he can always sell the mortgage at its original value. To A, therefore, the lien of ten thousand pounds on C’s estate, is virtually a capital of that amount; but is it so in reference to the community ? It is not. A had a capital of ten thousand pounds, but this has been extinguished—dissipated and de¬ stroyed by C’s prodigality. A now receives his income, not from the produce of his capital, but from some other source of income belonging to C, probably from the rent of his land, that is, from payments made to him by farmers out of the produce of their capital. The national capital is diminished by ten thousand pounds, and the national income by all which those ten thousand pounds, employed as capital, would have produced. The loss does not fall on the owner of the destroyed’ capital, since the destroyer has agreed to indemnify him for it. But his loss is only a small portion of that sustained by the community, since what was devoted to the use and consump¬ tion of the proprietor was only the interest; the capital itself was, or would have been, employed in the perpetual mainten¬ ance of an equivalent number of laborers, regularly reproduc¬ ing what they consumed: and of this maintenance they are deprived without compensation. Let us now vary the hypothesis still further, and suppose that the money is borrowed, not by a landlord, but by the State. A lends his capital to Government to carry on a war: he buys from the State what are called government securities; that is, obligations on the government to pay a certain annual income. If the government employed the money in making a railroad, this might be a productive employment, and A’s property would still be used as capital; but since it is employed in war, that is, in the pay of officers and soldiers who produce nothing, and in destroying a quantity of gunpowder and bullets without return, 6 2 POLITICAL ECONOMY the government is in the situation of C, the spendthrift land¬ lord, and A’s ten thousand pounds are so much national capital which once existed, but exists no longer: virtually thrown into the sea, as far as wealth or production is concerned; though for other reasons the employment of it may have been justi¬ fiable. A’s subsequent income is derived, not from the produce of his own capital, but from taxes drawn from the produce of the remaining capital of the community; to whom his capital is not yielding any return, to indemnify them for the payment; it is lost and gone, and what he now possesses is a claim on the returns to other people’s capital and industry. This claim he can sell, and get back the equivalent of his capital, which he may afterward employ productively. True; but he does not get back his own capital, or anything which it has produced; that, and all its possible returns, are extinguished: what he gets is the capital of some other person, which that person is willing to exchange for his lien on the taxes. Another capitalist substitutes himself for A as a mortgagee of the public, and A substitutes himself for the other capitalist as the possessor of a fund employed in production, or available for it. By this exchange the productive powers of the community are neither increased nor diminished. The breach in the capital of the country was made when the government spent A’s money: whereby a value of ten thousand pounds was withdrawn or withheld from productive employment, placed in the fund for unproductive consumption, and destroyed without equivalent. Chapter V.—Fundamental Propositions Respecting Capital § i. If the preceding explanations have answered their pur¬ pose, they have given not only a sufficiently complete possession of the idea of Capital according to its definition, but a sufficient familiarity with it in the concrete, and amidst the obscurity with which the complication of individual circumstances surrounds it, to have prepared even the unpractised reader for certain ele¬ mentary propositions or theorems respecting capital, the full comprehension of which is already a considerable step out of darkness into light. The first of these propositions is, T hat industr y is limited by capital . This is so obvious as to be taken for granted in many common forms of speech; but to see a truth occasionally is one FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS ON CAPITAL 63 thing, to recognize it habitually, and admit no propositions in¬ consistent with it, is another. The axiom was until lately almost universally disregarded by legislators and political writers; and doctrines irreconcilable with it are still very commonly professed and inculcated. The following are common expressions, implying its truth. The act of directing industry to a particular employment is de¬ scribed by the phrase “applying capital ” to the employment. To employ industry on the land is to apply capital to the land. To employ labor in a manufacture is to invest capital in the manufacture. This implies that industry cannot be employed to any greater extent than there is capital to invest. The proposi¬ tion, indeed, must be assented to as soon as it is distinctly ap¬ prehended. The expression “ applying capital ” is of course metaphorical: what is really applied is labor; capital being an indispensable condition. Again, we often speak of the “ produc¬ tive powers of capital.’’ This expression is not literally correct. The only productive powers are those of labor and natural agents; or if any portion of capital can by a stretch of language be said to have a productive power of its own, it is only tools and machinery, which, like wind or water, may be said to co-operate with labor. The food of laborers and the materials of production have no productive power; but labor cannot exert it productive power unless provided with them. There can be no more industry than is supplied with materials to work up and food to eat. Self-evident as the thing is, it is often forgotten that the people of a country are maintained and have their wants sup¬ plied, not by the produce of present labor, but of past. They consume what has been produced, not what is about to be pro¬ duced. Now, of what has been produced, a part only is allotted to the support of productive labor; and there will not and cannot be more of that labor than the portion so allotted (which is the capital of the country) can feed, and provide with the ma¬ terials and instruments of production. Yet, in disregard of a fact so evident, it long continued to be believed that laws and governments, without creating capital, could create industry. Not by making the people more labo¬ rious, or increasing the efficiency of their labor; these are ob¬ jects to which the government can, in some degree, indirectly contribute. But without any increase in the skill or energy of the laborers, and without causing any persons to labor who had 64 POLITICAL ECONOMY previously been maintained in idleness, it was still thought that the government, without providing additional funds, could cre¬ ate additional employment. A government would, by prohibi¬ tory laws, put a stop to the importation of some commodit y: and when bv this it had cause d the commodity t o be pro duced at home, it would plume itself upon having en riched the country with a new branch ot industry, would parade in statistical tabl es the amoun t of produce yielded and labor employed in the p ro¬ duction. and take credit tor the whole of this as a gain to the country, obtained through the prohibitory law. Although this s ort of political arithmetic has fallen a little into discredit in Engl and, it still flourishes in the nations of Continental Euro pe. Had le gislators been aware that industry is limited by c apital, tliev would have seen that, the aggregate capital of the coun try not having been increased, any portion of it which they bv thei r l aws had caused to be embarked in the ne wly-acquired branch of industry must have been withd rawn or withheld from some other; in which it gave, or would have given, employment to probably about the same quantity of labor which it e mploys in it s new occupation.* § 2 - Because industr y is limited by capital, we are not how- ever to in fer th at it alw ays reaches that limit. Capital may be t emporarily unemploy edT as in the case of unsold goods, or funds that have not yet found an investment; during this interval it does not set in motion any industry. Or there may not be as many laborers obtainable, as the capital would maintain and em¬ ploy. This has been known to occur in new colonies, where capital has sometimes perished uselessly for want of labor: the Swan River settlement (now called Western Australia), in the first years after its foundation, was an instance. There are many * An exception must be admitted when the industry created or upheld by the restrictive law belongs to the class of what are called domestic manufactures. These being carried on by persons al¬ ready fed—by laboring families, in the intervals of other employment—no trans¬ fer of capital to the occupation is neces¬ sary to its being undertaken, beyond the value of the materials and tools, which is often inconsiderable. If, there¬ fore, a protecting duty causes this occu¬ pation to be carried on, when it other¬ wise would not, there is in this case a real increase of the production of the country. In order to render our theoretical proposition invulnerable, this peculiar case must be allowed for: but it does not touch the practical doctrine of free trade. Domestic manufactures cannot, from the very nature of things, require protection, since the subsistence of the laborers being provided from other sources, the price of the product, how¬ ever much it may be reduced, is nearly all clear gain. If, therefore, the do¬ mestic producers retire from the com¬ petition, it is never from necessity, but because the product is not worth the labor it costs, in the opinion of the best judges, those who enjoy the one and un¬ dergo the other. They prefer the sac¬ rifice of buying their clothing to the labor of making it. They will not con¬ tinue their labor unless society will give them more for it, than in their own opinion its product is worth. FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS ON CAPITAL 65 persons maintained from existing capital, who produce nothing, or who might produce much more than they do. If the laborers were reduced to lower wages, or induced to work more hours for the same wages, or if their families, who are already main¬ tained from capital, were employed to a greater extent than they now are in adding to the produce, a given capital would afford employment to more industry. The unproductive consumption of productive laborers, the whole of which is now supplied by capital, might cease, or be postponed until the produce came in; and additional productive laborers might be maintained with the amount. By such means society might obtain from its existing resources a greater quantity of produce: and to such means it ■* has been driven, when the sudden destruction of some large portion of its capital rendered the employment of the remainder., with the greatest possible effect, a matter of paramount consider¬ ation for the time. Where industry has not come up to the limit imposed by capi¬ tal, governments may, in various ways, for example, by import¬ ing additional laborers, bring it nearer to that limit: as by the importation of Coolies and free Negroes into the West Indies. There is another way in which governments can create additional industry. They can create capital. They may lay on taxes, and employ the amount productively. They may do what is nearly equivalent; they may lay taxes on income or expenditure, and apply the proceeds towards paying off the public debts. The fundholder, when paid off, would still desire to draw an income from his property, most of which therefore would find its way into productive employment, while a great part of it would have been drawn from the fund for unproductive expenditure, since people do not wholly pay their taxes from what they would have saved, but partly, if not chiefly, from what they would have spent. It may be added, that any increase in the productive power of capital (or, more properly speaking, of labor) by improvements in the arts of life, or otherwise, tends to increase the employment for labor; since, when there is a greater produce altogether, it is always probable that some portion of the increase will be saved and converted into capital; especially when the increased re¬ turns to productive industry hold out an additional temptation to the conversion of funds from an unproductive destination to a productive. § 3. While, on the one hand, industry is limited by capital, so Vol. I.—5 66 POLITICAL ECONOMY on the other, every increase of capital gives, or is capable of giv¬ ing, additional employment to industry; and this without as¬ signable limit. I do not mean to deny that the capital, or part of it, may be so employed as not to support laborers, being fixed in machinery, buildings, improvement of land, and the like. In any large increase of capital a considerable portion will gen¬ erally be thus employed, and will only co-operate with laborers, not maintain them. What I do intend to assert is, that the por¬ tion which is destined to their maintenance, may (supposing no alteration in anything else) be indefinite ly i ncreased, without cre ¬ ating an impossibility of finding them employment: in other words, that if there are human beings capable of work, and food to feed them, they may alwa ys be"employe'd "lrrpro?ucin g some¬ thing. This proposition requires to be somewhat dwelt upon, being one of those which it is exceedingly easy to assent to when presented in general terms, but somewhat difficult to keep fast hold of, in the crowd and confusion of the actual facts of society. It is also very much opposed to common doctrines. There is not an opinion more general among mankind than this, that the unproductive expenditure of the rich is necessary to the employ¬ ment of the poor. Before A_dam Smith, the doctrine had hardly been questioned; and even since his time, authors of the highest name and of great merit * have contended, that if consumers were to save and convert into capital more than a limited por¬ tion of their income, and were not to devote to unproductive consumption an amount of means bearing a certain ratio to the capital of the country, the extra accumulation would be merely so much waste, since there would be no market for the commodi¬ ties which the capital so created would produce. I conceive this to be one of the many errors arising in political economy, from the practice of not beginning with the examination of simple cases, but rushing at once into the complexity of concrete phe¬ nomena. Everyone can see that if a benevolent government possessed all the food, and all the implements and materials, of the com¬ munity, it could exact productive labor from all capable of it, to whom it allowed a share in the food, and could be in no danger of wanting a field for the employment of this productive labor, since as long as there was a single want unsaturated (which ma¬ terial objects could supply), of any one individual, the labor of * For example, Mr. Malthus, Dr. Chalmers, M. de Sismondi. FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS ON CAPITAL 67 the community could be turned to the production of something capable of satisfying that want. Now, the individual possessors of capital, when they add to it by fresh accumulations, are doing precisely the same thing which we suppose to be done by a benevolent government. As it is allowable to put any case by way of hypothesis, let us imagine the most extreme case con¬ ceivable. Suppose that every capitalist came to be of opinion that not being more meritorious than a well- conducted laborer , lie ou gnE nor to fare better; and a ccordingly laid by, from con¬ scientio us motives, the surplus of his profits; or suppose this. absti nence not spontaneous, but Imposed by law or opinio n upojp all capitalists, and upon landowner s likewise. Unproductive expenditure is now reduced to its lowest limit: and it is asked, how is the increased capital to find employment? Who is to buy the goods which it will produce? There are no longer customers even for those which were produced before. The goods, there¬ fore, (it is said) will remain unsold; they will perish in the ware¬ houses; until capital is brought down to what it was originally, or rather to as much less, as the demand of the consumers has lessened. But this is seeing only one-half of the matter. In the case supposed, there would no longer be any demand for luxu¬ ries, on the part of capitalists and landowners. But when these classes turn their income into capital, they do not thereby anni¬ hilate their power of consumption; they do but transfer it from themselves to the laborers to whom they give employment. Now, there are two possible suppositions in regard to the labor¬ ers; either there is, or there is not, an increase of their numbers, proportional to the increase of capital. If there is, the case offers no difficulty. The production of necessaries for the new popula¬ tion, takes the place of the production of luxuries for a portion of the old, and supplies exactly the amount of employment which has been lost. But suppose that there is no increase of popula¬ tion. The whole of what was previously expended in luxuries, by capitalists and landlords, is distributed among the existing laborers, in the form of additional wages. We will assume them to be already sufficiently supplied with necessaries. What fol¬ lows? That the laborers become consumers of luxuries; and the capital previously employed in the production of luxuries, is still able to employ itself in the same manner: the difference be¬ ing, that the luxuries are shared among the community generally, instead of being confined to a few. The increased accumulation •V* 68 POLITICAL ECONOMY > * * • * • « .» and increased production might, rigorously speaking, continue, until every laborer had every indulgence of wealth, consistent with continuing to work; supposing that the power of their labor were physically sufficient to produce all this amount of in¬ dulgences for their whole number. Thus the limit of wealth is never deficiency of consumers, but of producers and productive power. Every ad di tion to capital gi ves to la bor either additio nal employme nt, or additional remuneration; enriches either the country, or the laboring class, if it finds"addit ional hands to set tcTwork, it i ncreasesThe agg regate produce: iFEnlyT he sa me hands, it gives the m a larg er share of it; and perhaps even in th is case, by stimulating them to greater exertion, augments th e produce itself. § 4. A second fundamental theorem respecting Capital, re¬ lates to t he source from which it is derived . It is the result of saving . The"evidence of this lies abundantly in what has been already said on the subject. But the proposition needs some further illustration. If all persons were to expend in personal indulgences all that they produce, and all the income they receive from what is pro¬ duced by others, capital could not increase. All capital, with a trifling exception, was originally the rosult of saving. I say, with a trifling exception; because a person who labors on his own account, may spend on his own account all he produces, with¬ out becoming destitute; and the provision of necessaries on which he subsists until he has reaped his harvest, or sold his commodity, though a real capital, cannot be said to have been saved, since it is all used for the supply of his own wants, and perhaps as speedily as if it had been consumed in idleness. We may imagine a number of individuals or families settled on as many separate pieces of land, each living on what their own labor produces, and consuming the whole produce. But even these must save (that is, spare from their personal consumption) as much as is necessary for seed. Some saving, therefore, there must have been, even in this simplest of all states of economical relations; people must have produced more than they used, or used less than they produced. Still more must they do so before they can employ other laborers, or increase their production be¬ yond what can be accomplished by the work of their own hands. All that anyone employs in supporting and carrying on any other labor than his own, must have been originally brought together FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS ON CAPITAL 69 by saving; somebody must have produced it and forborne to consume it. We may say, therefore, without material inaccuracy, that all capital, and especially all addition to capital, are the re¬ sult of saving. In a rude and violent state of society it continually happens that the person who has capital is not the very person who has saved it, but some one who, being stronger, or belonging to a more powerful community, has possessed himself of it by plunder. And even in a state of things in which property was protected, the increase of capital has usually been, for a long time, mainly derived from privations which, though essentially the same with saving, are not generally called by that name, be¬ cause not voluntary. The actual producers have been slaves, compelled to produce as much as force could extort from them, and to consume as little as the self-interest or the usually very slender humanity of their taskmasters would permit. This kind of compulsory saving, however, would not have caused any in¬ crease of capital, unless a part of the amount had been saved over again, voluntarily, by the master. If all that he made his slaves produce and forbear to consume, had been consumed by him on personal indulgences, he would not have increased his capital, nor been enabled to maintain an increasing number of slaves. To maintain any slaves at all, implied a previous saving; a stock, at least of food, provided in advance. This saving may not, however, have been made by any self-imposed privation of the master; but more probably by that of the slaves themselves while free; the rapine or war, which deprived them of their per¬ sonal liberty, having transferred also their accumulations to the conqueror. There are other cases in which the term saving, with the asso¬ ciations usually belonging to it, does not exactly fit the opera¬ tion by which capital is increased. If it were said, for instance, that the only way to accelerate the increase of capital is by in¬ crease of saving, the idea would probably be suggested of greater abstinence, and increased privation. But it is obvious that what¬ ever increases the product ive power of labor, creates an addition¬ al fund to make savings from , and enables capital to be enlarged not only without additional privation, but concurrently with a. n increase of personal consumption. Nevertheless T there is her e an increase of saving, in the scientific sense. Though the re is more consumed, there is also more spa red! There is a g reater 7o POLITICAL ECONOMY excess of productio n over consumptio n. It is consistent with correctness to call this a greater saving. Though the term is not unobjectionable, there is no other which is not liable to as great objections. To consume less than is produced, is saving; and that is the process by which capital is increased; not necessarily by consuming less, absolutely. We must not allow ourselves to be so much the slaves of words, as to be unable to use the word saving in this sense, without being in danger of forgetting that to increase capital there is another way besides consuming less, namely, to produce more. § 5. A third fundamenta l theorem respecting Capital, clo sely c onnected with the one last discussed is. that although sa ved, and, the re sult of sa ving, it is nevertheless consume d. Tlie word saving does not imply that what is saved is not cons umed, nor even necessa rily that i ts consumption is deferred; but only that, if c onsumed immediately, it is not consumed by the perso n >vho saves it . .If merely laid by for future use, it is said to T e hoarded; and while hoarded, is not co ns umed at a ll. _ But if em ¬ ployed as capital, it is all consumed; though not by the capitalis t. Part is exchanged for tools or machiner y, which are worn out by use: part for seed or material s, which are destroyed as such by being sown or wrought up, and destroyed altogether by the con¬ sumption of the ultimate product. The re main der is paid in wages t o productive laborer s, who consume it for their daily wants; orif they in their turn save any part, this also is not, gen¬ erally speaking, hoarded, but (through savings banks, benefit clubs, or some other channel) re-employed as capital, and con¬ sumed. The principle now stated is a strong example of the necessity of attention to the most elementary truths of our subject: for it is one of the most elementary of them all, and yet no one who has not bestowed some thought on the matter is habitually aware of it, and most are not even willing to admit it when first stated. To the vulgar, it is not at all apparent that what is saved is con¬ sumed. To them, everyone who saves, appears in the light of a person who hoards; they may think such conduct permissible, or even laudable, when it is to provide for a family, and the like; but they have no conception of it as doing good to other people: saving is to them another word for keeping a thing to one’s self; while spending appears to them to be distributing it among others. The person who expends his fortune in unproductive FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS ON CAPITAL 71 consumption, is looked upon as diffusing benefits all around; and is an object of so much favor, that some portion of the same popularity attaches even to him who spends what does not belong to him; who not only destroys his own capital, if he ever had any, but, under pretence of borrowing, and on promise of repay¬ ment, possesses himself of capital belonging to others, and de¬ stroys that likewise. This popular erro r comes from attending to a small portion only of" the consequences that flow from the saving or the spending; all the effects of either which are out of sight, be¬ ing out of mind. The eye follows w ha t is saved, into an imag¬ inary str ong box, a nd there loses sight of J t; what is spent, it follows into the hands of tradespeople an 3 ~dependents; 5 uT without r eaching the ultimate desth iatinri^TT’TTthpr nsp' Saving (for productive investment), and spending, coincide very closely in the first stage of their operations. The effects of both begin with consumption; with the destruction of a certain portion of wealth; only the things consumed, and the persons consuming, are different. There is, in the one case, a wearing out of tools, a destruction of material, and a quantity of food and clothing supplied to laborers, which they destroy by use; in the other case, there is a consumption, that is to say, a destruction, of wines, equipages, and furniture. Thus far, the consequence to the national wealth has been much the same; an equivalent quantity of it has been destroyed in both cases. But in the spending, this first stage is also the final stage; that particular amount of the produce of labor has dis¬ appeared, and there is nothing left; while, on the contrary, the saving person, during the whole time that the destruction was going on, has had laborers at work repairing it; who are ulti¬ mately found to have replaced, with an increase, the equivalent of what has been consumed. And as this operation admits of being repeated indefinitely without any fresh act of saving, a sav¬ ing once made becomes a fund to maintain a corresponding number of laborers in perpetuity, reproducing annually their own maintenance with a profit. It is the intervention of money which obscures, to an unprac¬ tised apprehension, the true character of these phenomena. Al¬ most all expenditure being carried on by means of money, the money comes to be looked upon as the main feature in the trans¬ action; and since that does not perish, but only changes hands, 72 POLITICAL ECONOMY people overlook the destruction which takes place in the case of unproductive expenditure. The money being merely transferred, they think the wealth also has only been handed over from the spendthrift to other people. But this is simply confounding money with wealth. The wealth which has been destroyed was not the money, but the wines, equipages, and furniture which the money purchased; and these having been destroyed without return, society collectively is poorer by the amount. It may be said, perhaps, that wines, equipages, and furniture, are not sub¬ sistence, tools, and materials, and could not in any case have been applied to the support of labor; that they are adapted for no other than unproductive consumption, and that the detriment to the wealth of the community was when they were produced, not when they were consumed. I am willing to allow this, as far as is necessary for the argument, and the remark would be very pertinent if these expensive luxuries were drawn from an existing stock, never to be replenished. But since, on the con¬ trary, they continue to be produced as long as there are con¬ sumers for them, and are produced in increased quantity to meet an increased demand; the choice made by a consumer to expend five thousand a year in luxuries, keeps a corresponding number of laborers employed from year to year in producing things which can be of no use to production; their services being lost so far as regards the increase of the national wealth, and the tools, materials, and food which they annually consume being so much subtracted from the general stock of the community applicable to productive purposes. In proportion as any class is improvi¬ dent or luxurious, the industry of the country takes the direction of producing luxuries for their use; while not only the employ¬ ment for productive laborers is diminished, but the subsistence and instruments which are the means of such employment do actually exist in smaller quantity. paving, in short, enriches, and spending impoverishes, th e com munity along with the individ ual; which is but saying in other w ords, that societ y at large is richer by what it expend s in maintaining andT aiding productive labor, but poorer by what it consumes in its enjoyments.* * It is worth while to direct attention to several circumstances which to a cer¬ tain extent diminish the detriment caused to the general wealth by the prodigality of individuals, or raise up a compensation, more or less ample, as a consequence of the detriment itself. One of these is that spendthrifts do not usually succeed in consuming all they spend. Their habitual carelessness as to expenditure causes them to be cheated and robbed on all quarters, FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS ON CAPITAL 73 § 6. To return to our fundamental theorem. Everything which is p roduced is con sumed; both what is saved and what i s said to be sp ent; and the former quite as rapidly as the latte r. All the ordinary forms o f language tend to disguise this. When people talk of the ancient wealth of a country, of riches inherited from ancestors, and similar expressions, the idea suggested is, that the riches so transmitted were produced long ago, at the time when they are said to have been first acquired, and that no portion of the capital of the country was produced this year, except as much as may have been this year added to the total amount. The fact is far otherwise. The greater part, in value, of the wealth now existing in England has been produced by human hands within the last twelve months. A very small pro¬ portion indeed of that large aggregate was in existence ten years ago;—of the present productive capital of the country scarcely any part, except farm-houses and manufactories, and a few ships and machines; and even these would not in most cases have sur¬ vived so long, if fresh labor had not been employed within that period in putting them into repair. The land subsists, and the land is almost the only thing that subsists. Everything which is produced perishes, and most things very quickly. Most kinds often by persons of frugal habits. Large accumulations are continually made by the agents, stewards, and even domestic servants, of improvident persons of for¬ tune; and they pay much higher prices for all purchases than people of careful habits, which accounts for their being f iopular as customers. They are, there- ore, actually not able to get into their possession and destroy a quantity of wealth by any means equivalent to the fortune which they dissipate. Much of it is merely transferred to others, by whom a part may be saved. Another thing to be observed is, that the prodi¬ gality of some may reduce others to a forced economy. Suppose a sudden de¬ mand for some article of luxury, caused by the caprice of a prodigal, which not having been calculated on beforehand, there has been no increase of the usual supply. The price will rise; and may rise beyond the means or the inclina¬ tions of some of the habitual consumers, who may in consequence forego their accustomed indulgence, and save the amount. If they do not, but continue to spend as great a value as before on the commodity, the dealers in it obtain, for only the same quantity of the article, a return increased by the whole of what the spendthrift has paid; and thus the amount which he loses is transferred bodily to them, and may be added to their capital: his increased personal consumption being made up by the privations of the other purchasers, who have obtained less than usual of their accustomed gratification for the same equivalent. On the other hand, a coun¬ ter-process must be going on some¬ where, since the prodigal must have diminished his purchases in some other quarter to balance the augmentation in this; he has perhaps called in funds employed in sustaining productive la¬ bor, and the dealers in subsistence and in the instruments of production have had commodities left on their hands, or have received, for the usual amount of commodities, a less than usual return. But such losses of income or capital, by industrious persons, except when of ex¬ traordinary amount, are generally made up by increased pinching and privation; so that the capital of the community may not be, on the whole, impaired, and the prodigal may have had his self-indul¬ gence at the expense not of the perma¬ nent resources, but of the temporary pleasures and comforts of others. For in every case the community are poorer by what any one spends, unless others are in consequence led to curtail their spending. There are yet other and more recondite ways in which the profusion of some may bring about its compensa¬ tion in the extra savings of others; but these can only be considered in that part of the Fourth Book, which treats of the limiting principle to the accumulation of capital. 74 POLITICAL ECONOMY of capital are not fitted by their nature to be long preserved. There are a few, and but a few productions, capable of a very prolonged existence. Westminster Abbey has lasted many cen¬ turies, with occasional repairs; some Grecian sculptures have existed above two thousand years; the Pyramids perhaps double or treble that time. But these were objects devoted to unproduc¬ tive use. If we except bridges and aqueducts (to which may in some countries be added tanks and embankments), there are few instances of any edifice applied to industrial purposes which has been of great duration; such buildings do not hold out against wear and tear, nor is it good economy to construct them of the solidity necessary for permanency. Capital is kept in ex¬ istence from age to age not by preservation, but by perpetual reproduction: every part of it is used and destroyed, generally very soon after it is produced, but those who consume it are em¬ ployed meanwhile in producing more. The growth of capital is similar to the growth of population. Every individual who is born, dies, but in each year the number born exceeds the number who die: the population, therefore, always increases, though not one person of those composing it was alive until a very recent date. § 7. This perpetual consumption and reproduction of capital afford the explanation of what has so often excited wonder, the great rapidity with which countries recover from a state of devas¬ tation; the disappearance, in a short time, of all traces of the mischiefs done by earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and the rav¬ ages of war. An enemy lays waste a country by fire and sword, and destroys or carries away nearly all the movable wealth ex¬ isting in it: all the inhabitants are ruined, and yet in a few years after, everything is much as it was before. This vis medicatrix nature has been a subject of sterile astonishment, or has been cited to exemplify the wonderful strength of the principle of saving, which can repair such enormous losses in so brief an in¬ terval. There is nothing at all wonderful in the matter. What the enemy have destroyed, would have been destroyed in a little time by the inhabitants themselves: the wealth which they so rapidly reproduce, would have needed to be reproduced and would have been reproduced in any case, and probably in as short a time. Nothing is changed, except that during the re¬ production they have not now the advantage of consuming what had been produced previously. The possibility of a rapid repair FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS ON CAPITAL 75 of their disasters, mainly depends on whether the country has been depopulated. If its effective population have not been ex¬ tirpated at the time, and are not starved afterwards; then, with the same skill and knowledge which they had before, with their land and its permanent improvements undestroyed, and the more durable buildings probably unimpaired, or only partially in¬ jured, they have nearly all the requisites for their former amount of production. If there is as much of food left to them, or of valuables to buy food, as enables them by any amount of priva¬ tion to remain alive and in working condition, they will in a short time have raised as great a produce, and acquired col¬ lectively as great wealth and as great a capital, as before; by the mere continuance of that ordinary amount of exertion which they are accustomed to employ in their occupations. Nor does this evince any strength in the principle of saving, in the popular sense of the term, since what takes place is not intentional ab¬ stinence, but involuntary privation. Yet so fatal is the habit of thinking through the medium of only one set of technical phrases, and so little reason have studi¬ ous men to value themselves on being exempt from the very same mental infirmities which beset the vulgar, that this simple explanation was never given (so far as I am aware) by any po¬ litical economist before Dr. Chalmers; a writer many of whose opinions I think erroneous, but who has always the merit of studying phenomena at first hand, and expressing them in a lan¬ guage of his own, which often uncovers aspects of the truth that the received phraseologies only tend to hide. § 8. The same author carries out this train of thought to some important conclusions on another closely connected subject, that of government loans for war purposes or other unproductive ex¬ penditure. These loans, being drawn from capital (in lieu of taxes, which would generally have been paid from income, and made up in part or altogether by increased economy) must, ac¬ cording to the principles we have laid down, tend to impoverish the country: yet the years in which expenditure of this sort has been on the greatest scale, have often been years of great ap¬ parent prosperity: the wealth and resources of the country, in¬ stead of diminishing, have given every sign of rapid increase during the process, and of greatly expanded dimensions after its close. This was confessedly the case with Great Britain during the last long Continental war; and it would take some space to 76 POLITICAL ECONOMY enumerate all the unfounded theories in political economy, to which that fact gave rise, and to which it secured temporary cre¬ dence; almost all tending to exalt unproductive expenditure, at the expense of productive. Without entering into all the causes which operated, and which commonly do operate, to prevent these extraordinary drafts on the productive resources of a coun¬ try from being so much felt as it might seem reasonable to ex¬ pect, we will suppose the most unfavorable case possible: that the whole amount borrowed and destroyed by the government, was abstracted by the lender from a productive employment in which it had actually been invested. The capital, therefore, of the country, is this year diminished by so much. But unless the amount abstracted is something enormous, there is no reason in the nature of the case why next year the national capital should not be as great as ever. The loan cannot have been taken from that portion of the capital of the country which consists of tools, machinery, and buildings. It must have been wholly drawn from the portion employed in paying laborers: and the laborers will suffer accordingly. But if none of them are starved; if their wages can bear such an amount of reduction, or if charity inter¬ poses between them and absolute destitution, there is no reason that their labor should produce less in the next year than in the year before. If they produce as much as usual, having been paid less by so many millions sterling, these millions are gained by their employers. The breach made in the capital of the country is thus instantly repaired, but repaired by the privations and often the real misery of the laboring class. Here is ample rea¬ son why such periods, even in the most unfavorable circum¬ stances, may easily be times of great gain to those whose pros¬ perity usually passes, in the estimation of society, for national prosperity.* * On the other hand, it must be re¬ membered that war abstracts from pro¬ ductive employment not only capital, but likewise laborers, that the funds with¬ drawn from the remuneration of produc¬ tive laborers are partly employed in pay¬ ing the same or other individuals for un¬ productive labor; and that by this por¬ tion of its effects, war expenditure acts in precisely the opposite manner to that which Dr. Chalmers points out, and, so far as it goes, directly counteracts the effects described in the text. So far as laborers are taken from production to man the army and navy, the laboring classes are not damaged, the capitalists are not benefited, and the general produce of the country is diminished by war expenditure. Accordingly, Dr. Chal¬ mers’s doctrine, though true of this country, is wholly inapplicable to coun¬ tries differently circumstanced; to France, for example, during the Napo¬ leon wars. At that period the draft on the laboring population of France, for a long series of years, was enormous, while the funds which supported the war were mostly supplied by contribu¬ tions levied on the countries overrun by the French arms, a very small propor¬ tion alone consisting of French capital. In France, accordingly, the wages of labor did not fall, but rose; the em¬ ployers of labor were not benefited, but injured; while the wealth of the country was impaired by. the suspension or total FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS ON CAPITAL 77 This leads to the vexed question to which Dr. Chalmers has very particularly adverted; whether the funds required by a government for extraordinary unproductive expenditure, are best raised by loans, the interest only being provided by taxes, or whether taxes should be at once laid onto the whole amount; which is called in the financial vocabulary, raising the whole of the supplies within the year. Dr. Chalmers is strongly for the latter method. He says, the common notion is that in calling for the whole amount in one year, you require what is either impossible, or very inconvenient; that the people cannot, without great hardship, pay the whole at once out of their yearly income; and that it is much better to require of them a small payment every year in the shape of in¬ terest, than so great a sacrifice once for all. To which his answer is, that the sacrifice is made equally in either case. Whatever is spent, cannot but be drawn from yearly income. The whole and every part of the wealth produced in the country, forms, or helps to form, the yearly income of somebody. The privation which it is supposed must result from taking the amount in the shape of taxes, is not avoided by taking it in a loan. The suffer¬ ing is not averted, but only thrown upon the laboring classes, the least able, and who least ought to bear it: while all the in¬ conveniences, physical, moral, and political, produced by main¬ taining taxes for the perpetual payment of the interest, are in¬ curred in pure loss. Whenever capital is withdrawn from pro¬ duction, or from the fund destined for production, to be lent to the State and expended unproductively, that whole sum is with¬ held from the laboring classes: the loan, therefore, is in truth paid off the same year; the whole of the sacrifice necessary for paying it off is actually made: only it is paid to the wrong per¬ sons, and therefore does not extinguish the claim; and paid by the very worst of taxes, a tax exclusively on the laboring class. And after having, in this most painful and unjust way, gone through the whole effort necessary for .extinguishing the debt, the country remains charged with it, and with the payment of its interest in perpetuity. These views appear to me strictly just, in so far as the value loss of so vast an amount of its produc¬ tive labor. In England all this was re¬ versed. England employed compara¬ tively few additional soldiers and sailors of her own, while she diverted hundreds of millions of capital from productive employment, to supply munitions of war and support armies for her Conti¬ nental allies. Consequently, as shown in the text, her laborers suffered, her capitalists prospered," and her perma¬ nent productive resources did not fall off. 78 POLITICAL ECONOMY absorbed in loans would otherwise have been employed in pro¬ ductive industry within the country. The practical state of the case, however, seldom exactly corresponds with this supposition. The loans of the less wealthy countries are made chiefly with foreign capital, which would not, perhaps, have been brought in to be invested on any less security than that of the govern¬ ment : while those of rich and prosperous countries are generally made, not with funds withdrawn from productive employment, but with the new accumulations constantly making from income, and often with a part of them which, if not so taken, would have migrated to colonies, or sought other investments abroad. In these cases (which will be more particularly examined here¬ after*), the sum wanted may be obtained by loan without detri¬ ment to the laborers, or derangement of the national industry, and even perhaps with advantage to both, in comparison with raising the amount by taxation; since taxes, especially when heavy, are almost always partly paid at the expense of what would otherwise have been saved and added to capital. Besides, in a country which makes so great yearly additions to its wealth that a part can be taken and expended unproductively without diminishing capital, or even preventing a considerable increase, it is evident that even if the whole of what is so taken would have become capital, and obtained employment in the country, the effect on the laboring classes is far less prejudicial, and the case against the loan system much less strong, than in the case first supposed. This brief anticipation of a discussion which will find its proper place elsewhere, appeared necessary to prevent false inferences from the premises previously laid down. § 9. We now pass to a Mourth fundamental theore m respect¬ ing Capital, which is, perhaps, oftener overlooked or miscon¬ ceived than even any of the foregoing. Whatjsupports and em¬ ploys productive labor, is the capital expended in setting it to work, a nd not the demancTof purchasers for the produce of the l abor when completed. Demand for commodities is not demand for labo r. JThe d ema nd for co mmodi ties determines in wh at par- ticular branch of production the labor and capital shall be em¬ ployed ; it determines the direction of the labor; but not the more or less of the labor it self, or of the maintenance or payment o f the labor . These depend on the amount of the capital, or other funds directly devoted to the sustenance and remuneration of labor. •——■—-— * Infra, book iv. chaps, iv. v. FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS ON CAPITAL 79 Suppose, for instance, that there is a demand for velvet; a fund ready to be laid out in buying velvet, but no capital to es¬ tablish the manufacture. It is of no consequence how great the demand may be; unless capital is attracted into the occupation, there will be no velvet made, and consequently none bought; unless, indeed, the desire of the intending purchaser for it is so strong, that he employs part of the price he would have paid for it, in making advances to work-people, that they may employ themselves in making velvet; that is, unless he converts part of his income into capital, and invests that capital in the manufact¬ ure. Let us now reverse the hypothesis, and suppose that there is plenty of capital ready for making velvet, but no demand. Velvet will not be made; but there is no particular preference on the part of capital for making velvet. Manufacturers and their laborers do not produce for the pleasure of their customers, but for the supply of their own wants, and having still the capital and the labor which are the essentials of production, they can either produce something else which is in demand, or if there be no other demand, they themselves have one, and can produce the things which they want for their own consumption. So that the employment afforded to labor does not depend on the purchasers, but on the capital. I am, of course, not taking into consideration the effects of a sudden change. If the demand ceases unex¬ pectedly, after the commodity to supply it is already produced, this introduces a different element into the question: the capital has actually been consumed in producing something which no¬ body wants or uses, and it has therefore perished, and the em¬ ployment which it gave to labor is at an end, not because there is no longer a demand, but because there is no longer a capital. This case therefore does not test the principle. The proper test is, to suppose that the change is gradual and foreseen, and is at¬ tended with no waste of capital, the manufacture being discon¬ tinued by merely not replacing the machinery as it wears out, and not reinvesting the money as it comes in from the sale of the produce. The capital is thus ready for a new employment, in which it will maintain as much labor as before. The manu¬ facturer and his work-people lose the benefit of the skill and knowledge which they had acquired in the particular business, and which can only be partially of use to them in any other; and that is the amount of loss to the community by the change. But the laborers can still work, and the capital which previously em- 8o POLITICAL ECONOMY ployed them will, either in the same hands, or by being lent to others, employ either those laborers or an equivalent number in some other occupation. This theorem, that to purchase produce is not to employ labor; that the demand for labor is constituted by the wages which precede the production, and not by the demand which may exist for the commodities resulting from the production; is a proposition which greatly needs all the illustration it can re¬ ceive. It is, to common apprehension, a paradox; and even among political economists of reputation, I can hardly point to any, except Mr. Ricardo and M. Say, who have kept it con¬ stantly and steadily in view. Almost all others occasionally ex¬ press themselves as if a person who buys commodities, the prod¬ uce of labor, was an employer of labor, and created a demand for it as really, and in the same sense, as if he bought the labor it¬ self directly, by the payment of wages. It is no wonder that po¬ litical economy advances slowly, when such a question as this still remains open at its very threshold. I apprehend, that if by demand for labor be meant the demand by which wages are raised, or the number of laborers in employment increased, demand for commodities does not constitute demand for labor. I conceive that a person who buys commodities and consumes them himself, does no good to the laboring classes, and that it is only by what he abstains from consuming, and expends in di¬ rect payments to laborers in exchange for labor, that he benefits the laboring classes, or adds anything to the amount of their employment. For the better illustration of the principle, let us put the fol¬ lowing case. A consumer may expend his income either in buy¬ ing services or commodities. He may employ part of it in hir¬ ing journeymen bricklayers to build a house, or excavators to dig artificial lakes, or laborers to make plantations and lay out pleasure-grounds; or, instead of this, he may expend the same value in buying velvet and lace. The question is, whether the difference between these two modes of expending his income affects the interest of the laboring classes. It is plain that in the first of the two cases he employs laborers, who will be out of em¬ ployment, or at least out of that employment, in the opposite case. But those from whom I differ say that this is of no conse¬ quence, because in buying velvet and lace he equally employs laborers, namely, those who make the velvet and lace. I con- FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS ON CAPITAL 81 tend, however, that in this last case he does not employ laborers; but merely decides in what kind of work some other person shall employ them. The consumer does not with his own funds pay to the weavers and lacemakers their day’s wages. He buys the finished commodity, which has been produced by labor and capi¬ tal, the laborer not being paid nor the capital furnished by him, but by the manufacturer. Suppose that he had been in the habit of expending this portion of his income in hiring journeymen bricklayers, who laid out the amount of their wages in food and clothing, which were also produced by labor and capital. He, however, determines to prefer velvet, for which he thus creates an extra demand. This demand cannot be satisfied without an extra supply, nor can the supply be produced without an extra capital; where, then, is the capital to come from? There is noth¬ ing in the consumer’s change of purpose which makes the capital of the country greater than it otherwise was. It appears, then, that the increased demand for velvet could not for the present be supplied, were it not that the very circumstance which gave rise to it has set at liberty a capital of the exact amount required. The very sum which the consumer now employs in buying velvet, formerly passed into the hands of journeymen bricklayers, who expended it in food and necessaries, which they now either go without, or squeeze, by their competition, from the shares of other laborers. The labor and capital, therefore, which formerly produced necessaries for the use of these brick¬ layers, are deprived of their market, and must look out for other employment; and they find it in making velvet for the new demand. I do not mean that the very same labor and capital which produced the necessaries turn themselves to pro¬ ducing the velvet; but, in some one or other of a hundred modes, they take the place of that which does. There was capital in ex¬ istence to do one of two things—to make the velvet, or to pro¬ duce necessaries for the journeyman bricklayers; but not to do both. It was at the option of the consumer which of the two should happen; and if he chooses the velvet, they go without the necessaries. For further illustration, let us suppose the same case reversed. The consumer has been accustomed to buy velvet, but resolves to discontinue that expense, and to employ the same annual sum in hiring bricklayers. If the common opinion be correct, this change in the mode of his expenditure gives no additional em- Vol. I.—6 8 2 POLITICAL ECONOMY ployment to labor, but only transfers employment from velvet- makers to bricklayers. On closer inspection, however, it will be seen that there is an increase of the total sum applied to the re¬ muneration of labor. The velvet manufacturer, supposing him aware of the diminished demand for his commodity, diminishes the production, and sets at liberty a corresponding portion of the capital employed in the manufacture. This capital, thus with¬ drawn from the maintenance of velvet-makers, is not the same fund with that which the customer employs in maintaining brick¬ layers; it is a second fund. There are therefore two funds to be employed in the maintenance and remuneration of labor, where before there was only one. There is not a transfer of employ¬ ment from velvet-makers to bricklayers; there is a new employ¬ ment created for bricklayers, and a transfer of employment from velvet-makers to some other laborers, most probably those who produce the food and other things which the bricklayers con¬ sume. In answer to this it is said, that though money laid out in buy¬ ing velvet is not capital, it replaces a capital; that though it does not create a new demand for labor, it is the necessary means of enabling the existing demand to be kept up. The funds (it may be said) of the manufacturer, while locked up in velvet, cannot be directly applied to the maintenance of labor; they do not begin to constitute a demand for labor until the velvet is sold, and the capital which made it replaced from the outlay of the purchaser; and thus, it may be said, the velvet-maker and the velvet-buyer have not two capitals, but only one capital between them, which by the act of purchase the buyer transfers to the manufacturer: and if instead of buying velvet he buys labor, he simply transfers this capital elsewhere, extinguishing as much demand for labor in one quarter as he creates in another. The premises of this argument are not denied. To set free a capital which would otherwise be locked up in a form useless for the support of labor, is, no doubt, the same thing to the interests of laborers as the creation of a new capital. It is perfectly true that if I expend £1,000 in buying velvet, I enable the manufact¬ urer to employ £1,000 in the maintenance of labor, which could not have been so employed while the velvet remained unsold: and if it would have remained unsold forever unless I bought it, then by changing my purpose and hiring bricklayers instead, I undoubtedly create no new demand for labor: for while I em- FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS ON CAPITAL 83 ploy £1,000 in hiring labor on the one hand, I annihilate forever £1,000 of the velvet-maker’s capital on the other. But this is confounding the effects arising from the mere suddenness of a change with the effects of the change itself. If when the buyer ceased to purchase, the capital employed in making velvet for his use necessarily perished, then his expending the same amount in hiring bricklayers would be no creation, but merely a transfer, of employment. The increased employment which I contend is given to labor, would not be given unless the capital of the velvet-maker could be liberated, and would not be given until it was liberated. But everyone knows that the capital invested in an employment can be withdrawn from it, if sufficient time be allowed. If the velvet-maker had previous notice, by not receiving the usual order, he will have produced £1,000 less vel¬ vet, and an equivalent portion of his capital will have been al¬ ready set free. If he had no previous notice, and the article con¬ sequently remains on his hands, the increase of his stock will induce him next year to suspend or diminish his production until the surplus is carried off. When this process is complete, the manufacturer will find himself as rich as before, with undimin¬ ished power of employing labor in general, though a portion of his capital will now be employed in maintaining some other kind of it. Until this adjustment has taken place, the demand for labor will be merely changed, not increased: but as soon as it has taken place, the demand for labor is increased. Where there was formerly only one capital employed in maintaining weavers to make £1,000 worth of velvet, there is now that same capital employed in making something else, and £1,000 distributed among bricklayers besides. There are now two capitals employed in remunerating two sets of laborers; while before, one of those capitals, that of the cus¬ tomer, only served as a wheel in the machinery by which the other capital, that of the manufacturer, carried on its employ¬ ment of labor from year to year. The proposition for which I am contending is in reality equiva¬ lent to the following, which to some minds will appear a truism, though to others it is a paradox: that a person does good to laborers, not by what he consumes on himself, but solely by what he does not so consume. If instead of laying out £100 in wine or silk, I expend it in wages, the demand for commodities is precisely equal in both cases: in the one, it is a demand for 8 4 POLITICAL ECONOMY £100 worth of wine or silk, in the other, for the same value of bread, beer, laborers’ clothing, fuel, and indulgences; but the la¬ borers of the community have in the latter case the value of £100 more of the produce of the community distributed among them. I have consumed that much less, and made over my consuming power to them. If it were not so, my having consumed less would not leave more to be consumed by others; which is a manifest contradiction. When less is not produced, what one person forbears to consume is necessarily added to the share of those to whom he transfers his power of purchase. In the case supposed I do not necessarily consume less ultimately, since the laborers whom I pay may build a house for me, or make some¬ thing else for my future consumption. But I have at all events postponed my consumption, and have turned over part of my share of the present produce of the community to the laborers. If after an interval I am indemnified, it is not from the existing produce, but from a subsequent addition made to it. I have therefore left more of the existing produce to be consumed by others; and have put into the possession of laborers the power to consume it. There cannot be a better reductio ad absurdum of the oppo¬ site doctrine than that afforded by the Poor Law. If it be equally for the benefit of the laboring classes whether I consume my means in the form of things purchased for my own use, or set aside a portion in the shape of wages or alms for their direct con¬ sumption, on what ground can the policy be justified of taking my money from me to support paupers? since my unproductive expenditure would have equally benefited them, while I should have enjoyed it too. If society can both eat its cake and have it, why should it not be allowed the double indulgence? But com¬ mon sense tells everyone in his own case (though he does not see it on the larger scale) that the poor-rate which he pays is really subtracted from his own consumption; and that no shifting of payment backwards and forwards will enable two persons to eat the same food. If he had not been required to pay the rate, and had consequently laid out the amount on himself, the poor would have had as much less for their share of the total produce of the country, as he himself would have consumed more.* * The following case, which presents Suppose that a rich individual. A, ex- the argument in a somewhat different pends a certain amount daily in wages shape, may serve for still further illus- or alms, which, as soon as received, is tration: expended and consumed, in the form of FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS ON CAPITAL 85 It appears, then, that a demand delayed until the work is com¬ pleted, and furnishing no advances, but only reimbursing ad¬ vances made by others, contributes nothing to the demand for labor; and that what is so expended, is, in all its effects, so far as regards the employment of the laboring class, a mere nullity; it does not and cannot create any employment except at the ex¬ pense of other employment which existed before. coarse food, by the receivers. A dies, leaving his property to B, who discon¬ tinues this item of expenditure, and ex¬ pends in lieu of it the same sum each day in delicacies for his own table. I have chosen this supposition, in order that the two cases may be similar in all their circumstances, except that which is the subject of comparison. In order not to obscure the essential facts of the case by exhibiting them through the hazy medium of a money transaction, let us further suppose that A, and B af¬ ter him, are landlords of the estate on which both the food consumed by the recipients of A’s disbursements, and the articles of luxury supplied for B’s table, are produced; and that their rent is paid to them in kind, they giving previous notice what description of produce they shall require. The question is, whether B’s expenditure gives as much employ¬ ment or as much food to his poorer neighbors as A’s gave. From the case as stated, it seems to follow that while A lived, that portion of his income which he expended in wages or alms, would be drawn by him from the farm in the shape of food for laborers, and would be used as such; while B, who came after him, would re¬ quire, instead of this, an equivalent value in expensive articles of food, to be consumed in his own household: that the farmer, therefore, would, under B’s regime, produce that much less of or¬ dinary food, and more of expensive deli¬ cacies, for each day of the year, than was produced in A’s time, and that there would be that amount less of food shared, throughout the year, among the laboring and poorer classes. This is what would be conformable to the prin¬ ciples laid down in the text. Those who think differently, must, on the other hand, suppose that the luxuries required by B would be produced, not instead of, but in addition to, the food previously supplied to A’s laborers, and that the aggregate produce of the country would be increased in amount. But when it is asked, how this double production would be effected—how the farmer, whose capital and labor were already fully employed, would be enabled to sup¬ ply the new wants of B, without pro¬ ducing less of other things; the only mode which presents itself is, that he should first produce the food, and then, giving that food to the laborers whom A formerly fed, should by means of their labor, produce the luxuries wanted by B. This, accordingly, when the ob¬ jectors are hard pressed, appears to be really their meaning. But it is an ob¬ vious answer, that on this supposition, B must wait for his luxuries till the sec¬ ond year, and they are wanted this year. By the original hypothesis, he consumes his luxurious dinner day by day, pari passu with the rations of bread and potatoes formerly served out by A to his laborers. There is not time to feed the laborers first, and supply B after¬ wards: he and they cannot both have their wants ministered to: he can only satisfy his own demand for commodi¬ ties, by leaving as much of theirs, as was formerly supplied from that fund, un¬ satisfied. It may, indeed, be rejoined by an objector, that, since on the present show¬ ing, time is the only thing wanting to render the expenditure of B consistent with as large an employment to labor as was given by A, why may we not sup¬ pose that B postpones his increased con¬ sumption of personal luxuries until they can be furnished to him by the labor of the persons whom A employed? In that case, it may be said, he would employ and feed as much labor as his predeces¬ sors. Undoubtedly he would; but why? Because his income would be expended in exactly the same manner as his pred¬ ecessor’s; it would be expended in wages. A reserved from his personal consumption a fund which he paid away directly to laborers; B does the same, only instead of paying it to them him¬ self, he leaves it in the hands of the farmer, who pays it to them for him. On this supposition B, in the first year, neither expending the amount, as far as he is personally concerned, in A’s manner nor in his own, really saves that portion of his income, and lends it to the farmer. And if, in subsequent years, confining himself within the year’s in¬ come, he leaves the farmer in arrears to that amount, it becomes an additional capital, with which the farmer may per¬ manently employ and feed A’s laborers. Nobody pretends that such a change as this, a change from spending an in¬ come in wages of labor, to saving it for investment, deprives any laborers of em¬ ployment. What is affirmed to have that effect is, the change from hiring la¬ borers to buying commodities for per¬ sonal use; as represented by our original hypothesis. In our illustration we have supposed no buying and selling, or use of money. But the case as we have put it, corre¬ sponds with actual fact in everything except the details of the mechanism. The whole of any country is virtually a 36 POLITICAL ECONOMY But though a demand for velvet does nothing more in regard to the employment for labor and capital, than to determine so much of the employment which already existed, into that par¬ ticular channel instead of any other; still, to the producers al¬ ready engaged in the velvet manufacture, and not intending to quit it, this is of the utmost importance. To them, a falling off in the demand is a real loss, and one which, even if none of their goods finally perish unsold, may mount to any height, up to that which would make them choose, as the smaller evil, to retire from the business. On the contrary, an increased demand en¬ ables them to extend their transactions—to make a profit on a larger capital, if they have it, or can borrow it; and, turning over their capital more rapidly, they will employ their laborers more constantly, or employ a greater number than before. So that an increased demand for a commodity does really, in the par¬ ticular department, often cause a greater employment to be given to labor by the same capital. The mistake lies in not perceiv¬ ing that in the cases supposed, this advantage is given to labor and capital in one department, only by being withdrawn from another; and that when the change has produced its natural ef¬ fect of attracting into the employment additional capital propor¬ tional to the increased demand, the advantage itself ceases. The grounds of a proposition, when well understood, usually give a tolerable indication of the limitations of it. The genera l principle, now stated is. that demand for commodities det er- mines merely t he direction of labor, and the Lind of wealth pro¬ duced, buTnot the qua ntityLQL efficienc y of t he labor, or the a g¬ gregate of wealth. But to this there are two exceptions. First; when labor is supported, but not fully occupied, a new demand for something which it can produce, may stimulate the labor thus supported to increased exertions, of which the result may be an increase of wealth, to the advantage of the laborers them- single farm and manufactory, from which every member of the community draws his appointed share of the prod¬ uce, having a certain number of coun¬ ters, called pounds sterling, put into his hands, which, at his convenience, he brings back and exchanges for such goods as he prefers, up to the limit of the amount. He does not, as in our imaginary case, give notice beforehand what things he shall require; but the dealers and producers are quite capable of finding it out by observation, and any change in the demand is promptly followed by an adaptation of the supply to it. If a consumer changes from pay¬ ing away a part of his income in wages, to spending it that same day (not some subsequent and distant day) in things for his own consumption, and perseveres in this altered practice until production has had time to adaot itself to the alter¬ ation of demand, there will from that time be less food and other articles for the use of laborers, produced in the country, by exactly the value of the extra luxuries now demanded; and the laborers, as a class, will be worse off by the precise amount. FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS ON CAPITAL 87 selves and of others. Work which can be done in the spare hours of persons subsisted from some other source, can (as be¬ fore remarked) be undertaken without withdrawing capital from other occupations, beyond the amount (often very small) re¬ quired to cover the expense of tools and materials; and even this will often be provided by savings made expressly for the pur¬ pose. The reason of our theorem thus failing, the theorem it¬ self fails, and employment of this kind may, by the springing up of a demand for the commodity, be called into existence without depriving labor of an equivalent amount of employment in any other quarter. The demand does not, even in this case, operate on labor any other wise than through the medium of an existing capital; but it affords an inducement which causes that capital to set in motion a greater amount of labor than it did before. The second exception, of which I shall speak at length in a subsequent chapter, consists in the known effect of an extension of the market for a commodity, in rendering possible an in¬ creased development of the division of labor, and hence a more effective distribution of the productive forces of society. This, like the former, is more an exception in appearance, than it is in reality. It is not the money paid by the purchaser which re¬ munerates the labor; it is the capital of the producer: the de¬ mand only determines in what manner that capital shall be em¬ ployed, and what kind of labor it shall remunerate; but if it de¬ termines that the commodity shall be produced on a large scale, it enables the same capital to produce more of the commodity, and may, by an indirect effect in causing an increase of capital, produce an eventual increase of the remuneration of the laborer. The demand for commodities is a consideration of importance rather in the theory of exchange, than in that of production. Looking at things in the aggregate, and permanently, the re¬ muneration of the producer is derived from the productive power of his own capital. The sale of the produce for money, and the subsequent expenditure of the money in buying other commodities, are a mere exchange of equivalent values, for mutual accommodation. It is true that, the division of employ¬ ments being one of the principal means of increasing the pro¬ ductive power of labor, the power of exchanging gives rise to a great increase of the produce; but even then it is production, not exchange, which remunerates labor and capital. We cannot too strictly represent to ourselves the operation of exchange, 88 POLITICAL ECONOMY whether conducted by barter or through the medium of money, as the mere mechanism by which each person transforms the remuneration of his labor or of his capital into the particular shape in which it is most convenient to him to possess it; but in no wise the source of the remuneration itself. § io. The preceding principles demonstrate the fallacy of many popular arguments and doctrines, which are continually reproducing themselves in new forms. For example, it has been contended, and by some from whom better things might have been expected, that the argument for the income tax, grounded on its falling on the higher and middle classes only, and sparing the poor, is an error; some have gone so far as to say, an im¬ posture ; because in taking from the rich what they would have expended among the poor, the tax injures the poor as much as if it had been directly levied from them. Of this doctrine we now know what to think. So far, indeed, as what is taken from the rich in taxes, would, if not so taken, have been saved and converted into capital, or even expended in the maintenance and wages of servants or of any class of unproductive laborers, to that extent the demand for labor is no doubt diminished, and the poor injuriously affected, by the tax on the rich; and as these effects are almost always produced in a greater or less degree, it is impossible so to tax the rich as that no portion whatever of the tax can fall on the poor. But even here the question arises, whether the government, after receiving the amount, will not lay out as great a portion of it in the direct purchase of labor, as the taxpayers would have done. In regard to all that portion of the tax, which, if not paid to the govern¬ ment, would have been consumed in the form of commodities (or even expended in services if the payment has been advanced by a capitalist), this, according to the principles we have inves¬ tigated, falls definitively on the rich, and not at all on the poor. There is exactly the same demand for labor, so far as this por¬ tion is concerned, after the tax, as before it. The capital which hitherto employed the laborers of the country, remains, and is still capable of employing the same number. There is the same amount of produce paid in wages, or allotted to defray the feed¬ ing and clothing of laborers. If those against whom I am now contending were in the right, it would be impossible to tax anybody except the poor. If it is taxing the laborers, to tax what is laid out in the produce FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS ON CAPITAL 89 of labor, the laboring classes pay all the taxes. The same argu¬ ment, however, equally proves, that it is impossible to tax the laborers at all; since the tax, being laid out either in labor or in commodities, comes all back to them; so that taxation has the singular property of falling on nobody. On the same show¬ ing, it would do the laborers no harm to take from them all they have, and distribute it among the other members of the community. It would all be “ spent among them,” which on this theory comes to the same thing. The error is produced by not looking directly at the realities of the phenomena, but at¬ tending only to the outward mechanism of paying and spend¬ ing. If we look at the effects produced not on the money, which merely changes hands, but on the commodities which are used and consumed, we see that, in consequence of the income tax, the classes who pay it do really diminish their consumption. Exactly so far as they do this, they are the persons on whom the tax falls. It is defrayed out of what they would otherwise have used and enjoyed. So far, on the other hand, as the burden falls, not on what they would have consumed, but on what they would have saved to maintain production, or spent in maintaining or paying unproductive laborers, to that extent the tax forms a deduction from what would have been used and enjoyed by the laboring classes. But if the government, as is probably the fact, expends fully as much of the amount as the taxpayers would have done in the direct employment of labor, as in hiring sailors, soldiers, and policemen, or in paying off debt, by which last operation it even increases capital: the laboring classes not only do not lose any employment by the tax, but may possibly gain some, and the whole of the tax falls exclusively where it was intended. All that portion of the produce of the country which anyone, not a laborer, actually and literally consumes for his own use, does not contribute in the smallest degree to the maintenance of labor. No one is benefited by mere consumption, except the person who consumes. And a person cannot both consume his income himself, and make it over to be consumed by others. Taking away a certain portion by taxation cannot deprive both him and them of it, but only him or them. To know which is the sufferer, we must understand whose consumption will have to be retrenched in consequence: this, whoever it be, is the person on whom the tax really falls. 9° POLITICAL ECONOMY Chapter VI.—On Circulating and Fixed Capital § i. To complete our explanations on the subject of capital, it is necessary to say something of the two species into which it is usually divided. The distinction is very obvious, and though not named, has been often adverted to, in the two preceding chapters: but it is now proper to define it accurately, and to point out a few of its consequences. Of the capital engaged in the production of any commodity, there is a part which, after being o nce used, exi sts no long er as capit al; is no longer capable of rendering service to pro- duction, or at least not the same service, nor to the same sort of production. Such, for example, is the portion of capital which consists of materials . The tallow and alkali of wh ich soap is made , once used in the manufacture, are destroyed as alkali and tallow; and cannot be employed any further in the soap manufacture, though in their altered condition, as soap, they are capable of being used as a material or an instrument in other branches of manufacture. In the same division must be placed the portion of capital which is paid as the wages, or consumed as the subsistence of laborers. That part of the capital of a cotton-spinner which he pays away to his work¬ people, once so paid, exists no longer as his capital, or as a cotton-spinner’s capital: such portion of it as the workmen consume, no longer exists as capital at all: even if they save any part, it may now be more properly regarded as a fresh capital, the result of a second act of accumulation. Capital which in this manner fulfils the whole of its office in the pro¬ duction in which it is engaged, by a single use, is called Circu¬ lating Capital. The term, which is not very appropriate, is derived from the circumstance, that this portion of capital re¬ quires to be constantly renewed by the sale of the finished product, and when renewed is perpetually parted with in buy¬ ing materials and paying wages; so that it does its work, not by being kept, but by changing hands. Another large portion of capital, however, consists i n instr u- ments of prod uction, of a more or less permanent charact er: which produce ffieir effect not by being parted with, but by being kept; and the efficacy of which is not exhausted by a single use. To this class belong buildings, machinery, and all CIRCULATING AND FIXED CAPITAL 9i or most things known by the name of implements or tools. The durability of some of these is considerable, and their func¬ tion as productive instruments is prolonged through many repe¬ titions of the productive operation. In this class must likewise be included capital sunk (as the expression is) in permanent improvements of land. So also the capital expended once for all, in the commencement of an undertaking, to prepare the way for subsequent operations: the expense of opening a mine, for example: of cutting canals, of making roads or docks. Other examples might be added, but these are sufficient. Capi¬ tal which exists in any of these durable shapes, and the return to which is spread over a period of corresponding duration, is called Fixed Capital. Of fixed capitals , some kin ds require to be occasionally or periodically renewed. Such are all implements and buildings : they require, at intervals, partial renewal by means of repairs, and are at last entirely worn out, and cannot be of any further service as buildings and implements, but fall back into the class of materials. In other case s, the capital does no t, unless as a consequence of some unusual accident, require entire r enewal: but there is always some outlay needed, either regularly or at least occasionally, to keep it up. A dock or a cana^ once made, does not require, like a machine, to be made again, unless pur¬ posely destroyed, or unless an earthquake or some similar catastrophe has filled it up: but regular and frequent outlays are necessary to keep it in repair. The cost of opening a mine needs not be incurred a second time; but unless someone goes to the expense of keeping the mine clear of water, it is soon rendered useless. The most permanent of all kinds of fixed capital is that employed in giving increased productiveness to a natural agent, such as land. The draining of marshy or inun¬ dated tracts like the Bedford Level, the reclaiming of land from the sea, or its protection by embankments, are improve¬ ments calculated for perpetuity; but drains and dikes require frequent repair. The same character of perpetuity belongs to the improvement of land by subsoil draining, which adds so much to the productiveness of the clay soils; or by permanent manures, that is, by the addition to the soil, not of the sub¬ stances which enter into the composition of vegetables, and which are therefore consumed by vegetation, but of those which merely alter the relation of the soil to air and water; as sand 92 POLITICAL ECONOMY and lime on the heavy soils, clay and marl on the light. Even such works, however, require some, though it may be very little, occasional outlay to maintain their full effect. These improvements, however, by the very fact of their de¬ serving that title, produce an increase of return, which, after defraying all expenditure necessary for keeping them up, still leaves a surplus. This surplus forms the return to the capital sunk in the first instance, and that return does not, as in the case of machinery, terminate by the wearing out of the ma¬ chine, but continues forever. The land thus increased in pro¬ ductiveness, bears a value in the market, proportional to the increase: and hence it is usual to consider the capital which was invested, or sunk, in making the improvement, as still exist¬ ing in the increased value of the land. There must be no mistake, however. The capital, like all other capital, has been consumed. It was consumed in maintaining the laborers who executed the improvement, and in the wear and tear of the tools by which they were assisted. But it was consumed pro¬ ductively, and has left a permanent result in the improved productiveness of an appropriated natural agent, the land. We may call the increased produce the joint result of the land and of a capital fixed in the land. But as the capital, having in reality been consumed, cannot be withdrawn, its productiveness is thenceforth indissolubly blended with that arising from the original qualities of the soil; and the remuneration for the use of it thenceforth depends, not upon the laws which govern the returns to labor and capital, but upon those which govern the recompense for natural agents. What these are, we shall see hereafter.* § 2. There is a great difference between the effects of circu¬ lating and those of fixed capital, on the amount of the gross produce of the country. Circulating capital being destroyed as such, or at any rate finally lost to the owner, by a single use; and the product resulting from that one use being the only source from which the owner can replace the capital, or obtain any remuneration for its productive employment; the product must of course be sufficient for those purposes, or in other words, the result of a single use must be a reproduction equal to the whole amount of the circulating capital used, and a profit besides. This, however, is by no means necessary in the case * Infra, book ii. chap. xvi. On Rent. CIRCULATING AND FIXED CAPITAL 93 of fixed capital. Since machinery, for example, is not wholly consumed by one use, it is not necessary that it should be wholly replaced from the product of that use. The machine answers the purpose of its owner, if it brings in, during each interval of time, enough to cover the expense of repairs, and the de¬ terioration in value which the machine has sustained during the same time, with a surplus sufficient to yield the ordinary profit on the entire value of the machine. From this it follows that all increase of fixed capital, when taking place at the expense of circulating, must be, at least temporarily, prejudicial to the interests of the la borers^ This is true, not of machinery alone, but of all improvements by which capital is sunk; that is, rendered permanently incapable of being applied to the maintenance and remuneration of labor. Suppose that a person farms his own land, with a capital of two thousand quarters of corn, employed in maintaining laborers during one year (for simplicity we omit the consideration of seed and tools), whose labor produces him annually two thou¬ sand four hundred quarters, being a profit of twenty per cent. This profit we shall suppose that he annually consumes, carry¬ ing on his operations from year to year on the original capital of two thousand quarters. Let us now suppose that by the expenditure of half his capital he effects a permanent improve¬ ment of his land, which is executed by half his laborers, and occupies them for a year, after which he will only require, for the effectual cultivation of his land, half as many laborers as before. The remainder of his capital he employs as usual. In the first year there is no difference in the condition of the la¬ borers, except that part of them have received the same pay for an operation on the land, which they previously obtained for ploughing, sowing, and reaping. At the end of the year, however, the improver has not, as before, a capital of two thou¬ sand quarters of corn. Only one thousand quarters of his capi¬ tal have been reproduced in the usual way: he has now only those thousand quarters and his improvements. He will em¬ ploy, in the next and in each following year, only half the num¬ ber of laborers, and will divide among them only half the former quantity of subsistence. The loss will soon be made up to them if the improved land, with the diminished quantity of labor, produces two thousand four hundred quarters as before, be¬ cause so enormous an accession of gain will probably induce 94 POLITICAL ECONOMY the improver to save a part, add it to his capital, and become a larger employer of labor. But it is conceivable that this may not be the case; for (supposing, as we may do, that the im¬ provement will last indefinitely, without any outlay worth men¬ tioning to keep it up) the improver will have gained largely by his improvement if the land now yields, not two thousand four hundred, but one thousand five hundred quarters; since this will replace the one thousand quarters forming his present circulating capital, with a profit of twenty-five per cent, (instead of twenty as before) on the whole capital, fixed and circulating together. The improvement, therefore, may be a very profit¬ able one to him, and yet very injurious to the laborers. The supposition, in the terms in which it has been stated, is purely ideal; or at most applicable only to such a case as that of the conversion of arable land into pasture, which, though formerly a frequent practice, is regarded by modern agricult¬ urists as the reverse of an improvement. The clearing away of the small farmers in the north of Scotland, within the present century, was however a case of it; and Ireland, since the potato famine and the repeal of the corn-laws, is another. The re¬ markable decrease which has lately attracted notice in the gross produce of Irish agriculture, is, to all appearance, partly attrib¬ utable to the diversion of land from maintaining human laborers to feeding cattle: and it could not have taken place without the removal of a large part of the Irish population by emigration or death. We have thus two recent instances in which what was regarded as an agricultural improvement, has diminished the power of the country to support its population. The effect, however, of all the improvements due to modern science is to increase, or at all events, not to diminish the gross produce. But this does not affect the substance of the argument. Sup¬ pose that the improvement does not operate in the manner sup¬ posed—does not enable a part of the labor previously employed on the land to be dispensed with—but only enables the same labor to raise a greater produce. Suppose, too, that the greater produce, which by means of the improvement can be raised from the soil with the same labor, is all wanted, and will find purchas¬ ers. The improver will in that case require the same number of laborers as before, at the same wages. But where will he find the means of paying them? He has no longer his original cap¬ ital of two thousand quarters disposable for the purpose. One CIRCULATING AND FIXED CAPITAL 95 thousand of them are lost and gone—consumed in making the improvement. If he is to employ as many laborers as before, and pay them as highly, he must borrow, or obtain from some other source, a thousand quarters to supply the deficit. But these thousand quarters already maintained, or were destined to maintain, an equivalent quantity of labor. They are not a fresh creation; their destination is only changed from one productive employment to another; and though the agricultur¬ ist has made up the deficiency in his own circulating capital, the breach in the circulating capital of the community remains unrepaired. The argument relied on by most of those who contend that machinery can never be injurious to the laboring class, is, that by cheapening production it creates such an increased de¬ mand for the commodity, as enables, ere long, a greater number of persons than ever to find employment in producing it. This argument does not seem to me to have the weight commonly ascribed to it. The fact, though too broadly stated, is, no doubt, often true. The copyists who were thrown out of employment by the invention of printing, were doubtless soon outnumbered by the compositors and pressmen who took their place: and the number of laboring persons now occupied in the cotton man¬ ufacture is many times greater than were so occupied previously to the inventions of Hargreaves and Arkwright, which shows that besides the enormous fixed capital now embarked in the manufacture, it also employs a far larger circulating capital than at any former time. But if this capital was drawn from other employments; if the funds which took the place of the capital sunk in costly machinery, were supplied not by any additional saving consequent on the improvements, but by drafts on the general capital of the community; what better are the laboring classes for the mere transfer? In what manner is the loss they sustained by the conversion of circulating into fixed capital, made up to them by a mere shifting of part of the remainder of the circulating capital from its old employ¬ ments to a new one? All attempts to make out that the laboring classes as a collec¬ tive body cannot suffer temporarily by the introduction of ma¬ chinery, or by the sinking of capital in permanent improve¬ ments, are, I conceive, necessarily fallacious. That they would suffer in the particular department of industry to which the 9 6 POLITICAL ECONOMY change applies, is generally admitted, and obvious to common sense; but it is often said, that though employment is with¬ drawn from labor in one department, an exactly equivalent employment is opened for it in others, because what the con¬ sumers save in the increased cheapness of one particular article enables them to augment their consumption of others, thereby increasing the demand for other kinds of labor. This is plau¬ sible, but, as was shown in the last chapter, involves a fallacy; demand for commodities being a totally different thing from demand for labor. It is true, the consumers have now addi¬ tional means of buying other things; but this will not create the other things, unless there is capital to produce them, and the improvement has not set at liberty any capital, if even it has not absorbed some from other employments. The supposed increase of production and of employment for labor in other departments therefore will not take place; and the increased demand for commodities by some consumers, will be balanced by a cessation of demand on the part of others, namely, the la¬ borers who were superseded by the improvement, and who will now be maintained, if at all, by sharing, either in the way of competition, or of charity, in what was previously consumed by other people. § 3. .Nevertheless, I do not beli eve th at as things are actually tra n s acted, i mprovem ents in p roduction are often, if ever, in ¬ jurious, even temporarily, to the laboring classes in the agg re¬ gate. They would be so if they took place suddenly to a great amount, because much of the capital sunk must necessarily in that case be provided from funds already employed as circulat ¬ ing capital.. But improve ments are always introduced very gradually, and - are seldonTor never made by ^with drawing cir- culating'Ta^tal Trom actuanproducffonT^but are made by t he employment oTlhe ciiiiiuaTincreasel There are few, if any, ex¬ amples of a greaFTncreasFoT^xeci capital, at a time and place where circulating capital was not rapidly increasing likewise. It is not in poor or backward countries that great and costly improvements in production are made. To sink capital in land for a permanent return—to introduce expensive machinery— are acts involving immediate sacrifice for distant objects; and indicate, in the first place, tolerably complete security of prop¬ erty ; in the second, considerable activity of industrial enter¬ prise ; and in the third, a high standard of what has been called CIRCULATING AND FIXED CAPITAL 97 the “ effective desire of accumulation ”: which three things are the elements of a society rapidly progressive in its amount of capital. Although, therefore, the laboring classes must suf¬ fer, not only if the increase of fixed capital takes place at the expense of circulating, but even if it is so large and rapid as to retard that ordinary increase to which the growth of popula¬ tion has habitually adapted itself; yet, in point of fact, this is very unlikely to happen, since there is probably no country whose fixed capital increases in a ratio more than proportional to its circulating. If the whole of the railways which, during the speculative madness of 1845, obtained the sanction of Par¬ liament, had been constructed in the times fixed for the com¬ pletion of each, this improbable contingency would, most likely, have been realized; but this very case has afforded a striking example of the difficulties which oppose the diversion into new channels of any considerable portion of the capital that supplies the old: difficulties generally much more than sufficient to pre¬ vent enterprises that involve the sinking of capital, from ex¬ tending themselves with such rapidity as to impair the sources of the existing employment for labor. To these considerations must be added, that even if improve¬ ments did for a time decrease the aggregate produce and the circulating capital of the community, they would not the less tend in the long run to augment both. They increase the return to capital; and of this increase the benefit must necessarily accrue either to the capitalist in greater profits, or to the cus¬ tomer in diminished prices; affording, in either case, an aug¬ mented fund from which accumulation may be made, while enlarged profits also hold out an increased inducement to ac¬ cumulation. In the case we before selected, in which the im¬ mediate result of the improvement was to diminish the gross produce from two thousand four hundred quarters to one thou¬ sand five hundred, yet the profit of the capitalist being now five hundred quarters instead of four hundred, the extra one hun¬ dred quarters, if regularly saved, would in a few years replace the one thousand quarters subtracted from his circulating capi¬ tal. Now the extension of business which almost certainly fol¬ lows in any department in which an improvement has been made, affords a strong inducement to those engaged in it to add to their capital; and hence, at the slow pace at which improvements are usually introduced, a great part of the capital Vol. I.—7 9 8 POLITICAL ECONOMY which the improvement ultimately absorbs, is drawn from the increased profits and increased savings which it has itself called forth. This tendency of improvements in production to cause in¬ creased accumulation, and thereby ultimately to increase the gross produce, even if temporarily diminishing it, will assume a still more decided character if it should appear that there are assignable limits both to the accumulation of capital, and to the increase of production from the land, which limits once attained, all further increase of produce must stop; but that improvements in production, whatever may be their other ef¬ fects, tend to throw one or both of these limits farther off. Now, these are truths which will appear in the clearest light in a subsequent stage of our investigation. It will be seen, that the quantity of capital which will, or even which can, be accu¬ mulated in any country, and the amount of gross produce which will, or even which can, be raised, bear a proportion to the state of the arts of production there existing; and that every im¬ provement, even if for the time it diminish the circulating capi¬ tal and the gross produce, ultimately makes room for a larger amount of both, than could possibly have existed otherwise. It is this which is the conclusive answer to the objections against machinery; and the proof thence arising of the ultimate benefit to laborers of mechanical inventions even in the existing state of society, will hereafter be seen to be conclusive.* But this does not discharge governments from the obligation of alleviat¬ ing, and if possible preventing, the evils of which this source of ultimate benefit is or may be productive to an existing genera¬ tion. If the sinking or fixing of capital in machinery or useful works, were ever to proceed at such a pace as to impair mate¬ rially the funds for the maintenance of labor, it would be in¬ cumbent on legislators to take measures for moderating its rapidity: and since improvements which do not diminish em¬ ployment on the whole, almost always throw some particular class of laborers out of it, there cannot be a more legitimate object of the legislator’s care than the interests of those who are thus sacrificed to the gains of their fellow-citizens and of posterity. To return to the theoretical distinction between fixed and circulating capital. Since all wealth which is destined to be * Infra, book iv. chap. v. ■ - , , „ • • x W. : i '] iM':Tq .U..-S 'j: : D !•> . in. -* u t .vwV Vt •• ,*U ’ ' U • - . , . ,.•:.v " > U ■ >- S ' 1 !** ! ■ 5 ’ ' . > < » i: • ' v>- • i * , • • CHOICE EXAMPLES OF CLASSIC SCULPTURE. HERMES. From the original bronze statue in the Museo Borbonico at Naples. Hermes, called Mercurus by the Romans, was a son of Zeus (Jupiter) and Maia, the daughter of Atlas. In Mythology he is the god of trade and the mes¬ senger of Olympus. He is frequently represented with a winged cap, wings on both feet, and a short staff, winged and entwined with serpents. CIRCULATING AND FIXED CAPITAL 99 employed for reproduction comes within the designation of cap¬ ital, there are parts of capital which do not agree with the defi¬ nition of either species of it; for instance, the stock of finished goods which a manufacturer or dealer at any times possesses unsold in his warehouses. But this, though capital as to its destination, is not yet capital in actual exercise: it is not en¬ gaged in production, but has first to be sold or exchanged, that is, converted into an equivalent value of some other commod¬ ities ; and therefore is not yet either fixed or circulating capital; but will become either one or the other, or be eventually divided between them. With the proceeds of his finished goods, a manu¬ facturer will partly pay his work-people, partly replenish his stock of the materials of his manufacture, and partly provide new buildings and machinery, or repair the old; but how much will be devoted to one purpose, and how much to another, de¬ pends on the nature of the manufacture, and the requirements of the particular moment. It should be observed further, that the portion of capital con¬ sumed in the form of seed or material, though, unlike fixed capital, it requires to be at once replaced from the gross produce, stands yet in the same relation to the employment of labor as fixed capital does. What is expended in materials is as much withdrawn from the maintenance and remuneration of laborers, as what is fixed in machinery; and if capital now expended in wages were diverted to the providing of materials, the effect on the laborers would be as prejudicial as if it were converted into fixed capital. This, however, is a kind of change which never takes place. The tendency of improvements in production is always to economize, never to increase, the expenditure of seed or material for a given produce; and the interest of the laborers has no detriment to apprehend from this source. Chapter VII.—On what Depends the Degree of Productiveness of Productive Agents § i. We have concluded our general survey of the requisites of production. We have found that they may be reduced to three: labor, capital, and the materials and motive forces af¬ forded by nature. Of these, labor and the raw material of the globe are primary and indispensable. Natural motive powers may be called in to the assistance of labor, and are a help, but IOO POLITICAL ECONOMY not an essential, of production. The remaining requisite, capi¬ tal, is itself the product of labor: its instrumentality in produc¬ tion is therefore, in reality, that of labor in an indirect shape. It does not the less require to be specified separately. A pre¬ vious application of labor to produce the capital required for consumption during the work, is no less essential than the ap¬ plication of labor to the work itself. Of capital, again, one, and by far the largest, portion, conduces to production only by sustaining in existence the labor which produces: the remain¬ der, namely the instruments and materials, contribute to it di¬ rectly, in the same manner with natural agents, and the mate¬ rials supplied by nature. We now advance to the second great question in political economy; on what the degree of productiveness of these agents depends. For it is evident that their productive efficacy varies greatly at various times and places. With the same population and extent of territory, some countries have a much larger amount of production than others, and the same country at one time a greater amount than itself at another. Compare England either with a similar extent of territory in Russia, or with an equal population of Russians. Compare England now with England in the Middle Ages; Sicily, Northern Africa, or Syria at present, with the same countries at the time of their greatest prosperity, before the Roman conquest. Some of the causes which contribute to this difference of productiveness are obvious; others not so much so. We proceed to specify several of them. § 2. The most evident cause of superior productiveness is what are called patural advantages . These are various. JEec- tilit v of^s oil is one of the principal. In this there are great varieties, from the deserts of Arabia to the alluvial plains of the Ganges, the Niger, and the Mississippi. A favorable cli¬ mate is even more important than a rich soil. There are coun¬ tries capable of being inhabited, but too cold to be compatible with agriculture. Their inhabitants cannot pass beyond the nomadic state; they must live, like the Laplanders, by the do¬ mestication of the reindeer, if not by hunting or fishing, like the miserable Esquimaux. There are countries where oats will ripen, but not wheat, such as the North of Scotland; others where wheat can be grown, but from excess of moisture and want of sunshine, affords but a precarious crop; as in parts DEGREES OF PRODUCTIVENESS IOI of Ireland. With each advance toward the south, or, in the European temperate region, toward the east, some new branch of agriculture becomes first possible, then advantageous; the vine, maize, figs, olives, silk, rice, dates, successively present themselves, until we come to the sugar, coffee, cotton, spices, etc., of climates which also afford, of the more common agri¬ cultural products, and with only a slight degree of cultivation, two or even three harvests in a year. Nor is it in agriculture alone that differences of climate are important. Their influence is felt in many other branches of production: in the durability of all work which is exposed to the air; of buildings, for ex¬ ample. If the temples of Karnac and Luxor had not been in¬ jured by men, they might have subsisted in their original perfec¬ tion almost forever, for the inscriptions on some of them, though anterior to all authentic history, are fresher than is in our climate an inscription fifty years old: while at St. Peters¬ burg, the most massive works, solidly executed in granite hardly a generation ago, are already, as travellers tell us, almost in a state to require reconstruction, from alternate exposure to sum¬ mer heat and intense frost. The superiority of the woven fabrics of Southern Europe over those of England in the rich¬ ness and clearness of many of their colors, is ascribed to the superior quality of the atmosphere, for which neither the knowl¬ edge of chemists nor the skill of dyers has been able to provide, in our hazy and damp climate, a complete equivalent. Another part of the influence of climate consists in lessening the physical requirements of the producers. InTiot regions, mankind can exist in comfort with less perfect housing, less clothing; fuel, that absolute necessary of life in cold climates, they can almost dispense with, except for industrial uses. They also require less aliment; as experience has proved, long before theory had accounted for it by ascertaining that most of what we consume as food is not required for the actual nutrition of the organs, but for keeping up the animal heat, and for supply¬ ing the necessary stimulus to the vital functions, which in hot climates is almost sufficiently supplied by air and sunshine. Much, therefore, of the labor elsewhere expended to procure the mere necessaries of life, not being required, more remains disposable for its higher uses and enjoyments; if the character of the inhabitants does not rather induce them to use up these advantages in over-population, or in the indulgence of repose. 102 POLITICAL ECONOMY Among natural advantages, besides soil and climate, must be mentioned abundance of mineral productions, in convenient situations, and capable of being worked with moderate labor. Such are the coal-fields of Great Britain which do so much to compensate its inhabitants for the disadvantages of climate; and the scarcely inferior resource possessed by this country and the United States, in a copious supply of an easily reduced iron ore, at no great depth below the earth’s surface, and in close proximity to coal deposits available for working it. In moun¬ tain and hill districts, the abundance of natural water-power makes considerable amends for the usually inferior fertility of those regions. But perhaps a greater advantage than all these is a maritime situation, especially when accompanied with good natural harbors; and, next to it, great navigable rivers. These advantages consist indeed wholly in saving the cost of carriage. But few who have not considered the subject, have any adequate notion how great an extent of economical advantage this com¬ prises ; nor, without having considered the influence exercised on production by exchanges, and by what is called the division of labor, can it be fully estimated. So important is it, that it often does more than counterbalance sterility of soil, and almost every other natural inferiority; especially in that early stage of industry in which labor and science have not yet provided artificial means of communication capable of rivalling the nat¬ ural. In the ancient world, and in the Middle Ages, the most prosperous communities were not those which had the largest territory, or the most fertile soil, but rather those which had been forced by natural sterility to make the utmost use of a convenient maritime situation; as Athens, Tyre, Marseilles, Venice, the free cities on the Baltic, and the like. § 3. So much for natural advantages; the value of which, cceteris paribus , is too obvious to be ever underrated. But ex¬ perience testifies that natural advantages scarcely ever do for a community, no more than fortune and station do for an in¬ dividual, anything like what it lies in their nature, or in their capacity, to do. Neither now nor in former ages have the nations possessing the best climate and soil been either the rich¬ est or the most powerful; but (in so far as regards the mass of the people) generally among the poorest, though, in the midst of poverty, probably on the whole the most enjoying. Human life in those countries can be supported on so little, that the poor DEGREES OF PRODUCTIVENESS 103 seldom suffer from anxiety, and in climates in which mere existence is a pleasure, the luxury which they prefer is that of repose. Energy, at the call of passion, they possess in abun¬ dance, but not that which is manifested in sustained and per¬ severing labor: and as they seldom concern themselves enough about remote objects to establish good political institutions, the incentives to industry are further weakened by imperfect pro¬ tection of its fruits. Successful production, like most other kinds of success, depends more on the qualities of the human agents, than on the circumstances in which they work: and it is difficulties, not facilities, that nourish bodily and mental energy. Accordingly the tribes of mankind who have overrun and conquered others, and compelled them to labor for their benefit, have been mostly reared amidst hardship. They have either been bred in the forests of northern climates, or the defi¬ ciency of natural hardships has been supplied, as among the Greeks and Romans, by the artificial ones of a rigid military discipline. From the time when the circumstances of modern society permitted the discontinuance of that discipline, the South has no longer produced conquering nations; military vigor, as well as speculative thought and industrial energy, have all had their principal seats in the less favored North. As the seconin-makin g, though so well known, is so much to the point, that I wilT venture once more to transcribe it. “ The business of making a pin is divided into about eighteen dis¬ tinct operations. One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on, is a peculiar busi¬ ness ; to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper. ... I have seen a small manu¬ factory where ten men only were employed, and where some of them, consequently, performed two or three distinct opera¬ tions. But though they were very poor, and therefore but in¬ differently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound up¬ wards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten per¬ sons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty- eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately and independently, and with¬ out any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, per¬ haps not one pin in a day.” COMBINATION OF LABOR I 2 I jM.^Say furnishes a still stronger example of the effects of di¬ vision of labor—from a not very important branch of industry certainly, the manufacture of playing cards^ “ It is said by those engaged in the business, that each card, that is, a piece of pasteboard of the size of the hand, before being ready for sale, does not undergo fewer than seventy operations , every one of which might be the occupation of a distinct class of workmen. And if there are not severity classes of work-people in each card manufactory, it is because the division of labor is not carried so far as it might be; because the same workman is charged with two, three, or four distinct operations. The in¬ fluence of this distribution of employments is immense. I have seen a card manufactory where thirty workmen produced daily fifteen thousand five hundred cards, being above five hundred cards for each laborer; and it may be presumed that if each of these workmen were obliged to perform all the operations himself, even supposing him a practised hand, he would not perhaps complete two cards in a day: and the thirty workmen, instead of fifteen thousand five hundred cards, would make only sixty.” * In watchmaking 1, . as Mr . Babbage observes, “ it was stated in evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons, that there are a feundred and two distinct branches of this art, to each of which a boy may be put apprentice; and that he only learns his master’s department, and is unable, after his appren¬ ticeship has expired, without subsequent instruction, to work at any other branch. The watch-finisher, whose business it is to put together the scattered parts, is the only one, out of the one hundred and two persons, who can work in any other de¬ partment than his own.” f § 5. The causes of the increased efficiency given to labor by the division of employments are some of them too familiar to require specification; but it is worth while to attempt a com¬ plete enumeration of them. By Adam Smith they are reduced to three. “ J 7 irst ? the increase of dex terity in every particular workman ; secondly, the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another; and las tly, * Say, “ Cours d’Economie Politique Pratique,” vol. i. p. 340. It is a remarkable proof of the econ¬ omy of labor occasioned by this minute division of occupations, that an article, the production of which is the result of such a multitude of manual operations, can be sold for a trifling sum. t “ Economy of Machinery and Man¬ ufactures,” 3d Edition, p. 201. 122 POLITICAL ECONOMY the invention of a gre at num ber oLmachine s which facilitate and abridge labor, and enable one man to do the work of many.” Of these, the increase of dexterity of the individual workman is the most obvious and universal. It does not follow that be¬ cause a thing has been done oftener it will be done better. That depends on the intelligence of the workman, and on the degree in which his mind works along with his hands. But it will be done more easily. The organs themselves acquire gi eater power: the muscles employed grow stronger by frequent ex¬ ercise, the sinews more pliant, and the mental powers more efficient, and less sensible of fatigue. What can be done easily has at least a better chance of being done well, and is sure to be done more expeditiously. What was at first done slowly comes to be done quickly; what was at first done slowly with accuracy is at last done quickly with equal accuracy. This is as true of mental operations as of bodily. Even a child, after much practice, sums up a column of figures with a rapidity which resembles intuition. The act of speaking any language, of reading fluently, or playing music at sight, are cases as re¬ markable as they are familiar. Among bodily acts, dancing, gymnastic exercises, ease and brilliancy of execution on a mu¬ sical instrument, are examples of the rapidity and facility ac¬ quired by repetition. In simpler manual operations, the effect is of course still sooner produced. “ The rapidity,” Adam Smith observes, “ with which some of the operations of certain manufactures are performed, exceeds what the human hand could, by those who have never seen them, be supposed capable of acquiring.” * This skill is, naturally, attained after shorter practice, in proportion as the division of labor is more minute; and will not be attained in the same degree at all, if the work¬ man has a greater variety of operations to execute than allows of a sufficiently frequent repetition of each. The advantage is not confined to the greater efficiency ultimately attained, but * “ In astronomical observations, the senses of the operator are rendered so acute by habit, that he can estimate dif¬ ferences of time to the tenth of a second; and adjust his measuring instrument to graduations of which five thousand oc¬ cupy only an inch. It is the same throughout the commonest processes of manufacture. A child who fastens on the heads of pins will repeat an opera¬ tion requiring several distinct motions of the muscles one hundred times a minute for several successive hours. In a recent Manchester paper it was stated that a peculiar sort of twist or * gimp/ which cost three shillings making when first introduced, was now manufactured for one penny; and this not, as usually, by the invention of a new machine, but solely through the increased dexterity of the workman.”—“ Edinburgh Re¬ view ” for January, 1849, p. 81. COMBINATION OF LABOR 123 includes also the diminished loss of time, and waste of material, in learning the art. “ A certain quantity of material,” says Mr. Babbage,f “will in all cases be consumed unprofitably, or spoiled, by every person who learns an art; and as he applies himself to each new process, he will waste some of the raw ma¬ terial, or of the partly manufactured commodity. But if each man commits this waste in acquiring successively every proc¬ ess, the quantity of waste will be much greater than if each per¬ son confine his attention to one process.” And in general each will be much sooner qualified to execute his one process, if he be not distracted while learning it, by the necessity of learning others. The second advantage enumerated by Adam Smith as aris¬ ing from the division of labor, is one on which I cannot help thinking that more stress is laid by him and others than it de¬ serves. To do full justice to his opinion, I will quote his own exposition of it. “ The advantage which is gained by saving the time commonly lost in passing from one sort of work to another, is much greater than we should at first view be apt to imagine it. It is impossible to pass very quickly from one kind of work to another, that is carried on in a different place, and with quite different tools. A country weaver, who culti¬ vates a small farm, must lose a good deal of time in passing from his loom to the field, and from the field to his loom. When the two trades can be carried on in the same workhouse, the loss of time is no doubt much less. It is even in this case, however, very considerable. A man commonly saunters a lit¬ tle in turning his hand from one sprt of employment to another. When he first begins the new work, he is seldom very keen and hearty; his mind, as they say, does not go to it, and for some time he rather trifles than applies to good purpose. The habit of sauntering and of indolent careless application, which is naturally, or rather necessarily acquired by every country workman who is obliged to change his work and his tools every half hour, and to apply his hand in twenty different ways almost every day of his life, renders him almost always sloth¬ ful and lazy, and incapable of any vigorous application even on the most pressing occasions.” This is surely a most exag¬ gerated description of the inefficiency of country labor, where it has any adequate motive to exertion. Few workmen change t Page 171.. 124 POLITICAL ECONOMY their work and their tools oftener than a gardener; is he usually incapable of vigorous application? Many of the higher de¬ scription of artisans have to perform a great multiplicity of operations with a variety of tools. They do not execute each of these with the rapidity with which a factory workman per¬ forms his single operation; but they are, except in a merely manual sense, more skilful laborers, and in all senses whatever more energetic. Mr. Babbage, following in the track of Adam Smith, says, “When the human hand, or the human head, has been for some time occupied in any kind of work, it cannot instantly change its employment with full effect. The muscles of the limbs em¬ ployed have acquired a flexibility during their exertion, and those not in action a stiffness during rest, which render every change slow and unequal in the commencement. Long habit also produces in the muscles exercised a capacity for enduring fatigue to a much greater degree than they could support under other circumstances. A similar result seems to take place in any change of mental exertion; the attention bestowed on the new subject not being so perfect at first as it becomes after some exercise. The employment of different tools in the suc¬ cessive processes, is another cause of the loss of time in chang¬ ing from one operation to another. If these tools are simple, and the change is not frequent, the loss of time is not consider¬ able ; but in many processes of the arts, the tools are of great delicacy, requiring accurate adjustment every time they are used ; and in many cases, the time employed in adjusting bears a large proportion to that employed in using the tool. The sliding-rest, the dividing and the drilling engine are of this kind: and hence, in manufactories of sufficient extent, it is found to be good economy to keep one machine constantly em¬ ployed in one kind of work: one lathe, for example, having a screw motion to its sliding-rest along the whole length of its bed, is kept constantly making cylinders; another, having a motion for equalizing the velocity of the work at the point at which it passes the tool, is kept for facing surfaces; whilst a third is constantly employed in cutting wheels.” I am very far from implying that these different considera¬ tions are of no weight; but I think there are counter-consid¬ erations which are overlooked. If one kind of muscular o r mental labor is different from another, for that very reasoix COMBINATION OF LABOR I2 5 it is to som e e xtent a rest from that other; and if the greatest vigor is not at once ob tained in thg second occupation t neithe r could the tirst have been indefi nitely prolonged without some Eelaxation of ene rgy. It is a matter of common experience "that a change of occupation will often afford relief where com¬ plete repose would otherwise be necessary, and that a person can work many more hours without fatigue at a succession of occupations, than if confined during the whole time to one. Different occup ati ons employ different muscles, or differen t energies of the mind, so m e of which rest and are refreshed \yhile others work, bodily labor itself rests from mental, and conversely. The variety itself has an invigorating effect on what, for want of a more philosophical appellation, we must term the animal spirits; so important to the efficiency of all work not mechanical, and not unimportant even to that. The comparative weight due to these considerations is different with different individuals ; some are more fitted than others for persistency in one occupation, and less fit for change; they require longer to get the steam up (to use a metaphor now common); the irksomeness of setting to work lasts longer, and it requires more time to bring their faculties into full play, and therefore when this is once done, they do not like to leave off, but go on long without intermission, even to the injury of their health. Temperament has something to do with these differences. There are people whose faculties seem by nature to come slowly into action, and to accomplish little until they have been a long time employed. Others, again, get into ac¬ tion rapidly, but cannot, without exhaustion, continue long. In this, however, as in most other things, though natural dif¬ ferences are something, habit is much more. The habit of passing rapidly from one occupation to another may be ac¬ quired, like other habits, by early cultivation; and when it is acquired, there is none of the sauntering which Adam Smith speaks of, after each change; no want of energy and interest, but the workman comes to each part of his occupation with a freshness and a spirit which he does not retain if he persists in any one part (unless in case of unusual excitement) beyond the length of time to which he is accustomed. Women are usually (at least in their present social circumstances) of far greater versatility than men; and the present topic is an instance among multitudes, how little the ideas and experience of worn- 126 POLITICAL ECONOMY en have yet counted for, in forming the opinions of mankind. There are few women who would not reject the idea that work is made vigorous by being protracted, and is inefficient for some time after changing to a new thing. Even in this case, habit, I believe, much more than nature, is the cause of the difference. The occupations of nine out of every ten men are special, those of nine out of every ten women general, embrac¬ ing a multitude of details, each of which requires very little time. Women are in the constant practice of passing quickly from one manual, and still more from one mental, operation to another, which therefore rarely costs them either effort or loss of time, while a man’s occupation generally consists in work¬ ing steadily for a long time at one thing, or one very limited class of things. But the situations are sometimes reversed, and with them the characters. Women are not found less efficient than men for the uniformity of factory work, or they would not so generally be employed for it; and a man who has cul¬ tivated the habit of turning his hand to many things, far from being the slothful and lazy person described by Adam Smith, is usually remarkably lively and active. It is true, however, that change of occupation may be too frequent even for the most versatile. Incessant variety is even more fatiguing than perpetual sameness. The third advantage attributed by Adam Smith to the divi¬ sion of labor, is, to a certain extent, real. Inventions tending to save labor in a particular operation, are more likely to occur to any one in proportion as his thoughts are intensely directed to that occupation, and continually employed upon it. A per¬ son is not so likely to make practical improvements in one de¬ partment of things, whose attention is very much diverted to others. But, in this, much more depends on general intelli¬ gence and habitual activity of mind, than on exclusiveness of occupation; and if that exclusiveness is carried to a degree unfavorable to the cultivation of intelligence, there will be more lost in this kind of advantage than gained. We may add, that whatever may be the cause of making inventions, when they are once made, the increased efficiency of labor is owing to the invention itself, and not to the division of labor. , Tlie greatest advantage (next to the dexte rity wnrk- men) derived from the mi nute div ision of l abor which _takes COMBINATION OF LABOR 127 b y Adam Smith, but to whic h att ention has been drawn b v Mr. Babbage; th e more economical distribution of labor, bvclass-^ i ng the~work-people according to their c apacity. Different parts of the same series of operations require unequal degrees of skill and bodily strength; and those who have skill enough for the most difficult, or strength enough for the hardest parts of the labor, are made much more useful by being employed solely in them; the operations which everybody is capable of, being left to those who are fit for no others. Production is most efficient when the precise quantity of skill and strength, which is required for each part of the process, is employed in it, and no more. The operation of pin-making requires, it seems, in its different parts, such different degrees of skill, that the wages earned by the persons employed vary from four- pence halfpenny a day to six shillings; and if the workman who is paid at that highest rate had to perform the whole process, he would be working a part of his time with a waste per day equivalent to the difference between six shillings and fourpence halfpenny. Without reference to the loss sustained in quantity of work done, and supposing even that he could make a pound of pins in the same time in which ten workmen combining their labor can make ten pounds, Mr. Babbage com¬ putes that they would cost, in making, three times and three- quarters as much as they now do by means of the division of labor. In needle-making, he adds, the difference would be still greater, for in that, the scale of remuneration for different parts of the process varies from sixpence to twenty shillings a day. To the advantage which consists in extracting the greatest possible amount of utility from skill, may be adde d the anal¬ ogous one, of extracting the utmost possible utility from tools. “ If anv man, ” says an able writer,* “ had all th e tools which many different occupations require, at least tli ree-fourths M t hem would consta ntly be idle and useless. It were clearly - then Better, were any society to exist where~each man had all these tools, and alternately carried on each of these occupations, that the members of it should, if possible, divide them amongst them, each restricting himself to some particular employment. The advantages of the change to the whole community, and therefore to every individual in it, are great. In the first place, * “ Statement of some New Principles on the Subject of Political Economy,” by John Rae (Boston, U. S.), p. 164. 128 POLITICAL ECONOMY the various implements, being in constant employment, yield a better return for what has been laid out in procuring them. In consequence their owners can afford to have them of better quality and more complete construction. The result of both events is, that a larger provision is made for the future wants of the whole society.’' § 6. The division of labor, as all writers on the subje ct have remarked, is limited by the extent of the mark et. If, by the separation of pin-making into ten distinct employments, forty- eight thousand pins can be made in a day, this separation will only be advisable if the number of accessible consumers is such as to require, every day, something like forty-eight thousand pins. If there is only a demand for twenty-four thousand, the division of labor can only be advantageously carried to the ex¬ tent which will every day produce that smaller number. This, therefore, is a further mode in which an accession of demand for a commodity tends to increase the efficiency of the labor employed in its production. The extent of the market may be limited by several causes : too small a population ; the popula¬ tion too scattered and distant to be easily accessible; deficiency of roads and water carriage; or, finally, the population too poor, that is, their collective labor too little effective, to admit of their being large consumers. Indolence, want of skill, and want of combination of labor, among those who would other¬ wise be buyers of a commodity, limit, therefore, the practicable amount of combination of labor among its producers. In an early stage of civilization, when the demand of any particular locality was necessarily small, industry only flourished among those who by their command of the sea-coast or of a navigable river, could have the whole world, or all that part of it which lay on coasts or navigable rivers, as a market for their produc¬ tions. The increase of the general riches of the world, when accompanied with freedom of commercial intercourse, im¬ provements in navigation, and inland communication by roads, canals, or railways, tends to give increased productiveness to the labor of every nation in particular, by enabling each locality to supply with its special products so much larger a market, that a great extension of the division of labor in their produc¬ tion is an ordinary consequence. The division of labor is also limited, in many cases, by the ^—1» i lur i f ■—,—,—■■■-■ ■«! — nat ure o f Ihc employment. Agriculture, for example, is not PRODUCTION ON A LARGE AND SMALL SCALE 129 susceptible of so great a division of occupation as many branches of manufactures, because its different operations can¬ not possibly be simultaneous. One man cannot be always ploughing, another sowing, and another reaping. A work¬ man who only practised one agricultural operation would be idle eleven months of the year. The same person may per¬ form them all in succession, and have, in most climates, a con¬ siderable amount of unoccupied time. To execute a great agricultural improvement, it is often necessary that many labor¬ ers should work together; but in general, except the few whose business is superintendence, they all work in the same manner. A canal or a railwav embankment cannot be made without a •/ combination of many laborers; but they are all excavators, except the engineer and a few clerks. Chapter IX.—Of Production on a Large, and Production on a Small Scale § 1. From the importance of combination of labor, it is an obvious conclusion, that foere are many cases in which produc ¬ tion is made much more effective by being conducted on a large scale. Whenever it is essential to the greatest efficiency of labor that many laborers should combine, even though only in the way of Simple Co-operation, the scale of the enterprise must be such as to bring many laborers together, and the cap¬ ital must be large enough to maintain them. Still more need¬ ful is this when the nature of the employment allows, and the extent of the possible market encourages, a considerable divi¬ sion of labor. The larger the enterprise, the further the divi ¬ sion of labor may be carrie^d . This is one of the principal causes of large manufactories. Even when no additional sub¬ division of the work would follow an enlargement of the opera¬ tions, there will be good economy in enlarging them to the point at which every person to whom it is convenient to assign a special occupation, will have full employment in that occupa¬ tion. This point is well illustrated by Mr. Babbage: * “ If machines be kept working through the twenty-four hours,’’ (which is evidently the only economical mode of em¬ ploying them) “ it is necessary that some person shall attend to admit the workmen at the time they relieve each other; and * Page 214 et seqq. VOL. I.—9 130 POLITICAL ECONOMY whether the porter or other servant so employed admit one person or twenty, his rest will be equally disturbed. It will also be necessary occasionally to adjust or repair the machine; and this can be done much better by a workman accustomed to machine-making, than by the person who uses it. Now, since the good performance and the duration of machines de¬ pend, to a very great extent, upon correcting every shake or imperfection in their parts as soon as it appears, the prompt attention of a workman resident on the spot will considerably reduce the expenditure arising from the wear and tear of the machinery. But in the case of a single lace-frame, or a single loom, this would be too expensive a plan. Here then arises an¬ other circumstance which tends to enlarge the extent of a factory. It ought to consist of such a number of machines as shall occupy the whole time of one workman in keeping them in order: if extended beyond that number, the same principle of economy would point out the necessity of doubling or trip¬ ling the number of machines, in order to employ the whole time of two or three skilful workmen. “ When one portion of the workman’s labor consists in the exertion of mere physical force, as in weaving, and in many similar arts, it will soon occur to the manufacturer, that if that part were executed by a steam-engine, the same man might, in the case of weaving, attend to two or more looms at once: and, since we already suppose that one or more operative en¬ gineers have been employed, the number of looms may be so arranged that their time shall be fully occupied in keeping the steam engine and the looms in order. “ Pursuing the same principles, the manufactory becomes gradually so enlarged, that the expense of lighting during the, night amounts to a considerable sum: and as there are already attached to the establishment persons who are up all night, and can therefore constantly attend to it, and also engineers to make and keep in repair any machinery, the addition of an apparatus for making gas to light the factory leads to a new extension, at the same time that it contributes, by diminish¬ ing the expense of lighting, and the risk of accidents from fire, to reduce the cost of manufacturing. “ Long before a factory has reached this extent, it will have been found necessary to establish an accountant’s department, with clerks to pay the workmen, and to see that they arrive PRODUCTION ON A LARGE AND SMALL SCALE 131 at their stated times; and this department must be in commu¬ nication with the agents who purchase the raw produce, and with those who sell the manufactured article/’ It will cost these clerks and accountants little more time and trouble to pay a large number of workmen than a small number: to check the accounts of large transactions, than of small. If the busi¬ ness doubled itself, it would probably be necessary to increase, * but certainly not to double, the number either of accountants, or of buying and selling agents. Every increase of business would enable the whole to be carried on with a proportionally smaller amount of labor. As a general rule, the expenses of a business do not increase by any means proportionally to the quantity of busines s. Let us take as an example, a set of operations which we are accus¬ tomed to see carried on by one great establishment, that of the Post Office . Suppose that the business, let us say only of the London letter-post, instead of being centralized in a single con¬ cern, were divided among five or six competing companies. Each of these would be obliged to maintain almost as large an establishment as is now sufficient for the whole. Since each must arrange for receiving and delivering letters in all parts of the town, each must send letter-carriers into every street, and almost every alley, and this too as many times in the day as is now done by the Post Office, if the service is to be as well per¬ formed. Each must have an office for receiving letters in every neighborhood, with all subsidiary arrangements for collecting the letters from the different offices and redistributing them. To this must be added the much greater number of superior officers who would be required to check and control the sub¬ ordinates, implying not only a greater cost in salaries for such responsible officers, but the necessity, perhaps, of being satis¬ fied in many instances with an inferior standard of qualification, and so failing in the object. Whether or not the advantages obtained by operating on a large scale preponderate in any particular case over the more wa tchful atten tion , and greater regard to., minor ami losses, usually found in small establishments, can be ascer¬ tained, in a state of free competition, by an unfailing- test . Wherever there are large and small establishments in the same business, that one of the two which in existing circumstances carries on the production at greatest advantage, will be able to i 3 2 POLITICAL ECONOMY undersel l the other . The power of permanently underselling can only, ' generally speaking-, be derived from increased effec - Tivene ss of labor; and this, when obtained by a more extend ed division of employment, or by a classification tending to a better economy of skill, always implies a greater produce from the same labor T and not merely the same produce from less labou r it increases not the surplus only, but the gross ^produce of in ¬ dustry . If an increased quantity of the particular article is not required, and part of the laborers in consequence lose their em¬ ployment, the capital which maintained and employed them is also set at liberty; and the general produce of the country is increased, by some other application of their labor. Another of the causes of large manufactories, however , is the introduction of processes requiring expensive machiner y. Expensive machinery suppose s a large capi tal; and is not re¬ sorted t( 7 except wrtITThe intention of producing, and the hope of selling, as much of the article as comes up to the full powers of the machine. For both these reasons, wherever costly ma¬ chinery is used, the large system of production is inevitable. But the power of underselling is not in this case so unerring a test as in the former, of the beneficial effect on the total pro¬ duction of the community. The power of underselling does not depend on the absolute increase of produce, but on its bearing an increased proportion to the expenses: which, as was shown in a former chapter,* it may do, consistently with even a diminution of the gross annual produce. By the adoption of machinery, a circulating capital, which was perpetually con¬ sumed and reproduced, has been converted into a fixed capital, requiring only a small annual expense to keep it up: and a much smaller produce will suffice for merely covering that ex¬ pense, and replacing the remaining circulating capital of the producer. The machinery therefore might answer perfectly well to the manufacturer, and enable him to undersell his com¬ petitors, though the effect on the production of the country might be not an increase but a diminution. It is true, the ar¬ ticle will be sold cheaper, and therefore, of that single article, there will probably be not a smaller, but a greater quantity sold; since the loss to the community collectively has fallen upon the work-people, and they are not the principal custom¬ ers, if customers at all, of most branches of manufacture. But * Supra, chap. vi. p. 93, 94. PRODUCTION ON A LARGE AND SMALL SCALE 133 though that particular branch of industry may extend itself, it will be by replenishing its diminished circulating capital from that of the community generally; and if the laborers employed in that department escape loss of employment, it is because the loss will spread itself over the laboring people at large. If any of them are reduced to the condition of unproductive laborers, supported by voluntary or legal charity, the gross produce of the country is to that extent permanently diminished, until the ordinary progress of accumulation makes it up: but if the condition of the laboring classes enables them to bear a tempo¬ rary reduction of wages, and the superseded laborers become absorbed in other employments, their labor is still productive, and the breach in the gross produce of the community is re¬ paired, though not the detriment to the laborers. I have re¬ stated this exposition, which has already been made in a former place, to impress more strongly the truth, that a mode of pro¬ duction does not of necessity increase the productive effect of the collective labor of a community, because it enables a partic¬ ular commodity to be sold cheaper. The one consequence generally accompanies the other, but not necessarily. I will not here repeat the reasons I formerly gave, nor anticipate those which will be given more fully hereafter, for deeming the exception to be rather a case abstractedly possible, than one which is frequently realized in fact. A considerable part of the saving of labor effected by sub¬ stituting the large system of production for the small, is the saving in the labor of the capitalists themselves. If a hundred producers with small capitals carry on separately the same business, the superintendence of each concern will probably require the whole attention of the person conducting it, suffi¬ ciently at least to hinder his time or thoughts from being dis¬ posable for anything else: while a single manufacturer pos¬ sessing a capital equal to the sum of theirs, with ten or a dozen clerks, could conduct the whole of their amount of business, and have leisure too for other occupations. The small capital¬ ist, it is true, generally combines with the business of direction some portion of the details, which the other leaves to his sub¬ ordinates : the small farmer follows his own plough, the small tradesman serves in his own shop, the small weaver plies his own loom. But in this very union of functions there is, in a great proportion of cases, a want of economy. The principal 134 POLITICAL ECONOMY in the concern is either wasting, in the routine of a business, qualities suitable for the direction of it, or he is only fit for the former, and then the latter will be ill done. I must observe however that I do not attach, to this saving of labor, the im¬ portance often ascribed to it. There is undoubtedly much more labor expended in the superintendence of many small capitals than in that of one large capital. For this labor however the small producers have generally a full compensation, in the feel¬ ing of being their own masters, and not servants of an em¬ ployer. It may be said, that if they value this independence they will submit to pay a price for it, and to sell at the reduced rates occasioned by the competition of the great dealer or man¬ ufacturer. But they cannot always do this and continue to gain a living. They thus gradually disappear from society. After having consumed their little capital in prolonging the unsuc¬ cessful struggle, they either sink into the condition of hired laborers, or become dependent on others for support. § 2. Production on a large scale is greatly promoted by the practice of forming a large capital by the combination of many small contributions; or, in other words, by the formation of joint stock comp anies. The advantages of the joint stock prin¬ ciple are numerous and important. In the first place, many undertakings require an amount of c apital bevond the means of the richest individual or priv ate partnershi p. No individual could have made a railway f rom London to Liverpool ; it is doubtful if any individual could even work tfieTraffic on it, now when it is made. The govern¬ ment indeed could have done both; and in countries where the practice of co-operation is only in the earlier stages of its growth, the government can alone be looked to for any of the works for which a great combination of means is requisite; because it can obtain those means by compulsory taxation, and is already accustomed to the conduct of large operations. For reasons, however, which are tolerably well known, and of which we shall treat fully hereafter, government agency for the conduct of industrial operations is generally one of the least eligible resources, when any other is available. Next, there are undertakings which individuals are not ab¬ solutely incapable of performing, but which they cannot per¬ form on the scale and with the continuity which are ever more and more required by the exigencies of a society in an advanc- PRODUCTION ON A LARGE AND SMALL SCALE 135 ing state. Individuals are quite capable of despatching ships from England to any or every part of the world, to carry pas¬ sengers and letters; the thing was done before joint stock companies for the purpose were heard of. But when, from the increase of population and transactions, as well as of means of payment, the public will no longer content themselves with occasional opportunities, but require the certainty that packets shall start regularly, for some places once or even twice a day, for others once a week, for others that a steamship of great size and expensive construction shall depart on fixed days twice in each month, it is evident that to afford an assurance of keep¬ ing up with punctuality such a circle of costly operations, re¬ quires a much larger capital and a much larger staff of qualified subordinates than can be commanded by an individual capitalist. There are other cases, again, in which though the business might be perfectly well transacted with small or moderate capi¬ tals, the guarantee of a great subscribed stock is necessary or desirable as a security to the public for the fulfilment of pecun¬ iary engagements. This is especially the case when the nature of the business requires that numbers of persons should be willing to trust the concern with their money: as in the busi¬ ness of banking, and that of insurance: to both of which the joint stock principle is eminently adapted. It is an instance of the folly and jobbery of the rulers of mankind, that until a late period the joint stock principle, as a general resort, was in this country interdicted by law to these two modes of busi¬ ness ; to banking altogether, and to insurance in the depart¬ ment of sea risks; in order to bestow a lucrative monopoly on particular establishments which the government was pleased exceptionally to license, namely the Bank of England, and two insurance companies, the London and the Royal Exchange. Another advantage of joint stock, or associated management, is its i ncident of publicity . This is not an invariable, but it is a natural, consequence of the joint stock principle, and might be, as in some important cases it already is, compulsory. In banking, insurance, and other businesses which depend wholly on confidence, publicity is a still more important element of success than a large subscribed capital. A heavy loss occurring in a private bank may be kept secret; even though it were of such magnitude as to cause the ruin of the concern, the banker may still carry it on for years, trying to retrieve its position. 13 6 POLITICAL ECONOMY only to fall in the end with a greater crash: but this cannot so easily happen in the case of a joint stock company whose accounts are published periodically. The accounts, even if cooked, still exercise some check; and the suspicions of share¬ holders. b r eaking out at the general meetings, put the public on their guard . These are some of the advantages of joint stock over individ¬ ual management. But if we look to the other side of the ques¬ tion, we shall find that individual management has also very great advantages over joint stock. The chief of these is the much keener interest of the managers in the success of the undertaking. The administration of a joint stock association is, in the main, administration by hired servants . Even the committee, or board of" directors, who are supposed to superintend the management, and who do really appoint and remove the man¬ agers, have no pecuniary interest in the good working of the concern beyond the shares they individually hold, which are always a very small part of the capital of the association, and in general but a small part of the fortunes of the directors them¬ selves ; and the part they take in the management usually di¬ vides their time with many other occupations, of as great or greater importance to their own interest; the business being the principal concern of no one except those who are hired to carry it on. But experience shows, and proverbs, the ex¬ pression of popular experience, attest, how inferior is the qual¬ ity of hired servants, compared with the ministration of those personally interested in the work, and how indispensable, when hired service must be employed, is “ the master’s eye ” to watch over it. The successful conduct of an industrial enterprise requires two quite distinct qualifications: fidelity, and . zeal. The fidelity of the hired managers of a coficenETt is~pbssible to secure. When their work admits of being reduced to a definite set of rules, the violation of these is a matter on which conscience cannot easily blind itself, and on which responsibility may be enforced by the loss of employment. But to carry on a great business successfully, requires a hundred things which, as they cannot be defined beforehand, it is impossible to convert into distinct and positive obligations. First and principally, it re¬ quires that the directing mind should be incessantly occupied PRODUCTION ON A LARGE AND SMALL SCALE 137 ^fith the subject; should be continually laying schemes by which greater profit may be obtained, or expense saved . This intensity of interest in the subject it is seldom to be expected that anyone should feel, who is conducting a business as the hired servant and for the profit of another. There are experi¬ ments in human affairs which are conclusive on the point. Look at the whole class of rulers, and ministers of state. The work they are intrusted with, is among the most interesting and exciting of all occupations; the personal share which they them¬ selves reap of the national benefits or misfortunes which befall the state under their rule, is far from trifling, and the rewards and punishments which they may expect from public estima¬ tion are of the plain and palpable kind which are most keenly felt and most widely appreciated. Yet how rare a thin g is i t to find a statesman in whom mental indolence is not s tronger than all these inducements, How infinitesimal is the proportion who trouble themselves to form, or even to attend to, plans of public improvement, unless when it is made still more trouble¬ some to them to remain inactive; or who have any other real desire than that of rubbing on, so as to escape general blame. On a smaller scale, all who have ever employed hired labor have had ample experience of the efforts made to give as little labor in exchange for th e .wag es, as is compatible with not being turned off. The universal neglect by domestic servants of their employer’s interests, wherever these are not protected by some fixed rule, is matter of common remark; unless where long continuance in the same service, and reciprocal good of¬ fices, have produced either personal attachment, or some feeling of a common interest. Another of the disadvantages of joint stock concerns, which is in some degree common to all concerns on a large scale, is disregard of small gains and small savin gs. In the manage¬ ment of a great capital and great transactions, especially when the managers have not much interest in it of their own, small sums are apt to be counted for next tcf nothing; they never seem worth the care and trouble which it costs to attend to them, and the credit of liberality and open-handedness is cheaply bought by a disregard of such trifling considerations. But small profits and small expenses, often repeated, amount to great gains and losses: and of this a large capitalist is often a suffi¬ ciently good calculator to be practically aware; and to arrange i3 8 POLITICAL ECONOMY his business on a system, which if enforced by a sufficiently vigilant superintendence, precludes the possibility of the habit¬ ual waste, otherwise incident to a great business. But the man¬ agers of a joint stock concern seldom devote themselves suffi¬ ciently to the work, to enforce unremittingly, even if introduced, through every detail of the business, a really economical system. From considerations of this nature, Adam Smith was led to enunciate as a principle, that joint stock companies could never be expected to maintain themselves without an exclusive privi¬ lege, except in branches of business which like banking, insur¬ ance, and some others, admit of being, in a considerable degree, reduced to fixed rules. This however is one of those overstate¬ ments of a true principle, often met with in Adam Smith. In his days there were few instances of joint stock companies * * which had been permanently successful without a monopoly, except the class of cases which he referred to; but since his time there have been many; and the regular increase both of the spirit of combination and of the ability to combine, will doubtless produce many more. Adam Smith fixed his observa¬ tion too exclusively on the superior energy and more unremit¬ ting attention brought to a business in which the whole stake and the whole gain belong to the persons conducting it; and he overlooked various countervailing considerations which go a great way toward neutralizing even that great point of supe¬ riority. Of these one of the most important is that which relates to the intellectual and active qualifications of the directing head. The stimulus of individual interest is some security for exer¬ tion, but exertion is of little avail if the intelligence exerted is of an inferior order, which it must necessarily be in the majority of concerns carried on by the persons chiefly interested in them. Where the concern is large, and can afford a re¬ muneration sufficient to attract a class of candidates superior to the common average, it is possible to select for the general management, and for all the skilled employments of a subordi¬ nate kind, persons of a degree of acquirement and cultivated intelligence which more than compensates for their inferior interest in the result. Their greater perspicacity enables them, with even a part of their minds, to see probabilities of advantage which never occur to the ordinary run of men by the continued exertion of the whole of theirs; and their superior knowledge, PRODUCTION ON A LARGE AND SMALL SCALE 139 and habitual rectitude of perception and of judgment, guard them against blunders, the fear of which would prevent the others from hazarding their interests in any attempt out of the ordinary routine. It must be further remarked, that it is not a necessary conse¬ quence of joint stock management, that the persons employed, whether in superior or in subordinate offices, should be paid wholly by fixed salaries. There are modes of connecting more or less intimately the interest of the employes with the pecun¬ iary success of the concern. There is a long series of inter¬ mediate positions, between working wholly on one’s own ac¬ count, and working by the day, week, or year for an invariable payment. Even in the case of ordinary unskilled labor, there is such a thing as task-work, or working by the piece: and the superior efficiency of this is so well known, that judicious em¬ ployers always resort to it when the work admits of being put out in definite portions, without the necessity of too troublesome a surveillance to guard against inferiority in the execution. In the case of the managers of joint stock companies, and of the superintending and controlling officers in many private establishments, it is a common enough practice to connect their pecuniary interest with the interest of their employers, by giv¬ ing them part of their remuneration in the form of a percentage on the profits. The personal interest thus given to hired ser¬ vants is not comparable in intensity to that of the owner of the capital; but it is sufficient to be a very material stimulus to zeal and carefulness, and, when added to the advantage of superior intelligence, often raises the quality of the service much above that which the generality of masters are capable of ren¬ dering to themselves. The ulterior extensions of which this principle of remuneration is susceptible, being of great social as well as economical importance, will be more particularly ad¬ verted to in a subsequent stage of the present inquiry. As I have already remarked of large establishments generally, when compared with small ones, whenever competition is free its results will show whether individual or joint stock agency is best adapted to the particular case, since that which is most efficient and most economical will always in the end succeed in underselling the other. § 3. The possibility of substituting the large sy stem of pro¬ duction for the small, depends, of course, in the first place, on 140 POLITICAL ECONOMY ^he extent of foe marke t. The large system can only be advan¬ tageous when a large amount of business is to be done: it implies, therefore, either a populous and flourishing community, or a great opening for exportation. Again, this as well as every other change in the system of production is greatly favored by a progressive condition of capital. It is chiefly when the capital of a country is receiving a great annual increase, that there is a large amount of capital seeking for investment: and a new enterprise is much sooner and more easily entered upon by new capital, than by withdrawing capital from existing employ¬ ments. The change is also much facilitated by the existence of large capitals in few hands. It is true that the same amount of capital can be raised by bringing together many small sums. But this (besides that it is not equally well suited to all branches of industry), supposes a much greater degree of commercial confidence and enterprise diffused through the community, and belongs altogether to a more advanced stage of industrial progress. In the countries in which there are the largest markets, the widest diffusion of commercial confidence and enterprise, the greatest annual increase of capital, and the greatest number of large capitals owned by individuals, there is a tendency to sub¬ stitute more and more, in one branch of industry after another, large establishments for small ones. In England, the chief type of all these characteristics, there is a perpetual growth not only of large manufacturing establishments, but also, wherever a sufficient number of purchasers are assembled, of shops and warehouses for conducting retail business on a large scale. These are almost always able to undersell the smaller trades¬ men, partly, it is understood, by means of division of labor, and the economy occasioned by limiting the employment of skilled agency to cases where skill is required; and partly, no doubt, by the saving of labor arising from the great scale of the trans¬ actions : as it costs no more time, and not much more exertion of mind, to make a large purchase, for example, than a small one, and very much less than to make a number of small ones. With a view merely to production, and to the greatest effi¬ ciency of labor, this change is wholly beneficial. In some cases it is attended with drawbacks, rather social than economical, the nature of which has been already hinted at. But whatever disadvantages may be supposed to attend on the change from PRODUCTION ON A LARGE AND SMALL SCALE 141 a small to a large system of production, they are not applicable to the change from a large to a still larger. When, in any employment, the regime of independent small producers has either never been possible, or has been superseded, and the sys¬ tem of many work-people under one management has become fully established, from that time any further enlargement in the scale of production is generally an unqualified benefit. It is obvious, for example, how great an economy of labor would be obtained if London were supplied by a single gas or water company instead of the existing plurality. While there are even as many as two, this implies double establishments of all sorts, when one only, with a small increase, could probably perform the whole operation equally well; double sets of machinery and works, when the whole of the gas or water required could gen¬ erally be produced by one set only; even double sets of pipes, if the companies did not prevent this needless expense by agree¬ ing upon a division of the territory. Were there only one es¬ tablishment, it could make lower charges, consistently with obtaining the rate of profit now realized. But would it do so ? Even if it did not, the community in the aggregate would still be a gainer, since the shareholders are a part of the community, and they would obtain higher profits while the consumers paid only the same. It is, however, an error to suppose that the prices are ever permanently kept down by the competition of these companies. Where competitors are so few, they always end by agreeing not to compete. They may run a race of cheap¬ ness to ruin a new candidate, but as soon as he has established his footing they come to terms with him. When, therefore, a business of real public importance can only be carried on ad¬ vantageously upon so large a scale as to render the liberty of competition almost illusory, it is an unthrifty dispensation of the public resources that several costly sets of arrangements should be kept up for the purpose of rendering to the commu¬ nity this one service. It is much better to treat it at once as a public function ; and if it be not such as the government itself could beneficially undertake, it should be made over entire to the company or association which will perform it on the best terms for the public. In the case of railways, for example, no one can desire to see the enormous waste of capital and land (not to speak of increased nuisance) involved in the construc¬ tion of a second railway to connect the same places already 142 POLITICAL ECONOMY united by an existing one; while the two would not do the work better than it could be done by one, and after a short time would probably be amalgamated. Only one such line ought to be permitted, but the control over that line never ought to be parted with by the State, unless on a temporary concession, as in France; and the vested right which Parliament has al¬ lowed to be acquired by the existing companies, like all other proprietary rights which are opposed to public utility, is mor¬ ally valid only as a claim to compensation. § 4. T he quest ion between the large and the small system s of produc tion as ap plied to agriculture —between large and small farming, the grande and the petite cidture —stands, in many respects, on different grounds from the general question between great and small industrial establishments. In its social aspects, and as an element in the Distribution of Wealth, this question will occupy us hereafter: but even as a question of production, th e- superiorily of the large system in ^ag riculture is by no means so clearly established asm m anufactures . I have already remarked, that the operations of agriculture are little susceptible of benefit from the division of labor. There is but little separation of employments even on the largest farms. The same persons may not in general attend to the live stock, to the marketing, and to the cultivation of the soil; but much beyond that primary and simple classification the subdivision is not carried. The combination of labor of which agriculture is susceptible, is chiefly that which Mr. Wakefield terms Simple Co-operation; several persons helping one another in the same work, at the same time and place. But I confess it seems to me that this able writer attributes more importance to that kind of co-operation, in reference to agriculture properly so called, than it deserves. None of the common farming operations re¬ quire much of it. There is no particular advantage in setting a great number of people to work together in ploughing or dig¬ ging or sowing the same field, or even in mowing or reaping it unless time presses. A single family can generally supply all the combination of labor necessary for these purposes. And in the works in which a union of many efforts is really needed, there is seldom found any impracticability in obtaining it where farms are small. The waste of productive power by subdivision of the land often amounts to a great evil, but this applies chiefly to a sub- PRODUCTION ON A LARGE AND SMALL SCALE 143 division so minute, that the cultivators have not enough land to occupy their time. Up to that point the same principles which recommend large manufactories are applicable to agri¬ culture. For the greatest productive efficiency, it is generally desirable (though even this proposition must be received with qualifications) that no family who have any land, should have less than they could cultivate, or than will fully employ their cattle and tools. These, however, are not the dimensions of large farms, but of what are reckoned in England very small ones. The large farmer has some advantage in the article of buildings. It does not cost so much to house a great number of cattle in one building, as to lodge them equally well in several buildings. There is also some advantage in implements. A small farmer is not so likely to possess expensive instruments. But the principal agricultural implements, even when of the best construction, are not expensive. It may not answer to a small farmer to own a threshing machine, for the small quan¬ tity of corn he has to thresh; but there is no reason why such a machine should not in every neighborhood be owned in com¬ mon, or provided by some person to whom the others pay a consideration for its use; especially as, when worked by steam, they are so constructed as to be movable.* The large farmer can make some saving in cost of carriage. There is nearly as much trouble in carrying a small portion of produce to market, as a much greater produce; in bringing home a small, as a much larger quantity of manures, and articles of daily consump¬ tion. There is also the greater cheapness of buying things in large quantities. These various advantages must count for something, but it does not seem that they ought to count for very much. In England for some generations, there has been little experience of small farms; but in Ireland the experience has been ample, not merely under the worst but under the best management: and the highest Irish authorities may be cited in opposition to the opinion which on this subject commonly prevails in. England. Mr. Blacker, for example, one of the most experienced agriculturists and successful improvers in the North of Ireland, whose experience was chiefly in the best * The observations in the text may hereafter require some degree of modi¬ fication from inventions such as the steam plough and the reaping machine. The effect, however, of these improve¬ ments on the relative advantages of large and small farms, will not depend on the efficiency of the instruments, but on their costliness. I see no reason to ex¬ pect that this will be such as to make them inaccessible to small farmers, or combinations of small farmers. 144 POLITICAL ECONOMY cultivated, which are also the most minutely divided, parts of the country, was of opinion, that tenants holding farms not exceeding from five to eight or ten acres, could live comfort¬ ably, and pay as high a rent as any large farmer whatever. “ I am firmly persuaded ” (he says,*) “ that the small farmer who holds his own plough and digs his own ground, if he fol¬ lows a proper rotation of crops, and feeds his cattle in the house, can undersell the large farmer, or in other words can pay a rent which the other cannot afford; and in this I am confirmed by the opinion of many practical men who have well considered the subject. . . . The English farmer of 700 to 800 acres is a kind of man approaching to what is known by the name of a gentleman farmer. He must have his horse to ride, and his gig, and perhaps an overseer to attend to his laborers; he cer¬ tainly cannot superintend himself the labor going on in a farm of 800 acres.” After a few other remarks, he adds: “ Besides all these drawbacks, which the small farmer knows little about, there is the great expense of carting out the manure from the homestead to such a great distance, and again carting home the crop. A single horse will consume the produce of more land than would feed a small farmer and his wife and two chil¬ dren. And what is more than all, the large farmer says to his laborers, go to your work; but when the small farmer has occasion to hire them, he says, come; the intelligent reader will, I dare say, understand the difference.” One of the objections most urged against small farms is, that they do not and cannot maintain, proportionally to their extent, so great a number of cattle as large farms, and that this occa¬ sions such a deficiency of manure, that a soil much subdivided must always be impoverished. It will be found, however, that subdivision only produces this effect when it throws the land into the hands of cultivators so poor as not to possess the amount of live stock suitable to the size of their farms. A small farm and a badly stocked farm are not synonymous. To make the comparison fairly, we must suppose the same amount of capital which is possessed by the large farmers to be disseminated among the small ones. When this condition, or even any ap¬ proach to it, exists, and when stall feeding is practised (and stall feeding now begins to be considered good economy even * “ Prize Essay on the Management of Landed Property in Ireland,” by Will¬ iam Blacker, Esq. (1837), p. 23. PRODUCTION ON A LARGE AND SMALL SCALE 145 on large farms), experience, far from bearing out the assertion that small farming is unfavorable to the multiplication of cattle, conclusively establishes the very reverse. The abundance of cattle, and copious use of manure, on the small farms of Flan¬ ders, are the most striking features in that Flemish agriculture which is the admiration of all competent judges, whether in England or on the Continent.* * “ The number of beasts fed on a farm of which the whole is arable land,” (says the elaborate and intelligent treat¬ ise on Flemish Husbandry, from per¬ sonal observation and the best sources, published in the Library of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge) “ is surprising to those who are not ac¬ quainted with the mode in which the food is prepared for the cattle. A beast for every three acres of land is a com¬ mon proportion, and in very small oc¬ cupations where much spade husbandry is used, the proportion is still greater. After comparing the accounts given in a variety of places and situations of the average quantity of milk which a cow gives when fed in the stall, the result is, that it greatly exceeds that of our best dairy farms, and the quantity of butter made from a given quantity of milk is also greater. It appears aston¬ ishing that the occupier of only ten or twelve acres of light arable land should be able to maintain four or five cows, but the fact is notorious in the Waes country.” (Pp. 59, 60.) This subject is treated very intelli- ently in the work of M. Passy, “ On ystems of Cultivation and their Influ¬ ence on Social Economy,” one of the most impartial discussions, as between the two systems, which has yet appeared in France. “ Without doubt it is England that, on an equal surface, feeds the greatest number of animals; Holland and some arts of Lombardy can alone vie with er in this respect: but is this a conse¬ quence of the mode of cultivation, and have not climate and local situation a share in producing it? Of this I think there can be no doubt. In fact, what¬ ever may have been said, wherever large and small cultivation meet in the same place, the latter, though it cannot sup¬ port as many sheep, possesses, all things considered, the greatest quantity of ma¬ nure-producing animals. “ In Belgium, for example, the two provinces of smallest farms are Antwerp and East Flanders, and they possess on an average for every 100 hectares (250 acres) of cultivated land, 74 horned cat¬ tle and 14 sheep. The two provinces where we find the large farms are Na¬ mur and Hainaut, and they average, for every 100 hectares of cultivated ground, only 30 horned cattle and 45 sheep. Reckoning, as is the custom, ten sheep as equal to one head of horned cattle, we find in the first case, the equivalent of 76 beasts to maintain the fecundity of the soil; in the latter case less than VOL. I.—10 35, a difference which must be called enormous. (See the statistical docu¬ ments published by the Minister of the Interior.) The abundance of animals, in the parts of Belgium which are most subdivided, is nearly as great as in England. Calculating the number in England in proportion only to the culti¬ vated ground, there are for each 100 hectares, 65 horned cattle and nearly 260 sheep, together equal to 91 of the former, being only an excess of 15. It should besides be remembered, that in Belgium stall feeding being continued nearly the whole year, hardly any of the manure is lost, while in England, grazing in the open fields diminishes considerably the quantity which can be completely util¬ ized. “ Again, in the Department of the Nord, the arrondissements which have the smallest farms support the greatest quantity of animals. While the arron¬ dissements of Lille and Hazebrouck, besides a greater number of horses, maintain the equivalent of 52 and 46 head of horned cattle, those of Dunkirk and Avesnes, where the farms are larger, produce the equivalent of only 44 and 40 head. (See the statistics of France pub¬ lished by the Minister of Commerce.) “ A similar examination extended to other portions of France would yield similar results. In the immediate neigh¬ borhood of towns, no doubt, the small farmers, having no difficulty in purchas¬ ing manure, do not maintain animals: but, as a general rule, the kind of culti¬ vation which takes most out of the ground must be that which is obliged to be most active in renewing its fer¬ tility. Assuredly the small farms can¬ not have numerous flocks of sheep, and this is an inconvenience; but they sup¬ port more horned cattle than the large farms. To do so is a necessity they cannot escape from, in any country where the demands of consumers re¬ quire their existence: if they could not fulfil this condition, they must perish. “ The following are particulars, the exactness of which is fully attested by the excellence of the work from whicn 1 extract them, the statistics of the commune of Vensat (department of Puy de Dome), lately published by Dr. Jusseraud, mayor of the commune. They are the more valuable, as they throw full light on the nature of the changes which the extension of small farming has, in that district, produced in the number and kind of animals by whose manure the productiveness of the soil is kept up and increased. The 146 POLITICAL ECONOMY The disadvantage, when disadvantage there is, of small, or rather of peasant farming, as compared with capitalist farming, must chiefly consist in inferiority of skill and knowledge; but it is not true, as a general fact, that such inferiority exists. Countries of small farms and peasant farming, Flanders and Italy, had a good agriculture many generations before England, and theirs is still, as a whole, probably the best agriculture in the world. The empirical skill, which is the effect of daily and close observation, peasant farmers often possess in an eminent degree. The traditional knowledge, for example, of the culture of the vine, possessed by the peasantry of the countries where the best wines are produced, is extraordinary. There is no doubt an absence of science, or at least of theory; and to some extent a deficiency of the spirit of improvement, so far as relates to the introduction of new processes. There is also a want of means to make experiments, which can seldom be made with advantage except by rich proprietors or capitalists. As for those systematic improvements which operate on a large tract of country at once (such as great works of draining or irriga¬ tion) or which for any other reason do really require large numbers of workmen combining their labor, these are not in general to be expected from small farmers, or even small pro¬ prietors ; though combination among them for such purposes is by no means unexampled, and will become more common as their intelligence is more developed. Against these disadvantages is to be placed, where the tenure of land is of the requisite kind, an ardor of industry absolutely unexampled in any other condition of agriculture. This is a subject on which the testimony of competent witnesses is unani- commune consists of 1612 hectares, di¬ vided into 4600 parcelles, owned by 591 proprietors, and of this extent 1466 hec¬ tares are under cultivation. In 1790, seventeen farms occupied two-thirds of the whole, and twenty others the re¬ mainder. Since then the land has been much divided, and the subdivision is now extreme. What has been the effect on the quantity of cattle? A consider¬ able increase. In 1790 there were only about 300 horned cattle, and from 1800 to 2000 sheep; there are now 676 of the former and only 533 of the latter. Thus 1300 sheep have been replaced by 376 oxen and cows, and (all things taken into account) the quantity of manure has increased in the ratio of 490 to 729, or more than 48 per cent., not to men¬ tion that the animals being now stronger and better fed, yield a much greater contribution than formerly to the fertili¬ zation of the ground. “ Such is the testimony of facts on the point. It is not true, then, that small farming feeds fewer animals than large; on the contrary, local circum¬ stances being the same, it feeds a greater number: and this is only what might have been presumed; for, requir¬ ing more from the soil, it is obliged to take greater pains for keeping up its productiveness. All the other reproaches cast upon small farming, when collated one by one with facts justly appreciated, will be seen to be no better founded, and to have been made only because the countries compared with one another were differently situated in respect to the general causes of agricultural pros¬ perity.” (Pp. 116—120.) PRODUCTION ON A LARGE AND SMALL SCALE 147 mous. The working of the petite culture cannot be fairly judged where the small cultivator is merely a tenant, and not even a tenant on fixed conditions, but (as until lately in Ireland) at a nominal rent greater than can be paid, and therefore practi¬ cally at a varying rent always amounting to the utmost that can be paid. To understand the subject, it must be studied where the cultivator is the proprietor, or at least a metayer with a permanent tenure; where the labor he exerts to increase the produce and value of the land avails wholly, or at least partly, to his own benefit and that of his descendants. In another di¬ vision of our subject, we shall discuss at some length the im¬ portant subject of tenures of land, and I defer till then any citation of evidence on the marvellous industry of peasant pro¬ prietors. It may suffice here to appeal to the immense amount of gross produce which, even without a permanent tenure, Eng¬ lish laborers generally obtain from their little allotments; a produce beyond comparison greater than a large farmer ex¬ tracts, or would find it his interest to extract, from the same piece of land. And this I take to be the true reason why large cultivation is generally most advantageous as a mere investment for profit. Land occupied by a large farmer is not, in one sense of the word, farmed so highly. There is not nearly so much labor expended on it. This is not on account of any economy arising from combination of labor, but because, by employing less, a greater return is obtained in proportion to the outlay. It does not answer to anyone to pay others for exerting all the labor which the peasant, or even the allotment holder, gladly under¬ goes when the fruits are to be wholly reaped by himself. This labor, however, is not unproductive; it all adds to the gross produce. With anything like equality of skill and knowledge, the large farmer does not obtain nearly so much from the soil as the small proprietor, or the small farmer with adequate mo¬ tives to exertion: but though his returns are less, the labor is less in a still greater degree, and as whatever labor he employs must be paid for, it does not suit his purpose to employ more. But although the gross produce of the land is greatest, other things being the same, under small cultivation, and although, therefore, a country is able on that system to support a larger aggregate population, it is generally assumed by English writers that what is termed the net produce, that is, the surplus after 148 POLITICAL ECONOMY feeding the cultivators, must be smaller; that therefore, the population disposable for all other purposes, for manufactures, for commerce and navigation, for national defence, for the pro¬ motion of knowledge, for the liberal professions, for the various functions of government, for the arts and litera¬ ture, all of which are dependent on this surplus for their existence as occupations, must be less numerous; and that the nation, therefore (waiving all question as to the con¬ dition of the actual cultivators), must be inferior in the princi¬ pal elements of national power, and in many of those of general well-being. This, however, has been taken for granted much too readily. Undoubtedly, the non-agricultural population will bear a less ratio to the agricultural, under small than under large cultivation. But that it will be less numerous absolutely, is by no means a consequence. If the total population, agri¬ cultural and non-agricultural, is greater, the non-agricultural portion may be more numerous in itself, and may yet be a smaller proportion of the whole. If the gross produce is larger, the net produce may be larger, and yet bear a smaller ratio to the gross produce. Yet even Mr. Wakefield sometimes appears to confound these distinct ideas. In France it is computed that two-thirds of the whole population are agricultural. In Eng¬ land, at most, one-third. Hence Mr. Wakefield infers, that “ as in France only three people are supported by the labor of two cultivators, while in England the labor of two cultivators sup¬ ports six people, English agriculture is twice as productive as French agriculture,” owing to the superior efficiency of large farming through combination of labor. But in the first place the facts themselves are overstated. The labor of two persons in England does not quite support six people, for there is not a little food imported from foreign countries, and from Ireland. In France, too, the labor of two cultivators does much more than supply the food of three persons. It provides the three persons, and occasionally foreigners, with flax, hemp, and to a certain extent with silk, oils, tobacco, and latterly sugar, which in England are wholly obtained from abroad; nearly all the timber used in France is of home growth, nearly all which is used in England is imported; the principal fuel of France is procured and brought to market by persons reckoned among agriculturists, in England by persons not so reckoned. I do not take into calculation hides and wool, these products PRODUCTION ON A LARGE AND SMALL SCALE 149 being common to both countries, nor wine or brandy produced for home consumption, since England has a corresponding pro¬ duction of beer and spirits; but England has no material export of either article, and a great importation of the last, while France supplies wines and spirits to the whole world. I say nothing of fruit, eggs, and such minor articles of agricultural produce, in which the export trade of France is enormous. But, not to lay undue stress on these abatements, we will take the statement as it stands. Suppose that two persons, in England, do bond fide produce the food of six, while in France, for the same purpose, the labor of four is requisite. Does it follow that England must have a larger surplus for the support of a non- agricultural population? No; but merely that she can devote two-thirds of her whole produce to the purpose, instead of one- third. Suppose the produce to be twice as great, and the one- third will amount to as much as the two-thirds. The fact might be, that owing to the greater quantity of labor employed on the French system, the same land would produce food for twelve persons which on the English system would only produce it for six: and if this were so, which would be quite consistent with the conditions of the hypothesis, then although the food for twelve was produced by the labor of eight, while the six were fed by the labor of only two, there would be the same number of hands disposable for other employment in the one country as in the other. I am not contending that the fact is so. I know that the gross produce per acre in France as a whole (though not in its most improved districts) averages much less than in England, and that, in proportion to the ex¬ tent and fertility of the two countries, England has, in the sense we are now speaking of, much the largest disposable popula¬ tion. But the disproportion certainly is not to be measured by Mr. Wakefield’s simple criterion. As well might it be said that agricultural labor in the United States, where, by a late census, four families in every five appeared to be engaged in agriculture, must be still more inefficient than in France. The inferiority of French cultivation (which, taking the country as a whole, must be allowed to be real, though much exaggerated), is probably more owing to the lower general average of industrial skill and energy in that country, than to any special cause: and even if partly the effect of minute sub¬ division, it does not prove that small farming is disadvanta- POLITICAL ECONOMY 150 geous, but only (what is undoubtedly the fact) that farms in France are very frequently too small, and, what is worse, broken up into an almost incredible number of patches or parcelles, most inconveniently dispersed and parted from one another. As a question, not of gross, but of net produce, the compara¬ tive merits of the grande and the petite culture, especially when the small farmer is also the proprietor, cannot be looked upon as decided. It is a question on which good judges at present differ. The current of English opinion is in favor of large farms: on the Continent, the weight of authority seems to be on the other side. Professor Rau, of Heidelberg, the author of one of the most comprehensive and elaborate of extant treatises on political economy, and who has that large acquaintance with facts and authorities on his own subject, which generally char¬ acterizes his countrymen, lays it down as a settled truth, that small or moderate-sized farms yield not only a larger gross but a larger net produce: though, he adds, it is desirable there should be some great proprietors, to lead the way in new im¬ provements.* The most apparently impartial and discriminat¬ ing judgment that I have met with is that of M. Passy, who (always speaking with reference to net produce) gives his verdict in favor of large farms for grain and forage: but, for the kinds of culture which require much labor and attention, places the advantage wholly on the side of small cultivation; including in this description, not only the vine and the olive, where a considerable amount of care and labor must be bestowed on each individual plant, but also roots, leguminous plants, and those which furnish the materials of manufactures. The small size, and consequent multiplication, of farms, according to all authorities, are extremely favorable to the abundance of many minor products of agriculture, f It is evident that every laborer who extracts from the land more than his own food, and that of any family he may have, increases the means of supporting a non-agricultural popula¬ tion. Even if his surplus is no more than enough to buy clothes, the laborers who make the clothes are a non-agricul¬ tural population, enabled to exist by food which he produces. * See pp. 352 and 353 of a French translation published at Brussels in 1839, by M. Fred, de Kemmeter, of Ghent. t “ In the department of the Nord,” says M. Passy, “ a farm of 20 hectares (50 acres) produces in calves, dairy produce, poultry, and eggs, a value of sometimes 1000 francs (£40) a year: which, deducting expenses, is an ad¬ dition to the net produce of 15 to 20 francs per hectare. ’—“ On Systems of Cultivation,” p. 114. PRODUCTION ON A LARGE AND SMALL SCALE I5i Every agricultural family, therefore, which produces its own necessaries, adds to the net produce of agriculture ; and so does every person born on the land, who by employing himself on it, adds more to its gross produce than the mere food which he eats. It is questionable whether, even in the most subdivided districts of Europe which are cultivated by the proprietors, the multiplication of hands on the soil has approached, or tends to approach, within a great distance of this limit. In France, though the subdivision is confessedly too great, there is proof positive that it is far from having reached the point at which it would begin to diminish the power of supporting a non- agricultural population. This is demonstrated by the great in¬ crease of the towns; which have of late increased in a much greater ratio than the population generally,* showing (unless the condition of the town laborers is becoming rapidly deterio¬ rated, which there is no reason to believe) that even by the un¬ fair and inapplicable test of proportions, the productiveness of agriculture must be on the increase. This, too, concurrently with the amplest evidence that in the more improved districts of France, and in some which, until lately, were among the un¬ improved, there is a considerably increased consumption of country produce by the country population itself. Impressed with the conviction that, of all faults which can be committed by a scientific writer on political and social sub¬ jects, exaggeration, and assertions beyond the evidence, most require to be guarded against, I limited myself in the early edi¬ tions of this work to the foregoing very moderate statements. I little knew how much stronger my language might have been without exceeding the truth, and how much the actual progress of French agriculture surpassed anything which I had at that time sufficient grounds to affirm. The investigations of that eminent authority on agricultural statistics, M. Leonce de Lavergne, undertaken by desire of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the Institute of France, have led to the conclusion that since the Revolution of 1789, the total produce of French agriculture has doubled; profits and wages having both increased in about the same, and rent in a still greater ratio. M. de Lavergne, whose impartiality is one of his great- * During the interval between the cen- ceeded the aggregate increase of all sus of 1851 and that of 1856, the increase France: while nearly all the other large of the population of Paris alone, ex- towns likewise showed an increase. POLITICAL ECONOMY * 5 * est merits, is, moreover, so far in this instance from the sus¬ picion of having a case to make out, that he is laboring to show, not how much French agriculture has accomplished, but how much still remains for it to do. “ We have required ” (he says) “ no less than seventy years to bring into cultivation two mill¬ ion hectares ” (five million English acres) “ of waste land, to suppress half our fallows, double our agricultural products, in¬ crease our population by 30 per cent., our wages by 100 per cent., our rent by 150 per cent. At this rate we shall require three-quarters of a century more to arrive at the point which England has already attained.” * After this evidence, we have surely now heard the last of the incompatibility of small properties and small farms with agricultural improvement. The only question which remains open is one of degree: the comparative rapidity of agricultural improvement under the two systems; and it is the general opinion of those who are equally well acquainted with both, that improvement is greatest under a due admixture between them. In the present chapter, I do not enter on the question be¬ tween great and small cultivation in any other respect than as a question of production, and of the efficiency of labor. We shall return to it hereafter as affecting the distribution of the produce, and the physical and social well-being of the culti¬ vators themselves; in which aspects it deserves, and requires, a still more particular examination. Chapter X.—Of the Law of the Increase of Labor §1. We have now successively considered each of the agents or conditions of production, and of the means by which the efficacy of these various agents is promoted. In order to come to an end of the questions which relate exclusively to produc¬ tion, one more, of primary importance, remains. Production is not a fixed, but an increasing thing. When not kept back by bad institutions, or a low state of the arts of life, the produce of industry has usually tended to increase; stimulated not only by the desire of the producers to augment * “Economic Rurale de la France Societe Centrale d’Agriculture de depuis 1789.” Par M. Leonce de La- France. 2me ed. p. 59. vergne, Membre de l’lnstitut et de la LAW OF THE INCREASE OF LABOR 153 their means of consumption, but by the increasing number of the consumers. Nothing in political economy can be of morS importance than to ascertain the law of this increase of produc¬ tion ; the conditions to which it is subject; whether it has prac¬ tically any limits, and what these are. There is also no subject in political economy which is popularly less understood, or on which the errors committed are of a character to produce, and do produce, greater mischief. We have seen that the essential requisites of production are three—labor, capital, and natural agents; the term capital in¬ cluding all external and physical requisites which are products of labor, the term natural agents all those which are not. But among natural agents we need not take into account those which, existing in unlimited quantity, being incapable of ap¬ propriation, and never altering in their qualities, are always ready to lend an equal degree of assistance to production, what¬ ever may be its extent; as air, and the light of the sun. Being now about to consider the impediments to production, not the facilities for it, we need advert to no other natural agents than those which are liable to be deficient, either in quantity or in productive power. These may be all represented by the term land. Land, in the narrowest acceptation, as the source of ag¬ ricultural produce, is the chief of them; and if we extend the term to mines and fisheries—to what is found in the earth itself, or in the waters which partly cover it, as well as to what is grown or fed on its surface, it embraces everything with which we need at present concern ourselves. We may say, then, without a greater stretch of language than under the necessary explanations is permissible, that the requi¬ sites of production are Labor, Capital, and Land. The in¬ crease of production, therefore, depends on the properties of these elements. It is a result of the increase either of the ele¬ ments themselves, or of their productiveness. The law of the increase of production must be a consequence of the laws of these elements; the limits to the increase of production must be the limits, whatever they are, set by those laws. We pro¬ ceed to consider the three elements successively, with refer¬ ence to this effect; or in other words, the law of the increase of production, viewed in respect of its dependence, first on La¬ bor, secondly on Capital, and lastly on Land. § 2. The increase of labor is the increase of mankind; of 154 POLITICAL ECONOMY population. On this subject the discussions excited bv the E s¬ say of Mr. Malthus have made the truth, thougfo bv no mean s univers ally admitted, yet so fully known, that a briefer ex¬ amination* of the question than would otherwise have been necessary will probably on the present occasion suffice. The power of multiplication inherent in all organic life ma y be regarded as In finit e! There is no one species of vegetable oFamimafT which, ifthe earth were entirely abandoned to it, and to the things on which it feeds, would not in a small number of years overspread every region of the globe, of which the cli¬ mate was compatible with its existence. The degree of possible rapidity is different in different orders of beings; but in all it is sufficient, for the earth to be very speedily filled up. There are many species of vegetables of which a single plant will produce in one year the germs of a thousand; if only two come to maturity, in fourteen years the two will have multiplied to sixteen thousand and more. It is but a moderate case of fe¬ cundity in animals to be capable of quadrupling their numbers in a single year; if they only do as much in half a century, ten thousand will have swelled within two centuries to upwards of two millions and a half. JThe capacity of increase is necessar ily in a geometrical progression: the numerical ratio alone is different. To this property of organized beings, the human species forms no exception. Its power of increase is indefinite, and the actual multiplication would be extraordinarily rapid, if the power were exercised to the utmost. It never is exercised to the utmost, and yet, in the most favorable circumstances known to exist, which are those of a fertile region colonized from an industrious and civilized community, population has con¬ tinued, for several generations, independently of fresh immigra¬ tion, to double itself in not much more than twenty years.* That the capacity of multiplication in the human species ex¬ ceeds even this, is evident if we consider how great is the ordi¬ nary number of children to a family, where the climate is good and early marriages usual; and how small a proportion of them die before the age of maturity, in the present state of hygienic knowledge, where the locality is healthy, and the family ade- * This has been disputed; but the highest estimate I have seen of the term which population requires for doubling itself in the United States, in¬ dependently of immigrants and of their progeny—that of Mr. Carey—does pot exceed thirty years. LAW OF THE INCREASE OF LABOR 155 quately provided with the means of living. It is a very low estimate of the capacity of increase, if we only assume, that in a good sanitary condition of the people, each generation may be double the number of the generation which preceded it. Twenty or thirty years ago, these propositions might still have required considerable enforcement and illustration; but the evidence of them is so ample and incontestable, that they have made their way against all kinds of opposition, and may now be regarded as axiomatic: though the extreme reluctance felt to admitting them, every now and then gives birth to some ephemeral theory, speedily forgotten, of a different law of in¬ crease in different circumstances, through a providential adap¬ tation of the fecundity of the human species to the exigencies of society.* The obstacle to a just understanding of the sub¬ ject does not arise from these theories, but from too confused a notion of the causes which, at most times and places, keep the actual increase of mankind so far behind the capacity. § 3. Those causes, nevertheless, are in no way mysterious. What prevents the population of hares and rabbits from over ¬ s tocking the earth? Not want of fecundity, but causes very different: many enemies, and insu fficient subsistence: not enough to eat, and liabilit y to Dein^eaten. In the human race . which is not generally subject to the latter inconvenience, thp equivalents for it are war and disease^. If the multiplication of * One of these theories, that of Mr. Doubleday, may be thought to require a passing notice, because it has of late obtained some followers, and because it derives a semblance of support from the general analogies of organic life. This theory maintains that the fecundity of the human animal, and of all other living beings, is in inverse proportion to the quantity of nutriment: that an underfed population multiplies rapidly, but that all classes in comfortable cir¬ cumstances are, by a physiological law, so unprolific, as seldom to keep up their numbers without being recruited from a poorer class. There is no doubt that a positive excess of nutriment, in ani¬ mals as well as in fruit trees, is unfa¬ vorable to reproduction; and it is quite possible, though by no means proved, that the physiological conditions of fe¬ cundity may exist in the greatest de¬ gree when the supply of food is some¬ what stinted. But any one who might be inclined to draw from this, even if admitted, conclusions at variance with the principle of Mr. Malthus, needs only be invited to look through a volume of the Peerage, and observe the enormous families almost universal in that class; or call to mind the large families of the English clergy, and generally of the middle classes of England. It is, be¬ sides, well remarked by Mr. Carey, that, to be consistent with Mr. Doubleday’s theory, the increase of the population of the United States, apart from immi¬ gration, ought to be one of the slowest on record. Mr. Carey has a theory of his own, also grounded on a physiological truth, that the total sum of nutriment received by an organized body directs itself, in largest proportion, to the parts of the system which are most used; from which he anticipates a diminution in the fecun¬ dity of human beings, not through more abundant feeding, but through the greater use of their brains incident to an advanced civilization. There is con¬ siderable plausibility in this speculation, and experience may hereafter confirm it. But the change in the human con¬ stitution which it supposes, if ever real¬ ized, will conduce to the expected effect rather by rendering physical self-re¬ straint easier, than by dispensing with its necessity; since the most rapid known rate of multiplication is quite compati¬ ble with a very sparing employment of the multiplying power. POLITICAL ECONOMY 156 mankind proceeded only, like that of the other animals, from a blind instinct, it would be limited in the same manner with theirs; the birds would be as numerous as the physical consti¬ tution of the species admitted of, and the population would be kept down by deaths.* But the conduct of human creatures is more or less influenced by foresight of consequences, and by impulses superior to mere animal instincts: and they do not, therefore, propagate like swine, but are capable, though in very unequal degrees, of being withheld by prudence, or by the social affections, from giving existence to beings born only to misery and premature death. In proportion as mankind rise above the condition of the beasts, population is restrained by the fear of want, rather than by want itself. Even where there is no question of starvation, many are similarly acted upon by the apprehension of losing what have come to be regarded as the decencies of their situation in life. Hitherto no other mo¬ tives than these two have been found strong enough, in the generality of mankind, to counteract the tendency to increase. It has been the practice of a great majority of the middle and the poorer classes, whenever free from external control, to marry as early, and in most countries to have as many children, as was consistent with maintaining themselves in the condition of life which they were born to, or were accustomed to con¬ sider as theirs. Among the middle classes, in many individual instances, there is an additional restraint exercised from the desire of doing more than maintaining their circumstances— of improving them ; but such a desire is rarely found, or rarely has that effect, in the laboring classes. If they can bring up a family as they were themselves brought up, even the prudent among them are usually satisfied. Too often they do not think even of that, but rely on fortune, or on the resources to be found in legal or voluntary charity. * Mr. Carey expatiates on the absurd¬ ity of supposing that matter tends to as¬ sume the highest form of organization, the human, at a more rapid rate than it assumes the lower forms which compose human food; that human beings mul¬ tiply faster than turnips and cabbages. But the limit to the increase of man¬ kind, according to the doctrine of Mr. Malthus, does not depend on the power of increase of turnips and cabbages, but on the limited quantity of the land on which they can be grown. So long as the quantity of land is practically un¬ limited, which it is in the United States, and food, consequently, can be increased at the highest rate which is natural to it, mankind also may, without aug¬ mented difficulty in obtaining subsist¬ ence, increase at their highest rate. When Mr. Carey can show, not that tur¬ nips and cabbages but that the soil it¬ self, or the nutritive elements contained in it, tend naturally to multiply, and that, too, at a rate exceeding the most rapid possible increase of mankind, he will have said something to the purpose. Till then, this part, at least, of his argu¬ ment may be considered as non-existent. LAW OF THE INCREASE OF LABOR 157 In a very backward state of society, like that of Europe in the Middle Ages, and many parts of Asia at present, popula¬ tion is kept down by actual starvation. The starvation does not take place in ordinary years, but in seasons of scarcity, which in those states of society are much more frequent and more extreme than Europe is now accustomed to. In these seasons actual want, or the maladies consequent on it, carry off numbers of the population, which in a succession of favorable years again expands, to be again cruelly decimated. In a more improved state, few, even among the poorest of the people, are limited to actual necessaries, and to a bare sufficiency of those: and the increase is kept within bounds, not by excess of deaths, but by limitation of births. The limitation is brought about in various ways. In some countries, it is the result of prudent or conscientious self-restraint. There is a condition to which the laboring people are habituated ; they perceive that by having too numerous families, they must sink below that condition, or fail to transmit it to their children; and this they do not choose to submit to. The countries in which, so far as is known, a great degree of voluntary prudence has been longest practised on this subject, are Norway and parts of Switzerland. Concerning both, there happens to be unusually authentic in¬ formation ; many facts were carefully brought together by Mr. Malthus, and much additional evidence has been obtained since his time. In both these countries the increase of popula¬ tion is very slow; and what checks it, is not multitude of deaths, but fewness of births. Both the births and the deaths are remarkably few in proportion to the population; the aver¬ age duration of life is the longest in Europe; the population contains fewer children, and a greater proportional number of persons in the vigor of life, than is known to be the case in any other part of the world. The paucity of births tends di¬ rectly to prolong life, by keeping the people in comfortable circumstances; and the same prudence is doubtless exercised in avoiding causes of disease, as in keeping clear of the prin¬ cipal cause of poverty. It is worthy of remark that the two countries thus honorably distinguished, are countries of small landed proprietors. There are other cases in which the prudence and forethought, which perhaps might not be exercised by the people them¬ selves, are exercised by the state for their benefit; marriage POLITICAL ECONOMY 158 not being permitted until the contracting parties can show that they have the prospect of a comfortable support. Under these laws, of which I shall speak more fully hereafter, the condition of the people is reported to be good, and the illegitimate births not so numerous as might be expected. There are places, again, in which the restraining cause seems to be not so much individual prudence, as some general and perhaps even acci¬ dental habit of the country. In the rural districts of England, during the last century, the growth of population was very effectually repressed by the difficulty of obtaining a cottage to live in. It was the custom for unmarried laborers to lodge and board with their employers; it was the custom for mar¬ ried laborers to have a cottage: and the rule of the English poor laws by which a parish was charged with the support of its unemployed poor, rendered landowners averse to promote marriage. About the end of the century, the great demand for men in war and manufactures, made it be thought a patri¬ otic thing to encourage population: and about the same time the growing inclination of farmers to live like rich people, favored as it was by a long period of high prices, made them desirous of keeping inferiors at a greater distance, and pe¬ cuniary motives arising from abuses of the poor laws being superadded, they gradually drove their laborers into cottages, which the landlords now no longer refused permission to build. In some countries an old standing custom that a girl should not marry until she had spun and woven for herself an ample trousseau (destined for the supply of her whole subsequent life), is said to have acted as a substantial check to population. In England, at present, the influence of prudence in keeping down multiplication is seen by the diminished number of mar¬ riages in the manufacturing districts in years when trade is bad. But whatever be the causes by which the population is any¬ where limited to a comparatively slow rate of increase, an acceleration of the rate very speedily follows any diminution of the motives to restraint. It is but rarely tha t i mprovements in the condition of the labori ng classes do anything more th an pve a temporary margin, speedily filled up by an increase of their numbers^ The use th ey co mmonly choose to make o f any advantageous change in thei r ci rcumstances, is to tak e"it out in the f or m~which, bv augmenting the population, depriv es succeeding generation of the benefit. Unless, either by LAW OF THE INCREASE OF LABOR 159 their general improvement in intellectual and moral culture, or at least by raising their habitual standard of comfortable liv¬ ing, they can be taught to make a better use of favorable cir¬ cumstances, nothing permanent can be done for them; the most promising schemes end only in having a more numerous, but not a happier people. By their habitual standard, I mean that (when any such there is) down to which they will multiply, but not lower. Every advance they make in education, civiliza¬ tion, and social improvement, tends to raise this standard; and there is no doubt that it is gradually, though slowly, rising in the more advanced countries of Western Europe. Subsistence and employment in England have never increased more rapidly than in the last forty years, but every census since 1821 showed a smaller proportional increase of population than that of the period preceding; and the produce of French agriculture and industry is increasing in a progressive ratio, while the popula¬ tion exhibits, in every quinquennial census, a smaller propor¬ tion of births to the population. The subject, however, of population, in its connection with the condition of the laboring classes, will be considered in an¬ other place: in the present, we have to do with it solely as one of the elements of Production: and in that character we could not dispense with pointing out the unlimited extent of its natural powers of increase, and the causes owing to which so small a portion of that unlimited power is for the most part actually exercised. After this brief indication, we shall proceed to the other elements. Chapter XI.—Of the Law of the Increase of Capital § 1. The requisites of production being labor, capital, and land, it has been seen from the preceding chapter that the im¬ pediments to the increase of production do not arise from the first of these elements. On the side of labor there is no ob¬ stacle to an increase of production, indefinite in extent and of unslackening rapidity. Popu lation has the power of increasing in a uniform and rapid geometrical ratio . If the only essential condition of productionAverefTabor, the produce might, and naturally would, increase in the same ratio; and there would be no limit, until the numbers of mankind were brought to a stand from actual want of space. i6o POLITICAL ECONOMY But production has other requisites, and of these, the one which we shall next consider is Capital. There cannot be more people in any country, or in the world, than can be supported from the produce of past labor until that of present labor comes in. There will be no greater number of productive laborers in any country, or in the world, than can be supported from that portion of the produce of past labor, which is spared from the enjoyments of its possessor for purposes of reproduction, and is termed Capital. We have next, therefore, to inquire into the conditions of the increase of capital; the causes by which the rapidity of its increase is determined, and the necessary limita¬ tions of that increase. Since all capital is the produc t of savin g, that is, of abstinence from present consum ption tor the sak e of a future good, th e increase of capital must depend upon two things—the amou nt of the fund from which saving can be made, and the strengt h gf the dis positions which prompt to it . The fund from which saving can be made, is the surplus of the produce of labor, after supplying the necessaries of life to all concerned in the production (including those employed in replacing the materials, and keeping the fixed capital in re¬ pair). More than this surplus cannot be saved under any cir¬ cumstances. As much as this, though it never is saved, always might be. This surplus is the fund from which the enjoyments, as distinguished from the necessaries of the producers, are provided; it is the fund from which all are subsisted, who are not themselves engaged in production; and from which all additions are made to capital. It is the real net produce of the country. The phrase, net produce, is often taken in a more limited sense, to denote only the profits of the capitalist and the rent of the landlord, under the idea that nothing can be included in the net produce of capital, but what is returned to the owner of the capital after replacing his expenses. But this is too nar¬ row an acceptation of the term. The capital of the employer forms the revenue of the laborers, and if this exceeds the neces¬ saries of life, it gives them a surplus which they may either expend in enjoyments or save. For every purpose for which there can be occasion to speak of the rtet produce of industry, this surplus ought to be included in it. When this is included, and not otherwise, the net produce of the country is the meas¬ ure of its effective power; of what it can spare for any pur- LAW OF THE INCREASE OF CAPITAL 161 poses of public utility, or private indulgence; the portion of its produce of which it can dispose at pleasure; which can be drawn upon to attain any ends, or gratify any wishes, either of the government or of individuals ; which it can either spend for its satisfaction, or save for future advantage. Tin amount of this fund, this net produce, this excess of pro¬ duction above the physical necessaries of the producers, is on e of the eleme nts that dete rmine the amount of s avin g. Thq greater the produce oTlabor after su pporting the laborers, the more there is which can be saved. The same th ing also partly contributes to determine how much will be saved. A part o f t he motive to saving consists in the prospect of deriving a n income from savings; in the fact that capital, employed in production, is capable* of not only reproducing itself but yield¬ ing an increase. The grea ter the profit that can be made from capita l, the stronger is the motive to its accumulation. That in deed^HT(!!rforms th^indtrc eme nt to save/is not the whole 'oT thefund which su pplies the means of saving, not the whole , net produce of the land, capital, and labor of the country, but onl y a pa rt of it,lh e part whi ch forms the remuneration of the capit ali sT, anlTTs called profit of stock. * It will, however, be readily enough understood, even previously to the explanations which will be given hereafter, that when the general produc¬ tiveness of labor and capital is great, the returns to the capitalist are likely to be large, and that some proportion, though not a uniform one, will commonly obtain between the two. § 2. ffutthe disposition to save does not wholly depend o n the external in du cement to it; on the amount of profit to be made fro m savings. With the same pecuniary inducement, t he irj- clmating Is very different, in different persons, and in differe nt communities. The effective desire of accumulation is of un- equal strength, not only according to the varieties of indi¬ vidual character, but to the general state of society and civili¬ zation. Like all other moral attributes, it is one in which the human race exhibits great differences, conformably to the diversity of its circumstances and the stage of its progress. On topics which if they were to be fully investigated would exceed the bounds that can be allotted to them in this treatise, it is satisfactory to be able to refer to other works in which the necessary developments have been presented more at length. On the subject of Population this valuable service has been Vol. I.— II i 62 POLITICAL ECONOMY rendered by the celebrated Essay of Mr. Malthus; and on the point which now occupies us I can refer with equal confidence to another, though a less known work, “ New Principles of Political Economy/’ by Dr. Rae.* In no other book known to me is so much light thrown, both from principle and history, on the causes which determine the accumulation of capital. All accumulation involves the sacrifice of a present, for the sake 1 of a future good. But the expediency of suck a sacrific e varies very much in different states-oLcircums tances : and t he wi llingness to make it r varies still more. In weigh ing.the . future agai nst the present, the uncertainty o f aUthings futur e i s a leading e lement; and that uncertainty is of verxdifferent degrees. “All circumstances,” therefore, “ increasing the probability of the provision we make for fu¬ turity being enjoyed by ourselves or others, tend ” justly and reasonably “ to give strength to the effective desire of accumu¬ lation. Thus a healthy climate or occupation, by increasing the probability of life, has a tendency to add to this desire. When engaged in safe occupations, and living in healthy coun¬ tries, men are much more apt to be frugal than in unhealthy or hazardous occupations, and in climates pernicious to human life. Sailors and soldiers are prodigals. In the West Indies, New Orleans, the East Indies, the expenditure of the inhabi¬ tants is profuse. The same people, coming to reside in the healthy parts of Europe, and not getting into the vortex of ex¬ travagant fashion, live economically. War and pestilence have always waste and luxury among the other evils that follow in their train. For similar reasons, whatever gives security to the affairs of the community is favorable to the strength of this principle. In this respect the general prevalence of law and order, and the prospect of the continuance of peace and tran- * This treatise is an example, such as not unfrequently presents itself, how much more depends on accident, than on the qualities of a book, in determin¬ ing its reception. Had it appeared at a suitable time, and been favored by cir¬ cumstances, it would have had every requisite for great success. The author, a Scotchman settled in the United States, unites much knowledge, an orig¬ inal vein of thought, a considerable turn for philosophic generalities, and a manner of exposition and illustration calculated to make ideas tell not only for what they are worth, but for more than they are worth, and which some¬ times, I think, has that effect in the writer’s own mind. The principal fault of the book is the position of antagonism in which, with the controversial spirit apt to be found in those who have new thoughts on old subjects, he has placed himself towards Adam Smith. I call this a fault (though I think many of the criticisms just, and some of them far- seeing), because there is much less real difference of opinion than might be sup¬ posed from Dr. Rae’s animadversions; and because what he has found vulner¬ able in his great predecessor is chiefly the “ human too-much ” in his prem¬ ises; the portion of them that is over and above what was either required or is actually vised for the establishment of his conclusions. LAW OF THE INCREASE OF CAPITAL 163 quillity, have considerable influence.” * The more perfect the security, the greater will be the effective strength of the desire of accumulation. Where property is less safe, or the vicissi¬ tudes ruinous to fortunes are more frequent and severe, fewer persons will save at all, and of those who do, many will require the inducement of a higher rate of profit on capital, to make them prefer a doubtful future to the temptation of present en¬ joyment. These are considerations which affect the expediency, in the eye of reason, of consulting future interests at the expense of present. But the inclination to make this sacrifice does not solely depend upon its expediency. The disposition to save is often far short of what reason would dictate: and at other times is liable to be in excess of it. Deficient strength of the desire of accumulation may arise from improvidence, or from want of interest in others. Im¬ providence may be connected with intellectual as well as moral causes. Individuals and communities of a very low state of intelligence are always improvident. A certain measure of intellectual development seems necessary to enable, absent things, and especially things future, to act with any force on the imagination and will. The effect of want of interest in others in diminishing accumulation, will be admitted, if we consider how much saving at present takes place, which has for its object the interest of others rather, than of our¬ selves ; the education of children, their advancement in life, the future interests of other personal connections, the power of promoting by the bestowal of money or time, objects of public or private usefulness. If mankind were generally in the state of mind to which some approach was seen in the declining period of the Roman empire—caring nothing for their heirs, as well as nothing for friends, the public, or any object which survived them—they would seldom deny them¬ selves any indulgence for the sake of saving, beyond what was necessary for their own future years; which they would place in life annuities, or in some other form which would make its existence and their lives terminate together. § 3. From these various causes, intellectual and moral, there is, in different portions of the human race, a greater diversity than is usually adverted to, in the strength of the effective de- * Rae, p. 123. 164 POLITICAL ECONOMY sire of accumulation. A backward state of general civilization is often more the effect of deficiency in this particular than in many others which attract more attention. In the circum¬ stances, for example, of a hunting tribe, “ man may be said to be necessarily improvident, and regardless of futurity, because, in this state, the future presents nothing which can be with certainty either foreseen or governed. . . . Besides a want of the motives exciting to provide for the needs of futurity through means of the abilities of the present, there is a want of the habits of perception and action, leading to a constant connection in the mind of those distant points, and of the series of events serving to unite them. Even, therefore, if motives be awakened capable of producing the exertion necessary to ef¬ fect this connection, there remains the task of training the mind to think and act so as to establish it.” For instance: “ Upon the banks of the St. Lawrence there are several little Indian villages. They are surrounded, in gen¬ eral, by a good deal of land, from which the wood seems to have been long extirpated, and have, besides, attached to them, extensive tracts of forest. The cleared land is rarely, I may almost say never, cultivated, nor are any inroads made in the forest for such a purpose. The soil is, nevertheless, fertile, and were it not, manure lies in heaps by their houses. Were every family to inclose half an acre of ground, till it, and plant it in potatoes and maize, it would yield a sufficiency to support them one-half the year. They suffer, too, every now and then, ex¬ treme want, insomuch that, joined to occasional intemperance, it is rapidly reducing their numbers. This, to us, so strange apathy proceeds not, in any great degree, from repugnance to labor; on the contrary, they apply very diligently to it when its reward is immediate. Thus, besides their peculiar occupations of hunting and fishing, in which they are ever ready to engage, they are much employed in the navigation of the St. Lawrence, and may be seen laboring at the oar, or setting with the pole, in the large boats used for the purpose, and always furnish the greater part of the additional hands necessary to conduct rafts through some of the rapids. Nor is the obstacle aversion to agricultural labor. This is no doubt a prejudice of theirs; but mere prejudices always yield, principles of action cannot be created. When the returns from agricultural labor are speedy and great, they are also agriculturists. Thus, some of the little LAW OF THE INCREASE OF CAPITAL i6 5 islands on Lake St. Francis, near the Indian village of St. Regis, are favorable to the growth of maize, a plant yielding a return of a hundredfold, and forming, even when half ripe, a pleasant and substantial repast. Patches of the best land on these islands are, therefore, every year cultivated by them for this purpose. As their situation renders them inaccessible to cattle, no fence is required; were this additional outlay neces¬ sary, I suspect they would be neglected, like the commons ad¬ joining their village. These had apparently at one time, been under crop. The cattle of the neighboring settlers would now, however, destroy any crop not securely fenced, and this addi¬ tional necessary outlay consequently bars their culture. It removes them to an order of instruments of slower return than that which corresponds to the strength of the effective desire of accumulation in this little society. “ It is here deserving of notice, that what instruments of this kind they do form, are completely formed. The small spots of corn they cultivate are thoroughly weeded and hoed. A little neglect in this part would indeed reduce the crop very much; of this experience has made them perfectly aware, and they act accordingly. It is evidently not the necessary labor that is the obstacle to more extended culture, but the distant return from that labor. I am assured, indeed, that among some of the more remote tribes, the labor thus expended much exceeds that given by the whites. The same portions of ground being cropped without remission, and manure not being used, they would scarcely yield any return, were not the soil most carefully broken and pulverized, both with the hoe and the hand. In such a situation a white man would clear a fresh piece of ground. It would perhaps scarce repay his labor the first year, and he would have to look for his reward in succeeding years. On the Indian, succeeding years are too distant to make suffi¬ cient impression; though, to obtain what labor may bring about in the course of a few months, he toils even more assid¬ uously than the white man.” * This view of things is confirmed by the experience of the jesuits, in their interesting efforts to civilize the Indians of Paraguay . They gained the confidence of these savages in a most extraordinary degree. They acquired influence over them sufficient to make them change their whole manner of life. * Rae, p. 136. 166 POLITICAL ECONOMY They obtained their absolute submission and obedience. They established peace. They taught them all the operations of European agriculture, and many of the more difficult arts. There were everywhere to be seen, according to Charlevoix, “ workshops of gilders, painters, sculptors, goldsmiths, watch¬ makers, carpenters, joiners, dyers,” etc. These occupations were not practised for the personal gain of the artificers: the produce was at the absolute disposal of the missionaries, who ruled the people by a voluntary despotism. The obstacles arising from aversion to labor were therefore very completely overcome. The real difficulty was the improvidence of the peo¬ ple ; their inability to think for the future; and the necessity accordingly of the most unremitting and minute superinten¬ dence on the part of their instructors. “ Thus at first, if these gave up to them the care of the oxen with which they ploughed, their indolent thoughtlessness would probably leave them at evening still yoked to the implement. Worse than this, in¬ stances occurred where they cut them up for supper, thinking, when reprehended, that they sufficiently excused themselves by saying they were hungry. . . . These fathers, says Ulloa, have to visit the houses, to examine what is really wanted: for, without this care, the Indians would never look after any¬ thing. They must be present, too, when animals are slaugh¬ tered, not only that the meat may be equally divided, but that nothing may be lost.” “ But notwithstanding all this care and superintendence,” says Charlevoix, “ and all the precautions which are taken to prevent any want of the necessaries of life, the missionaries are sometimes much embarrassed. It often happens that they ” (the Indians) “ do not reserve to themselves a sufficiency of grain, even for seed. As for their other provi¬ sions, were they not well looked after, they would soon be with¬ out wherewithal to support life.” * As an example intermediate, in the strength of the effective desire of accumulation, between the state of things thus de¬ picted and that of modern Europe, the case of the Chinese de¬ serves attention. From various circumstances in their per¬ sonal habits and social condition, it might be anticipated that they would possess a degree of prudence and self-control greater than other Asiatics, but inferior to most European na¬ tions ; and the following evidence is adduced of the fact: * Rae, p. 140. LAW OF THE INCREASE OF CAPITAL 167 “ Durability is one of the chief qualities, marking a high de¬ gree of the effective desire of accumulation. The testimony of travellers ascribes to the instruments formed by the Chinese a very inferior durability to similar instruments constructed by Europeans. The houses, we are told, unless of the higher ranks, are in general of unburnt bricks, of clay, or of hurdles plastered with earth ; the roofs, of reeds fastened to laths. We can scarcely conceive more unsubstantial or temporary fabrics. Their partitions are of paper, requiring to be renewed every year. A similar observation may be made concerning their implements of husbandry, and other utensils. They are almost entirely of wood, the metals entering but very sparingly into their construction; consequently they soon wear out, and re¬ quire frequent renewals. A greater degree of strength in the effective desire of accumulation, would cause them to be con¬ structed of materials requiring a greater present expenditure, but being far more durable. From the same cause, much land, that in other countries would be cultivated, lies waste. All travellers take notice of large tracts of lands, chiefly swamps, which continue in a state of nature. To bring a swamp into tillage is generally a process, to complete which, requires sev¬ eral years. It must be previously drained, the surface long exposed to the sun, and many operations performed, before it can be made capable of bearing a crop. Though yielding, probably, a very considerable return for the labor bestowed on it, that return it not made until a long time has elapsed. The cultivation of such land implies a greater strength of the effec¬ tive desire of accumulation than exists in the empire. “ The produce of the harvest is, as we have remarked, always an instrument of some order or another; it is a provision for future want, and regulated by the same laws as those to which other means of attaining a similar end conform. It is there chiefly rice, of which there are two harvests, the one in June, the other in October. The period then of eight months be¬ tween October and June, is that for which provision is made each year, and the different estimate they make of to-day and this day eight months will appear in the self-denial they prac¬ tise now, in order to guard against want then. The amount of this self-denial would seem to be small. The father Parennin, indeed, (who seems to have been one of the most intelligent of the Jesuits, and spent a long life among the Chinese of all i68 POLITICAL ECONOMY classes,) asserts, that it is their great deficiency in forethought and frugality in this respect, which is the cause of the scarcities and famines that frequently occur.” That it is defect of providence, not defect of industry, that limits production among the Chinese, is still more obvious than in the case of the semi-agriculturalized Indians. “ Where the returns are quick, where the instruments formed require but little time to bring the events for which they were formed to an issue,” it is well known that “ the great progress which has been made in the knowledge of the arts suited to the nature of the country and the wants of its inhabitants ” makes industry energetic and effective. “ The warmth of the climate, the natu¬ ral fertility of the country, the knowledge which the inhabi¬ tants have acquired of the arts of agriculture, and the discovery and gradual adaptation to every soil of the most useful vege¬ table productions, enable them very speedily to draw from al¬ most any part of the surface, what is there esteemed an equiva¬ lent to much more than the labor bestowed in tilling and cropping it. They have commonly double, sometimes treble har¬ vests. These, when they consist of a grain so productive as rice, the usual crop, can scarce fail to yield to their skill, from almost any portion of soil that can be at once brought into culture, very ample returns. Accordingly there is no spot that labor can immediately bring under cultivation that is not made to yield to it. Hills, even mountains are ascended and formed into terraces; and water, in that country the great productive agent, is led to every part by drains, or carried up to it by the ingenious and simple hydraulic machines which have been in use from time immemorial among this singular people. They effect this the more easily, from the soil, even in these situations, being very deep and covered with much vegetable mould. But what yet more than this marks the readiness with which labor is forced to form the most difficult materials into instruments, where these instruments soon bring to an issue the events for which they are formed, is the frequent occurrence on many of their lakes and rivers, of structures resembling the floating gardens of the Peruvians, rafts covered with vegetable soil and cultivated. Labor in this way draws from the materials on which it acts very speedy returns. Nothing can exceed the luxuriance of vegetation when the quickening powers of a genial sun are ministered to by a rich soil and abundant mois- LAW OF THE INCREASE OF CAPITAL 169 ture. It is otherwise, as we have seen, in cases where the re¬ turn, though copious, is distant. European travellers are sur¬ prised at meeting these little floating farms by the side of swamps which only require draining to render them tillable. It seems to them strange that labor should not rather be be¬ stowed on the solid earth, where its fruits might endure, than on structures that must decay and perish in a few years. The people they are among think not so much of future years, as of the present time. The effective desire of accumulation is of very different strength in the one, from what it is in the other. The views of the European extend to a distant futurity, and he is surprised at the Chinese, condemned, through improvidence, and want of sufficient prospective care, to incessant toil, and as he thinks, insufferable wretchedness. The views of the Chinese are confined to narrower bounds; he is content to live from day to day, and has learnt to conceive even a life of toil a blessing.” * When a country has carried production as far as in the ex¬ isting state of knowledge it can be carried with an amount of return corresponding to the average strength of the effective desire of accumulation in that country, it has reached what is called the stationary state; the state in which no further addi¬ tion will be made to capital unless there takes place either some improvement in the arts of production, or an increase in the strength of the desire to accumulate. In the stationary state, though capital does not on the whole increase, some persons grow richer and others poorer. Those whose degree of provi¬ dence is below the usual standard, become impoverished, their capital perishes, and makes room for the savings of those whose effective desire of accumulation exceeds the average. These become the natural purchasers of the land, manufac¬ tories, and other instruments of production owned by their less provident countrymen. What the causes are which make the return to capital greater in one country than in another, and which, in certain circum¬ stances, make it impossible for any additional capital to find investment unless at diminished returns, will appear clearly hereafter. In China, if that country has really attained, as it is supposed to have done, the stationary state, accumulation has stopped when the returns to capital are still as high as is indi- * Rae, pp. 151—5. 170 POLITICAL ECONOMY cated by a rate of interest legally twelve per cent., and practi¬ cally varying (it is said) between eighteen and thirty-six. It is to be presumed therefore that no greater amount of capital than the country already possesses, can find employment at this high rate of profit, and that any lower rate does not hold out to a Chinese sufficient temptation to induce him to abstain from present enjoyment. What a contrast with Holland, where, during the most flourishing period of its history, the govern¬ ment was able habitually to borrow at two per cent., and private individuals, on good security, at three. Since China is not a country like Burmah, or the native states of India, where an enormous interest is but an indispensable compensation for the risk incurred from the bad faith or poverty of the state, and of almost all private borrowers; the fact, if fact it be, that the increase of capital has come to a stand while the returns to it are still so large, denotes a much less degree of the effective de¬ sire of accumulation, in other words a much lower estimate of the future relatively to the present, than that of most Euro¬ pean nations. § 4. We have hitherto spoken of countries in which the aver¬ age strength of the desire to accumulate is short of that which, in circumstances of any tolerable security, reason and sober calculation would approve. We have now to speak of others in which it decidedly surpasses that standard. In the more prosperous countries of Europe, there are to be found abun¬ dance of prodigals; in some of them (and in none more than England) the ordinary degree of economy and providence among those who live by manual labor cannot be considered high; still, in a very numerous portion of the community, the professional, manufacturing, and trading classes, being those who, generally speaking, unite more of the means with more of the motives for saving than any other class, the spirit of accumulation is so strong, that the signs of rapidly increasing wealth meet every eye: and the great amount of capital seeking investment excites astonishment, whenever peculiar circum¬ stances turning much of it into some one channel, such as rail¬ way construction or foreign speculative adventure, bring the largeness of the total amount into evidence. There are many circumstances, which, in England, give a peculiar force to the accumulating propensity. The long ex¬ emption of the country from the ravages of war, and the far LAW OF THE INCREASE OF CAPITAL 171 earlier period than elsewhere at which property was secure from military violence or arbitrary spoliation, have produced a long¬ standing and hereditary confidence in the safety of funds when trusted out of the owner’s hands, which in most other countries is of much more recent origin, and less firmly established. The geographical causes which have made industry rather than war the natural source of power and importance to Great Britain, have turned an unusual proportion of the most enterprising and energetic characters into the direction of manufactures and commerce; into supplying their wants and gratifying their ambition by producing and saving, rather than by appropriating what has been produced and saved. Much also depended on the better political institutions of this country, which by the scope they have allowed to individual freedom of action, have encouraged personal activity and self-reliance, while by the lib¬ erty they confer of association and combination, they facilitate industrial enterprise on a large scale. The same institutions in another of their aspects, give a most direct and potent stim¬ ulus to the desire of acquiring wealth. The earlier decline of feudalism having removed or much weakened invidious dis¬ tinctions between the originally trading classes and those who had been accustomed to despise them; and a polity having grown up which made wealth the real source of political influ¬ ence ; its acquisition was invested with a factitious value, inde¬ pendent of its intrinsic utility. It became synonymous with power; and since power with the common herd of mankind gives power, wealth became the chief source of personal con¬ sideration, and the measure and stamp of success in life. To get out of one rank in society into the next above it, is the great aim of English middle-class life, and the acquisition of wealth the means. And inasmuch as to be rich without industry, has always hitherto constituted a step in the social scale above those who are rich by means of industry, it becomes the object of ambition to save not merely as much as will afford a large in¬ come while in business, but enough to retire from business and live in affluence on realized gains. These causes have in Eng¬ land been greatly aided by that extreme incapacity of the people for personal enjoyment, which is a characteristic of countries over which Puritanism has passed. But if accumulation is, on one hand, rendered easier by the absence of a taste for pleasure, it is, on the other, made more difficult by the presence of a 172 POLITICAL ECONOMY very real taste for expense. So strong is the association be¬ tween personal consequence and the signs of wealth, that the silly desire for the appearance of a large expenditure has the force of a passion, among large classes of a nation which derive less pleasure than perhaps any other in the world from what it spends. Owing to this circumstance, the effective desire of accumulation has never reached so high a pitch in England as it did in Holland, where, there being no rich idle class to set the example of a reckless expenditure, and the mercantile classes, who possessed the substantial power on which social influence always waits, being left to establish their own scale of living and standard of propriety, their habits remained frugal and unostentatious. In England and Holland, then, for a long time past, and now in most other countries in Europe (which are rapidly following England in the same race), the desire of accumulation does not require, to make it effective, the copious returns which it re¬ quires in Asia, but is sufficiently called into action by a rate of profit so low, that instead of slackening, accumulation seems now to proceed more rapidly than ever; and the second requisite of increased production, increase of capital, shows no tendency to become deficient. So far as that element is concerned, pro¬ duction is susceptible of an increase without any assignable bounds. The progress of accumulation would no doubt be considerably checked, if the returns to capital were to be reduced still lower than at present. But why should any possible increase of capital have that effect? This question carries the mind forward to the remaining one of the three requisites of production. The limitation to production, not consisting in any necessary limit to the increase of the other two elements, labor and capital, must turn upon the properties of the only element which is in¬ herently, and in itself, limited in quantity. It must depend on the properties of land. CHOICE EXAMPLES OF EARLY PRINTING AND ENGRAVING. Fac-similes from Rare and Curious Books. TITLE-PAGE BY HOLBEIN. I his is a lac -simile of a title-page that was designed for an edition ol the New 1 estament pnnted by Adam Petri in 1523; and though it does not bear either name or initials, its authorship is unmistakable. T ' ■ Wi «■ > (Turn twftt fcltgfrit/tccbt vnb fclatUcbU«t» vni ticbticfcn vo:tcb munistic scheme would be consistent with that multiform de¬ velopment of human nature, those manifold unlikenesses, that diversity of tastes and talents, and variety of intellectual points of view, which not only form a great part of the interest of human life, but by bringing intellects into a stimulating colli¬ sion, and by presenting to each innumerable notions that he 208 POLITICAL ECONOMY would not have conceived of himself, are the mainspring of mental and moral progression. § 4. I have thus far confined my observations to the Com¬ munistic doctrine, which forms the extreme limit of Socialism; according to which not only the instruments of production, the land and capital, are the joint property of the community, but the produce is divided and the labor apportioned, as far as possible, equally. The objections, whether well or ill grounded, to which Socialism is liable, apply to this form of it in their greatest force. The other varieties of Socialism mainly differ from Communism, in not relying solely on what M. Louis Blanc calls the point of honor of industry, but retaining more or less of the incentives to labor derived from private pecuniary in¬ terest. Thus it is already a modification of the strict theory of Communism, when the principle is professed of proportioning remuneration to labor. The attempts which have been made in France to carry Socialism into practical effect, by associations of workmen manufacturing on their own account, mostly began by sharing the remuneration equally, without regard to the quantity of work done by the individual: but in almost every case this plan was after a short time abandoned, and recourse was had to working by the piece. The original principle ap¬ peals to a higher standard of justice, and is adapted to a much higher moral condition of human nature. The proportioning of remuneration to work done, is really just, only in so far as the more or less of the work is a matter of choice: when it depends on natural difference of strength or capacity, this principle of remuneration is in itself an injustice: It is giving to those who have; assigning most to those who are already most favored by nature. Considered, however, as a compro¬ mise with the selfish type of character formed by the present standard of morality, and fostered by the existing social insti¬ tutions, it is highly expedient; and until education shall have been entirely regenerated, is far more likely to prove immedi¬ ately successful, than an attempt at a higher ideal. The two elaborate forms of non-communistic Socialism known as St. Simonism and Fourierism, are totally free from the objections usually urged against Communism ; and though they are open to others of their own, yet by the great intellectual power which in many respects distinguishes them, and by their large and philosophic treatment of some of the fundamental PROPERTY, 209 problems of society and morality, they may justly be counted among the most remarkable productions of the past and present age. The St. Simonian scheme does not contemplate an equal, but an unequal division of the produce; it does not propose that all should be occupied alike, but differently, according to their vocation or capacity; the function of each being assigned, like grades in a regiment, by the choice of the directing author¬ ity, and the remuneration being by salary, proportioned to the importance, in the eyes of that authority, of the function itself, and the merits of the person who fulfils it. For the constitu¬ tion of the ruling body, different plans might be adopted, consistently with the essentials of the system. It might be ap¬ pointed by popular suffrage. In the idea of the original au¬ thors, the rulers were supposed to be persons of genius and virtue, who obtained the voluntary adhesion of the rest by the force of mental superiority. That the scheme might in some peculiar states of society work with advantage, is not improb¬ able. There is indeed a successful experi ment, of a somewhat similar~kind, on record, to w hich I have once alluded; th at of the Jesuits in Paraguay. ^ A race of savages, belonging to a portroTToTrnankTnd more averse to consecutive exertion for a distant object than any other authentically known to us, was brought under the mental dominion of civilized and instructed men who were united among themselves by a system of com¬ munity of goods. To the absolute authorty of these men they reverentially submitted themselves, and were induced by them to learn the arts of civilized life, and to practice labors for the community, which no inducement that could have been offered would have prevailed on them to practise for themselves. This social system was of short duration, being prematurely de¬ stroyed by diplomatic arrangements and foreign force. That it could be brought into action at all was probably owing to the immense distance in point of knowledge and intellect which separated the few rulers from the whole body of the ruled, with¬ out any intermediate orders, either social or intellectual. In any other circumstances it would probably have been a complete failure. It supposes an absolute despotism in the heads of the association; which would probably not be much improved if the depositaries of the despotism (contrary to the views of the authors of the system) were varied from time to time according VOL. I.—14 210 POLITICAL ECONOMY to the result of a popular canvass. But to suppose that one or a few human beings, howsoever selected, could, by whatever machinery of subordinate agency, be qualified to adapt each person’s work to his capacity, and proportion each person’s remuneration to his merits—to be, in fact, the dispensers of distributive justice to every member of a community; or that any use which they could make of this power would give general satisfaction, or would be submitted to without the aid of force —is a supposition almost too chimerical to be reasoned against. A fixed rule, like that of equality, might be acquiesced in, and so might chance, or an external necessity; but that a handful of human beings should weigh everybody in the balance, and give more to one and less to another at their sole pleasure and judgment, would not be borne, unless from persons believed to be more than men, and backed by supernatural terrors. The most skilfully combined, and with the greatest foresight of objections, of all the forms of Socialism, is that commonly known as Fourierism. This system does not contemplate the abolition of private property, nor even of inheritance: on the contrary, it avowedly takes into consideration, as an 'element in the distribution of the produce, capital as well as labor. It proposes that the operations of industry should be carried ori by associations of about two thousand members, combining their labor on a district of about a square league in extent, under the guidance of chiefs selected by themselves. In the distri¬ bution, a certain minimum is first assigned for the subsistence of every member of the community, whether capable or not of labor. The remainder of the produce is shared in certain proportions, to be determined beforehand, among the three elements, Labor, Capital, and Talent. The capital of the com¬ munity may be owned in unequal shares by different members, who would in that case receive, as in any other joint-stock company, proportional dividends. The claim of each person on the share of the produce apportioned to talent is estimated by the grade or rank which the individual occupies in the sev¬ eral groups of laborers to which he or she belongs; these grades being in all cases conferred by the choice of his or her compan¬ ions. The remuneration, when received, would not of necessity be expended or enjoyed in common; there would be separate menages for all who preferred them, and no other community of living is contemplated, than that all the members of the PROPERTY 21 I association should reside in the same pile of buildings; for saving of labor and expense, not only in building, but in every branch of domestic economy; and in order that, the whole of the buying and selling operations of the community being per¬ formed by a single agent, the enormous portion of the produce of industry now carried off by the profits of mere distributors might be reduced to the smallest amount possible. This system, unlike Communism, does not, in theory at least, withdraw any of the motives to exertion which exist in the present state of society. On the contrary, if the arrangement worked according to the intentions of its contrivers, it would even strengthen those motives; since each person would have much more certainty of reaping individually the fruits of in¬ creased skill or energy, bodily or mental, than under the present social arrangements can be felt by any but those who are in the most advantageous positions, or to whom the chapter of accidents is more than ordinarily favorable. The Fourierists, however, have still another resource. They believe that they have solved the great and fundamental problem of rendering labor attractive. That this is not impracticable, they contend by very strong arguments; in particular by one which they have in common with the Owenites, viz., that scarcely any labor, however severe, undergone by human beings for the sake of subsistence, exceeds in intensity that which other human beings, whose subsistence is already provided for, are found ready and even eager to undergo for pleasure. This certainly is a most significant fact, and one from which the student in social phi¬ losophy may draw important instruction. But the argument founded on it may easily be stretched too far. If occupations full of discomfort and fatigue are freely pursued by many per¬ sons as amusements, who does not see that they are amuse¬ ments exactly because they are pursued freely, and may be discontinued at pleasure? The liberty of quitting a position often makes the whole difference between its being painful and pleasurable. Many a person remains in the same town, street, or house from January to December, without a wish or a thought tending toward removal, who, if confined to that same place by the mandate of authority, would find the imprisonment absolutely intolerable. According to the Fourierists, scarcely any kind of useful labor is naturally and necessarily disagreeable, unless it is either re- 212 POLITICAL ECONOMY garded as dishonorable, or is immoderate in degree, or destitute of the stimulus of sympathy and emulation. Excessive toil needs not, they contend, be undergone by anyone, in a society in which there would be no idle class, and no labor wasted, as so enormous an amount of labor is now wasted, in useless things; and where full advantage would be taken of the power of association, both in increasing the efficiency of production, and in economizing consumption. The other requisites for ren¬ dering labor attractive would, they think, be found in the exe¬ cution of all labor by social groups, to any number of which the same individual might simultaneously belong, at his or her own choice; their grade in each being determined by the degree of service which they were found capable of rendering, as appre¬ ciated by the suffrages of their comrades. It is inferred from the diversity of tastes and talents, that every member of the community would be attached to several groups, employing themselves in various kinds of occupation, some bodily, others mental, and would be capable of occupying a high place in some one or more; so that a real equality, or something more nearly approaching to it than might at first be supposed, would practically result: not from the compression, but, on the con¬ trary, from the largest possible development, of the various natural superiorities residing in each individual. Even from so brief an outline, it must be evident that this system does no violence to any of the general laws by which human action, even in the present imperfect state of moral and intellectual cultivation, is influenced; and that it would be extremely rash to pronounce it incapable of success, or unfitted to realize a great part of the hopes founded on it by its partisans. With regard to this, as to all other varieties of Socialism, the thing to be desired, and to which they have a just claim, is opportunity of trial. They are all capable of being tried on a moderate scale, and at no risk, either personal or pecuniary, to any except those who try them. It is for experience to de¬ termine how far or how soon any one or more of the possible systems of community of property will be fitted to substitute itself for the “ organization of industry ” based on private own¬ ership of land and capital. ( Jn tjje meantime we may, without attempting to limit the ultimate capabilities of human nature, ^ffTfm^Jthat th e politica l economist, for a considerable time to come, will be chiefly concerned with the conditions of existence PROPERTY 213 and progress belonging to a society founded on private property and individual competition; and that the object to be principally aimed at in the present stage of human improvement, is not the subversion of the system of individual property, but the im¬ provement of it, and the full participation of every member of the community in its benefits. Chapter II.—The Same Subject Continued § I. It is next to be considered, what is included in the idea of private property, and by what considerations the application of the principle should be bounded. The institution of property, when limited to its essential ele¬ ments, consists in the recognition, in each person, of a right to the exclusive disposal of what he or she have produced by their own exertions, or received either by gift or by fair agreement, without force or fraud, from those who produced it. The foun¬ dation of the whole is, the right of producers to what they themselves have produced. It may be objected, therefore, to the institution as it now exists, that it recognizes rights of prop¬ erty in individuals over things which they have not produced. For example (it may be said) the operatives in a manufactory create, by their labor and skill, the whole produce ; yet, instead of its belonging to them, the law gives them only their stipu¬ lated hire, and transfers the produce to some one who has merely supplied the funds, without perhaps contributing any¬ thing to the work itself, even in the form of superintendence. The answer to this is, that the labor of manufacture is only one of the conditions which must combine for the production of the commodity. The labor cannot be carried on without ma¬ terials and machinery, nor without a stock of necessaries pro¬ vided in advance, to maintain the laborers during the produc¬ tion. All these things are the fruits of previous labor. If the laborers were possessed of them, they would not need to divide the produce with any one; but while they have them not, an equivalent must be given to those who have, both for the antecedent labor, and for the abstinence by which the produce of that labor, instead of being expended on indulgences, has been reserved for this use. The capital may not have been, and in most cases was not, created by the labor and abstinence of the present possessor; but it was created by the labor and ab- 214 POLITICAL ECONOMY stinence of some former person, who may indeed have been wrongfully dispossessed of it, but who, in the present age of the world, much more probably transferred his claims to the present capitalist by gift or voluntary contract: and the ab¬ stinence at least must have been continued by each successive owner, down to the present. If it be said, as it may with truth, that those who have inherited the savings of others have an advantage which they may have in no way deserved, over the industrious whose predecessors have not left them anything; I not only admit, but strenuously contend, that this unearned advantage should be curtailed, as much as is consistent with justice to those who thought fit to dispose of their savings by giving them to their descendants. But while it is true that the laborers are at a disadvantage compared with those whose pred¬ ecessors have saved, it is also true that the laborers are far better off than if those predecessors had not saved. They share in the advantage, though not to an equal extent with the inheritors. The terms of co-operation between present labor and the fruits of past labor and saving, are subject for adjust¬ ment between the two parties. Each is necesssary to the other. The capitalists can do nothing without laborers, nor the la¬ borers without capital. If the laborers compete for employ¬ ment, the capitalists on their part compete for labor, to the full extent of the circulating capital of the country. Competition is often spoken of as if it were necessarily a cause of misery and degradation to the laboring class; as if high wages were not precisely as much a product of competition as low wages. The remuneration of labor is as much the result of the law of competition in the United States, as it is in Ireland, and much more completely so than in England. The right of property includes, then, the freedom of acquir¬ ing by contract. The right of each to what he has produced, implies a right to what has been produced by others, if ob¬ tained by their free consent; since the producers must either have given it from good will, or exchanged it for what they es¬ teemed an equivalent, and to prevent them from doing so would be to infringe their right of property in the product of their own industry. § 2. Before proceeding to consider the things which the principle of individual property does not include, we must specify one more thing which it does include: and this is, that PROPERTY 215 a title, after a certain period, should be given by prescription. According to the fundamental idea of property, indeed, noth¬ ing ought to be treated as such, which has been acquired by force or fraud, or appropriated in ignorance of a prior title vested in some other person; but it is necessary to the security of rightful possessors, that they should not be molested by charges of wrongful acquisition, when by the lapse of time witnesses must have perished or been lost sight of, and the real character of the transaction can no longer be cleared up. Pos¬ session which has not been legally questioned within a moder¬ ate number of years, ought to be, as by the laws of all nations it is, a complete title. Even when the acquisition was wrong¬ ful, the dispossession, after a generation has elapsed, of the probably bond fide possessors, by the revival of a claim which had been long dormant, would generally be a greater injustice, and almost always a greater private and public mischief, than leaving the original wrong without atonement. It may seem hard, that a claim, originally just, should be defeated by mere lapse of time; but there is a time after which, (even looking at the individual case, and without regard to the general effect on the security of possessors,) the balance of hardship turns the other way. With the injustices of men, as with the convulsions and disasters of nature, the longer they remain unrepaired, the greater become the obstacles to repairing them, arising from the aftergrowths which would have to be torn up or broken through. In no human transactions, not even in the simplest and clearest, does it follow that a thing is fit to be done now, because it was fit to be done sixty years ago. It is scarcely needful to remark, that these reasons for not disturbing acts of injustice of old date, cannot apply to unjust systems or insti¬ tutions ; since a bad law or usage is not one bad act, in the re¬ mote past, but a perpetual repetition of bad acts, as long as the law or usage lasts. Such, then, being the essentials of private property,, it is now to be considered, to what extent the forms in which the insti¬ tution has existed in different states of society, or still exists, are necessary consequences of its principle, or are recom¬ mended by the reasons on which it is grounded. § 3. Nothing is implied in property but the right of each to his (or her) own faculties, to what he can produce by them, and to whatever he can get for them in a fair market: together with 2l6 POLITICAL ECONOMY his right to give this to any other person if he chooses, and the right of that other to receive and enjoy it. It follows, therefore, that although the right of bequest, or gift after death, forms part of the idea of private property, the right of inheritance, as distinguished from bequest, does not. That the property of persons who have made no disposition of it during their lifetime, should pass first to their children, and failing them, to the nearest relations, may be a proper ar¬ rangement or not, but is no consequence of the principle of private property. Although there belong to the decision of such questions many considerations besides those of political economy, it is not foreign to the plan of this work to suggest, for the judgment of thinkers, the view of them which most recommends itself to the writer’s mind. No presumption in favor of existing ideas on this subject is to be derived from their antiquity. In early ages, the property of a deceased person passed to his children and nearest rela¬ tives by so natural and obvious an arrangement, that no other was likely to be even thought of in competition with it. In the first place, they were usually present on the spot: they were in possession, and if they had no other title, had that, so im¬ portant in an early state of society, of first occupancy. Second¬ ly, they were already, in a manner, joint owners of his property during his life. If the property was in land, it had generally been conferred by the State on a family rather than on an in¬ dividual : if it consisted of cattle or movable goods, it had probably been acquired, and was certainly protected and de¬ fended, by the united efforts of all members of the family who were of an age to work or fight. Exclusive individual prop¬ erty, in the modern sense, scarcely entered into the ideas of the time ; and when the first magistrate of the association died, he really left nothing vacant but his own share in the division, which devolved on the member of the family who succeeded to his authority. To have disposed of the property otherwise, would have been to break up a little commonwealth, united by ideas, interest, and habits, and to cast them adrift on the world. These considerations, though rather felt than reasoned about, had so great an influence on the minds of mankind, as to create the idea of an inherent right in the children to the possessions of their ancestor; a right which it was not competent to himself to defeat. Bequest, in a primitive state of society, was seldom PROPERTY 217 recognized; a clear proof, were there no other, that property was conceived in a manner totally different from the conception of it in the present time.* But the feudal family, the last historical form of patriarchal life, has long perished, and the unit of society is not now the family or clan, composed of all the reputed descendants of a common ancestor, but the individual; or at most a pair of in¬ dividuals, with their unemancipated children. Property is now inherent in individuals, not in families: the children when grown up do not follow the occupations or fortunes of the parent: if they participate in the parent’s pecuniary means it is at his or her pleasure, and not by a voice in the ownership and government of the whole, but generally by the exclusive enjoyment of a part: and in this country at least (except as far as entails or settlements are an obstacle) it is in the power of parents to disinherit even their children, and leave their fortune to strangers. More distant relatives are in general almost as completely detached from the family and its inter¬ ests as if they were in no way connected with it. The only claim they are supposed to have on their richer relations, is to a preference, cceteris paribus, in good offices, and some aid in case of actual necessity. So great a change in the constitution of society must make a considerable difference in the grounds on which the disposal of property by inheritance should rest. The reasons usually assigned by modern writers for giving the property of a per¬ son who dies intestate, to the children, or nearest relatives, are first, the supposition that in so disposing of it, the law is more likely than in any other mode to do what the proprietor would have done, if he had done anything; and secondly, the hardship, to those who lived with their parents and partook in their opulence, of being cast down from the enjoyments of wealth into poverty and privation. There is some force in both these arguments. The law ought, no doubt, to do for the children or dependents of an intestate, whatever it was the duty of the parent or protector to have done, so far as this can be known by anyone besides himself. Since, however, the law cannot decide on individual claims, but must proceed by general rules, it is next to be con¬ sidered what these rules should be. * See, for admirable illustrations of Maine’s profound work on “ Ancient this and many kindred points, Mr. Law and its relation to Modern Ideas.” 2 18 POLITICAL ECONOMY We may first remark, that in regard to collateral relatives, it is not, unless on grounds personal to the particular indi¬ vidual, the duty of any one to make a pecuniary provision for them. No one now expects it, unless there happens to be no direct heirs; nor would it be expected even then, if the expec¬ tation were not created by the provisions of the law in case of intestacy. I see, therefore, no reason why collateral inheritance should exist at all. Mr. Bentham long ago proposed, and other high authorities have agreed in the opinion, that if there are no heirs either in the descending or in the ascending line, the property, in case of intestacy, should escheat to the State. With respect to the more remote degrees of collateral relation¬ ship, the point is not very likely to be disputed. Few will main¬ tain that there is any good reason why the accumulations of some childless miser should on his death (as every now and then happens) go to enrich a distant relative who never saw him, who perhaps never knew himself to be related to him until there was something to be gained by it, and who had no moral claim upon him of any kind, more than the most entire stranger. But the reason of the case applies alike to all col¬ laterals, even in the nearest degree. Collaterals have no real claims, but such as may be equally strong in the case of non¬ relatives ; and in the one case as in the other, where valid claims exist, the proper mode of paying regard to them is by bequest. The claims of children are of a different nature: they are real, and indefeasible. But even of these, I venture to think that the measure usually taken is an erroneous one: what is due to children is in some respects underrated, in others, as it appears to me, exaggerated. One of the most binding of all obligations, that of not bringing children into the world unless they can be maintained in comfort during childhood, and brought up with a likelihood of supporting themselves when of full age, is both disregarded in practice and made light of in theory in a manner disgraceful to human intelligence. On the other hand, when the parent possesses property, the claims of the children upon it seem to me to be the subject of an opposite error. Whatever fortune a parent may have inherited, or still more, may have acquired, I cannot admit that he owes to his children, merely because they are his children, to leave them rich, without the necessity of any exertion. I could not ad- PROPERTY 219 mit it, even if to be so left were always, and certainly, for the good of the children themselves. But this is in the highest degree uncertain. It depends on individual character. With¬ out supposing extreme cases, it may be affirmed that in a ma¬ jority of instances the good not only of society but of the indi¬ viduals would be better consulted by bequeathing to them a moderate than a large provision. This, which is a common¬ place of moralists ancient and modern, is felt to be true by many intelligent parents, and would be acted upon much more frequently, if they did not allow themselves to consider less what really is, than what will be thought by others to be, ad¬ vantageous to the children. The duties of parents to their children are those which are indissolubly attached to the fact of causing the existence of a human being. The parent owes to society to endeavor to make the child a good and valuable member of it, and owes to the children to provide, so far as depends on him, such edu¬ cation, and such appliances and means, as will enable them to start with a fair chance of achieving by their own exertions a successful life. To this every child has a claim; and I can¬ not admit, that as a child he has a claim to more. There is a case in which these obligations present themselves in their true light, without any extrinsic circumstances to disguise or confuse them: it is that of an illegitimate child. To such a child it is generally felt that there is due from the parent, the amount of provision for his welfare which will enable him to make his life on the whole a desirable one. I hold that to no child, merely as such, anything more is due, than what is ad¬ mitted to be due to an illegitimate child: and that no child for whom thus much has been done, has, unless on the score of previously raised expectations, any grievance, if the remainder of the parent’s fortune is devoted to public uses, or to the bene¬ fit of individuals on whom in the parent’s opinion it is better bestowed. In order to give the children that fair chance of a desirable existence, to which they are entitled, it is generally necessary that they should not be brought up from childhood in habits of luxury which they will not have the means of indulging in after life. This, again, is a duty often flagrantly violated by possessors of terminable incomes, who have little property to leave. When the children of rich parents have lived, as it is 220 POLITICAL ECONOMY natural they should do, in habits corresponding to the scale of expenditure in which the parents indulge, it is generally the duty of the parents to make a greater provision for them, than would suffice for children otherwise brought up. I say gen¬ erally, because even here there is another side to the question. It is a proposition quite capable of being maintained, that to a strong nature which has to make its way against narrow cir¬ cumstances, to have known early some of the feelings and experiences of wealth, is an advantage both in the formation of character and in the happiness of life. But allowing that children have a just ground of complaint, who have been brought up to require luxuries which they are not afterwards likely to obtain, and that their claim, therefore, is good to a provision bearing some relation to the mode of their bringing up; this, too, is a claim which is particularly liable to be stretched further than its reasons warrant. The case is ex¬ actly that of the younger children of the nobility and landed gentry, the bulk of whose fortune passes to the eldest son. The other sons, who are usually numerous, are brought up in the same habits of luxury as the future heir, and they receive, as a younger brother’s portion, generally what the reason of the case dictates, namely, enough to support, in the habits of life to which they are accustomed, themselves, but not a wife or children. It really is no grievance to any man, that for the means of marrying and of supporting a family, he has to de¬ pend on his own exertions. A provision, then, such as is admitted to be reasonable in the case of illegitimate children, of younger children, wherever in short the justice of the case, and the real interests of the in¬ dividuals and of society, are the only things considered, is, I conceive, all that parents owe to their children, and all, there¬ fore, which the state owes to the children of those who die in¬ testate. The surplus, if any, I hold that it may rightfully ap¬ propriate to the general purposes of the community. I would not, however, be supposed to recommend that parents should never do more for their children than what, merely as children, they have a moral right to. In some cases it is imperative, in many laudable, and in all allowable, to do much more. For this, however, the means are afforded by the liberty of bequest. It is due, not to the children but to the parents, that they should have the power of showing marks of affection, of requiting PROPERTY 221 services and sacrifices, and of bestowing their wealth according to their own preferences, or their own judgment of fitness. § 4. Whether the power of bequest should itself be subject to limitation, is an ulterior question of great importance. Un¬ like inheritance ab intestato, bequest is one of the attributes of property: the ownership of a thing cannot be looked upon as complete without the power of bestowing it, at death or dur¬ ing life, at the owner’s pleasure: and all the reasons, which recommend that private property should exist, recommend pro tanto this extension of it. But property is only a means to an end, not itself the end. Like all other proprietary rights, and even in a greater degree than most, the power of bequest may be so exercised as to conflict with the permanent interests of the human race. It does so, when, not content with bequeath¬ ing an estate to A, the testator prescribes that on A’s death it shall pass to his eldest son, and to that son’s son, and so on forever. No doubt, persons have occasionally exerted them¬ selves more strenuously to acquire a fortune from the hope of founding a family in perpetuity; but the mischiefs to society of such perpetuities outweigh the value of this incentive to ex¬ ertion, and the incentives in the case of those who have the opportunity of making large fortunes are strong enough with¬ out it. A similar abuse of the power of bequest is committed when a person who does the meritorious act of leaving property for public uses, attempts to prescribe the details of its applica¬ tion in perpetuity; when in founding a place of education, (for instance) he dictates, forever, what doctrines shall be taught. It being impossible that any one should know what doctrines will be fit to be taught after he has been dead for centuries, the law ought not to give effect to such dispositions of property, unless subject to the perpetual revision (after a certain interval has elapsed) of a fitting authority. These are obvious limitations. But even the simplest exer¬ cise of the right of bequest, that of determining the person to whom property shall pass immediately on the death of the testator, has always been reckoned among the privileges which might be limited or varied, according to views of expediency. The limitations, hitherto, have been almost solely in favor of children. In England the right is in principle unlimited, al¬ most the only impediment being that arising from a settlement by a former proprietor, in which case the holder for the time 222 POLITICAL ECONOMY being cannot indeed bequeath his possessions, but only be¬ cause there is nothing to bequeath, he having merely a life interest. By the Roman law on which the civil legislation of the Continent of Europe is principally founded, bequest origi¬ nally was not permitted at all, and even after it was introduced, a legitima portio was compulsorily reserved for each child; and such is still the law in some of the Continental nations. By the French law since the Revolution, the parent can only dispose by will, of a portion equal to the share of one child, each of the children taking an equal portion. This entail, as it may be called, of the bulk of every one’s property upon the children collectively, seems to me as little defensible in principle as an entail in favor of one child, though it does not shock so di¬ rectly the idea of justice. I cannot admit that parents should be compelled to leave to their children even that provision which, as children, I have contended that they have a moral claim to. Children may forfeit that claim by general unworthi¬ ness, or particular ill-conduct to the parents: they may have other resources or prospects: what has been previously done for them, in the way of education and advancement in life, may fully satisfy their moral claim; or others may have claims superior to theirs. The extreme restriction of the power of bequest in French law was adopted as a democratic expedient, to break down the custom of primogeniture, and counteract the tendency of in¬ herited property to collect in large masses. I agree in thinking these objects eminently desirable; but the means used are not, I think, the most judicious. Were I framing a code of laws according to what seems to me best in itself, without regard to existing opinions and sentiments, I should prefer to restrict, not what any one might bequeath, but what any one should be permitted to acquire, by bequest or inheritance. Each person should have power to dispose by will of his or her whole prop¬ erty ; but not to lavish it in enriching some one individual, beyond a certain maximum, which should be fixed sufficiently high to afford the means of comfortable independence. The inequalities of property which arise from unequal industry, fru¬ gality, perseverance, talents, and to a certain extent even op¬ portunities, are inseparable from the principle of private prop¬ erty, and if we accept the principle, we must bear with these consequences of it: but I see nothing objectionable in fixing PROPERTY 223 a limit to what any one may acquire by the mere favor of others, without any exercise of his faculties, and in requiring that if he desires any further accession of fortune, he shall work for it.* I do not conceive that the degree of limitation which this would impose on the right of bequest, would be felt as a bur¬ densome restraint by any testator who estimated a large fortune at its true value, that of the pleasures and advantages that can be purchased with it: on even the most extravagant estimate of which, it must be apparent to every one, that the difference to the happiness of the possessor between a moderate inde¬ pendence and five times as much, is insignificant when weighed against the enjoyment that might be given, and the perma¬ nent benefits diffused, by some other disposal of the four-fifths. So long indeed as the opinion practically prevails, that the best thing which can be done for objects of affection is to heap on them to satiety those intrinsically worthless things on which large fortunes are mostly expended, there might be little use in enacting such a law, even if it were possible to get it passed, since if there were the inclination, there would generally be the power of evading it. The law would be unavailing unless the popular sentiment went energetically along with it; which (judging from the tenacious adherence of public opinion in France to the law of compulsory division) it would in some states of society and government be very likely to do, how¬ ever much the contrary may be the fact in England and at the present time. If the restriction could be made practically effectual, the benefit would be great. Wealth which could no longer be employed in over-enriching a few, would either be devoted to objects of public usefulness, or if bestowed on indi¬ viduals, would be distributed among a larger number. While those enormous fortunes which no one needs for any personal purpose but ostentation or improper power, would become much less numerous, there would be a great multiplication of persons in easy circumstances, with the advantages of leisure, * In the case of capital employed in the hands of the owner himself, in car¬ rying on any of the operations of in¬ dustry, there are strong grounds for leaving to him the power of bequeathing to one person the whole of the funds actually engaged in a single enterprise. It is well that he should be enabled to leave the enterprise under the control of whichever of his heirs he regards as best fitted to conduct it virtuously and effi¬ ciently; and the necessity (very frequent and inconvenient under the French law) would be obviated, of breaking up a manufacturing or commercial establish¬ ment at the death of its chief. In like manner it should be allowed to a pro¬ prietor who leaves to one of his suc¬ cessors the moral burden of keeping up an ancestral mansion and park or pleasure-ground, to bestow along with them as much other property as is re¬ quired for their sufficient maintenance. 224 POLITICAL ECONOMY and all the real enjoyments which wealth can give, except those of vanity; a class by whom the services which a nation having leisured classes is entitled to expect from them, either by their direct exertions or by the tone they give to the feelings and tastes of the public, would be rendered in a much more bene¬ ficial manner than at present. A large portion also of the ac¬ cumulations of successful industry would probably be devoted to public uses, either by direct bequests to the State, or by the endowment of institutions; as is already done very largely in the United States, where the ideas and practice in the matter of inheritance seem to be usually rational and beneficial.* § 5. The next point to be considered is, whether the reasons on which the institution of property rests, are applicable to all things in which a right of exclusive ownership is at present recognized; and if not, on what other grounds the recognition is defensible. The essential principle of property being to assure to all per¬ sons what they have produced by their labor and accumulated by their abstinence, this principle cannot apply to what is not the produce of labor, the raw material of the earth. If the land derived its productive power wholly from nature, and not at all from industry, or if there were any means of discriminating what is derived from each source, it not only would not be necessary, but it would be the height of injustice, to let the gift of nature be engrossed by individuals. The use of the land in agriculture must indeed, for the time being, be of necessity exclusive; the same person who has ploughed and sown must be permitted to reap: but the land might be occupied for one season only, as among the ancient Germans; or might be periodically redivided as population increased: or the State * “ Munificent bequests and donations for public purposes, whether charitable or educational, form a striking feature in the modern history of the United States, and especially of New England. Not only is it common for rich capital¬ ists to leave by will a portion of their fortune towards the endowment of na¬ tional institutions, but individuals dur¬ ing their lifetime make magnificent grants of money for the same objects. There is here no compulsory law for the equal partition of property among chil¬ dren, as in France, and on the other hand, no custom of entail or primogeni¬ ture, as in England, so that the affluent feel themselves at liberty to share their wealth between their kindred and the public; it being impossible to found a family, and parents having frequently the happiness of seeing all their chil¬ dren well provided for and independent long before their death. I have seen a list of bequests and donations made dur¬ ing the last thirty years for the benefit of religious, charitable, and literary in¬ stitutions in the State of Massachusetts alone, and they amounted to no less a sum than six millions of dollars, or more than a million sterling.”—Lyell’s “ Trav¬ els in America,” vol. i. p. 263. In England, whoever leaves anything, beyond trifling legacies, for public or beneficent objects, when he has any near relatives living, does so at the risk of being declared insane by a jury after his death, or at the least, of having the property wasted in a Chancery suit to set aside the will. PROPERTY 225 might be the universal landlord* and the cultivators tenants under it, either on lease or at will. But though land is not the produce of industry, most of its valuable qualities are so. Labor is not only requisite for using, but almost equally so for fashioning the instrument. Consid¬ erable labor is often required at the commencement, to clear the land for cultivation. In many cases, even when cleared, its productiveness is wholly the effect of labor and art. The Bed¬ ford Level produced little or nothing until artifically drained. The bogs of Ireland, until the same thing is done to them, can produce little besides fuel. One of the barrenest soils in the world, composed of the material of the Goodwin Sands, the Pays de Waes in Flanders, has been so fertilized by industry, as to have become one of the most productive in Europe. Cul¬ tivation also requires buildings and fences, which are wholly the produce of labor. The fruits of this industry cannot be reaped in a short period. The labor and outlay are immediate, the benefit is spread over many years, perhaps over all future time. A holder will not incur this labor and outlay when strangers and not himself will be benefited by it. If he under¬ takes such improvements, he must have a sufficient period be¬ fore him in which to profit by them; and he is in no way so sure of having always a sufficient period as when his tenure is perpetual.* § 6. These are the reasons which form the justification, in an economical point of view, of property in land. It is seen that * “ What endowed man with intelli¬ gence and perseverance in labor, what made him direct all his efforts towards an end useful to his race, was the senti¬ ment of perpetuity. The lands which the streams nave deposited along their course are always the most fertile, but are also those which they menace with their inundations or corrupt by marshes. Under the guarantee of perpetuity men undertook long and painful labors to give the marshes an outlet, to erect em¬ bankments against inundations, to dis¬ tribute by irrigation-channels fertilizing waters over the same fields which the same waters had condemned to sterility. Under the same guarantee, man, no longer contenting himself with the an¬ nual products of the earth, distin¬ guished among the wild vegetation the perennial plants, shrubs, and trees which would be useful to him, improved them by culture, changed, it may al¬ most be said, their very nature, and multiplied their amount. There are fruits which it required centuries of cultivation to bring to their present per¬ fection, and others which have been in¬ troduced from the most remote regions. Men have opened the earth to a great depth to renew the soil, and fertilize it by the mixture of its parts and by contact with the air; they have fixed on the hillsides the soil which would have slid off, and have covered the face of the country with a vegetation every¬ where abundant, and everywhere useful to the human race. Among their labors there are some of which the fruits can only be reaped at the end of ten or of twenty years; there are others by which their posterity will still benefit after sev¬ eral centuries. All have concurred in augmenting the productive force of na¬ ture, in giving to mankind a revenue infinitely more abundant, a revenue of which a considerable part is consumed by those who have no share in the own¬ ership of the land, but who would not have found a maintenance but for that appropriation of the soil by which they seem, at first sight, to have been disin¬ herited.”—Sismondi, “ Studies in Po¬ litical Economy,” Third Essay, on Ter¬ ritorial Wealth. VOL. I.—15 226 POLITICAL ECONOMY they are only valid, in so far as the proprietor of land is its improver. Whenever, in any country, the proprietor, generally speaking, ceases to be the improver, political economy has nothing to say in defence of landed property, as there estab¬ lished. In no sound theory of private property was it ever con¬ templated that the proprietor of land should be merely a sine- curist quartered on it. In Great Britain, the landed proprietor is not unfrequently an improver. But it cannot be said that he is generally so. And in the majority of cases he grants the liberty of cultivation on such terms, as to prevent improvements from being made by any one else. In the southern parts of the island, as there are usually no leases, permanent improvements can scarcely be made except by the landlord’s capital; accordingly the South, compared with the North of England, and with the Lowlands of Scotland, is still extremely backward in agricultural im¬ provement. The truth is, that any very general improvement of land by the landlords, is hardly compatible with a law or custom of primogeniture. When the land goes wholly to the heir, it generally goes to him severed from the pecuniary re¬ sources which would enable him to improve it, the personal property being absorbed by the provision for younger chil¬ dren, and the land itself often heavily burdened for the same purpose. There is, therefore, but a small proportion of land¬ lords who have the means of making expensive improvements, unless they do it with borrowed money, and by adding to the mortgages with which in most cases the land was already burdened when they received it. But the position of the owner of a deeply mortgaged estate is so precarious; economy is so unwelcome to one whose apparent fortune greatly exceeds his real means, and the vicissitudes of rent and price which only trench upon the margin of his income, are so formidable to one who can call little more than the margin his own; that it is no wonder if few landlords find themselves in a condition to make immediate sacrifices for the sake of future profit. Were they ever so much inclined, those alone can prudently do it, who have seriously studied the principles of scientific agriculture: and great landlords have seldom seriously studied anything. They might at least hold out inducements to the farmers to do what they will not or cannot do themselves; but even in granting leases, it is in England a general complaint PROPERTY 227 that they tie up their tenants by covenants grounded on the practices of an obsolete and exploded agriculture: while most of them, by withholding leases altogether, and giving the farmer no guarantee of possession beyond a single harvest, keep the land on a footing little more favorable to improve¬ ment than in the time of our barbarous ancestors, “- immetata quibus jugera liberas Fruges et Cererem ferunt, Nec cultura placet longior annua.” Landed property in England is thus very far from completely fulfilling the conditions which render its existence economi¬ cally justifiable. But if insufficiently realized even in England, in Ireland those conditions are not complied with at all. With individual exceptions (some of them very honorable ones), the owners of Irish estates do nothing for the land but drain it of its produce. What has been epigrammatically said in the discussions on “ peculiar burdens ” is literally true when ap¬ plied to them ; that the greatest “ burden on land ” is the land¬ lords. Returning nothing to the soil, they consume its whole produce, minus the potatoes strictly necessary to keep the in¬ habitants from dying of famine: and when they have any pur¬ pose of improvement, the preparatory step usually consists in not leaving even this pittance, but turning out the people to beggary if not to starvation.* When landed property has placed itself upon this footing it ceases to be defensible, and the time has come for making some new arrangement of the matter. When the “ sacredness of property ” is talked of, it should alwavs be remembered, that anv such sacredness does not be- long in the same degree to landed property. No man made the land. It is the original inheritance of the whole species. Its appropriation is wholly a question of general expediency. When private property in lands is not expedient, it is unjust. It is no hardship to any one, to be excluded from what others have produced: they were not bound to produce it for his use, and he loses nothing by not sharing in what otherwise would not have existed at all. But it is some hardship to be born into the world and to find all nature’s gifts previously en- * I must beg the reader to bear in nomical, taking place in our age, that, mind that this paragraph was written without perpetually rewriting a work eighteen years ago (1848). So wonderful like the present, it is impossible to keep are the changes, both moral and eco- up with them. 228 POLITICAL ECONOMY grossed, and no place left for the new-comer. To reconcile people to this, after they have once admitted into their minds the idea that any moral rights belong to them as human be¬ ings, it will always be necessary to convince them that the ex¬ clusive appropriation is good for mankind on the whole, them¬ selves included. But this is what no sane human being could be persuaded of, if the relation between the landowner and the cultivator were the same everywhere as it has been in Ireland. Landed property is felt even by those most tenacious of its rights, to be a different thing from other property; and where the bulk of the community have been disinherited of their share of it, and it has become the exclusive attribute of a small minor¬ ity, men have generally tried to reconcile it, at least in theory, to their sense of justice, by endeavoring to attach duties to it, and erecting it into a sort of magistracy, either moral or legal. But if the state is at liberty to treat the possessors of land as public functionaries, it is only going one step further to say, that it is at liberty to discard them. The claim of the land- owners to the land is altogether subordinate to the general pol¬ icy of the state. The principle of property gives them no right to the land, but only a right to compensation for whatever por¬ tion of their interest in the land it may be the policy of the state to deprive them of. To that, their claim is indefeasible. It is due to landowners, and to owners of any property whatever, recognized as such by the state, that they should not be dis¬ possessed of it without receiving its pecuniary value, or an an¬ nual income equal to what they derived from it. This is due on the general principles on which property rests. If the land was bought with the produce of the labor and abstinence of themselves or their ancestors, compensation is due to them on that ground; even if otherwise, it is still due on the ground of prescription. Nor can it ever be necessary for accomplish¬ ing an object by which the community altogether will gain, that a particular portion of the community should be immo¬ lated. When the property is of a kind to which peculiar af¬ fections attach themselves, the compensation ought to exceed a bare pecuniary equivalent. But, subject to this proviso, the state is at liberty to deal with landed property as the general interests of the community may require, even to the extent, if it so happen, of doing with the whole, what is done with a part whenever a bill is passed for a railroad or a new street. The PROPERTY 229 community has too much at stake in the proper cultivation of the land, and in the conditions annexed to the occupancy of it, to leave these things to the discretion of a class of persons called landlords, when they have shown themselves unfit for the trust. The legislature, which if it pleased might convert the whole body of landlords into fund-holders or pensioners, might, a fortiori, commute the average receipts of Irish land- owners into a fixed rent charge, and raise the tenants into pro¬ prietors ; supposing always that the full market value of the land was tendered to the landlords, in case they preferred that to accepting the conditions proposed. There will be another place for discussing the various modes of landed property and tenure, and the advantages and incon¬ veniences of each ; in this chapter our concern is with the right itself, the grounds which justify it, and (as a corollary from these) the conditions by which it should be limited. To me it seems almost an axiom that property in land should be inter¬ preted strictly, and that the balance in all cases of doubt should incline against the proprietor. The reverse is the case with property in movables, and in all things the product of labor; over these, the owner’s power both of use and of exclusion should be absolute, except where positive evil to others would result from it; but in the case of land, no exclusive right should be permitted in any individual, which cannot be shown to be productive of positive good. To be allowed any exclusive right at all, over a portion of the common inheritance, while there are others who have no portion, is already a privilege. No quan¬ tity of movable goods which a person can acquire by his labor, prevents others from acquiring the like by the same means; but from the very nature of the case, whoever owns land, keeps others out of the enjoyment of it. The privilege, or monopoly, is only defensible as a necessary evil; it becomes an injustice when carried to any point to which the compensating good does not follow it. For instance, the exclusive right to the land for purposes of cultivation does not imply an exclusive right to it for pur¬ poses of access; and no such right ought to be recognized, except to the extent necessary to protect the produce against damage, and the owner’s privacy against invasion. The pre¬ tension of two Dukes to shut up a part of the Highlands, and exclude the rest of mankind from many square miles of moun- 230 POLITICAL ECONOMY tain scenery to prevent disturbance to wild animals, is an abuse ; it exceeds the legitimate bounds of the right of landed property. When land is not intended to be cultivated, no good reason can in general be given for its being private property at all; and if any one is permitted to call it his, he ought to know that he holds it by sufferance of the community, and on an implied condition that his ownership, since it cannot possibly do them any good, at least shall not deprive them of any, which they could have derived from the land if it had been unappropriated. Even in the case of cultivated land, a man whom, though only one among millions, the law permits to hold thousands of acres as his single share, is not entitled to think that all this is given to him to use and abuse, and deal with as if it concerned no¬ body but himself. The rents or profits which he can obtain from it are at his sole disposal; but with regard to the land, in everything which he does with it, and in everything which he abstains from doing, he is morally bound, and should when¬ ever the case admits be legally compelled, to make his interest and pleasure consistent with the public good. The species at large still retains, of its original claim to the soil of the planet which it inhabits, as much as is compatible with the purposes for which it has parted with the remainder. § 7. Besides property in the produce of labor, and property in land, there are other things which are or have been subjects of property, in which no proprietary rights ought to exist at all. But as the civilized world has in general made up its mind on most of these, there is no necessity for dwelling on them in this place. At the head of them, is property in human beings. It is almost superfluous to observe, that this institution can have no place in any society even pretending to be founded on justice, or on fellowship between human creatures. But, in¬ iquitous as it is,, yet when the state has expressly legalized it, and human beings, for generations, have been bought, sold, and inherited under sanction of law, it is another wrong, in abolishing the property, not to make full compensation. This wrong was avoided by the great measure of justice in 1833, one of the most virtuous acts, as well as the most practically beneficent, ever done collectively by a nation. Other exam¬ ples of property which ought not to have been created, are properties in public trusts; such as judicial offices under the old French regime , and the heritable jurisdictions which, in CLASSES WHO DIVIDE THE PRODUCE 231 countries not wholly emerged from feudality, pass with the land. Our own country affords, as cases in point, that of a commission in the army, and of an advowson, or right of nomi¬ nation to an ecclesiastical benefice. A property is also some¬ times created in a right of taxing the public; in a monopoly, for instance, or other exclusive privilege. These abuses pre¬ vail most in semi-barbarous countries; but are not without example in the most civilized. In France there are* several im¬ portant trades and professions, including notaries, attorneys, brokers, appraisers, printers, and (until lately) bakers and butchers, of which the numbers are limited by law. The brevet or privilege of one of the permitted number consequently brings a high price in the market. When this is the case, compensation probably could not with justice be refused, on the abolition of the privilege. There are other cases in which this would be more doubtful. The question would turn upon what, in the peculiar circumstances, was sufficient to consti¬ tute prescription; and whether the legal recognition which the abuse had obtained, was sufficient to constitute it an insti¬ tution, or amounted only to an occasional license. It would be absurd to claim compensation for losses caused by changes in a tariff, a thing confessedly variable from year to year; or for monopolies like those granted to individuals by the Tudors, favors of a despotic authority, which the power that gave was competent at any time to recall. So much on the institution of property, a subject of which, for the purposes of political economy, it was indispensable to treat, but on which we could not usefully confine ourselves to economical considerations. We have now to inquire on what principles and with what results the distribution of the produce of land and labor is effected, under the relations which this institution creates among the different members of the com¬ munity. Chapter III. — Of the Classes among Whom the Produce is Distributed § 1. Private property being assumed as a fact, we have next to enumerate the different classes of persons to whom it gives rise ; whose concurrence, or at least whose permission, is neces¬ sary to production, and who are therefore able to stipulate for a share of the produce. We have to inquire, according to what 23 2 POLITICAL ECONOMY laws the produce distributes itself among these classes, by the spontaneous action of the interests of those concerned: after which, a further question will be, what effects are or might be produced by laws, institutions, and measures of government, in superseding or modifying that spontaneous distribution. The three requisites of production, as has been so often re¬ peated, are labor , capita l, an^Lla ndunderstanding by capital, the means and appliances which are the accumulated results of previous labor, and by land, the materials and instruments supplied by nature, whether contained in the interior of the earth or constituting its surface. Since each of these elements of production may be separately appropriated, the industrial community may be considered as divided into jand owners, capitalists, and productive laborers . Each of these classes, as such, obtains a share of the produce: no other person or class obtains anything, except by concession from them. The re¬ mainder of the community is, in fact, supported at their ex¬ pense, giving, if any equivalent, one consisting of unproduc¬ tive services. JThes e three cl a sses, ther efo re, are consid ered in political economy as making up the whole commun ity. § 2. But although these three sometimes exist as separate classes, dividing the produce among them, they do not neces¬ sarily or always so exist. The fact is so much otherwise, that there are only one or two communities in which the complete separation of these classes is the general rule. England and Scotland, with parts of Belgium and Holland, are almost the only countries in the world where the land, capital, and labor employed in agriculture, are generally the property of separate owners. The ordinary case is, that the same person owns either two of these requisites, or all three. The case in which the same person owns all three, embraces the two extremes of existing society, in respect to the inde¬ pendence and dignity of the laboring class. First, when the laborer himself is the proprietor. This is the commonest case in the Northern States of the American Union ; one of the com¬ monest in France, Switzerland, the three Scandinavian king¬ doms, and parts of Germany; * and a common case in parts The Norwegian return ” (say the Commissioners of Poor Law Inquiry, to whom information was furnished from nearly every country in Europe and America by the ambassadors and con¬ suls there) “ states that at the last cen¬ sus in 1825, out of a population of 1,051,- 318 persons, there were 59,464 freeholders. As by 59,464 freeholders must be meant 59,464 heads of families, or about 300,000 individuals; the freeholders must form more than one-fourth of the whole popu- CLASSES WHO DIVIDE THE PRODUCE 2 33 of Italy and in Belgium. In all these countries there are, no doubt, large landed properties, and a still greater number which, without being large, require the occasional or constant aid of hired laborers. Much, however, of the land is owned in portions too small to require any other labor than that of the peasant and his family, or fully to occupy even that. The capital employed is not always that of the peasant proprietor, many of these small properties being mortgaged to obtain the means of cultivating; but the capital is invested at the peasant’s risk, and though he pays interest for it, it gives to no one any right of interference, except perhaps eventually to take posses¬ sion of the land, if the interest ceases to be paid. The other case in which the land, labor, and capital, belong to the same person, is the case of slave countries, in which the laborers themselves are owned by the landowner. Our West India colonies before emancipation, and the sugar colonies of the nations by whom a similar act of justice is still unperformed, are examples of large establishments for agricultural and man¬ ufacturing labor (the production of sugar and rum is a com¬ bination of both) in which the land, the factories (if they may be so called), the machinery, and the degraded laborers, are all the property of a capitalist. In this case, as well as in its extreme opposite, the case of the peasant proprietor, there is no division of the produce. § 3. When the three requisites are not all owned by the same person, it often happens that two of them are so. Sometimes the same person owns the capital and the land, but not the labor. The landlord makes his engagement directly with the laborer, and supplies the whole or part of the stock necessary for cultivation. This system is the usual one in those parts of Continental Europe, in which the laborers are neither serfs on the one hand, nor proprietors on the other. It was very com- lation. Mr. Macgregor states that in Denmark (by which Zealand and the adjoining islands are probably meant) out of a population of 926,110, the num¬ ber of landed proprietors and farmers is 415,110, or nearly one-half. In Sleswick- Holstein, out of a population of 604,085, it is 196,017, or about one-third. The proportion of proprietors and farmers to the whole population is not given in Sweden; but the Stockholm return esti¬ mates the average quantity of land an¬ nexed to a laborer’s habitation at from one to five acres; and though the Got- tenburg return gives a lower estimate, it adds, that the peasants possess much of the land. In Wurtemburg we are told that more than two-thirds of the la¬ boring population are the proprietors of their own habitations, and that al¬ most all own at least a garden of from three-quarters of an acre to an acre and a half.” In some of these statements, proprietors and farmers are not discrimi¬ nated; but “all the returns concur in stating the number of day-laborers to be very small.”—(“ Preface to Foreign Communications,” p. xxxviii.) As the general status of the laboring people, the condition of a workman for hire is almost peculiar to Great Britain. 234 POLITICAL ECONOMY mon in France before the Revolution, and is still much prac¬ tised in some parts of that country, when the land is not the property of the cultivator. It prevails generally in the level districts of Italy, except those principally pastoral, such as the Maremma of Tuscany and the Campagna of Rome. On this system the division of the produce is between two classes, the landowner and the laborer. In other cases again the laborer does not own the land, but owns the little stock employed on it, the landlord not being in the habit of supplying any. This system generally prevails in Ireland. It is nearly universal in India, and in most countries of the East; whether the government retains, as it generally does, the ownership of the soil, or allows portions to become, either absolutely or in a qualified sense, the property of indi¬ viduals. In India, however, things are so far better than in Ireland, that the owner of land is in the habit of making ad¬ vances to the cultivators, if they cannot cultivate without them. For these advances the native landed proprietor usually de¬ mands high interest; but the principal landowner, the govern¬ ment, makes them gratuitously, recovering the advance after the harvest, together with the rent. The produce is here di¬ vided, as before between the same two classes, the landowner and the laborer. These are the principal variations in the classification of those among whom the produce of agricultural labor is dis¬ tributed. In the case of manufacturing industry there never are more than two classes, the laborers and the capitalists. The original artisans in all countries were either slaves, or the women of the family. In the manufacturing establishments of the ancients, whether on a large or on a small scale, the la¬ borers were usually the property of the capitalist. In general, if any manual labor was thought compatible with the dignity of a freeman, it was only agricultural labor. The converse sys¬ tem, in which the capital was owned by the laborer, was coeval with free labor, and under it the first great advances of manu¬ facturing industry were achieved. The artisan owned the loom or the few tools he used, and worked on his own account; or at least ended by doing so, though he usually worked for an¬ other, first as apprentice and next as journeyman, for a certain number of years before he could be admitted a master. But the status of a permanent journeyman, all his life a hired laborer COMPETITION AND CUSTOM 2 35 and nothing more, had no place in the crafts and guilds of the Middle Ages. In country villages, where a carpenter or a blacksmith cannot live and support hired laborers on the re¬ turns of his business, he is even now his own workman; and shopkeepers in similar circumstances are their own shopmen, or shopwomen. But wherever the extent of the market admits of it, the distinction is now fully established between the class of capitalists, or employers of labor, and the class of laborers; the capitalists, in general, contributing no other labor than that of direction and superintendence. Chapter IV.—Of Competition and Custom §i. Under the rule of individual property, the division of the produce is the result of two determining agencies: Competition, and Custom. It is important to ascertain the amount of influ¬ ence which belongs to each of these causes, and in what manner the operation of one is modified by the other. Political economists generally, and English political econo¬ mists above others, have been accustomed to lay almost ex¬ clusive stress upon the first of these agencies; to exaggerate the effect of competition, and to take into little account the other and conflicting principle. They are apt to express them - selves as if they thought that competition actually d oes, in all £as es, whatever i t can be shown to b e the tendency of compe ti- Tlon to do. This is partly intelligible, if we consider that only through the principle of competition has political economy an y pretensi on to the character of a science . So far as rents, profits, wages, prices, are determined bv competition, laws may be a s¬ signed for the m. Assume competition to be their exclusive r egulator, and principles of broad generality and scientific pre 1 cis ion may be laid down, according to which they wifi be reg u¬ lated. The politica l economist justly deems this his prop er ftusinessT'and, a s an abst ract or hypothetical science, pol itical economy cannot He requ ired to do, and indeed ca nnot dp, anv - thing more. But it would be a great misconception of the actual course of human affairs, to suppose that competitionTexercises in fact this unlimited sway. I am not speaking ~of monopolies , Eit her natural or artificial, or of any interferences of authorit y with the liberty of p roducti on or exchange . Such disturbing 2 3 6 POLITICAL ECONOMY causes have always been allowed for by political economists. J. speak of cases in which there is n othing to restra i n competi tion: no hindranc e to it either in the nature of the case or in a rtificial obst a cles; yet in wh ich the result is not determined by compet i¬ tion, but by custom or usage ; competition either not takin g place at all, or xmducing its .effectJn^ui te _a^differe nL manne r from that which is ordinarily assumed to be natural tort. § 2. Competition, in fact, has only become in any considerable degree the governing principle of contracts, at a comparatively modern period. The further we look back into history, the more we see all transactions and engagements under the influence of fixed customs. The reason is evident. Custom is the most powerful protector of the weak against the strong; their sole ftPflteCtor where there areTlO laws or government adequate to thFpprpose. Custom is a barrier which, even i n th e mo st op¬ pressed condition of marrkind. tyrann y is forced in some de gree to respect. To the industrious population in a turbulent military community, freedom of competition is a vain phrase; they are never in a condition to make terms for themselves by it: there is always a master who throws his sword into the scale, and the terms are such as he imposes. But though the law of the strong¬ est decides, it is not the interest nor in general the practice of the strongest to strain that law to the utmost, and every relaxa¬ tion of it has a tendency to become a custom, and every custom to become a right. Rights thus originating, and not competi¬ tion in a ny shape, determine, in a rude state ot society, th e share of the produce enjoyed by those who produc e it. The re ¬ lations, more especially, b etween the landown er and the cu jti- vator, and the payments made by the latter to the, former, are, in all states of society but the most modern, determined by the usage of the country. “Never until late times have the conditions oT the occupancy of land been (as a general rule) an affair of competition. The occupier for the time has very commonly been considered to have a right to retain his holding, while he fulfils the customary requirements; and has thus become, in a certain sense, a co-proprietor of the soil. Even where the holder has not acquired this fixity of tenure, the terms of occupation have often been fixed and invariable. In India, for example, and other Asiatic communities simi¬ larly constituted, the ryots, or peasant-farmers, are not regarded as tenants at will, nor even as tenants by virtue of a lease. In COMPETITION AND CUSTOM 2 37 most villages there are indeed some ryots on this precarious footing, consisting of those, or the descendants of those, who have settled in the place at a known and comparatively recent period: but all who are looked upon as descendants or repre¬ sentatives of the original inhabitants, and even many mere ten¬ ants of ancient date, are thought entitled to retain their land, as long as they pay the customary rents. What these customary rents are, or ought to be, has indeed, in most cases, become a matter of obscurity; usurpation, tyranny, and foreign conquest having to a great degree obliterated the evidences of them. But when an old and purely Hindoo principality falls under the do¬ minion of the British Government, or the management of its officers, and when the details of the revenue system come to be inquired into, it is usually found that though the demands of the great landholder, the State, have been swelled by fiscal ra¬ pacity until all limit is practically lost sight of, it has yet been thought necessary to have a distinct name and a separate pretext for each increase of exaction; so that the demand has sometimes come to consist of thirty or forty different items, in addition to the nominal rent. This circuitous mode of increasing the pay¬ ments assuredly would not have been resorted to, if there had been an acknowledged right in the landlord to increase the rent. Its adoption is a proof that there was once an effective limita¬ tion, a real customary rent; and that the understood right of the ryot to the land, so long as he paid rent according to custom, was at some time or other more than nominal.* The British Govern¬ ment of India always simplifies the tenure by consolidating the various assessments into one, thus making the rent nominally as well as really an arbitrary thing, or at least a matter of specific agreement: but it scrupulously respects the right of the ryot to the land, though until the reforms of the present generation (re¬ forms even now only partially carried into effect) it seldom left him much more than a bare subsistence. In modern Europe the cultivators have gradually emerged from a state of personal slavery. The barbarian conquerors of the Western empire found that the easiest mode of managing their conquests would be to leave the occupation of the land in the hands in which they found it, and to save themselves a labor * The ancient law books of the Hin- that the rules laid down in those books doos mention in some cases one-sixth, were, at any period of history, really in others one-fourth of the produce, as acted upon, a proper rent; but there is no evidence 238 POLITICAL ECONOMY so uncongenial as the superintendence of troops of slaves, by allowing the slaves to retain in a certain degree the control of their own actions, under an obligation to furnish the lord with provisions and labor. A common expedient was to assign to the serf, for his exclusive use, as much land as was thought sufficient for his support, and to make him work on the other lands of his lord whenever required. By degrees these indefinite obligations were transformed into a definite one, of supplying a fixed quantity of provisions or a fixed quantity of labor: and as the lords, in time, became inclined to employ their income in the purchase of luxuries rather than in the maintenance of re¬ tainers, the payments in kind were commuted for payments in money. Each concession, at first voluntary and revocable at pleasure, gradually acquired the force of custom, and was at last recognized and enforced by the tribunals. In this manner the serfs progressively rose into a free tenantry, who held their land in perpetuity on fixed conditions. The conditions were sometimes very onerous, and the people very miserable. But their obligations were determined by the usage or law of the country, and not by competition. Where the cultivators had never been, strictly speaking, in personal bondage, or after they had ceased to be so, the exigen¬ cies of a poor and little advanced society gave rise to another arrangement, which in some parts of Europe, even highly im¬ proved parts, has been found sufficiently advantageous to be continued to the present day. I speak of the metayer system. Under this, the land is divided in small farms, among single families, the landlord generally supplying the stock which the agricultural system of the country is considered to require, and receiving, in lieu of rent and profit, a fixed proportion of the produce. This proportion, which is generally paid in kind, is usually (as is implied in the words metayer , mezzaiuolo , and medietarius), one-half. There are places, however, such as the rich volcanic soil of the province of Naples, where the landlord takes two-thirds, and yet the cultivator by means of an excellent agriculture contrives to live. But whether the proportion is two- thirds or one-half, it is a fixed proportion; not variable from farm to farm, or from tenant to tenant. The custom of the country is the universal rule; nobody thinks of raising or lower¬ ing rents, or of letting land on other than the customary condi¬ tions. Competition, as a regulator of rent, has no existence. COMPETITION AND CUSTOM 2 39 § 3 - Prices, whenever there _w as no mono poly, came earlier under the influence of competition, and are much more univer ¬ sally subje ct to it, than rents: but that influence is by no means, even in the present activity of mercantile competition, 36 absu- Jlite as is somet imes assumed. There is no proposition w hich meets us in the field of political economy oftener tha n this—that there cannot be two prices in the same market, ^uch undoubt¬ e dly is the natural effect of unimpeded competition; yet every¬ one knows that there are, almost always, two prices in the same market. Not only are there in every large town, and in almost every trade, cheap shops and dear shops, but the same shop often sells the same article at different prices to different cus¬ tomers: and, as a general rule, each retailer adapts his scale of prices to the class of customers whom he expects. The whole ¬ sale trade, in the great articles of commerce, is really under the dominio n of competition. There, the buyers as well as sellers are traders or manufacturers, and their purchases are not influ¬ enced by indolence or vulgar finery, nor depend on the smaller motives of personal convenience, but are business transactions. In the wholesale markets therefore it is true as a general propo¬ sition, that there are not two prices at one time for the same thing: there is at each time and place a market price, which can be quoted in a price-current, ^But retail price T the price paid bv the actual consumer ^ seems to feel very slowly and im¬ perfectly the effect of competition; and when competition does exist, it often, instead of lowering prices, merely divides the gains of the high price among a greater number of dealers. Hence it is that, of the price paid by the consumer, so large a proportion is absorbed by the gains of retailers; and anyone who inquires into the amount which reaches the hands of those who made the things he buys, will often be astonished at its small¬ ness. When indeed the market, being that of a great city, holds out a sufficient inducement to large capitalists to engage in retail operations, it is generally found a better speculation to attract a large business by underselling others, than merely to di¬ vide the field of employment with them. This influence o f com¬ petition is making itse lf felt more and more through the princi¬ pal branches of retail trade in the large townsj and the rapidity and cheapness of transport, by making consumers less depen¬ dent on the dealers in their immediate neighborhood, are tend¬ ing to assimilate more and more the whole country to a large 240 POLITICAL ECONOMY town; but hitherto it is only in the great centres of business that retail transactions have been chiefly, or even much, determined by competition. Elsewhere it rather acts, when it acts at all, as an occasional disturbing influence; the habitual regulator is cus¬ tom, modified from time to time by notions existing in the minds of purchasers and sellers, of some kind of equity or justice/ In many trades the terms on which business is done are a matter of positive arrangement among the trade, who use the means they always possess of making the situation of any mem¬ ber of the body who departs from its fixed customs, inconvenient or disagreeable. It is well known that the bookselling trade was, until lately, one of these, and that notwithstanding the active spirit of rivalry in the trade, competition did not produce its natural effect in breaking down the trade rules. All professional remuneration is regulated by custom. The fees of physicians, surgeons, and barristers, the charges of attorneys, are nearly in-* variable. Not certainly for want of abundant competition An those professions, but because the competition operates by di¬ minishing each competitor’s chance of fees, not by lowering the fees themselves. Since custom stands its ground against competition to so con¬ siderable an extent, even where, from the multitude of competi¬ tors and the general energy in the pursuit of gain, the spirit of competition is strongest, we may be sure that this is much more the case where people are content'with smaller gains, and esti¬ mate their pecuniary interest at a lower rate when balanced against their ease or their pleasure. I believe it will often be found, in Continental Europe, that prices and charges, of some or of all sorts, are much higher in some places than in others not far distant, without its being possible to assign any other cause than that it has always been so: the customers are used to it, and acquiesce in it. An enterprising competitor, with sufficient capi¬ tal, might force down the charges, and make his fortune during the process; but there are no enterprising competitors; those who have capital prefer to leave it where it is, or to make less profit by it in a more quiet way. These observations must be received as a general correction, to be applied whenever relevant, whether expressly mentioned or not, to the conclusions contained in the subsequent portions of this Treatise. Our reasonings must, in general, proceed as if the known and natural effects of competition were actually pro- SLAVERY 241 duced by it, in all cases in which it is not restrained by some posi¬ tive obstacle. Where competition, though free to exist, does not exist, or where it exists, but has its natural consequences over¬ ruled by any other agency, the conclusions will fail more or less of being applicable. To escape error, we ought, in applying the conclusions of political economy to the actual affairs of life, to consider not only what will happen supposing the maximum of competition, but how far the result will be affected if competition falls short of the maximum. The states of economical relation which stand first in order, to be discussed and appreciated, are those in which competition has no part, the arbiter of transactions being either brute force or established usage. These will be the subject of the next four chapters. Chapter V.—Of Slavery § 1. Among the forms which society assumes under the in¬ fluence of the institution of property, there are, as I have already remarked, two, otherwise of a widely dissimilar character, but resembling in this, that the ownership of the land, the labor, and the capital, is in the same hands. One of these cases is that of slavery, the other is that of peasant proprietors. In the one, the landowner owns the labor, in the other the laborer owns the land. We begin with the first. In this system all the produce belongs to the landlord. The food and other necessaries of his laborers are part of his ex¬ penses. The laborers possess nothing but what he thinks fit to give them, and until he thinks fit to take it back: and they work as hard as he chooses, or is able, to compel them. Their wretchedness is only limited by his humanity, or his pecuniary interest. With the first consideration, we have on the present occasion nothing to do. What the second in so detestable a con¬ stitution of society may dictate, depends on the facilities for im¬ porting fresh slaves. If full-grown able-bodied slaves can be procured in sufficient numbers, and imported at a moderate ex¬ pense, self-interest will recommend working the slaves to death, and replacing them by importation, in preference to the slow and expensive process of breeding them. Nor are the slave-owners generally backward in learning this lesson. It is notorious that such was the practice in our slave colonies, while the slave trade was legal; and it is said to be so still in Cuba. Vol. I.— 16 242 POLITICAL ECONOMY When, as among the ancients, the slave-market could only be supplied by captives either taken in war, or kidnapped from thinly scattered tribes on the remote confines of the known world, it was generally more profitable to keep up the number by breeding, which necessitates a far better treatment of them; and for this reason, joined with several others, the condition of slaves, notwithstanding occasional enormities, was probably much less bad in the ancient world than in the colonies of mod¬ ern nations. The Helots are usually cited as the type of the most hideous form of personal slavery, but with how little truth, ap¬ pears from the fact that they were regularly armed (though not with the panoply of the hoplite) and formed an integral part of the military strength of the State. They were doubtless an in¬ ferior and degraded caste, but their slavery seems to have been one of the least onerous varieties of serfdom. Slavery appears in far more frightful colors among the Romans, during the period in which the Roman aristocracy was gorging itself with the plunder of a newly conquered world. The Romans were a cruel people, and the worthless nobles sported with, the lives of their myriads of slaves with the same reckless prodigality with which they squandered any other part of their ill-acquired possessions. Yet, slavery is divested of one of its worst features when it is compatible with hope: enfranchisement was easy and common: enfranchised slaves obtained at once the full right of citizens, and instances were frequent of their acquiring not only riches, but latterly even honors. By the progress of milder legislation under the Emperors, much of the protection of law was thrown round the slave, he became capable of possessing property, and the evil altogether assumed a considerably gentler aspect. Until, however, slavery assumes the mitigated form of villanage, in which not only the slaves have property and legal rights, but their obligations are more or less limited by usage, and they partly labor for their own benefit; their condition is seldom such as to produce a rapid growth either of population or of produc¬ tion. § 2. So long as slave countries are underpeopled in proportion to their cultivable land, the labor of the slaves, under any toler¬ able management, produces much more than is sufficient for their support; especially as the great amount of superintendence which their labor requires, preventing the dispersion of the pop¬ ulation, insures some of the advantages of combined labor. SLAVERY 243 Hence, in a good soil and climate, and with reasonable care of his own interests, the owner of many slaves has the means of being rich. The influence, however, of such a state of society on production, is perfectly well understood. It is a truism to assert, that labor extorted by fear of punishment is inefficient and unproductive. It is true that in some circumstances, human beings can be driven by the lash to attempt, and even to accom¬ plish, things which they would not have undertaken for any payment which it could have been worth while to an employer to offer them. And it is likely that productive operations which require much combination of labor, the production of sugar for example, would not have taken place so soon in the American colonies, if slavery had not existed to keep masses of labor to¬ gether. There are also savage tribes so averse from regular in¬ dustry, that industrial life is scarcely able to introduce itself among them until they are either conquered and made slaves of, or become conquerors and make others so. But after allowing the full value of these considerations, it remains certain that slavery is incompatible with any high state of the arts of life, and any great efficiency of labor. For all products which require much skill, slave countries are usually dependent on foreigners. Hopeless slavery effectually brutifies the intellect; and intelli¬ gence in the slaves, though often encouraged in the ancient world and in the East, is in a more advanced state of society a source of so much danger and an object of so much dread to the masters, that in some of the States of America it is a highly penal offence to teach a slave to read. All processes carried on by slave labor are conducted in the rudest and most unimproved manner. And even the animal strength of the slave is, on an average, not half exerted. The unproductiveness and wasteful¬ ness of the industrial system in the Slave States are instructively displayed in the valuable writings of Mr. Olmsted. The mildest form of slavery is certainly the condition of the serf, who is at¬ tached to the soil, supports himself from his allotment, and works a certain number of days in the-week for his lord. Yet there is but one opinion on the extreme inefficiency of serf labor. The following passage is from Professor Jones,* whose “ Essay on the Distribution of Wealth ” (or rather on Rent), is a copious repertory of valuable facts on the landed tenures of different countries: * “ Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and on the Sources of Taxation.” By the Rev. Richard Jones. Page 50. 244 POLITICAL ECONOMY “ The Russians, or rather those German writers who have observed the manners and habits of Russia, state some strong facts on this point. Two Middlesex mowers, they say, will mow in a day as much grass as six Russian serfs, and in spite of the dearness of provisions in England and their cheapness in Rus¬ sia, the mowing a quantity of hay which would cost an English farmer half a copeck, will cost a Russian proprietor three or four copecks.* The Prussian counsellor of state, Jacob, is considered to have proved, that in Russia, where everything is cheap, the labor of a serf is doubly as expensive as that of a laborer in Eng¬ land. M. Schmalz gives a startling account of the unproductive¬ ness of serf labor in Prussia, from his own knowledge and ob¬ servation.! In Austria, it is distinctly stated, that the labor of a serf is equal to only one-third of that of a free hired laborer. This calculation, made in an able work on agriculture (with some ex¬ tracts from which I have been favored), is applied to the practi¬ cal purpose of deciding on the number of laborers necessary to cultivate an estate of a given magnitude. So palpable, indeed, are the ill effects of labor rents on the industry of the agricultural population, that in Austria itself, where proposals of changes of any kind do not readily make their way, schemes and plans for the commutation of labor rents are as popular as in the more stirring German provinces of the North.” J What is wanting in the quality of the labor itself, is not made up by any excellence in the direction and superintendence. As the same writer § remarks, the landed proprietors “ are neces¬ sarily, in their character of cultivators of their own domains, the only guides and directors of the industry of the agricultural pop¬ ulation,” since there can be no intermediate class of capitalist farmers where the laborers are the property of the lord. Great landowners are everywhere an idle class, or if they labor at all, addict themselves only to the more exciting kinds of exertion; that lion’s share which superiors always reserve for themselves. “ It would,” as Mr. Jones observes, “ be hopeless and irrational to expect, that a race of noble proprietors, fenced round with privileges and dignity, and attracted to military and political * Schmalz, ‘‘Economic Politique,” not dared to take away: it freed the French translation, vol. i. p. 66. peasantry from what remained of the t Vol. ii. p. 107. bondage of serfdom, the labor rents; t The Hungarian revolutionary gov- decreeing compensation to the land- ernment, during its brief existence, be- lords at the expense of the state, and stowed on that country one of the great- not at that of the liberated peasants, est benefits it could receive, and one § Jones, pp. 53, 54. which the tyranny that succeeded has SLAVERY 245 pursuits by the advantages and habits of their station* should ever become attentive cultivators as a body.” Even in England, if the cultivation of every estate depended upon its proprietor, any one can judge what would be the result. There would be a few cases of great science and energy, and numerous individ¬ ual instances of moderate success, but the general state of agri¬ culture would be contemptible. § 3. Whether the proprietors themselves would lose by the emancipation of their slaves, is a different question from the comparative effectiveness of free and slave labor to the com¬ munity. There has been much discussion of this question as an abstract thesis; as if it could possibly admit of any universal so¬ lution. Whether slavery or free labor is most profitable to the employer, depends on the wages of the free laborer. These, again, depend on the numbers of the laboring population, com¬ pared with the capital and the land. Hired labor is generally so much more efficient than slave labor, that the employer can pay a considerably greater value in wages, than the maintenance of his slaves cost him before, and yet be a gainer by the change: but he cannot do this without limit. The decline of serfdom in Europe, and its extinction in the Western nations, were doubt¬ less hastened by the changes which the growth of population must have made in the pecuniary interests of the master. As population pressed harder upon the land, without any improve¬ ment in agriculture, the maintenance of the serfs necessarily be¬ came more costly, and their labor less valuable. With the rate of wages such as it is in Ireland, or in England (where, in pro¬ portion to its efficiency, labor is quite as cheap as in Ireland), no one can for a moment imagine that slavery could be profitable. If the Irish peasantry were slaves, their masters would be as willing, as their landlords now are, to pay large sums merely to get rid of them. In the rich and underpeopled soil of the West India islands, there is just as little doubt that the balance of profits between free and slave labor was greatly on the side of slavery, and that the compensation granted to the slave owners for its abolition was not more, perhaps even less, than an equiva¬ lent for their loss. More needs not be said here on a cause so completely judged and decided as that of slavery. Its demerits are no longer a question requiring argument; though the temper of mind manifested by the larger part of the influential classes in Great 246 POLITICAL ECONOMY Britain respecting the struggle now taking place in America, shows how grievously the feelings of the present generation of Englishmen, on this subject, have fallen behind the positive acts of the generation which preceded them. That the sons of the deliverers of the West Indian Negroes should see with com¬ placency, and encourage by their sympathies, the foundation of a great and powerful military commonwealth, pledged by its principles and driven by its strongest interests to be the armed propagator of slavery through every region of the earth into which its power can penetrate, discloses a mental state in the leading portion of our higher and middle classes, which it is melancholy to see, and will be a lasting blot in English history. Fortunately they have stopped short of actually aiding, other¬ wise than by words, the nefarious enterprise to which they have not been ashamed of wishing success; and it is now probable that at the expense of the best blood of the Free States, but to their immeasurable elevation in mental and moral worth, the curse of slavery will be cast out from the great American republic, to find its last temporary refuge in Brazil and Cuba. No European country, except Spain alone, any longer participates in the enor¬ mity. Even serfage has now ceased to have a legal existence in Europe: Denmark has the honor of being the first Continental nation which imitated England in liberating its colonial slaves; and the abolition of slavery was one of the earliest acts of the heroic and calumniated Provisional Government of France. The Dutch Government was not long behind, and its colonies and dependencies are now, I believe, without exception, free from actual slavery: though forced labor for the public authorities is still a recognized institution in Java, soon, we may hope, to be exchanged for complete personal freedom. Chapter VI.—Of Peasant Proprietors § 1. In the regime of peasant properties, as in that of slavery, the whole produce belongs to a single owner, and the distinction of rent, profits, and wages, does not exist. In all other respects, the two states of society are the extreme opposites of each other. The one is the state of greatest oppression and degradation to the laboring class. The other is that in which they are the most uncontrolled arbiters of their own lot. PEASANT PROPRIETORS 247 The advantage, however, of small properties in land, is one of the most disputed questions in the range of political economy. On the Continent, though there are some dissentients from the prevailing opinion, the benefit of having a numerous proprietary population exists in the minds of most people in the form of an axiom. But English authorities are either unaware of the judg¬ ment of Continental agriculturists, or are content to put it aside, on the plea of their having no experience of large properties in favorable circumstances: the advantage of large properties be¬ ing only felt where there are also large farms; and as this, in arable districts, implies a greater accumulation of capital than usually exists on the Continent, the great Continental estates, except in the case of grazing farms, are mostly let out for culti¬ vation in small portions. There is some truth in this; but the argument admits of being retorted; for if the Continent knows little, by experience, of cultivation on a large scale and by large capital, the generality of English writers are no better ac¬ quainted practically with peasant proprietors, and have almost always the most erroneous ideas of their social condition and mode of life. Yet the old traditions even of England are on the same side with the general opinion of the Continent. The “ yeomanry ” who were vaunted as the glory of England while they existed, and have been so much mourned over since they disappeared, were either small proprietors or small farmers, and if they were mostly the last, the character they bore for sturdy independence is the more noticeable. There is a part of England, unfortunately a very small part, where peasant pro¬ prietors are still common; for such are the “ statesmen ” of Cumberland and Westmoreland, though they pay, I believe, generally if not universally, certain customary dues, which, being fixed, no more affect their character of proprietors than the land-tax does. There is but one voice, among those ac¬ quainted with the country, on the admirable effects of this tenure of land in those counties. No other agricultural popu¬ lation in England could have furnished the originals of Words¬ worth’s peasantry.* * In Mr. Wordsworth’s little descrip¬ tive work on the scenery of the Lakes, he speaks of the upper part of the dales as having been for centuries “ a perfect republic of shepherds and agriculturists, proprietors, for the most part, of the lands which they occupied and culti¬ vated. The plough of each man was confined to the maintenance of his own family, or to the occasional accommoda¬ tion of his neighbor. Two or three cows furnished each family with milk and cheese. The chapel was the only edifice that presided over these dwellings, the supreme head of this pure common¬ wealth; the members of which existed in the midst of a powerful empire, like an ideal society, or an organized com- 248 POLITICAL ECONOMY The general system, however, of English cultivation, afford¬ ing no experience to render the nature and operation of peasant properties familiar, and Englishmen being in general pro¬ foundly ignorant of the agricultural economy of other countries, the very idea of peasant proprietors is strange to the English mind, and does not easily find access to it. Even the forms of language stand in the way: the familiar designation for owners of land being “ landlords,” a term to which “ tenants ” is always understood as a correlative. When, at the time of the famine, the suggestion of peasant properties as a means of Irish improvement found its way into parliamentary and newspaper discussions, there were writers of pretension to whom the word “ proprietor ” was so far from conveying any distinct idea, that they mistook the small holdings of Irish cottier tenants for peasant properties. The subject being so little understood, I think it important, before entering into the theory of it, to do something toward showing how the case stands as a matter of fact; by exhibiting, at greater length than would otherwise be admissible, some of the testimony which exists respecting the state of cultivation, and the com¬ fort and happiness of the cultivators, in those countries and parts of countries, in which the greater part of the land has neither landlord nor farmer, other than the laborer who tills the soil. § 2. I lay no stress on the condition of North America, where, as is well known, the land, wherever free from the curse of slavery, is almost universally owned by the same person who holds the plough. A country combining the natural fertility of America with the knowledge and arts of modern Europe, is so peculiarly circumstanced, that scarcely anything, except inse¬ curity of property or a tyrannical government, could materially impair the prosperity of the industrious classes. I might, with munity, whose constitution had been imposed and regulated by the moun¬ tains which protected it. Neither high¬ born nobleman, knight, nor esquire was here; but many of these humble sons of the hills had a consciousness that the land which they walked over and tilled had for more than five hundred years been possessed by men of their name and blood. . . . Corn was grown in these vales sufficient upon each estate to furnish bread for each family, no more. The storms and moisture of the climate induced them to sprinkle their upland property with outhouses of na¬ tive stone, as places of shelter for their sheep, where in tempestuous weather, food was distributed to them. Every family spun from its own flock the wool with which it was clothed; a weaver was here and there found among them, and the rest of their wants was supplied by the produce of the yarn, which they carded and spun in their own houses, and carried to market either under their arms, or more frequently on packhorses, a small train taking their way weekly down the valley, or over the mountains, to the most commodious town.”—“ A Description of the Scenery of the Lakes in the North of England,” 3d edit. pp. 50 to S3 and 63 to 65. PEASANT PROPRIETORS 249 Sismondi, insist more strongly on the case of ancient Italy, especially Latium, that Campagua which then swarmed with inhabitants in the very regions which under a contrary regime have become uninhabitable from malaria. But I prefer taking the evidence of the same writer on things known to him by personal observation. “ It is especially Switzerland/’ says M. de Sismondi, “ which should be traversed and studied to judge of the happiness of peasant proprietors. It is from Switzerland we learn that agri¬ culture practised by the very persons who enjoy its fruits, suf¬ fices to procure great comfort for a very numerous population; a great independence of character, arising from independence of position; a great commerce of consumption, the result of the easy circumstances of all the inhabitants, even in a country whose climate is rude, whose soil is but moderately fertile, and where late frosts and inconstancy of seasons often blight the hopes of the cultivator. It is impossible to see without admira¬ tion those timber houses of the poorest peasant, so vast, so well closed in, so covered with carvings. In the interior, spacious corridors separate the different chambers of the numerous fam¬ ily; each chamber has but one bed, which is abundantly fur¬ nished with curtains, bedclothes, and the whitest linen; care¬ fully kept furniture surrounds it; the wardrobes are filled with linen; the dairy is vast, well aired, and of exquisite cleanness; under the same roof is a great provision of corn, salt meat, cheese and wood; in the cow-houses are the finest and most carefully tended cattle in Europe; the garden is planted with flowers, both men and women are cleanly and warmly clad, the women preserve with pride their ancient costume; all carry in their faces the impress of health and strength. Let other nations boast of their opulence, Switzerland may always point with pride to her peasants.” * The same eminent writer thus expresses his opinions on peas¬ ant proprietorship in general: “ Wherever we find peasant proprietors, we also find the comfort, security, confidence in the future, and independence, which assure at once happiness and virtue. The peasant who with his children does all the work of his little inheritance, who pays no rent to anyone above him, nor wages to anyone below, who regulates his production by his consumption, who eats his *" Studies in Political Economy.” Essay III. 250 POLITICAL ECONOMY own corn, drinks his own wine, is clothed in his own hemp and wool, cares little for the prices of the market; for he has little to sell and little to buy, and is never ruined by revulsions of trade. Instead of fearing for the future, he sees it in the colors of hope; for he employs every moment not required by the labors of the year, on something profitable to his children and to future generations. A few minutes’ work suffices him to plant the seed which in a hundred years will be a large tree, to dig the channel which will conduct to him a spring of fresh water, to improve by cares often repeated, but stolen from odd times, all the species of animals and vegetables which surround him. His little patrimony is a true savings bank, always ready to receive all his little gains and utilize all his moments of leisure. The ever-acting power of nature returns them a hundredfold. The peasant has a lively sense of the happiness attached to the condition of a proprietor. Accordingly he is always eager to buy land at any price. He pays more for it than its value, more perhaps than it will bring him in; but is he not right in esti¬ mating highly the advantage of having always an advantageous investment for his labor, without underbidding in the wages market—of being always able to find bread, without the neces¬ sity of buying it at a scarcity price ? “ The peasant proprietor is of all cultivators the one who gets most from the soil, for he is the one who thinks most of the future, and who has been most instructed by experience. He is also the one who employs the human powers to most advantage, because dividing his occupations among all the members of his family, he reserves some for every day of the year, so that nobody is ever out of work. Of all cultivators he is the happiest, and at the same time the land nowhere oc¬ cupies, and feeds amply without becoming exhausted, so many inhabitants as where they are proprietors. Finally, of all culti¬ vators the peasant proprietor is the one who gives most encour¬ agement to commerce and manufactures, because he is the richest.” * * And in another work (“ New Princi¬ ples of Political Economy,” book iii. chap. 3) he says: “ When we traverse nearly the whole of Switzerland, and several provinces of France, Italy, and Germany, we need never ask, in looking at any piece of land, if it belongs to a peasant proprietor or to a farmer. The intelligent care, the enjoyments provided for the laborer, the adornment which the country has received from his hands, are clear indications of the former. It is true an oppressive government may destroy the comfort and brutify the in¬ telligence which should be the result of property; taxation may abstract the best produce of the fields, the insolence of government officers may disturb the security of the peasant, the impossi¬ bility of obtaining justice against a pow¬ erful neighbor may sow discouragement in his mind, and in the fine country PEASANT PROPRIETORS 25 1 This picture of unwearied assiduity, and what may be called affectionate interest in the land, is borne out in regard to the more intelligent Cantons of Switzerland by English observers. “ In walking anywhere in the neighborhood of Zurich,” says Mr. Inglis, “ in looking to the right or to the left, one is struck with the extraordinary industry of the inhabitants; and if we learn that a proprietor here has a return of ten per cent., we are inclined to say, ‘ he deserves it.’ I speak at present of coun¬ try labor, though I believe that in every kind of trade also, the people of Zurich are remarkable for their assiduity; but in the industry they show in the cultivation of their land I may safely say they are unrivalled. When I used to open my casement between four and five in the morning to look out upon the lake and the distant Alps, I saw the laborer in the fields; and when I returned from an evening walk, long after sunset, as late, perhaps, as half-past eight, there was the laborer, mowing his grass, or tying up his vines. . . . It is impossible to look at a field, a garden, a hedging, scarcely even a tree, a flower, or a vegetable, without perceiving proofs of the extreme care and industry that are bestowed upon the cultivation of the soil. If, for example, a path leads through or by the side of a field of grain, the corn is not, as in England, permitted to hang over the path, exposed to be pulled or trodden down by every passer¬ by; it is everywhere bounded by a fence, stakes are placed at intervals of about a yard, and, about two or three feet from the ground, boughs of trees are passed longitudinally along. If you look into a field toward evening, where there are large beds of cauliflower or cabbage, you will find that every single plant has been watered. In the gardens, which around Zurich are extremely large, the most punctilious care is evinced in every production that grows. The vegetables are planted with seem¬ ingly mathematical accuracy; not a single weed is to be seen, not a single stone. Plants are not earthed up as with us, but are planted in a small hollow, into each of which a little manure is put, and each plant is watered daily. Where seeds are sown, the earth directly above is broken into the finest powder; every shrub, every flower is tied to a stake, and where there is wall- which has been given bach to the ad¬ ministration of the King of Sardinia, the proprietor, equally with the day-laborer, wears the livery of indigence.” He was here speaking of Savoy, where the peas¬ ants were generally proprietors* and* ac¬ cording to authentic accounts, extremely miserable. But, as M. de Sismondi con¬ tinues, “ it is in vain to observe only one of the rules of political economy; it cannot by itself suffice to produce good:, but at least it diminishes evil.” 252 POLITICAL ECONOMY fruit, a trellis is erected against the wall, to which the boughs are fastened, and there is not a single thing that has not its appropriate resting-place.” * Of one of the remote valleys of the High Alps the same writer thus expresses himself: \ “ In the whole of the Engadine the land belongs to the peas¬ antry, who, like the inhabitants of every other place where this state of things exist, vary greatly in the extent of their posses¬ sions. . . . Generally speaking, an Engadine peasant lives entirely upon the produce of his land, with the exception of the few articles of foreign growth required in his family, such as coffee, sugar, and wine. Flax is grown, prepared, spun, and woven, without ever leaving his house. He has also his own wool, which is converted into a blue coat without passing through the hands of either the dyer or the tailor. The country is incapable of greater cultivation than it has received. All has been done for it that industry and an extreme love of gain can devise. There is not a foot of waste land in the Engadine, the lowest part of which is not much lower than the top of Snow¬ don. Wherever grass will grow, there it is; wherever a rock will bear a blade, verdure is seen upon it; wherever an ear of rye will ripen, there it is to be found. Barley and oats have also their appropriate spots; and wherever it is possible to ripen a little patch of wheat, the cultivation of it is attempted. In no country in Europe will be found so few poor as in the Engadine. In the village of Suss, which contains about six hundred inhabi¬ tants, there is not a single individual who has not wherewithal to live comfortably, not a single individual who is indebted to others for one morsel that he eats.” Notwithstanding the general prosperity of the Swiss peas¬ antry, this total absence of pauperism, and (it may almost be said) of poverty, cannot be predicated of the whole country; the largest and richest canton, that of Berne, being an example of the contrary; for although, in the parts of it which are occupied by peasant proprietors, their industry is as remark¬ able and their ease and comfort as conspicuous as elsewhere, the canton is burdened with a numerous pauper population, through the operation of the worst regulated system of poor- law administration in Europe, except that of England before * “ Switzerland, the South of France, and the Pyrenees in 1830.” By H. D. Inglis. Vol. i. chap. 2. f Ibid, chaps. 8 and 10. PEASANT PROPRIETORS 253 the new Poor Law.* Nor is Switzerland in some other re¬ spects a favorable example of all that peasant properties might effect. There exists a series of statistical accounts of the Swiss cantons, drawn up mostly with great care and intelligence, con¬ taining detailed information, of tolerably recent date, respecting the condition of the land and of the people. From these, the subdivision appears to be often so minute, that it can hardly be supposed not to be excessive: and the indebtedness of the proprietors in the flourishing canton of Zurich “borders,” as the writer expresses it, “ on the incredible ”; so that “ only the intensest industry, frugality, temperance, and complete freedom of commerce enable them to stand their ground.” f Yet the general conclusion deducible from these books is that since the beginning of the century, and concurrently with the subdivision of many great estates which belonged to nobles or to the cantonal governments, there has been a striking and rapid improvement in almost every department of agriculture, as well as in the houses, the habits, and the food of the people. The writer of the account of Thiirgau goes so far as to say, that since the subdivision of the feudal estates into peasant properties, it is not uncommon for a third or a fourth part of an estate to produce as much grain, and support as many head of cattle, as the whole estate did before.| § 3. One of the countries in which peasant proprietors are of oldest date, and most numerous in proportion to the popula¬ tion, is Norway. Of the social and economical condition of that country an interesting account has been given by Mr. Laing. His testimony in favor of small landed properties both there and elsewhere, is given with great decision. I shall quote a few passages. “If small proprietors are not good farmers, it is not from the same cause here which we are told makes them so in Scot- * There have been considerable changes in the Poor Law administration and leg¬ islation of the Canton of Berne since the sentence in the text was written. But I am not sufficiently acquainted with the nature and operation of these changes, to speak more particularly of them here. t “ Historical, Geographical, and Sta¬ tistical Picture of Switzerland.” Part I. Canton of Zurich. By Gerold Meyer Von Knonau, 1834, pp. 80, 81. There are villages in Zurich, he adds, in which there is not a single property unmort¬ gaged. It does not, however, follow that each individual proprietor is deeply involved because the aggregate mass of incumbrances is large. In the Canton of Schaffhausen, for instance, it is stated that the landed properties are almost all mortgaged, but rarely for more than one-half their registered value. (Part XII. Canton of Schaffhausen, by Ed¬ ward Im-Thurn, 1840, p. 52), and the mortgages are often for the improve¬ ment and enlargement of the estate. (Part XVII. Canton of Thiirgau, by J. A. Pupikofer, 1837, p. 209.) t “ Thiirgau,” p. 72. 254 POLITICAL ECONOMY land—indolence and want of exertion. The extent to which irrigation is carried on in these glens and valleys shows a spirit of exertion and co-operation ” (I request particular attention to this point), “ to which the latter can show nothing similar. Hay being the principal winter support of live stock, and both it and corn, as well as potatoes, liable, from the shallow soil and powerful reflection of sunshine from the rocks, to be burnt and withered up, the greatest exertions are made to bring water from the head of each glen, along such a level as will give the command of it to each farmer at the head of his fields. This is done by leading it in wooden troughs (the half of a tree roughly scooped) from the highest perennial stream among the hills, through woods, across ravines, along the rocky, often per¬ pendicular, sides of the glens, and from this main trough giving a lateral one to each farmer in passing the head of his farm. He distributes this supply by movable troughs among his fields; and at this season waters each rig successively with scoops like those used by bleachers in watering cloth, laying his trough between every two rigs. One would not believe, without seeing it, how very large an extent of land is traversed expeditiously by these artificial showers. The extent of the main troughs is very great. In one glen I walked ten miles, and found it troughed on both sides: on one, the chain is continued down the main valley for forty miles.* Those may be bad farmers who do such things; but they are not indolent, nor ignorant of the principle of working in concert, and keeping up estab¬ lishments for common benefit. They are undoubtedly, in these respects, far in advance of any community of cottars in our Highland glens. They feel as proprietors, who receive the advantage of their own exertions. The excellent state of the roads and bridges is another proof that the country is inhabited by people who have a common interest to keep them under repair. There are no tolls.” f * Reichensperger (“ The Land Ques¬ tion ”) quoted by Mr. Kay (“ Social Condition and Education of the People in England and Europe ”), observes, “ that the parts of Europe where the most extensive and costly plans for watering the meadows and lands have been carried out in the greatest perfec¬ tion, are those where the lands are very much subdivided, and are in the hands of small proprietors. He instances the plain round Valencia, several of the southern departments of France, par¬ ticularly those of Vaucluse and Bouches du Rhone, Lombardy, Tuscany, the dis¬ tricts of Sienna, Lucca, and Bergamo, Piedmont, many parts of Germany, etc., in all which parts of Europe the land is very much subdivided among small pro¬ prietors. In all these parts great and expensive systems and plans of general irrigation have been carried out, and are now being supported, by the small pro¬ prietors themselves; thus showing how they are able to accomplish, by means of combination, work requiring the ex¬ penditure of great quantities of capital.” —Kay, i. 126. t Laing, “ Journal of a Residence in Norway,” pp. 36, 37. PEASANT PROPRIETORS 2 55 On the effects of peasant proprietorship on the Continent generally, the same writer expresses himself as follows : * “If we listen to the large farmer, the scientific agricultur¬ ist, the ” [English] “ political economist, good farming must perish with large farms; the very idea that good farming can exist, unless on large farms cultivated with great capital, they hold to be absurd. Draining, manuring, economical arrange¬ ment, cleaning the land, regular rotations, valuable stock and implements, all belong exclusively to large farms, worked by large capital, and by hired labor. This reads very well; but if we raise our eyes from their books to their fields, and coolly compare what we seen in the best districts farmed in large farms, with what we see in the best districts farmed in small farms, we see, and there is no blinking the fact, better crops on the ground in Flanders, East Friesland, Holstein, in short, on the whole line of the arable land of equal quality on the Continent, from the Sound to Calais, than we see on the line of British coast opposite to this line, and in the same latitudes, from the Frith of Forth all round to Dover. Minute labor on small portions of arable ground gives evidently, in equal soils and climate, a superior productiveness, where these small por¬ tions belong in property, as in Flanders, Holland, Friesland, and Ditmarsch in Holstein, to the farmer. It is not pretended by our agricultural writers, that our large farmers, even in Berwickshire, Roxburghshire, or the Lothians, approach to the garden-like cultivation, attention to manures, drainage, and clean state of the land, or in productiveness from a small space of soil not originally rich, which distinguish the small farmers of Flanders, or their system. In the best farmed parish in Scot¬ land or England, more land is wasted in the corners and bor¬ ders of the fields of large farms, in the roads through them, unnecessarily wide because they are bad, and bad because they are wide, in neglected commons, waste spots, useless belts and clumps of sorry trees, and such unproductive areas, than would maintain the poor of the parish, if they were all laid together and cultivated. But large capital applied to farming is of course only applied to the very best of the soils of a country. It cannot touch the small unproductive spots which require more time and labor to fertilize them than is consistent with a quick return of capital. But although hired time and labor cannot be applied * “ Notes of a Traveller,” pp. 299 et seqq. 256 POLITICAL ECONOMY beneficially to such cultivation, the owner’s own time and labor may. He is working for no higher terms at first from his land than a bare living. But in the course of generations fertility and value are produced; a better living, and even very im¬ proved processes of husbandry, are attained. Furrow draining, stall feeding all summer, liquid manures, are universal in the husbandry of the small farms of Flanders, Lombardy, Switzer¬ land. Our most improving districts under large farms are but beginning to adopt them. Dairy husbandry even, and the manufacture of the largest cheeses by the co-operation of many small farmers,* the mutual assurance of property against fire and hail-storms, by the co-operation of small farmers—the most scientific and expensive of all agricultural operations in modern times, the manufacture of beet-root sugar—the supply of the European markets with flax and hemp, by the husbandry of small farmers—the abundance of legumes, fruits, poultry, in the usual diet even of the lowest classes abroad, and the total want of such variety at the tables even of our middle classes, and this variety and abundance essentially connected with the husbandry of small farmers—all these are features in the occu¬ pation of a country by small proprietor-farmers, which must make the inquirer pause before he admits the dogma of our land doctors at home, that large farms worked by hired labor and great capital can alone bring out the greatest productive¬ ness of the soil and furnish the greatest supply of the necessaries and conveniences of life to the inhabitants of a country.” § 4. Among the many flourishing regions of Germany in which peasant properties prevail, I select the Palatinate, for the advantage of quoting, from an English source, the results of recent personal observation of its agriculture and its people. * The manner in which the Swiss peasants combine to carry on cheese¬ making by their united capital deserves to be noted: “ Each parish in Switzer¬ land hires a man, generally from the district of Gruyere in the canton of Freyburg, to take care of the herd, and make the cheese. One cheeseman, one pressman or assistant, and one cowherd, are considered necessary for every forty cows. The owners of the cows get credit each of them, in a book daily, for the quantity of milk given by each cow. The cheeseman and his assistants milk the cows, put the milk all together, and make cheese of it, and at the end of th; season each owner receives the weight of cheese proportionable to the quantity of milk his cows have delivered. By this co-operative plan, instead of the small-sized unmarketable cheeses only, which each could produce out of his three or four cows’ milk, he has the same weight > n large marketable cheese superior in quality, because made by people who attend to no other business. The cheeseman and his assistants are paid so much per head of the cows, in money or in cheese, or sometimes they hire the cows, and pay the owners in money or cheese.”—“ Notes of a Trav¬ eller,” p. 351. A similar system exist? in the French Jura. See, for full details, Lavergne, “ Rural Economy of France,” 2d ed., pp. 139 et seqq. One. of the most remarkable points in this interest¬ ing case of combination of labor, is the confidence which it supposes, and which experience must justify in the integrity of the persons employed. PEASANT PROPRIETORS 257 Mr. Howitt, a writer whose habit it is to see all English objects and English socialities on their brightest side, and who, in treat¬ ing of the Rhenish peasantry, certainly does not underrate the rudeness of their implements, and the inferiority of their plough¬ ing, nevertheless shows that under the invigorating influence of the feelings of proprietorship, they make up for the imper¬ fections of their apparatus by the intensity of their application. “ The peasant harrows and clears his land till it is in the nicest order, and it is admirable to see the crops which he obtains.” * “ The peasants f are the great and ever-present objects of coun¬ try life. They are the great population of the country, because they themselves are the possessors. This country is, in fact, for the most part, in the hands of the people. It is parcelled out among the multitude. . . . The peasants are not, as with us, for the most part, totally cut off from property in the soil they cultivate, totally dependent on the labor afforded by others—they are themselves the proprietors. It is, perhaps, from this cause that they are probably the most industrious peasantry in the world. They labor busily, early and late, be¬ cause they feel that they are laboring for themselves. . . . The German peasants work hard, but they have no actual want. Every man has his house, his orchard, his roadside trees, com¬ monly so heavy with fruit, that he is obliged to prop and secure them all ways, or they would be torn to pieces. He has his corn-plot, his plot for mangel-wurzel, for hemp, and so on. He is his own master; and he, and every member of his family, have the strongest motives to labor. You see the effect of this in that unremitting diligence which is beyond that of the whole world besides, and his economy, which is still greater. The Germans, indeed, are not so active and lively as the English. You never see them in a bustle, or as though they meant to knock off a vast deal in a little time. . . . They are, on the contrary, slow, but forever doing. They plod on from day to day, and year to year—the most patient, untirable, and perse¬ vering of animals. The English peasant is so cut off from the idea of property, that he comes habitually to look upon it as a thing from which he is warned by the laws of the large proprietors, and becomes, in consequence, spiritless, purpose¬ less. . . . The German bauer, on the contrary, looks on the country as made for him and his fellow-men. He feels himself * “ Rural and Domestic Life of Germany,” p. 27. t Ibid. p. 40. VOL. I.—17 258 POLITICAL ECONOMY a man; he has a stake in the country, as good as that of the bulk of his neighbors; no man can threaten him with ejection, or the workhouse, so long as he is active and economical. He walks, therefore, with a bold step; he looks you in the face with the air of a free man, but of a respectful one.” Of their industry, the same writer thus further speaks: “ There is not an hour of the year in which they do not find unceasing occupation. In the depth of winter, when the weather permits them by any means to get out of doors, they are always finding something to do. They carry out their manure to their lands while the frost is in them. If there is not frost, they are busy cleaning ditches and felling old fruit-trees, or such as do not bear well. Such of them as are too poor to lay in a sufficient stock of wood, find plenty of work in ascending into the moun¬ tainous woods, and bringing thence fuel. It would astonish the English common people to see the intense labor with which the Germans earn their firewood. In the depth of frost and snow, go into any of their hills and woods, and there you find them hacking up stumps, cutting off branches, and gathering, by all means which the official wood-police will allow, boughs, stakes, and pieces of wood, which they convey home with the most incredible toil and patience.” * After a description of their careful and laborious vineyard culture, he continues: f “ In England, with its great quantity of grass lands, and its large farms, so soon as the grain is in, and the fields are shut up for hay grass, the country seems in a comparative state of rest and quiet. But here they are everywhere, and forever, hoeing and mowing, planting and cutting, weeding and gather¬ ing. They have a succession of crops like a market-gardener. They have their carrots, poppies, hemp, flax, saintfoin, lucerne, rape, colewort, cabbage, rutabaga, black turnips, Swedish and white turnips, teazles, Jerusalem artichokes, mangel-wurzel, parsnips, kidney beans, field beans and peas, vetches, Indian corn, buckwheat, madder for the manufacturer, potatoes, their great crop of tobacco, millet—all, for the greater part, under the family management, in their own family allotments. They have had these things first to sow, many of them to transplant, to hoe, to weed, to clear off insects, to top; many of them to mow and gather in successive crops. They have their water- meadows, of which kind almost all their meadows are, to flood, * “ Rural and Domestic Life of Germany,” p. 44. f Ibid. p. 50. PEASANT PROPRIETORS 2 59 to mow, and reflood; watercourses to reopen and to make anew; their early fruits to gather, to bring to market with their green crops of vegetables; their cattle, sheep, calves, foals, most of them prisoners, and poultry to look after; their vines, as they shoot rampantly in the summer heat, to prune, and thin out the leaves when they are too thick: and anyone may imagine what a scene of incessant labor it is.” This interesting sketch, to the general truth of which any observant traveller in that highly cultivated and populous re¬ gion can bear witness, accords with the more elaborate delinea¬ tion by a distinguished inhabitant, Professor Rau, in his little treatise “ On the Agriculture of the Palatinate.” * Dr. Rau bears testimony not only to the industry, but to the skill and intelligence of the peasantry; their judicious employment of manures, and excellent rotation of crops; the progressive im¬ provement of their agriculture for generations past, and the spirit of further improvement which is still active. “ The inde¬ fatigableness of the country people, who may be seen in activity all the day and all the year, and are never idle, because they make a good distribution of their labors, and find for every interval of time a suitable occupation, is as well known as their zeal is praiseworthy in turning to use every circumstance which presents itself, in seizing upon every useful novelty which of¬ fers, and even in searching out new and advantageous methods. One easily perceives that the peasant of this district has reflected much on his occupation: he can give reasons for his modes of proceeding, even if those reasons are not always tenable; he is as exact an observer of proportions as it is possible to be from memory, without the aid of figures: he attends to such general signs of the times as appear to augur him either benefit or harm.” \ The experience of all other parts of Germany is similar. “ In Saxony,” says Mr. Kay, “ it is a notorious fact, that during the last thirty years, and since the peasants became the proprie¬ tors of the land, there has been a rapid and continual improve¬ ment in the condition of the houses, in the manner of living, in the dress of the peasants, and particularly in the culture of the land. I have twice walked through that part of Saxony called Saxon Switzerland, in company with a German guide, * “ On the Agriculture of the Palati- Heidelberg.” By Dr. Karl Heinrich nate, and particularly in the territory of Rau. Heidelberg, 1830. t Rau, pp. 15, 16. 260 POLITICAL ECONOMY and on purpose to see the state of the villages and of the farm¬ ing, and I can safely challenge contradiction when I affirm that there is no farming in all Europe superior to the laboriously careful cultivation of the valleys of that part of Saxony. There, as in the cantons of Berne, Vaud, and Zurich, and in the Rhine provinces, the farms are singularly flourishing. They are kept in beautiful condition, and are always neat and well managed. The ground is cleared as if it were a garden. No hedges or brushwood encumber it. Scarcely a rush or thistle or a bit of rank grass is to be seen. The meadows are well watered every spring with liquid manure, saved from the drainings of the farmyards. The grass is so free from weeds that the Saxon meadows reminded me more of English lawns than of anything else I had seen. The peasants endeavor to outstrip one another in the quantity and quality of the produce, in the preparation of the ground, and in the general cultivation of their respective portions. All the little proprietors are eager to find out how to farm so as to produce the greatest results; they diligently seek after improvements; they send their children to the agri¬ cultural schools in order to fit them to assist their fathers; and each proprietor soon adopts a new improvement introduced by any of his neighbors.” * If this be not overstated, it denotes a state of intelligence very different not only from that of Eng¬ lish laborers but of English farmers. Mr. Kay’s book, published in 1850, contains a mass of evi¬ dence gathered from observation and inquiries in many different parts of Europe, together with attestations from many distin¬ guished writers, to the beneficial effects of peasant properties. Among the testimonies which he cites respecting their effect on agriculture, I select the following: “ Reichensperger, himself an inhabitant of that part of Prus¬ sia where the land is the most subdivided, has published a long and very elaborate work to show the admirable consequences of a system of freeholds in land. He expresses a very decided opinion that not only are the gross products of any given num¬ ber of acres held and cultivated by small or peasant proprietors, greater than the gross products of an equal number of acres held by a few great proprietors, and cultivated by tenant farm- * “ The Social Condition and Educa- By Joseph Kay, Esq., M.A.. Barrister- tion of the People in England and Eu- at-Law, and late Travelling Bachelor of rope; showing the Results of the Pri- the University of Cambridge. Vol. i. mary Schools, and of the Division of pp. 138—40. Landed Property in Foreign Countries.” PEASANT PROPRIETORS 261 ers, but that the net products of the former, after deducting all the expenses of cultivation, are also greater than the net prod¬ ucts of the latter. . . . He mentions one fact which seems to prove that the fertility of the land in countries where the properties are small, must be rapidly increasing. He says that the price of the land which is divided into small properties in the Prussian Rhine provinces, is much higher, and has been rising much more rapidly, than the price of land on the great estates. He and Professor Rau both say that this rise in the price of the small estates would have ruined the more recent purchasers, unless the productiveness of the small estates had increased in at least an equal proportion; and as the small pro¬ prietors have been gradually becoming more and more pros¬ perous notwithstanding the increasing prices they have paid for their land, he argues, with apparent justness, that this would seem to show that not only the gross profits of the small estates, but the net profits also, have been gradually increasing, and that the net profits per acre, of land, when farmed by small proprietors, are greater than the net profits per acre of land farmed by a great proprietor. He says, with seeming truth, that the increasing price of land in the small estates cannot be the mere effect of competition, or it would have diminished the profits and the prosperity of the small proprietors, and that this result has not followed the rise. “ Albrecht Thaer, another celebrated German writer on the different systems of agriculture, in one of his later works (‘Principles of Rational Agriculture’) expresses his decided conviction, that the net produce of land is greater when farmed by small proprietors than when farmed by great proprietors or their tenants. . . . This opinion of Thaer is all the more remarkable, as, during the early part of his life, he was very strongly in favor of the English system of great estates and great farms.” Mr. Kay adds, from his own observation, “ The peasant farming of Prussia, Saxony, Holland, and Switzerland is the most perfect and economical farming I have ever witnessed in any country.” * § 5. But the most decisive example in opposition to the Eng¬ lish prejudice against cultivation by peasant proprietors, is the case of Belgium. The soil is originally one of the worst in * Kay, i. 116—18. 262 POLITICAL ECONOMY Europe. “ The provinces,” says Mr. M’Culloch,* “ of West and East Flanders, and Hainault, form a far-stretching plain, of which the luxuriant vegetation indicates the indefatigable care and labor bestowed upon its cultivation; for the natural soil consists almost wholly of barren sand, and its great fertility is entirely the result of very skilful management and judicious application of various manures.” There exists a carefully pre¬ pared and comprehensive treatise on Flemish Husbandry, in the Farmer’s Series of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. The writer observes,! that the Flemish agricult¬ urists “ seem to want nothing but a space to work upon: what¬ ever be the quality or texture of the soil, in time they will make it produce something. The sand in the Campine can be com¬ pared to nothing but the sands on the seashore, which they probably were originally. It is highly interesting to follow step by step the progress of improvement. Here you see a cottage and rude cow-shed erected on a spot of the most un¬ promising aspect. The loose white sand blown into irregular mounds is only kept together by the roots of the heath: a small spot only is levelled and surrounded by a ditch: part of this is covered with young broom, part is planted with potatoes, and perhaps a small patch of diminutive clover may show itself: ” but manures, both solid and liquid, are collecting, “ and this is the nucleus from which, in a few years, a little farm will spread around. ... If there is no manure at hand, the only thing that can be sown, on pure sand, at first, is broom: this grows in the most barren soils; in three years it is fit to cut, and pro¬ duces some return in fagots for the bakers and brickmakers. The leaves which have fallen have somewhat enriched the soil, and the fibres of the roots have given a certain degree of com¬ pactness. It may now be ploughed and sown with buckwheat, or even with rye without manure. By the time this is reaped, some manure may have been collected, and a regular course of cropping may begin. As soon as clover and potatoes enable the farmer to keep cows and make manure, the improvement goes on rapidly; in a few years the soil undergoes a complete change: it becomes mellow and retentive of moisture, and en¬ riched by the vegetable matter afforded by the decomposition of the roots of clover and other plants. . . . After the land has been gradually brought into a good state, and is cultivated * “ Geographical Dictionary,” art. “ Belgium.” f Pp. 11—14. PEASANT PROPRIETORS 263 in a regular manner, there appears much less difference be¬ tween the soils which have been originally good, and those which have been made so by labor and industry. At least the crops in both appear more nearly alike at harvest, than is the case in soils of different qualities in other countries. This is a great proof of the excellency of the Flemish system; for it shows that the land is in a constant state of improvement, and that the deficiency of the soil is compensated by greater atten¬ tion to tillage and manuring, especially the latter.” The people who labor thus intensely, because laboring for themselves, have practised for centuries those principles of ro¬ tation of crops and economy of manures, which in England are counted among modern discoveries: and even now the superiority of their agriculture, as a whole, to that of England, is admitted by competent judges. “ The cultivation of a poor light soil, or a moderate soil,” says the writer last quoted,* “ is generally superior in Flanders to that of the most improved farms of the same kind in Britain. We surpass the Flemish farmer greatly in capital, in varied implements of tillage, in the choice and breeding of cattle and sheep ” (though, accord¬ ing to the same authority,f they are much “before us in the feeding of their cows ”), “ and the British farmer is in general a man of superior education to the Flemish peasant. But in the minute attention to the qualities of the soil, in the management and application of manures of different kinds, in the judicious succession of crops, and especially in the economy of land, so that every part of it shall be in a constant state of production, we have still something to learn from the Flemings,” and not from an instructed and enterprising Fleming here and there, but from the general practice. Much of the most highly cultivated part of the country con¬ sists of peasant properties, managed by the proprietors, always either wholly or partly by spade industry.]; “ When the land is cultivated entirely by the spade, and no horses are kept, a cow is kept for every three acres of land, and entirely fed on artificial grasses and roots. This mode of cultivation is princi¬ pally adopted in the Waes district, where properties are very small. All the labor is done by the different members of the family; ” children soon beginning “ to assist in various minute operations, according to their age and strength, such as weed- t Ibid., p. 13. t Ibid., pp. 73 et seq. * “Flemish Husbandry," p. 3. 264 POLITICAL ECONOMY ing, hoeing, feeding the cows. If they can raise rye and wheat enough to make their bread, and potatoes, turnips, carrots, and clover, for the cows, they do well; and the produce of the sale of their rape-seed, their flax, their hemp, and their butter, after deducting the expense of manure purchased, which is always considerable, gives them a very good profit. Suppose the whole extent of the land to be six acres, which is not an uncommon occupation, and which one man can manage;” then (after describing the cultivation), “ if a man with his wife and three young children are considered as equal to three and a half grown-up men, the family will require thirty-nine bushels of grain, forty-nine bushels of potatoes, a fat hog, and the butter and milk of one cow: an acre and a half of land will produce the grain and potatoes, and allow some corn to finish the fatten¬ ing of the hog, which has the extra buttermilk: another acre in clover, carrots, and potatoes, together with the stubble tur¬ nips, will more than feed the cow; consequently two and a half acres of land is sufficient to feed this family, and the produce of the other three and a half may be sold to pay the rent or the interest of purchase-money, wear and tear of implements, extra manure, and clothes for the family. But these acres are the most profitable on the farm, for the hemp, flax, and colza are included; and by having another acre in clover and roots, a second cow can be kept, and its produce sold. We have, therefore, a solution of the problem, how a family can live and thrive on six acres of moderate land.” After showing by calcu¬ lation, that this extent of land can be cultivated in the most perfect manner by the family without any aid from hired labor, the writer continues: “ In a farm of ten acres entirely culti¬ vated by the spade, the addition of a man and a woman to the members of the family will render all the operations more easy; and with a horse and cart to carry out the manure, and bring home the produce, and occasionally draw the harrows, fifteen acres may be very well cultivated. . . . Thus it will be seen ” (this is the result of some pages of details and calculations *), “ that by spade husbandry, an industrious man with a small capital, occupying only fifteen acres of good light land, may not only live and bring up a family, paying a good rent, but may accumulate a considerable sum in the course of his life.” But the indefatigable industry by which he accomplishes this, * “ Flemish Husbandry,” p. 81. PEASANT PROPRIETORS 265 and of which so large a portion is expended not in the mere cultivation, but in the improvement, for a distant return, of the soil itself—has that industry no connection with not paying rent ? Could it exist, without presupposing, at least, a virtually permanent tenure? As to their mode of living, “ the Flemish farmers and laborers live much more economically than the same class in England: they seldom eat meat, except on Sundays and in harvest: but¬ termilk and potatoes with brown bread is their daily food.” It is on this kind of evidence that English travellers, as they hurry through Europe, pronounce the peasantry of every Continental country poor and miserable, its agricultural and social system a failure, and the English the only regime under which laborers are well off. It is, truly enough, the only regime under which laborers, whether well off or not, never attempt to be better. So little are English laborers accustomed to consider it possible that a laborer should not spend all he earns, that they habit¬ ually mistake the signs of economy for those of poverty. Ob¬ serve the true interpretation of the phenomena: “ Accordingly they are gradually acquiring capital, and their great ambition is to have land of their own. They eagerly seize every opportunity of purchasing a small farm, and the price is so raised by competition, that land pays little more than two per cent, interest for the purchase money. Large properties gradually disappear, and are divided into small portions, which sell at a high rate. But the wealth and industry of the popu¬ lation are continually increasing, being rather diffused through the masses than accumulated in individuals.” With facts like these, known and accessible, it is not a little surprising to find the case of Flanders referred to not in recom¬ mendation of peasant properties, but as a warning against them; on no better ground than a presumptive excess of population, inferred from the distress which existed among the peasantry of Brabant and East Flanders in the disastrous year 1846-47. The evidence which I have cited from a writer conversant with the subject, and having no economical theory to support, shows that the distress, whatever may have been its severity, arose from no insufficiency in these little properties to supply abun¬ dantly, in any ordinary circumstances, the wants of all whom they have to maintain. It arose from the essential condition to which those are subject who employ land of their own in 266 POLITICAL ECONOMY growing their own food, namely, that the vicissitudes of the seasons must be borne by themselves, and cannot, as in the case of large farmers, be shifted from them to the consumer. When we remember the season of 1846, a partial failure of all kinds of grain, and an almost total one of the potato, it is no wonder that in so unusual a calamity the produce of six acres, half of them sown with flax, hemp, or oil-seeds, should fall short of a year’s provision for a family. But we are not to contrast the distressed Flemish peasant with an English capi¬ talist who farms several hundred acres of land. If the peasant were an Englishman, he would not be that capitalist, but a day laborer under a capitalist. And is there no distress, in times of dearth, among day laborers? Was there none, that year, in countries where small proprietors and small farmers are unknown? I am aware of no reason for believing that the distress was greater in Belgium, than corresponds to the pro¬ portional extent of the failure of crops compared with other countries.* § 6. The evidence of the beneficial operation of peasant prop¬ erties in the Channel Islands is of so decisive a character, that I cannot help adding to the numerous citations already made, part of a description of the economical condition of those islands, by a writer who combines personal observation with an attentive study of the information afforded by others. Mr. William Thornton, in his “ Plea for Peasant Proprietors,” a book which by the excellence both of its materials and of its execution, de¬ serves to be regarded as the standard work on that side of the question, speaks of the island of Guernsey in the following terms: “ Not even in England is nearly so large a quantity of produce sent to market from a tract of such limited extent. This of itself might prove that the cultivators must be far removed above poverty, for being absolute owners of all the produce raised by them, they of course sell only what they do not themselves re¬ quire. But the satisfactoriness of their condition is apparent * As much of the distress lately com¬ plained of in Belgium, as partakes in any degree of a permanent character, appears to be almost confined to the portion of the population who carry on manufacturing labor, either by itself or in conjunction with agricultural; and to be occasioned by a diminished demand for Belgic manufactures. To the preceding testimonies Respect¬ ing Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium, may be added the following from Niebuhr, respecting the Roman Cam- pagna. In a letter from Tivoli, he says: “ Wherever you find hereditary farmers, or small proprietors, there you also find industry and honesty. I believe that a man who would employ a large fortune in establishing small freeholds might put an end to robbery in the mountain districts.”—“ Life and Letters of Nie¬ buhr,” vol. ii. p. 149. PEASANT PROPRIETORS 267 to every observer. ‘ The happiest community/ says Mr. Hill, ‘ which it has ever been my lot to fall in with, is to be found in this little island of Guernsey/ ‘ No matter/ says Sir George Head, ‘ to what point the traveller may choose to bend his way, comfort everywhere prevails/ What most surprises the English visitor in his first walk or drive beyond the bounds of St. Peter’s Port, is the appearance of the habitations with which the land¬ scape is thickly studded. Many of them are such as in his own country would belong to persons of middle rank; but he is puz¬ zled to guess what sort of people live in the others, which, though in general not large enough for farmers, are almost invariably much too good in every respect for day laborers. . . . Lit¬ erally, in the whole island, with the exception of a few fisher¬ men’s huts, there is not one so mean as to be likened to the ordi¬ nary habitation of an English farm laborer. . . . ‘ Look/ says a late Bailiff of Guernsey, Mr. De L’lsle Brock, ‘ at the hovels of the English, and compare them with the cottages of our peasantry/ . . . Beggars are utterly unknown. . . . Pau¬ perism, able-bodied pauperism at least, is nearly as rare as mendicancy. The Savings Banks accounts also bear witness to the general abundance enjoyed by the laboring classes of Guern¬ sey. In the year 1841, there were in England, out of a popula¬ tion of nearly fifteen millions, less than 700,000 depositors, or one in every twenty persons, and the average amount of the de¬ posits was £30. In Guernsey, in the same year, out of a popula¬ tion of 26,000 the number of depositors was 1920, and the aver¬ age amount of the deposits £40.” * The evidence as to Jersey and Alderney is of a similar character. Of the efficiency and productiveness of agriculture on the small properties of the Channel Islands, Mr. Thornton produces ample evidence,the result of which he sums up as follows: “ Thus it appears that in the two principal Channel Islands, the agricul¬ tural population is, in the one twice, and in the other, three times, as dense as in Britain, there being in the latter country only one cultivator to twenty-two acres of cultivated land, while in Jersey there is one to eleven, and in Guernsey one to seven acres. Yet the agriculture of these islands maintains, besides cultivators, non-agricultural populations, respectively four and five times as dense as that of Britain. This difference does not arise from any superiority of soil or climate possessed by the * “ A Plea for Peasant Proprietors.” By William Thomas Thornton, pp. 99—104. 268 POLITICAL ECONOMY Channel Islands, for the former is naturally rather poor, and the latter is not better than in the southern counties of England. It is owing entirely to the assiduous care of the farmers, and to the abundant use of manure.” * “ In the year 1837,” he says in another place,f “ the average yield of wheat in the large farms of England was only twenty-one bushels, and the highest average for any one county was no more than twenty-six bushels. The highest average since claimed for the whole of England, is thirty bushels. In Jersey, where the average size of farms is only sixteen acres, the average produce of wheat per acre was stated by Inglis in 1834 to be thirty-six bushels; but it is proved by official tables to have been forty bushels in the five years ending with 1833. In Guernsey, where farms are still smaller, four quarters per acre, according to Inglis, is consid¬ ered a good, but still a very common crop.” “ Thirty shillings J an acre would be thought in England a very fair rent for mid¬ dling land; but in the Channel Islands, it is only very inferior land that would not let for at least £4.” § 7. It is from France, that impressions unfavorable to peas¬ ant properties are generally drawn; it is in France that the sys¬ tem is so often asserted to have brought forth its fruit in the most wretched possible agriculture, and to be rapidly reducing, if not to have already reduced, the peasantry, by subdivision of land, to the verge of starvation. It is difficult to account for the general prevalence of impressions so much the reverse of truth. The agriculture of France was wretched, and the peasantry in great indigence, before the Revolution. At that time they were not, so universally as at present, landed proprietors. There were, however, considerable districts of France where the land, even then, was to a great extent the property of the peasantry, and among these were many of the most conspicuous exceptions to the general bad agriculture and to the general poverty. An au¬ thority, on this point, not to be disputed, is Arthur Young, the inveterate enemy of small farms, the coryphaeus of the modern English school of agriculturists; who yet, travelling over nearly the whole of France in 1787, 1788, and 1789, when he finds remarkable excellence of cultivation, never hesitates to ascribe it to peasant property. “ Leaving Sauve,” says he,§ “ I was much * William Thomas Thornton’s “ A Plea $ Ibid., p. 32. for Peasant Proprietors,” p. 38. § Arthur Young’s “Travels in France,” t Ibid., p. 9. vol. i. p. 50. PEASANT PROPRIETORS 269 struck with a large tract of land, seemingly nothing but huge rocks; yet most of it enclosed and planted with the most indus¬ trious attention. Every man has an olive, a mulberry, an al¬ mond, or a peach tree, and vines scattered among them; so that the whole ground is covered with the oddest mixture of these plants and bulging rocks, that can be conceived. The inhabi¬ tants of this village deserve encouragement for their industry; and if I were a Trench minister they should have it. They would soon turn all the deserts around them, into gardens. Such a knot of active husbandmen, who turn their rocks into scenes of fertility, because I suppose their &wyi , would do the same by the wastes, if animated by the same omnipotent principle.” Again:* “ Walk to Rossendal,” (near Dunkirk) “ where M. le Brun has an improvement on the Dunes, which he very obligingly showed me. Between the town and that place is a great number of neat little houses, built each with its garden, and one or two fields en¬ closed, of most wretched blowing dune sand, naturally as white as snow, but improved by industry. The magic of property turns sand to gold.” And again: f “ Going out of Gange, I was surprised to find by far the greatest exertion in irrigation which I had yet seen in France; and then passed by some steep moun¬ tains, highly cultivated in terraces. Much watering at St. Law¬ rence. The scenery very interesting to a farmer. From Gange, to the mountain of rough ground which I crossed, the ride has been the most interesting which I have taken in France; the efforts of industry the most vigorous; the animation the most lively. An activity has been here, that has swept away all diffi¬ culties before it, and has clothed the very rocks with verdure. It would be a disgrace to common sense to ask the cause; the enjoyment of property must have done it. Give a man the se¬ cure possession of a bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden; give him a nine years’ lease of a garden, and he will convert it into a desert.” In his description of the country at the foot of the Western Pyrenees, he speaks no longer from surmise, but from knowl¬ edge. “ Take J the road to Moneng, and come presently to a scene which was so new to me in France, that I could hardly believe my own eyes. A succession of many well-built, tight, and comfortable farming cottages built of stone and covered * Arthur Young’s “Travels in France,” vol. i. p. 88. t Ibid., p. 51. t Ibid. vol. i. 270 POLITICAL ECONOMY with tiles; each having its little garden, enclosed by dipt thorn- hedges, with plenty of peach and other fruit-trees, some fine oaks scattered in the hedges, and young trees nursed up with so much care, that nothing but the fostering attention of the owner could effect anything like it. To every house belongs a farm, perfectly well enclosed, with grass borders mown and neatly kept around the corn-fields, with gates to pass from one enclosure to another. There are some parts of England (where small yeomen still remain) that resemble this country of Bearn; but we have very little that is equal to what I have seen in this ride of twelve miles from Pau to Moneng. It is all in the hands of little proprietors, without the farms being so small as to oc¬ casion a vicious and miserable population. An air of neatness, warmth, and comfort breathes over the whole. It is visible in their new-built houses and stables; in their little gardens; in their hedges; in the courts before their doors; even in the coops for their poultry, and the sties for their hogs. A peasant does not think of rendering his pig comfortable, if his own happiness hang by the thread of a nine years’ lease. We are now in Bearn, within a few miles of the cradle of Henry IV. Do they inherit these blessings from that good prince? The benignant genius of that good monarch seems to reign still over the country; each peasant has the fowl in the pot.” He frequently notices the ex¬ cellence of the agriculture of French Flanders, where the farms “ are all small, and much in the hands of little proprietors.” * In the Pays de Caux, also a country of small properties, the agri¬ culture was miserable; of which his explanation was, that it “ is a manufacturing country, and farming is but a secondary pur¬ suit to the cotton fabric, which spreads over the whole of it.” f The same district is still a seat of manufactures, and a country of small proprietors, and is now, whether we judge from the ap¬ pearance of the crops or from the official returns, one of the best cultivated in France. In “ Flanders, Alsace, and part of Artois, as well as on the banks of the Garonne, France possesses a husbandry equal to our own.” J Those countries, and a con¬ siderable part of Ouercy, “ are cultivated more like gardens than farms. Perhaps they are too much like gardens, from the small¬ ness of properties.” § In those districts the admirable rotation of crops, so long practised in Italy, but at that time generally * Young, pp. 322—4. t Ibid. p. 325. t Ibid. vol. i. p. 357. § Ibid. p. 364. PEASANT PROPRIETORS 271 neglected in France, was already universal. “ The rapid suc¬ cession of crops, the harvest of one being but the signal of sowing immediately for a second,” (the same fact which strikes all ob¬ servers in the valley of the Rhine,) “ can scarcely be carried to greater perfection: and this is a point, perhaps, of all others the most essential to good husbandry, when such crops are so justly distributed as we generally find them in these provinces; cleaning and ameliorating ones being made the preparation for such as foul and exhaust.” It must not, however, be supposed that Arthur Young’s testi¬ mony on the subject of peasant properties is uniformly favorable. In Lorraine, Champagne, and elsewhere, he finds the agriculture bad, and the small proprietors very miserable, in consequence, as he says, of the extreme subdivision of the land. His opinion is thus summed up: *—“ Before I travelled, I conceived that small farms, in property, were very susceptible of good cultiva¬ tion; and that the occupier of such, having no rent to pay, might be sufficiently at his ease to work improvements, and carry on a vigorous husbandry; but what I have seen in France, has greatly lessened my good opinion of them. In Flanders, I saw excellent husbandry on properties of 30 to 100 acres; but we seldom find here such small patches of property as are com¬ mon in other provinces. In Alsace, and on the Garonne, that is, on soils of such exuberant fertility as to demand no exertions, some small properties also are well cultivated. In Bearn, I passed through a region of little farmers, whose appearance, neatness, ease, and happiness charmed me; it was what property alone could, on a small scale, effect; but these were by no means contemptibly small; they are, as I judged by the distance from house to house, from 40 to 80 acres. Except these, and a very few other instances, I saw nothing respectable on small properties, except a most unremitting industry. Indeed, it is necessary to impress on the reader’s mind, that though the husbandry I met with, in a great variety of instances on little properties, was as bad as can be well conceived, yet the industry of the possessors was so conspicuous, and so meritorious, that no commendations would be too great for it. It was sufficient to prove that property in land is, of all others, the most active instigator to severe and incessant labor. And this truth is of such force and extent, that I know no way so sure of carrying * Young, p. 412. 272 POLITICAL ECONOMY tillage to a mountain top, as by permitting the adjoining villagers to acquire it in property; in fact, we see that in the mountains of Languedoc, etc., they have conveyed earth in baskets, on their backs, to form a soil where nature had denied it.” The experience, therefore, of this celebrated agriculturist, and apostle of the grande culture, may be said to be that the effect of small properties, cultivated by peasant proprietors, is admir¬ able when they are not too small: so small, namely, as not fully to occupy the time and attention of the family, for he often com¬ plains, with great apparent reason, of the quantity of idle time which the peasantry had on their hands when the land was in very small portions, notwithstanding the ardor with which they toiled to improve their little patrimony, in every way which their knowledge or ingenuity could suggest. He recommends, ac¬ cordingly, that a limit of subdivision should be fixed by law; and this is by no means an indefensible proposition in countries, if such there are, where division, having already gone further than the state of capital and the nature of the staple articles of cul¬ tivation render advisable, still continues progressive. That each peasant should have a patch of land, even in full property, if it is not sufficient to support him in comfort, is a system with all the disadvantages, and scarcely any of the benefits, of small properties; since he must either live in indigence on the produce of his land, or depend as habitually as if he had no landed pos¬ sessions, on the wages of hired labor: which, besides, if all the holdings surrounding him are of similar dimensions, he has little prospect of finding. The benefits of peasant properties are con¬ ditional on their not being too much subdivided; that is, on their not being required to maintain too many persons, in pro¬ portion to the produce that can be raised from them by those per¬ sons. The question resolves itself, like most questions respect¬ ing the condition of the laboring classes, into one of population. Are small properties a stimulus to undue multiplication, or a check to it? Chapter VII.—Continuation of the Same Subject §1. Before examining the influence of peasant properties on the ultimate economical interests of the laboring class, as de¬ termined by the increase of population, let us note the points re¬ specting the moral and social influence of that territorial arrange¬ ment, which may be looked upon as established, either by the PEASANT PROPRIETORS 273 reason of the case, or by the facts and authorities cited in the preceding chapter. The reader new to the subject must have been struck with the powerful impression made upon all the witnesses to whom I have referred, by what a Swiss statistical writer calls the “ al¬ most superhuman industry ” of peasant proprietors.* On this point, at least, authorities are unanimous. Those who have seen only one country of peasant properties, always think the inhabi¬ tants of that country the most industrious in the world. There is as little doubt among observers, with what feature in the con¬ dition of the peasantry this pre-eminent industry is connected. It is “ the magic of property/’ which, in the words of Arthur Young, “ turns sand into gold.” The idea of property does not, however, necessarily imply that there should be no rent, and more than that there should be no taxes. It merely implies that the rent should be a fixed charge, not liable to be raised against the possessor by his own improvements, or by the will of a landlord. A tenant at a quit-rent is, to all intents and pur¬ poses, a proprietor; a copyholder is not less so than a freeholder. What is wanted is permanent possession on fixed terms. “ Give a man the secure possession of a bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden; give him a nine years’ lease of a garden, and he will convert it into a desert.” The details which have been cited, and those, still more min¬ ute, to be found in the same authorities, concerning the habitu¬ ally elaborate system of cultivation, and the thousand devices of the peasant proprietor for making every superfluous hour and odd moment instrumental to some increase in the future produce and value of the land, will explain what has been said in a previ¬ ous chapter f respecting the far larger gross produce which, with anything like parity of agricultural knowledge, is obtained, from the same quality of soil, on small farms, at least when they are the property of the cultivator. The treatise on “ Flemish Husbandry ” is especially instructive respecting the means by which untiring industry does more than outweigh inferiority of resources, imperfection of implements, and ignorance of scien¬ tific theories. The peasant cultivation of Flanders and Italy is affirmed to produce heavier crops, in equal circumstances of soil, than the best cultivated districts of Scotland and England. It * The Canton Schaffhausen ” (be- t Supra, Book i. chap. ix. § 4. fore quoted), p. 53. VOL. I.—18 274 POLITICAL ECONOMY produces them, no doubt, with an amount of labor which, if paid for by the employer, would make the cost to him more than equivalent to the benefit; but to the peasant it is not cost, it is the devotion of time which he can spare, to a favorite pursuit, if we should not rather say a ruling passion.* We have seen, too, that it is not solely by superior exertion that the Flemish cultivators succeed in obtaining these brilliant results. The same motive which gives such intensity to their in¬ dustry, placed them earlier in possession of an amount of agri¬ cultural knowledge not attained until much later in countries where agriculture was carried on solely by hired labor. An equally high testimony is borne by M. de Lavergne f to the agri¬ cultural skill of the small proprietors, in those parts of France to which the petite culture is really suitable. “ In the rich plains of Flanders, on the banks of the Rhine, the Garonne, the Charente, the Rhone, all the practices which fertilize the land and increase the productiveness of labor are known to the very smallest cul¬ tivators, and practised by them, however considerable may be the advances which they require. In their hands, abundant man¬ ures; collected at great cost, repair and incessantly increase the fertility of the soil, in spite of the activity of cultivation. The races of cattle are superior, the crops magnificent. Tobacco, flax, colza, madder, beetroot, in some places; in others, the vine, the olive, the plum, the mulberry, only yield their abundant treasures to a population of industrious laborers. Is it not also to the petite culture that we are indebted for most of the garden produce obtained by dint of great outlay in the neighboorhood of Paris? ” * Read the graphic description by the historian Michelet, of the feelings of a peasant proprietor towards his land. “ If we would know the inmost thought, the passion, of the French peasant, it is very easy. Let us walk out on Sunday into the country and fol¬ low him. Behold him yonder, walking in front of us. It is two o’clock; his wife is at vespers: he has on his Sunday clothes; I perceive that he is going to visit his mistress. “ What mistress? His land. “ I do not say he goes straight to it. No, he is free to-day, and may either go or not. Does he not go every day in the week? Accordingly, he turns aside, he goes another way, he has business elsewhere. And yet—he goes. “ It is true, he was passing close by; it was an opportunity. He looks, but apparently he will not go in; what for? And yet—he enters. “ At least it is probable that he will not work; he is in his Sunday dress: he has a clean shirt and blouse. Still, there is no harm in plucking up this weed and throwing out that stone. There is a stump, too, which is in the way; but he has not his tools with him, he will do it to-r/iorrow. “ Then he folds his arms and gazes, serious and careful. He gives a long, a very long look, and seems lost in thought. At last, if he thinks himself observed, if he sees a passerby, he moves slowly away. Thirty paces off he stops, turns round, and casts on his land a last look, sombre and profound, but to those who can see it, the look is full of passion, of heart, of devotion.”— “ The People,” by J. Michelet, Part i. chap. i. t s ‘ Essay on the Rural Economy of England, Scotland, and Ireland,” 3d ed. p. 127. PEASANT PROPRIETORS 2 75 § 2. Another aspect of peasant properties, in which it is es¬ sential that they should be considered, is that of an instrument of popular education. Books and schooling are absolutely neces¬ sary to education; but not all-sufficient. The mental faculties will be most developed where they are most exercised; and what gives more exercise to them than the having a multitude of in¬ terests, none of which can be neglected, and which can be pro¬ vided for only by varied efforts of will and intelligence? Some of the disparagers of small properties lay great stress on the cares and anxieties which beset the peasant proprietor of the Rhineland or Flanders. It is precisely those cares and anxieties which tend to make him a superior being to an English day- laborer. It is, to be sure, rather abusing the privileges of fair argument to represent the condition of a day-laborer as not an anxious one. I can conceive no circumstances in which he is free from anxiety, where there is a possibility of being out of employment; unless he has access to a profuse dispensation of parish pay, and no shame or reluctance in demanding it. The day-laborer has, in the existing state of society and population, many of the anxieties which have not an invigorating effect on the mind, and none of those which have. The position of the peasant proprietor of Flanders is the reverse. From the anxiety which chills and paralyses—the uncertainty of having food to eat—few persons are more exempt: it requires as rare a concur¬ rence of circumstances as the potato failure combined with an universal bad harvest, to bring him within reach of that danger. His anxieties are the ordinary vicissitudes of more and less; his cares are that he takes his fair share of the business of life; that he is a free human being, and not perpetually a child, which seems to be the approved condition of the laboring classes according to the prevailing philanthropy. He is no longer a being of a different order from the middle classes; he has pursuits and objects like those which occupy them, and give to their intellects the greater part of such culti¬ vation as they receive. If there is a first principle in in¬ tellectual education, it is this—that the discipline which does good to the mind is that in which the mind is active, not that in which it is passive. The secret for developing the faculties is to give them much to do, and much inducement to do it. This detracts nothing from the importance, and even necessity, of other kinds of mental cultivation. The possession of property 276 POLITICAL ECONOMY will not prevent the peasant from being coarse, selfish, and nar¬ row-minded. These things depend on other influences, and other kinds of instruction. But this great stimulus to one kind of mental activity, in no way impedes any other means of intellect¬ ual development. On the contrary, by cultivating the habit of turning to practical use every fragment of knowledge acquired, it helps to render that schooling and reading fruitful, which without some such auxiliary influence are in too many cases like seed thrown on a rock. § 3. It is not on the intelligence alone that the situation of a peasant proprietor exercises an improving influence. It is no less propitious to the moral virtues of prudence, temperance, and self-control. Day-laborers, where the laboring class mainly consists of them, are usually improvident; they spend carelessly to the full extent of their means and let the future shift for itself. This is so notorious, that many persons strongly interested in the welfare of the laboring classes, hold it as a fixed opinion that an increase of wages would do them little good, unless accom¬ panied by at least a corresponding improvement in their tastes and habits. The tendency of peasant proprietors, and of those who hope to become proprietors, is to the contrary extreme; to take even too much thought for the morrow. They are oftener accused of penuriousness than of prodigality. They deny them¬ selves reasonable indulgences, and live wretchedly in order to economize. In Switzerland almost everybody saves, who has any means of saving; the case of the Flemish farmers has been already noticed: among the French, though a pleasure-loving and reputed to be a self-indulgent people, the spirit of thrift is diffused through the rural population in a manner most grati¬ fying as a whole, and which in individual instances errs rather on the side of excess than defect. Among those who, from the hovels in which thev live, and the herbs and roots which con- stitute their diet, are mistaken by travellers for proofs and speci¬ mens of general indigence, there are numbers who have hoards in leathern bags, consisting of sums in five-franc pieces, which they keep by them perhaps for a whole generation, unless brought out to be expended in their most cherished gratification —the purchase of land. If there is a moral inconvenience attached to a state of society in which the peasantry have land, it is the danger of their being too careful of their pecuniary concerns; of its making them crafty, and “ calculating ” in the objection- PEASANT PROPRIETORS 277 able sense. The French peasant is no simple countryman, no downright “ peasant of the Danube: ” * both in fact and in fic¬ tion he is now “ the crafty peasant.” That is the stage which he has reached in the progressive development which the consti¬ tution of things has imposed on human intelligence and human emancipation. But some excess in this direction is a small and a passing evil compared with recklessness and improvidence in the laboring classes, and a cheap price to pay for the inestimable worth of the virtue of self-dependence, as the general character¬ istic of a people: a virtue which is one of the first conditions of excellence in a human character—the stock on which if the other virtues are not grafted, they have seldom any firm root; a quality indispensable in the case of a laboring class, even to any tolerable degree of physical comfort; and by which the peasantry of France, and of most European countries of peasant proprietors, are distinguished beyond any other laboring population. § 4. Is it likely, that a state of economical relations so condu¬ cive to frugality and prudence in every other respect, should be prejudicial to it in the cardinal point of increase of population? That it is so is the opinion expressed by most of those English political economists who have written anything about the mat¬ ter. Mr. M’Culloch’s opinion is well known. Mr. Jones af¬ firms,! that a “ peasant population, raising their own wages from the soil, and consuming them in kind, are universally acted upon very feebly by internal checks, or by motives disposing them to restraint. The consequence is, that unless some external cause, quite independent of their will, forces such peasant culti¬ vators to slacken their rate of increase, they will, in a limited territory, very rapidly approach a state of want and penury, and will be stopped at last only by the physical impossibility of pro¬ curing subsistence.” He elsewhere J speaks of such a peasantry as “ exactly in the condition in which the animal disposition to increase their numbers is checked by the fewest of those balanc¬ ing motives and desires which regulate the increase of superior ranks or more civilized people.” The “ causes of this pecu¬ liarity ” Mr. Jones promised to point out in a subsequent work, which never made its appearance. I am totally unable to con¬ jecture from what theory of human nature, and of the motives which influence human conduct, he would have derived them. * See the celebrated fable of La Fon- f “ Essay on the Distribution of taine. Wealth,” p. 146. $ Ibid. p. 68. 278 POLITICAL ECONOMY Arthur Young assumes the same “peculiarity ” as a fact; but, though not much in the habit of qualifying his opinions, he does not push his doctrine to so violent an extreme as Mr. Jones; having, as we have seen, himself testified to various instances in which peasant populations, such as Mr. Jones speaks of, were not tending to “ a state of want and penury/’ and were in no danger whatever of coming in contact with “ physical impossi¬ bility of procuring subsistence.” That there should be discrepancy of experience on this matter, is easily to be accounted for. Whether the laboring people live by land or by wages, they have always hitherto multiplied up to the limit set by their habitual standard of com¬ fort. When that standard was low, not exceeding a scanty subsistence, the size of properties, as well as the rate of wages, has been kept down to what would barely support life. Extremely low ideas of what is necessary for subsistence, are perfectly compatible with peasant properties; and if a people have always been used to poverty, and habit has reconciled them to it, there will be over-population, and excessive subdivision of land. But this is not to the purpose. The true question is, sup¬ posing a peasantry to possess land not insufficient but sufficient for their comfortable support, are they more, or less, likely to fall from this state of comfort through improvident multiplica¬ tion, than if they were living in an equally comfortable manner as hired laborers? All a priori considerations are in favor of their being less likely. The dependence of wages on population is a matter of speculation and discussion. That wages would fall if population were much increased is often a matter of real doubt, and always a thing which requires some exercise of the thinking faculty for its intelligent recognition. But every peas¬ ant can satisfy himself from evidence which he can fully appre¬ ciate, whether his piece of land can be made to support several families in the same comfort in which it supports one. Few people like to leave to their children a worse lot in life than their own. The parent who has land to leave, is perfectly able to judge whether the children can live upon it or not: but people who are supported by wages, see no reason why their sons should be unable to support themselves in the same way, and trust accordingly to chance. “ In even the most useful and necessary arts and manufactures,” says Mr. Laing,* “the de- * “ Notes of a Traveller,” p. 46. PEASANT PROPRIETORS 2 79 mand for laborers is not a seen, known, steady, and appreciable demand: but it is so in husbandry/’ under small properties. “ The labor to be done, the subsistence that labor will produce out of his portion of land, are seen and known elements in a man’s calculation upon his means of subsistence. Can his square of land, or can it not, subsist a family? Can he marry or not? are questions which every man can answer without delay, doubt, or speculation. It is the depending on chance, where judgment has nothing clearly set before it, that causes reckless, improvi¬ dent marriages in the lower, as in the higher classes, and pro¬ duces among us the evils of over-population; and chance neces¬ sarily enters into every man’s calculations, when certainty is removed altogether; as it is, where certain subsistence is, by our distribution of property, the lot of but a small portion in¬ stead of about two-thirds of the people.” There never has been a writer more keenly sensible of the evils brought upon the laboring classes by excess of population, than Sismondi, and this is one of the grounds of his earnest advocacy of peasant properties. He had ample opportunity, in more coun¬ tries than one, for judging of their effect on population. Let us see his testimony. “ In the countries in which cultivation by small proprietors still continues, population increases regularly and rapidly until it has attained its natural limits; that is to say, inheritances continue to be divided and subdivided among sev¬ eral sons, as long as, by an increase of labor, each family can extract an equal income from a smaller portion of land. A father who possessed a vast extent of natural pasture, divides it among his sons, and they turn it into fields and meadows; his sons divide it among their sons, who abolish fallows: each im¬ provement in agricultural knowledge admits of another step in the subdivision of property. But there is no danger lest the proprietor should bring up his children to make beggars of them. He knows exactly what inheritance he has to leave them; he knows that the law will divide it equally among them; he sees the limit beyond which this division would make them descend from the rank which he has himself filled, and a just family pride, common to the peasant and to the nobleman, makes him abstain from summoning into life, children for whom he cannot properly provide. If more are born, at least they do not marry, or they agree among themselves, which of several brothers shall perpetuate the family. It is not found that in the Swiss Cantons, 28 o POLITICAL ECONOMY the patrimonies of the peasants are ever so divided as to reduce chem below an honorable competence; though the habit of for¬ eign service, by opening to the children a career indefinite and uncalculable, sometimes calls forth a superabundant popula¬ tion.” * There is similar testimony respecting Norway. Though there is no law or custom of primogeniture, and no manufactures to take off a surplus population, the subdivision of property is not carried to an injurious extent. “ The division of the land among children,” says Mr. Laing,f “ appears not, during the thousand years it has been in operation, to have had the effect of reducing the landed properties to the minimum size that will barely sup¬ port human existence. I have counted from five-and-twenty to forty cows upon farms, and that in a country in which the far¬ mer must, for at least seven months in the year, have winter provender and houses provided for all the cattle. It is evident that some cause or other, operating on aggregation of landed property, counteracts the dividing effects of partition among chil¬ dren. That cause can be no other than what I have long con¬ jectured would be effective in such a social arrangement; viz. that in a country where land is held, not in tenancy merely, as in Ireland, but in full ownership, its aggregation by the deaths of co-heirs, and by the marriages of the female heirs among the body of landholders, will balance its subdivision by the equal succession of children. The whole mass of property will, I con¬ ceive, be found in such a state of society to consist of as many estates of the class of £1,000, as many of £100, as many of fio, a year, at one period as at another.” That this should hap¬ pen, supposes diffused through society a very efficacious pru¬ dential check to population: and it is reasonable to give part of the credit of this prudential restraint to the peculiar adaptation of the peasant-proprietary system for fostering it. “ In some parts of Switzerland,” says Mr. Kay,t “ as in the canton of Argovie for istance, a peasant never marries before he attains the age of twenty-five years, and generally much later in life; and in that canton the women very seldom marry before they have attained the age of thirty. . . . Nor do the divi¬ sion of land and the cheapness of the mode of conveying it from one man to another, encourage the providence of the laborers * “ Nouvcaux Principes,” book iii. chap. 3. t “ Residence in Norway,” p. 18. t Kay, vol. i., pp. 67—9. PEASANT PROPRIETORS 281 of the rural districts only. They act in the same manner, though perhaps in a less degree, upon the laborers of the smaller towns. In the smaller provincial towns it is customary for a laborer to own a small plot of ground outside the town. This plot he cul¬ tivates in the evening as his kitchen garden. He raises in it vegetables and fruits for the use of his family during the winter. After his day’s work is over, he and his family repair to the gar¬ den for a short time, which they spend in planting, sowing, weed¬ ing, or preparing for sowing, a harvest, according to the season. The desire to become possessed of one of these gardens operates very strongly in strengthening prudential habits and in restrain¬ ing improvident marriages. Some of the manufacturers in the canton of Argovie told me that a townsman was seldom con¬ tented until he had bought a garden, or a garden and house, and that the town laborers generally deferred their marriages for some years, in order to save enough to purchase either one or both of these luxuries.” The same writer shows by statistical evidence * that in Prussia the average age of marriage is not only much later than in Eng¬ land, but “is gradually becoming later than it was formerly,” while at the same time “ fewer illegitimate children are born in Prussia than in any other of the European countries.” “ Wherever I travelled,” says Mr. Kay,f “ in North Germany and Switzer¬ land, I was assured by all that the desire to obtain land, which was felt by all the peasants, was acting as the strongest possible check upon undue increase of population.” % In Flanders, according to Mr. Fauche, the British Consul at Ostend,§ “ farmer’s sons and those who have the means to be¬ come farmers will delay their marriage until they get possession of a farm.” Once a farmer, the next object is to become a pro¬ prietor. “ The first thing a Dane does with his savings,” says Mr. Browne, the Consul at Copenhagen,!| “is to purchase a * Kay, vol. i., pp. 75-7-9. t Ibid. p. 90. $ The Prussian minister of statistics, in a work (“ Condition of the People in Prussia ”) which I am obliged to quote at second-hand from Mr. Kay, after proving by figures the great and pro¬ gressive increase of the consumption of food and clothing per head of the popu¬ lation, from which he justly infers a corresponding increase of the produc¬ tiveness of agriculture, continues: “ The division of estates has, since 1831, pro¬ ceeded more and more throughout the country. There are now many more small independent proprietors than for¬ merly. Yet, however many complaints of pauperism are heard among the de¬ pendent laborers, we never hear it com¬ plained that pauperism is increasing among the peasant proprietors.”—Kay, i. 262—6. § In a communication to the Commis¬ sioners of Poor Law Enquiry, p. 640 of their Foreign Communications, Appen¬ dix F to their First Report. || Ibid. p. 268. 282 POLITICAL ECONOMY clock, then a horse and cow, which he hires out, and which pays a good interest. Then his ambition is to become a petty proprie¬ tor, and this class of persons is better off than any in Denmark. Indeed, I know of no people in any country who have more easily within their reach all that is really necessary for life than this class, which is very large in comparison with that of la¬ borers.” But the experience which most decidedly contradicts the assert¬ ed tendency of peasant proprietorship to produce excess of popu¬ lation, is the case of France. In that country the experiment is not tried in the most favorable circumstances, a large proportion of the properties being too small. The number of landed pro¬ prietors in France is not exactly ascertained, but on no estimate does it fall much short of five millions; which, on the lowest calculation of the number of persons of a family (and for France it ought to be a low calculation), shows much more than half the population as either possessing, or entitled to inherit, landed property. A majority of the properties are so small as not to afford a subsistence to the proprietors, of whom, according to some computations, as many as three millions are obliged to eke out their means of support either by working for hire, or by taking additional land, generally on metayer tenure. When the property possessed is not sufficient to relieve the possessor from dependence on wages, the condition of a proprietor loses much of its characteristic efficacy as a check to over-population: and if the prediction so often made in England had been realized, and France had become a “ pauper warren,” the experiment would have proved nothing against the tendencies of the same system of agricultural economy in other circumstances. But what is the fact? That the rate of increase of the French popula¬ tion is the slowest in Europe. During the generation which the Revolution raised from the extreme of hopeless wretchedness to sudden abundance, a great increase of population took place. But a generation has grown up, which, having been born in im¬ proved circumstances, has not learnt to be miserable; and upon them the spirit of thrift operates most conspicuously, in keep¬ ing the increase of population within the increase of national wealth. In a table, drawn up by Professor Rau, of the rate of annual increase of the populations of various countries, that of France, from 1817 to 1827, is stated at 0.63 per cent., that of England during a similar decennial period being 1.6 annually. PEASANT PROPRIETORS 283 and that of the United States nearly 3.* According to the official returns as analyzed by M. Legoyt,f the increase of the popula¬ tion, which from 1801 to 1806 was at the rate of 1.28 per cent, annually, averaged only 0.47 per cent, from 1806 to 1831; from 1831 to 1836 it averaged 0.60 per cent.; from 1836 to 1841, 0.41 per cent., and from 1841 to 1846, 0.68 per cent.J At the census of 1851 the rate of annual increase shown was only 1.08 per cent, in the five years, or 0.21 annually; and at the census of 1856 only 0.71 per cent, in five years, or 0.14 annually; so, that, in the words of M. de Lavergne, “ population has almost ceased to increase in France.” § Even this slow increase is wholly the effect of a diminution of deaths; the number of births not in¬ creasing at all, while the proportion of the births to the popula- * The following is the table (see p. 168 of the Belgian translation of Mr. Rau’s large work): Per cent. United States ..1820-30- 2.92 Hungary (according to Rohrer)- 2.40 England .1811-21- 1.78 “ .1821-31_ 1.60 Austria (Rohrer). 1.30 Prussia .1816-27- 1.54 “ .1820-30_ 1.30 “ .1821-31_ 1.27 Netherlands .1821-28- 1.28 Scotland .1821-31- 1.30 Saxony .1815-30- 1.15 Baden .1820-30 (Heunisch) 1.13 Bavaria .1814-28.... 1.08 Naples .1814-24- 0.83 France .1817-27 (Mathieu) 0.63 and more recently (Moreau de Jonnes . 0.55 But the number given by Moreau de Jonnes, he adds, is not entitled to im¬ plicit confidence. The following table given by M. Que- telet (“ On Man and the Development of his Faculties,” vol. i. chap. 7), also on the authority of Rau, contains addi¬ tional matter, and differs in some items from the preceding, probably from the author’s having taken, in those cases, an average of different years: Per cent. Ireland . 2.45 Hungary . 2.40 Spain . 1.66 England . 1.65 Rhenish Prussia . 1.33 Austria . 1.30 Bavaria . 1.08 Netherlands . 0.94 Naples . 0.83 France . 0.63 Sweden . 0.58 Lombardy . 0.45 A very carefully prepared statement, by M. Legoyt, in the “ Journal des Economistes ” for May, 1847, which brings up the results for France to the census of the preceding year, 1846, is summed up in the following table: Countries According to the census According to the excess of births over deaths Per cent. Per cent. Sweden. 0.83 1.14 Norway. 1.36 1.30 Denmark. • • • • °-95 Russia. 0.61 Austria. 0 85 0.90 Prussia. I .84 1.18 Saxony. i -45 0.90 Hanover. 0.85 Bavaria. O.7I Wurtemberg. O.OI I .OO Holland. 0.90 1.03 Belgium. • • • 0.76 Sardinia. 1.08 Great Britain (exclu¬ sive of Ireland).... j- 1-95 I .OO France. 0.68 0.50 United States. 3-27 t “ Journal des Economistes ” for March and May, 1847. $ M. Legoyt is of opinion that the population was understated in 1841, and the increase between that time and 1846 consequently overstated, and that the real increase during the whole period was something intermediate between the last two averages, or not much more than one in two hundred. § “ Journal des Economistes ” for February, 1847. In the “ Journal ” for January, 1865, M. Legoyt gives some of the numbers slightly altered, and, I presume, corrected. The series of per¬ centages is 1.28, 0.31, 0.69, 0.60, 0.41, 0.68, 0.22, and 0.20. The last census, that of 1861, shows a slight reaction, the per¬ centage, independently of the newly ac¬ quired departments, being 0.32. 284 POLITICAL ECONOMY tion is constantly diminishing.* This slow growth of the num¬ bers of the people, while capital increases much more rapidly, has caused a noticeable improvement in the condition of the la¬ boring class. The circumstances of that portion of the class who are landed proprietors are not easily ascertained with preci¬ sion, being of course extremely variable: but the mere laborers, who derived no direct benefit from the changes in landed prop¬ erty which took place at the Revolution, have unquestionably much improved in condition since that period, f Dr. Rau testi- * The following are the numbers given by M. Legoyt: From 1824 to 1828 annual number of births 981,914, being 1 in 32.30 of the population. 1829 to 1833 “ 1834 to 1838 “ 1839 to 1843 “ 1844 & 1845 965,444, 972,993, 970,617, 983,573, << (< i in 34.00 1 in 34.39 1 in 35.27 1 in 35.58 In the last two years the births, ac¬ cording to M. Legoyt, were swelled by the effects of a considerable immigra¬ tion. “ This diminution of births,” he observes, “ while there is a constant, though not a rapid increase both of pop¬ ulation and of marriages, can only be attributed to the progress of prudence and forethought in families. It was a foreseen consequence of our civil and social institutions, which, producing a daily increasing subdivision of fortunes, both landed and movable, call forth in our people the instincts of conservation and of comfort.” In four departments, among which are two of the most thriving in Normandy, the deaths even then exceeded the births. The census of 1856 exhibits the remark¬ able fact of a positive diminution in the population of 54 out of the 86 depart¬ ments. A significant comment on the “ pauper-warren ” theory. See M. de La- vergne’s analysis of the returns. f “ The classes of our population which have only wages, and are there¬ fore the most exposed to indigence, are now (1846) much better provided with the necessaries of food, lodging, and clothing, than they were at the be¬ ginning of the century. This may be proved by the testimony of all persons who can remember the earlier of the two periods compared. Were there any doubts on the subject, they might easily be dissipated by consulting old culti¬ vators and workmen, as I have myself done in various localities, without meet¬ ing with a single contrary testimony; we may also appeal to the facts collected by an accurate observer, M. Villerme, in his ‘ Picture of the Moral and Physi¬ cal Condition of the Working Classes,’ book ii. chap. 1.” (“ Researches on the Causes of Indigence,” by A. Clement, pp. 84, 85.) The same writer speaks (p. 118) of “ the considerable rise which has taken place since 1789 in the wages of agricultural day-laborers ”; and adds the following evidence of a higher standard of habitual requirements, even in that portion of the town population, the state of which is usually represented as most deplorable: “ In the last fifteen or twenty years a considerable change has taken place in the habits of the opera¬ tives in our manufacturing towns: they now expend much more than formerly on clothing and ornament. . . . Cer¬ tain classes of workpeople, such as the canuts of Lyons ” (according to all rep¬ resentations, like their counterpart, our handloom weavers, the very worst paid class of artisans), “ no longer show themselves, as they did formerly, cov¬ ered with filthy rags.” (Page 164.) The preceding statements were given in former editions of this work, being the best to which I had at the time ac¬ cess; but evidence, both of a more re¬ cent, and of a more minute and precise character, will now be found in the im¬ portant work of M.' Leonce de Lavergne. “ Rural Economy of France since 1789.” According to that painstaking, well-in¬ formed, and most impartial inquirer, the average daily wages of a French la¬ borer have risen, since the commence¬ ment of the Revolution, in the ratio of 19 to 30, while, owing to the more con¬ stant employment, the total earnings have increased in a still greater ratio, not short of double. The following are the statements of M. de Lavergne (2d ed. p. 57): ‘ Arthur Young estimates at 19 sous (9V2d.) the average of a day’s wages, which must now be about 1 franc 50 centimes (is. 3d.), and this increase only represents a part of the improvement. Though the rural population has re¬ mained about the same in numbers, the addition made to the population since 1789 having centred in the towns, the number of actual working days has in¬ creased, first because, the duration of life having augmented, the number of able-bodied men is greater, and next, because labor is better organized, partly through the suppression of several festi¬ val-holidays, partly by the mere effect of a more active demand. When we take into account the increased number of his working days, the annual receipts of the rural workman must have doubled. This augmentation of wages PEASANT PROPRIETORS 285 fies to a similar fact in the case of another country in which the subdivision of the land is probably excessive, the Palatinate.* I am not aware of a single authentic instance which supports the assertion that rapid multiplication is promoted by peasant properties. Instances may undoubtedly be cited of its not be¬ ing prevented by them, and one of the principal of these is Belgium; the prospects of which, in respect to population, are at present a matter of considerable uncertainty. Belgium has the most rapidly increasing population on the Continent; and when the circumstances of the country require, as they must soon do, that this rapidity should be checked, there will be a considerable strength of existing habit to be broken through. One of the unfavorable circumstances is the great power possessed over the minds of the people by the Catholic priesthood, whose influence is everywhere strongly exerted against restraining population. As yet, however, it must be remembered that the indefatigable industry and great agricultural skill of the people have rendered the existing rapidity of increase practically innocuous; the great number of large estates still undivided affording by their gradual dismemberment, a resource for the necessary augmentation of the gross produce; and there are, besides, many large manu¬ facturing towns, and mining and coal districts, which attract and employ a considerable portion of the annual increase of population. § 5. But even where peasant properties are accompanied by an excess of numbers, this evil is not necessarily attended with the additional economical disadvantage of too great a subdivi¬ sion of the land. It does not follow because landed property answers to at least an equal augmenta¬ tion of comforts, since the prices of the chief necessaries of life have changed but little, and those of manufactured, for example of woven, articles, have ma¬ terially diminished. The lodging of the laborers has also improved, if not in all, at least in most of our provinces.” M. de Lavergne’s estimate of the av¬ erage amount of a day’s wages is grounded on a careful comparison, in this and all other economical points of view, of all the different provinces of France. * In his little book on the Agriculture of the Palatinate, already cited. He says that the daily wages of labor, which dur¬ ing the last years of the war were un¬ usually high, and so continued until 1817, afterwards sank to a lower money-rate, but that the prices of many commodities having fallen in a still greater propor¬ tion, the condition of the people was un¬ equivocally improved. The food given to farm laborers by their employers has also greatly improved in quantity and quality. “ It is now considerably better than about forty years ago, when the poorer class obtained less flesh-meat and puddings, and no cheese, butter, and the like.” (P. 20.) “ Such an increase of wages ” (adds the Professor) “ which must be estimated not in money, but in the quantity of necessaries and con¬ veniences which the laborer is enabled to procure, is, by universal admission, a proof that the mass of capital must have increased.” It proves not only this, but also that the laboring population has not increased in an equal degree; and that, in this instance as well as in France, the division of the land, even when exces¬ sive, has been compatible with a strengthening of the prudential checks to population. 286 POLITICAL ECONOMY is minutely divided, that farms will be so. As large properties are perfectly compatible with small farms, so are small prop- perties with farms of an adequate size; and a subdivision of occupancy is not an inevitable consequence of even un¬ due multiplication among peasant proprietors. As might be expected from their admirable intelligence in things relat¬ ing to their occupation, the Flemish peasantry have long learnt this lesson. “ The habit of not dividing properties,” says Dr. Rau,* “ and the opinion that this is advantageous, have been so completely preserved in Flanders, that even now, when a peasant dies leaving several children, they do not think of di¬ viding his patrimony, though it be neither entailed nor settled in trust; they prefer selling it entire, and sharing the proceeds, considering it as a jewel which loses its value when it is divided.” That the same feeling must prevail widely even in France, is shown by the great frequency of sales of land, amounting in ten years to a fourth part of the whole soil of the country; and M. Passy, in his tract “ On the Changes in the Agricultural Con¬ dition of the Department of the Eure since the year 1800,” f states other facts tending to the same conclusion. “ The ex¬ ample,” says he, “ of this department attests that there does not exist, as some writers have imagined, between the distribution of property and that of cultivation, a connection which tends in¬ vincibly to assimilate them. In no portion of it have changes of ownership had a perceptible influence on the size of holdings. While, in districts of small farming, lands belonging to the same owner are ordinarily distributed among many tenants, so neither is it uncommon, in places where the grande culture prevails, for the same farmer to rent the lands of several proprietors. In the plains of Vexin, in particular, many active and rich culti¬ vators do not content themselves with a single farm; others add to the lands of their principal holding, all those in the neighbor¬ hood which they are able to hire, and ih this manner make up a total extent which in some cases reaches or exceeds two hundred hectares ” (five hundred England acres). “ The more the es¬ tates are dismembered, the more frequent do this sort of ar¬ rangements become; and as they conduce to the interest of all concerned, it is probable that time will confirm them.” * Page 334 of the Brussels translation. cipal political economists of France, He cites as an authority, Schwerz, “ Pa- and doing great and increasing honor pers on Agriculture,” i. 185. to their knowledge and ability. M. t One of the many important papers Passy’s essay has been reprinted sep* which have appeared in the “ Journal arately as a pamphlet, des Economistes,” the organ of the prin- PEASANT PROPRIETORS 287 “ In some places,” says M. de Lavergne,* “ in the neighbor¬ hood of Paris, for example, where the advantages of the grande culture become evident, the size of farms tends to increase, sev¬ eral farms are thrown together into one, and farmers enlarge their holdings by renting parcelles from a number of different proprietors. Elsewhere farms as well as properties of too great extent, tend to division. Cultivation spontaneously finds out the organization which suits it best.” It is a striking fact, stated by the same eminent writer,f that the departments which have the greatest number of small separate accounts with the tax-col¬ lector, are the Nord, the Somme, the Pas de Calais, the Seine Inferieure, the Aisne, and the Oise; all of them among the rich¬ est and best cultivated, and the first-mentioned of them the very richest and best cultivated, in France. Undue subdivision, and excessive smallness of holdings, are undoubtedly a prevalent evil in some countries of peasant pro¬ prietors, and particularly in parts of Germany and France. The gov'ernments of Bavaria and Nassau have thought it necessary to impose a legal limit to subdivision, and the Prussian Govern¬ ment unsuccessfully proposed the same measure to the Estates of its Rhenish Provinces. But I do not think it will anywhere be found that the petite culture is the system of the peasants, and the grande culture that of the great landlords: on the contrary, wherever the small properties are divided among too many proprietors, I believe it to be true that the large proper¬ ties also are parcelled out among too many farmers, and that the cause is the same in both cases, a backward state of capital, skill, and agricultural enterprise. There is reason to believe that the subdivision in France is not more excessive than is ac¬ counted for by this cause; that it is diminishing, not increasing; and that the terror expressed in some quarters at the progress of the morcellementj is one of the most groundless of real or pretended panics.J * “ Rural Economy of France,” p. 455. t Page 117. See, for facts of a similar tendency, pp. 141, 250, and other pas¬ sages of the same important treatise; which, on the other hand, equally abounds with evidence of the mischiev¬ ous effect of subdivision when too minute, or when the nature of the soil and of its products is not suitable to it. t Mr. Laing, in his latest publication, “ Observations on the Social and Po¬ litical State of the European People in 1848 and 1849,” a book devoted to the glorification of England, and the dis¬ paragement of everything elsewhere which others, or even he himself in former works, had thought worthy of praise, argues that “ although the land itself is not divided and subdivided ” on the death of the proprietor, “ the value of the land is, and with effects al¬ most as prejudicial to social progress. The value of each share becomes a debt or burden upon the land.” Con¬ sequently the condition of the agricul¬ tural population is retrograde: ? ‘ each generation is worse off than the pre¬ ceding one, although the land is neither 288 POLITICAL ECONOMY If peasant properties have any effect in promoting subdivision beyond the degree which corresponds to the agricultural prac¬ tices of the country, and which is customary on its large estates, the cause must lie in one of the salutary influences of the system; the eminent degree in which it promotes providence on the part of these who, not being yet peasant proprietors, hope to become so. In England, where the agricultural laborer has no invest¬ ment for his savings but the savings bank, and no position to which he can rise by any exercise of economy, except perhaps that of a petty shopkeeper, with its chances of bankruptcy, there is nothing at all resembling the intense spirit of thrift which takes possession of one who, from being a day laborer, can raise himself by saving to the condition of a landed proprietor. Ac¬ cording to almost all authorities, the real cause of the mor- cellement is the higher price which can be obtained for land by selling it to the peasantry, as an investment for their small ac¬ cumulations, than by disposing of it entire to some rich pur¬ chaser who has no object but to live on its income without im¬ proving it. The hope of obtaining such an investment is the most powerful of inducements, to those who are without land, to prac¬ tice the industry, frugality, and self-restraint, on which their success in this object of ambition is dependent. As the result of this inquiry into the direct operation and in¬ direct influences of peasant properties, I conceive it to be es¬ tablished, that there is no necessary connection between this form of landed property and an imperfect state of the arts of production; that it is favorable in quite as many respects as it is unfavorable, to the most effective use of the powers of the soil; that no other existing state of agricultural economy has so beneficial an effect on the industry, the intelligence, the frugality, and prudence of the population, nor tends on the whole so much less nor more divided, nor worse culti¬ vated.” And this he gives as the ex¬ planation of the great indebtedness of the small landed proprietors in France (pp. 97—9). If these statements were cor¬ rect, they would invalidate all which Mr. Laing affirmed so positively in other writings, and repeats in this, respecting the peculiar efficacy of the possession of land in preventing over-population. But he is entirely mistaken as to the matter of fact. In the only country of which he speaks from actual residence, Nor¬ way, he does not pretend that the con¬ dition of the peasant proprietors is de¬ teriorating. The facts already cited prove that in respect to Belgium, Ger¬ many, anc^ Switzerland, the assertion is equally wide of the mark; and what has been shown respecting the slow increase of population in France, demonstrates that if the condition of the French peas¬ antry was deteriorating, it could not be from the cause supposed by Mr. Laing. The truth I believe to be that in every country without exception, in which peasant properties prevail, the condition of the people is improving, the produce of the land and even its fertility increas¬ ing, and from the larger surplus which remains after feeding the agricultural classes, the towns are augmenting both in population and in the well-being of their inhabitants. METAYERS 289 to discourage an improvident increase of their numbers; and that no existing state, therefore, is on the whole so favorable, both to their moral and their physical welfare. Compared with the English system of cultivation by hired labor, it must be re¬ garded as eminently beneficial to the laboring class.* We are not on the present occasion called upon to compare it with the joint ownership of the land by associations of laborers. Chapter VIII.—Of Metayers § 1. From the case in which the produce of land and labor belongs undividedly to the laborer, we proceed to the cases in which it is divided, but between two classes only, the laborers and the landowners; the character of capitalists merging in the one or the other, as the case may be. It is possible indeed to conceive that there might be only two classes of persons to share the produce, and that a class of capitalists might be one of them; the character of laborer and that of landowner being united to form the other. This might occur in two ways. The laborers, though owning the land, might let it to a tenant, and work under him as hired servants. But this arrangement, even in the very rare cases which could give rise to it, would not require any particular discussion, since it would not differ * French history strikingly confirms these conclusions. Three times during the course of ages the peasantry have been purchasers of land; and these times immediately preceded the three princi¬ pal eras of French agricultural pros¬ perity. “ In the worst times,” says the his¬ torian Michelet (“ The People,” Part i. chap. 1), “ the times of universal pov¬ erty, when even the rich are poor and obliged to sell, the poor are enabled to buy: no other purchaser presenting him¬ self, the peasant in rags arrives with his f iiece of gold, and acquires a little bit of and. These moments of disaster in which the peasant was able to buy land at a low price, have always been fol¬ lowed by a sudden gush of prosperity which people could not account for. Towards 1500, for example, when France, exhausted by Louis XI, seemed to be completing its ruin in Italy, the noblesse who went to the wars were obliged to sell: the land, passing into new hands, suddenly began to flourish; men began to labor and to build. This happy mo¬ ment, in the style of courtly historians, was called the good Louis XII. “ Unhappily it did not last long. Scarcely had the land recovered itself when the tax-collector fell upon it; the VOL. I.—19 wars of religion followed, and seemed to raze everything to the ground; with horrible miseries, dreadful famines, in which mothers devoured their children. Who would believe that the country le- covered from this? Scarcely is the war ended, when from the devastated fields, and the cottages still black with the flames, comes forth the hoard of the peasant. He buys; in ten years, France wears a new face; in twenty or thirty, all possessions have doubled and trebled in value. This moment, again baptized by a royal name, is called the good Henry IV and the great Riche¬ lieu.” Of the third era it is needless again to speak; it was that of the Revolution. Whoever would study the reverse of the picture, may compare these historic eriods, characterized by the dismem- erment of large and the construction of small properties, with the wide-spread national suffering which accompanied, and the permanent deterioration of the condition of the laboring classes which followed, the “ clearing away of small yeomen to make room for large grazing farms, which was the grand economical event of English history during the six¬ teenth century. 290 POLITICAL ECONOMY in any material respect from the threefold system of laborers, capitalists, and landlords. The other case is the not uncom¬ mon one, in which a peasant proprietor owns and cultivates the land, but raises the little capital required, by a mortgage upon it. Neither does this case present any important peculiar¬ ity. There is but one person, the peasant himself, who has any right or power of interference in the management. He pays a fixed annuity as interest to a capitalist, as he pays another fixed sum in taxes to the government. Without dwelling further on these cases, we pass to those which present marked features of peculiarity. When the two parties sharing in the produce are the laborer or laborers and the landowner, it is not a very material circum¬ stance in the case, which of the two furnishes the stock, or whether, as sometimes happens, they furnish it, in a determinate proportion, between them. The essential difference does not lie in this, but in another circumstance, namely, whether the division of the produce between the two is regulated by cus¬ tom or by competition. We will begin with the former case; of which the metayer culture is the principal, and in Europe almost the sole, example. The principle of the metayer system is that the laborer, or peasant, makes his engagement directly with the landowner, and pays, not a fixed rent, either in money or in kind, but a cer¬ tain proportion of the produce, or rather of what remains of the produce after deducting what is considered necessary to keep up the stock. The proportion is usually, as the name imports, one-half; but in several districts in Italy it is two-thirds. Re¬ specting the supply of stock, the custom varies from place to place; in some places the landlord furnishes the whole, in others half, in others some particular part, as for instance the cattle and seed, the laborer providing the implements.* “ This * In France, before the Revolution, according to Arthur Young ( 1 .403) there was great local diversity in this respect. In Champagne, “ the landlord common¬ ly finds half the cattle and half the seed, and the metayer, labor, implements, and taxes; but in some districts the landlord bears a share of these. In Roussillon, the landlord pays half the taxes; and in Guienne, from Auch to Fleuran, many landlords pay all. Near Aguillon, on the Garonne, the metayers furnish half the cattle. At Nangis, in the Isle of France, I met with an agreement for the landlord to furnish live stock, imple¬ ments, harness, and taxes; the metayer found labor and his own capitation tax: the landlord repaired the house and gates; the metayer the windows: the landlord provided seed the _ first year, the metayer the last; in the intervening years they supply half and half. In the Bourbonnois the landlord finds all sorts of live stock, yet the metayer sells, changes, and buys at his will; the stew¬ ard keeping an account of these muta¬ tions, for the landlord has half the product of sales, and pays half the pur¬ chases.” In Piedmont, he says, “ the landlord commonly pays the taxes and repairs the buildings, and the tenant provides cattle, implements, and seed.” (II. 151.) METAYERS 291 connection/’ says Sismondi, speaking chiefly of Tuscany,* “ is often the subject of a contract, to define certain services and certain occasional payments to which the metayer binds him¬ self ; nevertheless the differences in the obligations of one such contract and another are inconsiderable; usage governs alike all these engagements, and supplies the stipulations which have not been expressed: and the landlord who attempted to de¬ part from usage, who exacted more than his neighbor, who took for the basis of the agreement anything but the equal divi¬ sion of the crops, would render himself so odious, he would be so sure of not obtaining a metayer who was an honest man, that the contract of all the metayers may be considered as iden¬ tical, at least in each province, and never gives rise to any com¬ petition among peasants in search of employment, or any offer to cultivate the soil on cheaper terms than one another.” To the same effect Chateauvieux,f speaking of the metayers of Piedmont. “ They consider it ” (the farm) “ as a patrimony, and never think of renewing the lease, but go on from genera¬ tion to generation, on the same terms, without writings or registries.” J § 2. When the partition of the produce is a matter of fixed usage, not of varying convention, political economy has no laws of distribution to investigate. It has only to consider, as in the case of peasant proprietors, the effects of the system, first, on the condition of the peasantry, morally and physically, and secondly, on the efficiency of the labor. In both these par¬ ticulars the metayer system has the characteristic advantages of peasant properties, but has them in a less degree. The me¬ tayer has less motive to exertion than the peasant proprietor, since only half the fruits of his industry, instead of the whole, are his own. But he has a much stronger motive than a day laborer, who has no other interest in the result than not to be dismissed. If the metayer cannot be turned out except for * “ Studies in Political Economy,” Essay VI. On the Condition of the Cultivators in Tuscany. t “ Letters from Italy.” I quote from Dr. Rigby’s translation. (P. 22.) t This virtual fixity of tenure is not, however, universal, even in Italy; and it is to its absence that Sismondi attrib¬ utes the inferior condition of the metay¬ ers in some provinces of Naples, in Lucca, and in the Riviera of Genoa; where the landlords obtain a larger (though still a fixed) share of the produce. In those countries the culti¬ vation is splendid, but the people wretch¬ edly poor. “ The same misfortune would probably have befallen the people of Tuscany if public opinion did not pro¬ tect the cultivator; but a proprietor would not dare to impose conditions un¬ usual in the country, and even in chang¬ ing one metayer for another, he alters nothing in the terms of the engage¬ ment.”—“ New Principles of Political Economy,” book iii. chap. 5. 292 POLITICAL ECONOMY some violation of his contract, he has a stronger motive to ex¬ ertion than any tenant-farmer who has not a lease. The me¬ tayer is at least his landlord’s partner, and a half-sharer in their joint gains. Where, too, the permanence of his tenure is guar¬ anteed by custom, he acquires local attachments, and much of the feelings of a proprietor. I am supposing that this half produce is sufficient to yield him a comfortable support. Whether it is so, depends (in any given state of agriculture) on the degree of subdivision of the land; which depends on the operation of the population principle. A multiplication of people, beyond the number that can be properly supported on the land or taken off by manufactures, is incident even to a peasant proprietary, and of course not less but rather more in¬ cident to a metayer population. The tendency, however, which we noticed in the proprietary system, to promote prudence on this point, is in no small degree common to it with the metayer system. There, also, it is a matter of easy and exact calculation whether a family can be supported or not. If it is easy to see whether the owner of the whole produce can increase the pro¬ duction so as to maintain a greater number of persons equally well, it is a not less simple problem whether the owner of half the produce can do so.* There is one check which this system seems to offer, over and above those held out even by the pro¬ prietary system; there is a landlord, who may exert a con¬ trolling power, by refusing his consent to a subdivision. I do not, however, attach great importance to this check, because the farm may be loaded with superfluous hands without being subdivided; and because, so long^ as the increase of hands in¬ creases the gross produce, which is almost always the case, the landlord, who receives half the produce, is an immediate gainer, the inconvenience falling only on the laborers. The landlord is no doubt liable in the end to suffer from their poverty, by * M. Bastiat affirms that even in France, incontestably the least favor¬ able example of the metayer system, its effect in repressing population is con¬ spicuous. “ It is a well-ascertained fact that the tendency to excessive multipli¬ cation is chiefly manifested in the class who live on wages. Over these the fore¬ thought which retards marriages has lit¬ tle operation, because the evils which flow from excessive competition appear to them only very confusedly, and at a considerable distance. It is, therefore, the most advantageous condition of a people to be so organized as to contain no regular class of laborers for hire. In metayer countries, marriages are prin¬ cipally determined by the demands of cultivation; they increase when, from whatever cause, the metairies offer va¬ cancies injurious to production; they di¬ minish when the places are filled up. A fact easily ascertained, the proportion between the size of the farm and the number of hands, operates like fore¬ thought, and with greater effect. We find, accordingly, that when nothing occurs to make an opening for a su¬ perfluous population, numbers remain stationary: as is seen in our southern de¬ partments.”—“ Considerations on Metay¬ age,” in the “ Journal des Economistes ” for February, 1846. METAYERS 2 93 being forced to make advances to them, especially in bad sea¬ sons ; and a foresight of this ultimate inconvenience may operate beneficially on such landlords as prefer future security to present profit. The characteristic disadvantage of the metayer system is very fairly stated by Adam Smith. After pointing out that metayers “ have a plain interest that the whole produce should be as great as possible, in order that their own proportion may be so,” he continues,* “ it could never, however, be the interest of this species of cultivators to lay out, in the further improve¬ ment of the land, any part of the little stock which they might save from their own share of the produce, because the lord, who laid out nothing, was to get one-half of whatever it produced. The tithe, which is but a tenth of the produce, is found to be a very great hindrance to improvement. A tax, therefore, which amounted to one-half, must have been an effectual bar to it. It might be the interest of a metayer to make the land produce as much as could be brought out of it by means of the stock furnished by the proprietor; but it could never be his interest to mix any part of his own with it. In France, where five parts out of six of the whole kingdom are said to be still occupied by this species of cultivators, the proprietors complain that their metayers take every opportunity of employing the mas¬ ter’s cattle rather in carriage than in cultivation ; because in the one case they get the whole profits to themselves, in the other they share them with their landlord.” It is indeed implied in the very nature of the tenure, that all improvements which require expenditure of capital, must be made with the capital of the landlord. This, however, is es¬ sentially the case even in England, whenever the farmers are tenants-at-will: or (if Arthur Young is right) even on a “ nine years’ lease.” If the landlord is willing to provide capital for improvements, the metayer has the strongest interest in pro¬ moting them, since half the benefit of them will accrue to him¬ self. As however the perpetuity of tenure which, in the case we are discussing, he enjoys by custom, renders his consent a necessary condition; the spirit of routine, and dislike of inno¬ vation, characteristic of an agricultural people when not cor¬ rected by education, are no doubt, as the advocates of the sys¬ tem seem to admit, a serious hindrance to improvement. * “ Wealth of Nations,” book iii., chap. a. 294 POLITICAL ECONOMY § 3. The metayer system has met with no mercy from Eng¬ lish authorities. “ There is not one word to be said in favor of the practice/’ says Arthur Young,* * * § “ and a thousand argu¬ ments that might be used against it. The hard plea of necessity can alone be urged in its favor; the poverty of the farmers being so great, that the landlord must stock the farm, or it could not be stocked at all: this is a most cruel burden to a proprietor, who is thus obliged to run much of the hazard of farming in the most dangerous of all methods, that of trusting his property absolutely in the hands of people who are generally ignorant, many careless, and some undoubtedly wicked. . . . In this most miserable of all the modes of letting land, the de¬ frauded landlord receives a contemptible rent; the farmer is in the lowest state of poverty; the land is miserably cultivated; and the nation suffers as severely as the parties themselves. . . . Wherever f this system prevails, it may be taken for granted that a useless and miserable population is found. . . . Wherever the country (that I saw) is poor and unwatered, in the Milanese, it is in the hands of metayers: ” they are almost always in debt to their landlord for seed or food, and “ their condition is more wretched than that of a day laborer. . . . There J are but few districts ” (in Italy) “ where lands are let to the ocupying tenant at a money-rent; but wherever it is found, their crops are greater; a clear proof of the imbecility of the metaying system.” “ Wherever it ” (the metayer sys¬ tem) “ has been adopted,” says Mr. M’Culloch,§ “ it has put a stop to all improvement, and has reduced the cultivators to the most abject poverty.” Mr. Jones || shares the common opinion, and quotes Turgot and Destutt-Tracy in support of it. The impression, however, of all these writers (notwith¬ standing Arthur Young’s occasional references to Italy) seems to be chiefly derived from France, and France before the Revo¬ lution.^ Now the situation of French metayers under the old * “ Travels,” vol. i., pp. 404—5. t Ibid. vol. ii., 151—3. t Ibid. ii. 217. § “ Principles of Political Economy,” 3d ed. p. 471. || “ Essay on the Distribution of Wealth,” pp. 102—4. If M. de Tracy is partially an excep¬ tion, inasmuch as his experience reaches lower down than the revolutionary eriod: but he admits (as Mr. Jones has # imself stated in another place) that he is acquainted only with a limited dis¬ trict, of great subdivision and unfertile soil. M. Passy is of opinion, that a French peasantry must be in indigence and the country badly cultivated on the metayer system, because the proportion of the roduce claimable by the landlord is too igh; it being only in more favorable climates that any land, not of the most exuberant fertility, can pay half its gross produce in rent, and leave enough to peasant farmers to enable them to grow successfully the more expensive and val- METAYERS 2 95 regime by no means represents the typical form of the con¬ tract. It is essential to that form, that the proprietor pays all the taxes. But in France the exemption of the noblesse from direct taxation had led the Government to throw the whole burden of their ever-increasing fiscal exactions upon the oc¬ cupiers: and it is to these exactions that Turgot ascribed the extreme wretchedness of the metayers : a wretchedness in some cases so excessive, that in Limousin and Angoumois (the provinces which he administered) they had seldom more, ac¬ cording to him, after deducting all burdens, than from twenty- five to thirty livres (20 to 24 shillings) per head for their whole annual consumption: “ I do not mean in money, but including all that they consume in kind from their own crops.” * When we add that they had not the virtual fixity of tenure of the me¬ tayers of Italy, (“ in Limousin,” says Arthur ,Young,f “ the metayers are considered as little better than menial servants, removable at pleasure, and obliged to conform in all things to the will of the landlords,”) it is evident that their case affords no argument against the metayer system in its better form. A population who could call nothing their own—who, like the Irish cottiers, could not in any contingency be worse off—had nothing to restrain them from multiplying, and subdividing the land, until stopped by actual starvation. We shall find a very different picture, by the most accurate authorities, of the metayer cultivation of Italy. In the first place, as to subdivision. In Lombardy, according to Chateau- vieux,J there are few farms which exceed sixty acres, and few which have less than ten. These farms are all occupied by metayers at half profit. They invariably display “ an extent § and a richness in buildings rarely known in any other country in Europe.” Their plan “ affords the greatest room with the least extent of building; is best adapted to arrange and secure the crop; and is, at the same time, the most economical, and uable products of agriculture. (“ On Systems of Culture,” p. 35.) This is an objection only to a particular numerical proportion, which is indeed the com¬ mon one, but is not essential to the sys¬ tem. * See the “ Memoir on the Surcharge of Taxes suffered by the Generality of Limoges, addressed to the Council of State in 1786,” pp. 260-304 of the fourth volume of Turgot’s Works. The occa¬ sional engagements of landlords (as mentioned by Arthur Young) to pay a part of the taxes, were, according to Turgot, of recent origin, under the com¬ pulsion of actual necessity. “ The pro¬ prietor only consents to it when he can find no metayer on other terms; conse¬ quently, even in that case, the metayer is always reduced to what is barely suffi¬ cient to prevent him from dying of hun¬ ger.” (P. 275.) t Vol. i., p. 404. t “ Letters from Italy,” translated by Rigby, p. 16. § Ibid., pp. 19, 20. 296 POLITICAL ECONOMY the least exposed to accidents by fire.” The court-yard “ ex¬ hibits a whole so regular and commodious, and a system of such care and good order, that our dirty and ill-arranged farms can convey no adequate idea of.” The same description applies to Piedmont. The rotation of crops is excellent. “ I should think * no country can bring so large a portion of its produce to market as Piedmont.” Though the soil is not naturally very fertile, “ the number of cities is prodigiously great.” The agri¬ culture must, therefore, be eminently favorable to the net as well as to the gross produce of the land. “ Each plough works thirty-two acres in the season. . . . Nothing can be more perfect or neater than the hoeing and moulding up the maize, when in full growth, by a single plough, with a pair of oxen, without injury to a single plant, while all the weeds are effectu¬ ally destroyed.” So much for agricultural skill. “ Nothing can be so excellent as the crop which precedes and that which follows it.” The wheat “ is thrashed by a cylinder, drawn by a horse, and guided by a boy, while the laborers turn over the straw with forks. This process lasts nearly a fortnight: it is quick and economical, and completely gets out the grain. . . , In no part of the world are the economy and the management of the land better understood than in Piedmont, and this ex¬ plains the phenomenon of its great population and immense export of provisions.” All this under metayer cultivation. Of the valley of the Arno, in its whole extent, both above and below Florence, the same writer thus speaks; f—“ Forests of olive-trees covered the lower parts of the mountains, and by their foliage concealed an infinite number of small farms, which peopled these parts of the mountains: chestnut-trees raised their heads on the higher slopes, their healthy verdure con¬ trasting with the pale tint of the olive-trees, and spreading a brightness over this amphitheatre. The road was bordered on each side with village-houses, not more than a hundred paces from each other. . . . They are placed at a little distance from the road, and separated from it by a wall, and a terrace of some feet in extent. On the wall are commonly placed many vases of antique forms, in which flowers, aloes, and young orange-trees are growing. The house itself it completely cov¬ ered with vines. . . . Before these houses we saw groups of peasant females dressed in white linen, silk corsets, and straw * “ Letters from Italy,” pp. 24—31. f Pp* 78—9. METAYERS 2 97 hats ornamented with flowers. . . . These houses being so near each other, it is evident that the land annexed to them must be small, and that property, in these valleys, must be very much divided; the extent of these domains being from three to ten acres. The land lies round the houses, and is divided into fields by small canals, or rows of trees, some of which are mulberry-trees, but the greatest number poplars, the leaves of which are eaten by the cattle. Each tree supports a vine. . . . These divisions, arrayed in oblong squares, are large enough to be cultivated by a plough without wheels, and a pair of oxen. There is a pair of oxen between ten or twelve of the farmers; they employ them successively in the cultivation of all the farms. . . . Almost every farm maintains a well-looking horse, which goes in a small two-wheeled cart, neatly made, and painted red; they serve for all the purposes of draught for the farm, and also to convey the farmer’s daughters to mass and to balls. Thus, on holidays, hundreds of these little carts are seen flying in all directions, carrying the young women, decorated with flowers and ribbons.” This is not a picture of poverty; and so far as agriculture is concerned, it effectually redeems metayer cultivation, as exist¬ ing in these countries, from the reproaches of English writers; but with respect to the condition of the cultivators, Chateau- vieux’s testimony is, in some points, not so favorable. “ It is * neither the natural fertility of the soil, nor the abundance which strikes the eye of the traveller, which constitute the well¬ being of its inhabitants. It is the number of individuals among whom the total produce is divided, which fixes the portion that each is enabled to enjoy. Here it is very small. I have thus far, indeed, exhibited a delightful country, well watered, fertile, and covered with a perpetual vegetation; I have shown it di¬ vided into countless inclosures, which, like so many beds in a garden, display a thousand varying productions; I have shown, that to all these inclosures are attached well-built houses, clothed with vines, and decorated with flowers; but, on entering them, we find a total want of all the conveniences of life, a table more than frugal, and a general appearance of privation.” Is not Chateauvieux here unconsciously contrast¬ ing the condition of the metayers with that of the farmers of other countries, when the proper standard with which to com¬ pare it is that of the agricultural day-laborers ? * Pp. 73—6. 298 POLITICAL ECONOMY Arthur Young says,* “ I was assured that these metayers are (especially near Florence) much at their ease; that on holi¬ days they are dressed remarkably well, and not without ob¬ jects of luxury, as silver, gold, and silk: and live well, on plenty of bread, wine, and legumes. In some instances this may pos¬ sibly be the case, but the general fact is contrary. It is absurd to think that metayers, upon such a farm as is cultivated by a pair of oxen, can live at their ease; and a clear proof of their poverty is this, that the landlord, who provides half the live stock, is often obliged to lend the peasant money to procure his half. . . . The metayers, not in the vicinity of the city, are so poor, that landlords even lend them corn to eat: their food is black bread, made of a mixture with vetches; and their drink is very little wine, mixed with water, and called aquarolle; meat on Sundays only; their dress very ordinary.” Mr. Jones admits the superior comfort of the metayers near Florence, and attributes it partly to straw-plaiting, by which the women of the peasantry can earn, according to Chateauvieux,f from fif¬ teen to twenty pence a day. But even this fact tells in favor of the metayer system; for in those parts of England in which either straw-plaiting or lace-making is carried on by the wom¬ en and children of the laboring class, as in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, the condition of the class is not better, but rather worse than elsewhere, the wages of agricultural labor being depressed by a full equivalent. In spite of Chateauvieux’s statement respecting the poverty of the metayers, his opinion, in respect to Italy at least, is given in favor of the system. “ It occupies J and constantly interests the proprietors, which is never the case with great proprietors who lease their estates at fixed rents. It establishes a com¬ munity of interests, and relations of kindness between the pro¬ prietors and the metayers; a kindness which I have often wit¬ nessed, and from which result great advantages in the moral condition of society. The proprietor, under this system, al¬ ways interested in the success of the crop, never refuses to make an advance upon it, which the land promises to repay with interest. It is by these advances, and by the hope thus in¬ spired, that the rich proprietors of land have gradually per¬ fected the whole rural economy of Italy. It is to them that it owes the numerous systems of irrigation which water its soil, * “ Travels,” vol. ii. p. 156. t “ Letters from Italy,” p. 75. + Ibid. pp. 295—6. METAYERS t 299 as also the establishment of the terrace culture on the hills: gradual but permanent improvements, which common peas¬ ants, for want of means, could never have effected, and which could never have been accomplished by the farmers, nor by the great proprietors who let their estates at fixed rents, be¬ cause they are not sufficiently interested. Thus the interested system forms of itself that alliance between the rich proprietor, whose means provide for the improvement of the culture, and the metayer, whose care and labors are directed, by a common interest, to make the most of these advances.” But the testimony most favorable to the system is that of Sis- mondi, which has the advantage of being specific, and from accurate knowledge; his information being not that of a traveller, but that of a resident proprietor, intimately acquainted with rural life. His statements apply to Tuscany generally, and more particularly to the Val di Nievole, in which his own property lay, and which is not within the supposed privileged circle immediately round Florence. It is one of the districts in which the size of farms appears to be the smallest. The fol¬ lowing is his description of the dwellings and mode of life of the metayers of that district.* “ The house, built of good walls with lime and mortar, has always at least one story, sometimes two, above the ground floor. On the ground floor are generally the kitchen, a cow¬ house for two-horned cattle, and the storehouse, which takes . its name, tinaia, from the large vats (tint) in which the wine is put to ferment, without any pressing: it is there also that the metayer locks up his casks, his oil, and his grain. Almost al¬ ways there is also a shed supported against the house, where he can work under cover to mend his tools, or chop forage for his cattle. On the first and second stories are two, three, and often four bedrooms. The largest and most airy of these is generally destined by the metayer, in the months of May and June, to the bringing up of silkworms. Great chests to contain clothes and linen, and some wooden chairs, are the chief furniture of the chambers; but a newly-married wife always brings with her a wardrobe of walnut wood. The beds are uncurtained and unroofed, but on each of them, besides a good paillasse filled with the elastic straw of the maize plant, there are one or two mattresses of wool, or, among the poorest, of tow, a good * From his Sixth Essay, formerly referred to. 300 POLITICAL ECONOMY blanket, sheets of strong hempen cloth, and on the best bed of the family a coverlet of silk padding, which is spread on festival days. The only fireplace is in the kitchen; and there also is the great wooden table where the family dines, and the benches ; the great chest which serves at once for keeping the bread and other provisions, and for kneading; a tolerably complete though cheap assortment of pans, dishes, and earthenware plates: one or two metal lamps, a steelyard, and at least two copper pitchers for drawing and holding water. The linen and the working clothes of the family have all been spun by the women of the house. The clothes, both of men and of women, are of the stuff called mezza lana when thick, mold when thin, and made of a coarse thread of hemp or tow, filled up with cot¬ ton or wool; it is dried by the same women by whom it was spun. It would hardly be believed what a quantity of cloth and of mezza lana the peasant women are able to accumulate by assiduous industry; how many sheets there are in the store; what a number of shirts, jackets, trousers, petticoats, and gowns are possessed by every member of the family. By way of example I add in a note the inventory of the peasant family best known to me: it is neither one of the richest nor of the poorest, and lives happily by its industry on half the produce of less than ten arpents of land.* The young women had a mar¬ riage portion of fifty crowns, twenty paid down, and the rest by instalments of two every year. The Tuscan crown is worth six francs [4s. ioff]. The commonest marriage portion of a peasant girl in the other parts of Tuscany, where the metairies are larger, is 100 crowns, 600 francs.” .Is this poverty, or consistent with poverty? When a com¬ mon, M. de Sismondi even says the common, marriage por¬ tion of a metayer's daughter is £24 English money, equivalent to at least 50/. in Italy and in that rank of life ; when one whose dowry is only half that amount, has the wardrobe described, which is represented by Sismondi as a fair average; the class * Inventory of the trousseau of Jane, daughter of Valente Papini, on her mar¬ riage with Giovacchino Landi, the 29th of April, 1835, at Porto Vecchia, near Pescia: “ 28 shifts, 7 best dresses (of particu¬ lar fabrics of silk), 7 dresses of printed cotton, 2 winter working dresses (mezza lana), 3 summer working dresses and petticoats {mold), 3 white petticoats, 5 aprons of printed linen, 1 of black silk, 1 of black merinos, 9 colored working aprons {mola), 4 white, 8 colored, and 3 silk, handkerchiefs, 2 embroidered veils and one of tulle, 3 towels, 14 pairs of stockings, 2 hats (one of felt, the other of fine straw); 2 cameos set in gold, 2 golden earrings, 1 chaplet with two Roman silver crowns, 1 coral necklace with its cross of gold. . . . All the richer married women of the class have, besides, the veste di seta, the great holi¬ day dress, which they only wear four or five times in their lives.” METAYERS 3 QI must be fully comparable, in general condition, to a large pro¬ portion even of capitalist farmers in other countries; and in¬ comparably above the day-laborers of any country, except a new colony, or the United States. Very little can be inferred, against such evidence, from a traveller’s impression of the poor quality of their food. Its inexpensive character may be rather the effect of economy than of necessity. Costly feeding is not the favorite luxury of a southern people; their diet in all classes is principally vegetable, and no peasantry on the Continent has the superstition of the English laborer respect¬ ing white bread. But the nourishment of the Tuscan peasants, according to Sismondi, “ is wholesome and various: its basis is an excellent wheaten bread, brown, but pure from bran and from all mixture.” In the bad season, they take but two meals a day: at ten in the morning they eat their pollenta, at the beginning of the night their soup, and after it bread with a relish of some sort ( companatico ). In summer they have three meals, at eight, at one, and in the evening; but the fire is lighted only once a day, for dinner, which consists of soup, and a dish of salt meat or dried fish, or haricots, or greens, which are eaten with bread. Salt meat enters in a very small quantity into this diet, for it is reckoned that forty pounds of salt pork per head suffice amply for a year’s provision; twice a week a small piece of it is put into the soup. On Sundays they have always on the table a dish of fresh meat, but a piece which weighs only a pound or a pound and a half suffices for the whole family, however numerous it may be. It must not be for¬ gotten that the Tuscan peasants generally produce olive oil for their own consumption: they use it not only for lamps, but as seasoning to all the vegetables prepared for the table, which it renders both more savory and more nutritive. At breakfast their food is bread, and sometimes cheese and fruit; at supper, bread and salad. Their drink is composed of the inferior wine of the country, the vinellci or piquette made by fermenting in water the pressed skins of the grapes. They always, however, reserve a little of their best wine for the day when they thresh their corn, and for some festivals which are kept in families. About fifty bottles of vinella per annum, and five sacks of wheat (about 1,000 pounds of bread) are considered as the supply necessary for a full grown man.” The remarks of Sismondi on the moral influences of this state 3° 2 POLITICAL ECONOMY of society are not less worthy of attention. The rights and ob¬ ligations of the metayer being fixed by usage, and all taxes and rates being paid by the proprietor, “ the metayer has the advan¬ tages of landed property without the burden of defending it. It is the landlord to whom, with the land, belong all its disputes: the tenant lives in peace with all his neighbors; between him and them there is no motive for rivalry or distrust, he preserves a good understanding with them, as well as with his landlord, with the tax collector, and with the church: he sells little, and buys little; he touches little money, but he seldom has any to pay. The gentle and kindly character of the Tuscans is often spoken of, but without sufficiently remarking the cause which has contributed most to keep up that gentleness; the tenure, by which the entire class of farmers, more than three-fourths of the population, are kept free from almost every occasion for quarrel.” The fixity of tenure which the metayer, so long as he fulfils his own obligations, possesses by usage, though not by law, gives him the local attachments, and almost the strong sense of personal interest, characteristic of a proprietor. “ The metayer lives on his metairie as on his inheritance, loving it with affection, laboring incessantly to improve it, confiding in the future, and making sure that his land will be tilled after him by his children and his children’s children. In fact, the ma¬ jority of metayers live from generation to generation on the same farm; they know it in its details with a minuteness which the feeling of property can alone give. The plots terraced up, one above the other, are often not above four feet wide; but there is not one of them, the qualities of which the metayer has not studied. This one is dry, that other is cold and damp: here the soil is deep, there it is a mere crust which hardly covers the rock; wheat thrives best on one, rye on another: here it would be labor wasted to sow Indian corn, elsewhere the soil is unfit for beans and lupins, further off flax will grow ad¬ mirably, the edge of this brook will be suited for hemp. In this way one learns with surprise from the metayer, that in a space of ten arpents, the soil, the aspect, and the inclination of the ground present greater variety than a rich farmer is generally able to distinguish in a farm of five hundred acres. For the lat¬ ter knows that he is only a temporary occupant; and more¬ over, that he must conduct his operations by general rules, and neglect details. But the experienced metayer has had his METAYERS 3°3 intelligence so awakened by interest and affection, as to be the best of observers; and with the whole future before him, he thinks not of himself alone, but of his children and grand¬ children. Therefore, when he plants an olive, a tree which lasts for centuries, and excavates at the bottom of the hollow in which he plants it, a channel to let out the water by which it would be injured, he studies all the strata of the earth which he has to dig out.” * § 4. I do not offer these quotations as evidence of the intrin¬ sic excellence of the metayer system; but they surely suffice to prove that neither “ land miserably cultivated ” nor a peo¬ ple in “ the most abject poverty,” have any necessary con¬ nection with it, and that the unmeasured vituperation lavished upon the system by English writers, is grounded on an ex¬ tremely narrow view of the subject. I look upon the real econ¬ omy of Italy as simply so much additional evidence in favor of small occupations with permanent tenure. It is an example of what can be accomplished by those two elements, even under the disadvantage of the peculiar nature of the metayer con¬ tract, in which the motives to exertion on the part of the tenant are only half as strong as if he farmed the land on the same footing of perpetuity at a money-rent, either fixed, or varying according to some rule which would leave to the tenant the whole benefit of his own exertions. The metayer tenure is not one which we should be anxious to introduce where the exigencies of society had not naturally given birth to it; but neither ought we to be eager to abolish it on a mere a priori view of its disadvantages. If the system in Tuscany works as well in practice as it is represented to do, with every appearance of minute knowledge, by so competent an authority as Sis- mondi; if the mode of living of the people, and the size of * Of the intelligence of this interest¬ ing people, M. de Sismondi speaks in the most favorable terms. Few of them can read; but there is often one member of the family destined for the priesthood, who reads to them on winter evenings. Their language differs little from the purest Italian. The taste for improvisa¬ tion in verse is general. “ The peasants of the Vale of Nievole frequent the thea¬ tre in summer on festival days, from nine to eleven at night: their admission costs them little more than five French sous (2*4d). Their favorite author, is Alfieri; the whole history of the Atridae is familiar to these people who cannot read, and who seek from that austere poet a relaxation from their rude la¬ bors.” Unlike most rustics, they find pleasure in the beauty of their country. “ In the hills of the vale of Nievole there is in front of every house a thresh¬ ing-ground, seldom of more than 25 or 30 square fathoms; it is often the only level space in the whole farm: it is at the same time a terrace which commands the plains and the valley, and looks out upon a delightful country. Scarcely ever have I stood still to admire it, without the metayer's coming out to enjoy my admiration, and point out with his finger the beauties which he thought might have escaped my notice.” 3°4 POLITICAL ECONOMY farms, have for ages maintained and still maintain themselves * such as they are said to be by him, it were to be regretted that a state of rural well-being so much beyond what is realized in most European countries, should be put to hazard by an attempt to introduce, under the guise of agricultural improve¬ ment, a system of money-rents and capitalist farmers. Even where the metayers are poor, and the subdivision great, it is not to be assumed as of course, that the change would be for the better. The enlargement of farms, and the introduction of what are called agricultural improvements, usually dimin¬ ish the number of laborers employed on the land; and unless the growth of capital in trade and manufactures affords an opening for the displaced population, or unless there are re- claimable wastes on which they can be located, competition will so reduce wages, that they will probably be worse off as day-laborers than they were as metayers. Mr. Jones very properly objects against the French econo¬ mists of the last century, that in pursuing their favorite object of introducing money-rents, they turned their minds solely to putting farmers in the place of metayers, instead of trans¬ forming the existing metayers into farmers; which, as he justly remarks, can scarcely be effected, unless, to enable the me¬ tayers to save and become owners of stock, the proprietors submit for a considerable time to a diminution of income, in¬ stead of expecting an increase of it, which has generally been their immediate motive for making the attempt. If this trans¬ formation were effected, and no other change made in the me¬ tayer’s condition; if, preserving all the other rights which usage insures to him, he merely got rid of the landlord’s claim to half the produce, paying in lieu of it a moderate fixed rent; he would be so far in a better position than at present, as the whole, instead of only half the fruits of any improvement he made, would now belong to himself; but even so, the benefit would not be without alloy; for a metayer, though not him¬ self a capitalist, has a capitalist for his partner, and has the use, in Italy at least, of a considerable capital, as is proved by * “ We never,” says Sismondi, “ find a family of metayers proposing to their landlord to divide the metairie, unless the work is really more than they can do, and they feel assured of retaining the same enjoyments on a smaller piece of ground. We never find several sons all marrying, and forming as many new families: only one marries and under¬ takes the charge of the household: none of the others marry unless the first is childless, or unless some one of them has the offer of a new metairie.” “ New Principles of Political Economy,” book iii. chap. 5. COTTIERS 305 the excellence of the farm buildings: and it is not probable that the landowners would any longer consent to peril their movable property on the hazards of agricultural enterprise, when assured of a fixed money income without it. Thus would the question stand, even if the change left undisturbed the me¬ tayer’s virtual fixity of tenure, and converted him, in fact, into a peasant proprietor at a quit rent. But if we suppose him converted into a mere tenant, displaceable at the landlord's will, and liable to have his rent raised by competition to any amount which any unfortunate being in search of subsistence can be found to offer or promise for it, he would lose all the features in his condition which preserve it from being de¬ teriorated: he would be cast down from his present position of a kind of half proprietor of the land, and would sink into a cottier tenant. Chapter IX.—Of Cottiers § 1. By the general appellation of cottier tenure, I shall desig¬ nate all cases without exception, in which the laborer makes his contract for land without the intervention of a capitalist farmer, and in which the conditions of the contract, especially the amount of rent, are determined not by custom but by com¬ petition. The principal European example of this tenure is Ireland, and it is from that country that the term cottier is derived.* By far the greater part of the agricultural popula¬ tion of Ireland might until very lately have been said to be cottier-tenants; except so far as the Ulster tenant-right con¬ stituted an exception. There was, indeed, a numerous class of laborers who (we may presume through the refusal either of proprietors or of tenants in possession to permit any further subdivision) had been unable to obtain even the smallest patch of land as permanent tenants. But, from the deficiency of cap¬ ital, the custom of paying wages in land was so universal, that even those who worked as casual laborers for the cottiers or for such larger farmers as were found in the country, were usually paid not in money, but by permission to cultivate for the season a piece of ground, which was generally delivered to them by * In its original acceptation, the word stretched the term to include those " cottier ” designated a class of sub- small farmers themselves, and generally tenants, who rent a cottage and an acre all peasant farmers whose rents are de- or two of land from the small farmers. termined by competition. But the usage of writers has long since VOL. I.—20 3°6 POLITICAL ECONOMY the farmer ready manured, and was known by the name of conacre. For this they agreed to pay a money rent, often of several pounds an acre, but no money actually passed, the debt being worked out in labor, at a money valuation. The produce, on the cottier system, being divided into two portions, rent, and the remuneration of the laborer; the one is evidently determined by the other. The laborer has whatever the landlord does not take: the condition of the laborer de¬ pends on the amount of rent. But rent, being regulated by competition, depends upon the relation between the demand for land, and the supply of it. The demand for land depends on the number of competitors, and the competitors are the whole rural population. The effect, therefore, of this tenure, is to bring the principle of population to act directly on the land, and not, as in England, on capital. Rent, in this state of things, depends on the proportion between population and land. As the land is a fixed quantity, while population has an un¬ limited power of increase, unless something checks that in¬ crease, the competition for land soon forces up rent to the highest point consistent with keeping the population alive. The effects, therefore, of cottier tenure depend on the extent to which the capacity of population to increase is controlled, either by custom, by individual prudence, or by starvation and disease. It would be an exaggeration to affirm, that cottier tenancy is absolutely incompatible with a prosperous condition of the la¬ boring class. If we could suppose it to exist among a people to whom a high standard of comfort was habitual; whose re¬ quirements were such, that they would not offer a higher rent for land than would leave them an ample subsistence, and whose moderate increase of numbers left no unemployed population to force up rents by competition, save when the increasing prod¬ uce of the land from increase of skill would enable a higher rent to be paid without inconvenience; the cultivating class might be as well remunerated, might have as large a share of the necessaries and comforts of life, on this system of tenure as on any other. They would not, however, while their rents were arbitrary, enjoy any *of the peculiar advantages which metayers on the Tuscan system derive from their connection with the land. They would neither have the use of a capital belonging to their landlords, nor would the want of this be made up by the intense motives to bodily and mental exertion, COTTIERS 3°7 which act upon the peasant who has a permanent tenure. On the contrary, any increased value given to the land by the ex¬ ertions of the tenant, would have no effect but to raise the rent against himself, either the next year, or at farthest when his lease expired. The landlords might have justice or good sense enough not to avail themselves of the advantage which compe¬ tition would give them; and different landlords would do so in different degrees. But it is never safe to expect that a class or body of men will act in opposition to their immediate pecun¬ iary interest; and even a doubt on the subject would be almost as fatal as a certainty, for when a person is considering whether or not to undergo a present exertion or sacrifice for a compara¬ tively remote future, the scale is turned by a very small proba¬ bility that the fruits of the exertion or of the sacrifice would be taken from him. The only safeguard against these uncertain¬ ties would be the growth of a custom, insuring a permanence of tenure in the same occupant, without liability to any other increase of rent than might happen to be sanctioned by the general sentiments of the community. The Ulster tenant-right is such a custom. The very considerable sums which outgoing tenants obtain from their successors, for the good-will of their farms,* in the first place actually limit the competition for land to persons who have such sums to offer: while the same fact also proves that full advantage is not taken by the landlord of even that more limited competition, since the landlord’s rent does not amount to the whole of what the incoming tenant not only offers but actually pays. He does so in the full confidence that the rent will not be raised; and for this he has the guar¬ antee of a custom, not recognized by law, but deriving its bind¬ ing force from another sanction, perfectly well understood in Ireland.f Without one or other of these supports, a custom limiting the rent of land is not likely to grow up in any progres- * “ It is not uncommon for a tenant without a lease to sell the bare privilege of occupancy or possession of his farm, without any visible sign of improve¬ ment haying been made by him, at from ten to sixteen, up to twenty and even forty years’ purchase of the rent.”— (“ Digest of Evidence Taken by Lord Devon’s Commission,” Introductory Chapter.) The compiler adds, “ the comparative tranquillity of that district ” (Ulster) “ may perhaps be mainly at¬ tributable to this fact.” t “ It is in the great majority of cases not a reimbursement for outlay incurred, or improvements effected on the land, but a mere life insurance or purchase of immunity from outrage.”—(“ Digest, ut supra.”) “ The present tenant-right of Ulster ” (the writer judiciously remarks) ** is an embryo copyhold.” “ Even there, if the tenant-right be disregarded, and a tenant be ejected without having re¬ ceived the price of his good-will, out¬ rages are generally the consequence.”— (Chapter viii.) “ The disorganized state of Tipperary, and the agrarian combina¬ tion throughout Ireland, are but a methodized war to obtain the Ulster tenant-right.” 3°8 POLITICAL ECONOMY sive community. If wealth and population were stationary, rent also would generally be stationary, and after remaining a long time unaltered, would probably come to be considered unalterable. But all progress in wealth and population tends to a rise of rents. Under a metayer system there is an estab¬ lished mode in which the owner of land is sure of participating in the increased produce drawn from it. But on the cottier system he can only do so by a readjustment of the contract, while that readjustment, in a progressive community, would almost always be to his advantage. His interest, therefore, is decidedly opposed to the growth of any custom commuting rent into a fixed demand. § 2. Where the amount of rent is not limited, either by law or custom, a cottier system has the disadvantages of the worst metayer system, with scarcely any of the advantages by which, in the best forms of that tenure, they are compensated. It is scarcely possible that cottier agriculture should be other than miserable. There is not the same necessity that the condition of the cultivators should be so. Since by a sufficient restraint on population competition for land could be kept down, and extreme poverty prevented; habits of prudence and a high standard of comfort, once established, would have a fair chance of maintaining themselves: though even in these favorable circumstances the motives to prudence would be considerably weaker than in the case of metayers, protected by custom (like those of Tuscany) from being deprived of their farms: since a metayer family, thus protected, could not be impoverished by any other improvident multiplication than their own, but a cottier family, however prudent and self-restraining, may have the rent raised against it by the consequences of the multiplica¬ tion of other families. Any protection to the cottiers against this evil could only be derived from a salutary sentiment of duty or dignity, pervading the class. From this source, how¬ ever, they might derive considerable protection. If the habitual standard of requirement among the class were high, a young man might not choose to offer a rent which would leave him in a worse condition than the preceding tenant; or it might be the general custom, as it actually is in some countries, not to marry until a farm is vacant. But it is not where a high standard of comfort has rooted itself in the habits of the laboring classes, that we are ever COTTIERS 309 called upon to consider the effects of a cottier system. That system is found only where the habitual requirements of the rural laborers are the lowest possible; where, as long as they are not actually starving, they will multiply: and population is only checked by the diseases, and the shortness of life, con¬ sequent on insufficiency of merely physical necessaries. This was the state of the largest portion of the Irish peasantry. When a people have sunk into this state, and still more when they have been in it from time immemorial, the cottier system is an almost insuperable obstacle to their emerging from it. When the habits of the people are such that their increase is never checked but by the impossibility of obtaining a bare sup¬ port, and when this support can only be obtained from *land, all stipulations and agreements respecting amount of rent are merely nominal; the competition for land makes the tenants undertake to pay more than it is possible they should pay, and when they have paid all they can, more almost always remains due. “ As it may fairly be said of the Irish peasantry,” said Mr. Revans, the Secretary to the Irish Poor Law Inquiry Commis¬ sion,* “ that every family which has not sufficient land to yield its food has one or more of its members supported by begging, it will easily be conceived that every endeavor is made by the peasantry to obtain small holdings, and that they are not influ¬ enced in their biddings by the fertility of the land, or by their ability to pay the rent, but solely by the offer which is most likely to gain them possession. The rents which they promise, they are almost invariably incapable of paying; and conse¬ quently they become indebted to those under whom they hold, almost as soon as they take possession. They give up, in the shape of rent, the whole produce of the land with the exception of a sufficiency of potatoes for a subsistence; but as this is rarely equal to the promised rent, they constantly have against them an increasing balance. In some cases, the largest quan¬ tity of produce which their holdings ever yielded or which, under their system of tillage, they could in the most favorable seasons be made to yield, would not be equal to the rent bid; consequently, if the peasant fulfilled his engagement with his * “ Evils of the State of Ireland, their tion of evidence from the mass collected Causes and their Remedy.” Page to. by the Commission presided over by A pamphlet, containing, among other Archbishop Whatcly. things, an excellent digest and selec- 3 IQ POLITICAL ECONOMY landlord, which he is rarely able to accomplish, he would till the ground for nothing, and give his landlord a premium for being allowed to till it. On the seacoast, fishermen, and in the northern counties those who have looms, frequently pay more in rent than the market value of the whole produce of the land they hold. It might be supposed that they would be better with¬ out land under such circumstances. But fishing might fail dur¬ ing a week or two, and so might the demand for the produce of the loom, when, did they not possess the land upon which their food is grown, they might starve. The full amount of the rent bid, however, is rarely paid. The peasant remains con¬ stantly in debt to his landlord; his miserable possessions— the wretched clothing of himself and of his family, the two or three stools, and the few pieces of crockery, which his wretched hovel contains, would not, if sold, liquidate the stand¬ ing and generally accumulating debt. The peasantry are mostly a year in arrear, and their excuse for not paying more is desti¬ tution. Should the produce of the holding, in any year, be more than usually abundant, or should the peasant by any acci¬ dent become possessed of any property, his comforts cannot be increased; he cannot indulge in better food, nor in a greater quantity of it. His furniture cannot be increased, neither can his wife or children be better clothed. The acquisition must go to the person under whom he holds. The accidental addi¬ tion will enable him to reduce his arrear of rent, and thus to defer ejectment. But this must be the bound of his expec¬ tation.” As an extreme instance of the intensity of competition for land, and of the monstrous height to which it occasionally forced up the nominal rent, we may cite from the evidence taken by Lord Devon’s Commission,* a fact attested by Mr. Hurly, Clerk of the Crown for Kerry: “ I have known a tenant bid for a farm that I was perfectly well acquainted with, worth £50 a year: I saw the competition get up to such an extent, that he was declared the tenant at £450.” § 3. In such a condition, what can a tenant gain by any amount of industry or prudence, and what lose by any reck¬ lessness? If the landlord at any time exerted his full legal rights, the cottier would not be able even to live. If by extra exertion he doubled the produce of his bit of land, or if he * “ Evidence,” p. 851. COTTIERS 3 ii prudently abstained from producing mouths to eat it up, his only gain would be to have more left to pay to his landlord; while, if he had twenty children, they would still be fed first, and the landlord could only take what was left. Almost alone among mankind the cottier is in this condition, that he can scarcely be either better or worse off by any act of his own. If he were industrious or prudent, nobody but his landlord would gain; if he is lazy or intemperate, it is at his landlord’s expense. A situation more devoid of motives to either labor or self-command, imagination itself cannot conceive. The in¬ ducements of free human beings are taken away, and those of a slave not substituted. He has nothing to hope, and nothing to fear, except being dispossessed of his holding, and against this he protects himself by the ultima ratio of a defensive civil war. Rockism and Whiteboyism were the determination of a people who had nothing that could be called theirs but a daily meal of the lowest description of food, not to submit to being deprived of that for other people’s convenience. Is it not, then, a bitter satire on the mode in which opinions are formed on the most important problems of human nature and life, to find public instructors of the greatest pretension, imputing the backwardness of Irish industry, and the want of energy of the Irish people in improving their condition, to a peculiar indolence and recklessness in the Celtic race? Of all vulgar modes of escaping from the consideration of the effect of social and moral influences on the human mind, the most vulgar is that of attributing the diversities of conduct and character to inherent natural differences. What race would not be indolent and insouciant when things are so arranged, that they derive no advantage from forethought or exertion? If such are the arrangements in the midst of which they live and work, what wonder if the listlessness and indifference so en¬ gendered are not shaken off the first moment an opportunity offers when exertion would really be of use ? It is very natural that a pleasure-loving and sensitively organized people like the Irish, should be less addicted to steady routine labor than the English, because life has more excitements for them independ¬ ent of it; but they are not less fitted for it than their Celtic brethren the French, nor less so than the Tuscans, or the an¬ cient Greeks. An excitable organization is precisely that in which, by adequate inducements, it is easiest to kindle a spirit 312 POLITICAL ECONOMY of animated exertion. It speaks nothing against the capacities of industry in human beings, that they will not exert themselves without motive. No laborers work harder, in England or America, than the Irish; but not under a cottier system. § 4. The multitudes who till the soil of India, are in a con¬ dition sufficiently analogous to the cottier system, and at the same time sufficiently different from it, to render the compari¬ son of the two a source of some instruction. In most parts of India there are, and perhaps have always been, only two contracting parties, the landlord and the peasant: the landlord being generally the sovereign, except where he has, by a special instrument, conceded his rights to an individual, who becomes his representative. The payments, however, of the peasants, or ryots, as they are termed, have seldom if ever been regulated, as in Ireland, by competition. Though the customs locally obtaining were infinitely various, and though practically no custom could be maintained against the sovereign’s will, there was always a rule of some sort common to a neighborhood: the collector did not make his separate bargain with the peas¬ ant, but assessed each according to the rule adopted for the rest. The idea was thus kept up of a right of property in the tenant, or at all events, of a right to permanent possession; and the anomaly arose of a fixity of tenure in the peasant-farmer, co¬ existing with an arbitrary power of increasing the rent. When the Mogul government substituted itself throughout the greater part of India for the Hindoo rulers, it proceeded on a different principle. A minute survey was made of the land, and upon that survey an assessment was founded, fixing the specific payment due to the government from each field. If this assessment had never been exceeded, the ryots would have been in the comparatively advantageous position of peasant- proprietors, subject to a heavy, but a fixed quit-rent. The ab¬ sence, however, of any real protection against illegal extortions, rendered this improvement in their condition rather nominal than real; and, except during the occasional accident of a humane and vigorous local administrator, the exactions had no practical limit but the inability of the ryot to pay more. It was to this state of things that the English rulers of India succeeded; and they were, at an early period, struck with the importance of putting an end to this arbitrary character of the land-revenue, and imposing a fixed limit to the government COTTIERS 3 i 3 demand. They did not attempt to go back to the Mogul valua¬ tion. It has been in general the very rational practice of the English Government in India, to pay little regard to what was laid down as the theory of the native institutions, but to inquire into the rights which existed and were respected in practice, and to protect and enlarge those. For a long time, however, it blun¬ dered grievously about matters of fact, and grossly misunder¬ stood the usages and rights which it found existing. Its mis¬ takes arose from the inability of ordinary minds to imagine a state of social relations fundamentally different from those with which they are practically familiar. England being accustomed to great estates and great landlords, the English rulers took it for granted that India must possess the like; and looking round for some set of people who might be taken for the objects of their search, they pitched upon a sort of tax-gatherers called zemindars. “ The zemindar,” says the philosophical historian of India,* “ had some of the attributes which belong to a land- owner; he collected the rents of a particular district, he gov¬ erned the cultivators of that district, lived in comparative splen¬ dor, and his son succeeded him when he died. The zemindars, therefore, it was inferred without delay, were the proprietors of the soil, the landed nobility and gentry of India. It was not considered that the zemindars, though they collected the rents, did not keep them; but paid them all away, with a small de¬ duction, to the government. It was not considered that if they governed the ryots, and in many respects exercised over them despotic power, they did not govern them as tenants of theirs, holding their lands either at will or by contract under them. The possession of the ryot was an hereditary possession; from which it was unlawful for the zemindar to displace him: for every farthing which the zemindar drew from the ryot, he was bound to account; and it was only by fraud, if, out of all that he collected, he retained an ana more than the small proportion which, as pay for the collection, he was permitted to receive.” “ There was an opportunity in India,” continues the histo¬ rian, “ to which the history of the world presents not a parallel. Next after the sovereign, the immediate cultivators had, by far, the greatest portion of interest in the soil. For the rights (such as they were) of the zemindars, a complete compensation might have easily been made. The generous resolution was * “ Mill’s History of British India,” book vi. chap. 8. Z 1 4 POLITICAL ECONOMY adopted, of sacrificing to the improvement of the country, the proprietary rights of the sovereign. The motives to improve¬ ment which property gives, and of which the power was so justly appreciated, might have been bestowed upon those upon whom they would have operated with a force incomparably greater than that with which they could operate upon any other class of men: they might have been bestowed upon those from whom alone, in every country, the principal improvements in agriculture must be derived, the immediate cultivators of the soil. And a measure worthy to be ranked among the noblest that ever were taken for the improvement of any country, might have helped to compensate the people of India for the miseries of that misgovernment which they had so long endured. But the legislators were English aristocrats; and aristocratical prej¬ udices prevailed/' The measure proved a total failure, as to the main effects which its well-meaning promoters expected from it. Unac¬ customed to estimate the mode in which the operation of any given institution is modified even by such variety of circum¬ stances as exists within a single kingdom, they flattered them¬ selves that they had created, throughout the Bengal provinces, English landlords, and it proved that they had only created Irish ones. The new landed aristocracy disappointed every expectation built upon them. They did nothing for the im¬ provement of their estates, but everything for their own ruin. The same pains not being taken, as had been taken in Ireland, to enable the landlords to defy the consequences of their im¬ providence, nearly the whole land of Bengal had to be seques¬ trated and sold, for debts or arrears of revenue, and in one generation most of the ancient zemindars had ceased to exist. Other families, mostly the descendants of Calcutta money deal¬ ers, or of native officials who had enriched themselves under the British government, now occupy their place; and live as useless drones on the soil which has been given up to them. Whatever the government has sacrificed of its pecuniary claims, for the creation of such a class, has at the best been wasted. In the parts of India into which the British rule has been more recently introduced, the blunder has been avoided of en¬ dowing a useless body of great landlords with gifts from the public revenue. In most parts of the Madras and in part of the Bombay Presidency, the rent is paid directly to the govern- MEANS OF ABOLISHING COTTIER TENANCY 315 ment by the immediate cultivator. In the Northwestern Prov¬ inces, the government makes its engagement with the village community collectively, determining the share to be paid by each individual, but holding them jointly responsible for each other’s default. But in the greater part of India, the immediate cultivators have not obtained a perpetuity of tenure at a fixed rent. The government manages the land on the principle on which a good Irish landlord manages his estate: not putting it up to competition, not asking the cultivators what they will promise to pay, but determining for itself what they can afford to pay, and defining its demand accordingly. In many districts a portion of the cultivators are considered as tenants of the rest, the government making its demand from those only (often a numerous body) who are looked upon as the successors of the original settlers or conquerors of the village. Sometimes the rent is fixed only for one year, sometimes for three or five; but the uniform tendency of present policy is toward long leases, extending, in the northern provinces of India, to a term of thirty years. This arrangement has not existed for a sufficient time to have shown by experience, how far the motives to improvement which the long lease creates in the minds of the cultivators, fall short of the influence of a perpetual settlement.* But the two plans, of annual settlements and of short leases, are irrevocably condemned. They can only be said to have succeeded, in com¬ parison with the unlimited oppression which existed before. They are approved by nobody, and were never looked upon in any other light than as temporary arrangements, to be aban¬ doned when a more complete knowledge of the capabilities of the country should afford data for something more permanent. Chapter X.—Means of Abolishing Cottier Tenancy § 1. When the first edition of this work was written and published, the question, what is to be done with a cottier popu¬ lation, was to the English Government the most urgent of prac¬ tical questions. The majority of a population of eight millions, having long grovelled in helpless inertness and abject poverty under the cottier system, reduced by its operation to mere food of the cheapest description, and to an incapacity of either doing * Since this was written, the resolu- leases of the Northern Provinces into tion has been adopted by the Indian perpetual tenures at fixed rents. Government of converting the long 3 i6 POLITICAL ECONOMY or willing anything for the improvement of their lot, had at last, by the failure of that lowest quality of food, been plunged into a state in which the alternative seemed to be either death, or to be permanently supported by other people, or a radical change in the economical arrangements under which it had hitherto been their misfortune to live. Such an emergency had compelled attention to the subject from the legislature and from the nation, but it could hardly be said with much result; for, the evil having originated in a system of land tenancy which withdrew from the people every motive to industry or thrift except the fear of starvation, the remedy provided by Parlia¬ ment was to take away even that, by conferring on them a legal claim to eleemosynary support: while, toward correcting the cause of the mischief, nothing was done, beyond vain com¬ plaints, though at the price to the national treasury of ten mill¬ ions sterling for the delay. “ It is needless” (I observed) “to expend any argument in proving that the very foundation of the economical evils of Ireland is the cottier system; that while peasant rents fixed by competition are the practice of the country, to expect in¬ dustry, useful activity, any restraint on population but death, or any the smallest diminution of poverty, is to look for figs on thistles and grapes on thorns. If our practical statesmen are not ripe for the recognition of this fact; or if while they acknowledge it in theory, they have not a sufficient feeling of its reality, to be capable of founding upon it any course of con¬ duct ; there is still another, and a purely physical consideration, from which they will find it impossible to escape. If the one crop on which the people have hitherto supported themselves continues to be precarious, either some new and great impulse must be given to agricultural skill and industry, or the soil of Ireland can no longer feed anything like its present population. The whole produce of the western half of the island, leaving nothing for rent, will not now keep permanently in existence the whole of its people: and they will necessarily remain an annual charge on the taxation of the empire, until they are reduced either by emigration or by starvation to a number corresponding with the low state of their industry, or unless the means are found of making that industry much more pro¬ ductive.” Since these words were written, events unforeseen by anyone MEANS OF ABOLISHING COTTIER TENANCY 317 have saved the English rulers of Ireland from the embarrass¬ ments which would have been the just penalty of their indiffer¬ ence and want of foresight. Ireland, under cottier agriculture, could no longer supply food to its population: Parliament, by way of remedy, applied a stimulus to population, but none at all to production; the help, however, which had not been provided for the people of Ireland by political wisdom, came from an unexpected source. Self-supporting emigration—the Wakefield system, brought into effect on the voluntary principle and on a gigantic scale (the expenses of those who followed being paid from the earnings of those who went before) has, for the present, reduced the population down to the number for which the existing agricultural system can find employment and support. The census of 1851, compared with that of 1841, showed in round numbers a diminution of population of a mill¬ ion and a half. The subsequent census (of 1861) shows a further diminution of about half a million. The Irish having thus found the way to that flourishing continent which for gen¬ erations will be capable of supporting in undiminished com¬ fort the increase of the population of the whole world; the peasantry of Ireland having learnt to fix their eyes on a terres¬ trial paradise beyond the ocean, as a sure refuge both from the oppression of the Saxon and from the tyranny of nature ; there can be little doubt that however much the employment for agri¬ cultural labor may hereafter be diminished by the general intro¬ duction throughout Ireland of English farming, or even if like the county of Sutherland all Ireland should be turned into a grazing farm, the superseded people would migrate to America with the same rapidity, and as free of cost to the nation, as the million of Irish who went thither during the three years pre¬ vious to 1851. Those who think that the land of a country exists for the sake of a few thousand landowners, and that as long as rents are paid, society and government have fulfilled their function, may see in this consummation a happy end to Irish difficulties. But this is not a time, nor is the human mind now in a con¬ dition, in which such insolent pretensions can be maintained. The land of Ireland, the land of every country, belongs to the people of that country. The individuals called landowners have no right, in morality and justice, to anything but the rent, or compensation for its salable value. With regard to the land POLITICAL ECONOMY 3 i 8 itself, the paramount consideration is, by what mode of ap¬ propriation and of cultivation it can be made most useful to the collective body of its inhabitants. To the owners of the rent it may be very convenient that the bulk of the inhabitants, despairing of justice in the country where they and their ances¬ tors have lived and suffered, should seek on another continent that property in land which is denied to them at home. But the legislature of the empire ought to regard with other eyes the forced expatriation of millions of people. When the in¬ habitants of a country quit the country en masse because its Government will not make it a place fit for them to live in, the Government is judged and condemned. There is no necessity for depriving the landlords of one farthing of the pecuniary value of their legal rights; but justice requires that the actual cultivators should be enabled to become in Ireland what they will become in America—proprietors of the soil which they cultivate. Good policy requires it no less. Those who, knowing neither Ireland nor any foreign country, take as their sole standard of social and economical excellence English practice, propose as the single remedy for Irish wretchedness, the transformation of the cottiers into hired laborers. But this is rather a scheme for the improvement of Irish agriculture, than of the condition of the Irish people. The status of a day laborer has no charm for infusing forethought, frugality, or self-restraint, into a people devoid of them. If the Irish peasantry could be uni¬ versally changed into receivers of wages, the old habits and mental characteristics of the people remaining, we should merely see four or five millions of people living as day laborers in the same wretched manner in which as cottiers they lived before; equally passive in the absence of every comfort, equally reckless in multiplication, and even, perhaps, equally listless at their work; since they could not be dismissed in a body, and if they could, dismissal would now be simply remanding them to the poor-rate. Far other would be the effect of making them peas¬ ant proprietors. A people who in industry and providence have everything to learn—who are confessedly among the most back¬ ward of European populations in the industrial virtues—re¬ quire for their regeneration the most powerful incitements by which those virtues can be stimulated: and there is no stimulus as yet comparable to property in land. A permanent interest MEANS OF ABOLISHING COTTIER TENANCY 319 in the soil to those who till it, is almost a guarantee for the most unwearied laboriousness: against overpopulation, though not infallible, it is the best preservative yet known, and where it failed, any other plan would probably fail much more egre- giously; the evil would be beyond the reach of merely economic remedies. The case of Ireland is similar in its requirements to that of India. In India, though great errors have from time to time been committed, no one ever proposed, under the name of agri¬ cultural improvement, to eject the ryots or peasant farmers from their possession; the improvement that has been looked for, has been through making their tenure more secure to them, and the sole difference of opinion is between those who contend for perpetuity, and those who think that long leases will suffice. The same question exists as to Ireland; and it would be idle to deny that long leases, under such landlords as are sometimes to be found, do effect wonders, even in Ireland. But then, they must be leases at a low rent. Long leases are in no way to be relied on for getting rid of cottierism. During the existence of cottier tenancy, leases have always been long; twenty-one years and three lives concurrent, was a usual term. But the rent being fixed by competition, at a higher amount than could be paid, so that the tenant neither had, nor could, by any exertion acquire, a beneficial interest in the land, the advantage of a lease was merely nominal. In India, the government, where it has not imprudently made over its proprietary rights to the zemindars, is able to prevent this evil, because, being itself the landlord, it can fix the rent according to its own judgment; but under individual landlords, while rents are fixed by compe¬ tition, and the competitors are a peasantry struggling for sub¬ sistence, nominal rents are inevitable, unless the population is so thin, that the competition itself is only nominal. The ma¬ jority of landlords will grasp at immediate money and imme¬ diate power; and so long as they find cottiers eager to offer them everything, it is useless to rely on them for tempering the vicious practice by a considerate self-denial. A perpetuity is a stronger stimulus to improvement than a long lease: not only because the longest lease, before coming to an end, passes through all the varieties of short leases down to no lease at all; but for more fundamental reasons. It is very shallow, even in pure economics, to take no account of the 320 POLITICAL ECONOMY influence of imagination: there is a virtue in “ forever ” beyond the longest term of years; even if the term is long enough to include children, and all whom a person individually cares for, yet until he has reached that high degree of mental cultiva¬ tion at which the public good (which also includes perpetuity) acquires a paramount ascendancy over his feelings and desires, he will not exert himself with the same ardor to increase the value of an estate, his interest in which diminishes in value every year. Besides, while perpetual tenure is the general rule of landed property, as it is in all the countries of Europe, a tenure for a limited period, however long, is sure to be regarded as something of inferior consideration and dignity, and inspires less of ardor to obtain it, and of attachment to it when obtained. But where a country is under cottier tenure, the question of perpetuity is quite secondary to the more important point, a limitation of the rent. Rent paid by a capitalist who farms for profit, and not for bread, may safely be abandoned to competi¬ tion; rent paid by laborers cannot, unless the laborers were in a state of civilization and improvement which laborers have nowhere yet reached, and cannot easily reach under such a ten¬ ure. Peasant rents ought never to be arbitrary, never at the discretion of the landlord: either by custom or law, it is im¬ peratively necessary that they should be fixed; and where no mutually advantageous custom, such as the metayer system of Tuscany, has established itself, reason and experience recom¬ mend that they should be fixed by authority: thus changing the rent into a quit-rent, and the farmer into a peasant pro¬ prietor. For carrying this change into effect on a sufficiently large scale to accomplish the complete abolition of cottier tenancy, the mode which most obviously suggests itself is the direct one, of doing the thing outright by Act of Parliament; making the whole land of Ireland the property of the tenants, subject to the rents now really paid (not the nominal rents), as a fixed rent charge. This, under the name of “ fixity of tenure,” was one of the demands of the Repeal Association during the most successful period of their agitation; and was better expressed by Mr. Conner, its earliest, most enthusiastic, and most inde¬ fatigable apostle,* by the words, “ a valuation and a perpetuity.” * Author of numerous pamphlets, en- sion of Ireland,” and others. Mr. Con- titled “ True Political Economy of Ire- ner has been an agitator on the subject land,” “ Letter to the Earl of Devon,” since 1832. “ Two Letters on the Rackrent Oppres- MEANS OF ABOLISHING COTTIER TENANCY 321 In such a measure there would not have been any injustice, provided the landlords were compensated for the present value of the chances of increase which they were prospectively re¬ quired to forego. The rupture of existing social relations would hardly have been more violent than that effected by the min¬ isters Stein and Hardenberg, when, by a series of edicts, in the early part of the present century, they revolutionized the state of landed property in the Prussian monarchy, and left their names to posterity among the greatest benefactors of their country. To enlightened foreigners writing on Ireland, Von Raumer and Gustave de Beaumont, a remedy of this sort seemed so exactly and obviously what the disease required, that they had some difficulty in comprehending how it was that the thing was not yet done. This, however, would have been, in the first place, a complete expropriation of the higher classes of Ireland: which, if there is any truth in the principles we have laid down, would be per¬ fectly warrantable, but only if it were the sole means of effect¬ ing a great public good. In the second place, that there should be none but peasant proprietors, is in itself far from desirable. Large farms, cultivated by large capital, and owned by persons of the best education which the country can give, persons quali¬ fied by instruction to appreciate scientific discoveries, and able to bear the delay and risk of costly experiments, are an im¬ portant part of a good agricultural system. Many such land¬ lords there are even in Ireland; and it would be a public mis¬ fortune to drive them from their posts. A large proportion also of the present holdings are probably still too small to try the proprietary system under the greatest advantages: nor are the tenants always the persons one would desire to select as the first occupants of peasant properties. There are numbers of them on whom it would have a more beneficial effect to give them the hope of acquiring a landed property by industry and frugality, than the property itself in immediate possession. There are, however, much milder measures, not open to sim¬ ilar objections, and which, if pushed to the utmost extent of which they are susceptible, would realize in no inconsiderable degree the object sought. One of them would be, to enact that whoever reclaims waste land becomes the owner of it, at a fixed quit-rent equal to a moderate interest on its mere value as waste. It would of course be a necessary part of this meas- Vol. I.—21 3 22 POLITICAL ECONOMY ure, to make compulsory on landlords the surrender of waste lands (not of an ornamental character) whenever required for reclamation. Another expedient, and one in which individuals could co-operate, would be to buy as much as possible of the land offered for sale, and sell it again in small portions as peas¬ ant properties. A Society for this purpose was at one time projected (though the attempt to establish it proved unsuccess¬ ful) on the principles, so far as applicable, of the Freehold Land Societies which have been so successfully established in England, not primarily for agricultural, but for electoral pur¬ poses. This is a mode in which private capital may be employed in renovating the social and agricultural economy of Ireland, not only without sacrifice, but with considerable profit to its owners. The remarkable success of the Waste Land Improvement So¬ ciety, which proceeded on a plan far less advantageous to the tenant, is an instance of what an Irish peasantry can be stimu¬ lated to do, by a sufficient assurance that what they do will be for their own advantage. It is not even indispensable to adopt perpetuity as the rule; long leases at moderate rents, like those of the Waste Land Society, would suffice, if a prospect were held out to the farmers of being allowed to purchase their farms with the capital which they might acquire, as the Society’s ten¬ ants were so rapidly acquiring under the influence of its benefi¬ cent system.* When the lands were sold, the funds of the asso¬ ciation would be liberated, and it might recommence operations in some other quarter. * Though this society, during the years succeeding the famine, was forced to wind up its affairs, the memory of what it accomplished ought to be pre¬ served. The following is an extract in the Proceedings of Lord Devon’s Com¬ mission (page 84), from the report made to the society in 1845, by their intelli¬ gent manager, Colonel Robinson: “ Two hundred and forty-five tenants, many of whom were a few years since in a state bordering on pauperism, the occupiers of small holdings of from ten to twenty plantation acres each, have, by their own free labor, with the so¬ ciety’s aid, improved their farms to the value of £4,396; £605 having been added during the iast year, being at the rate of £17 18s. per tenant for the whole term, and £2 9s. for the past year; the benefit of which improvements each tenant will enjoy during the unexpired term of a thirty-one years’ lease. “ These 245 tenants and their families have, by spade industry, reclaimed and brought into cultivation 1,032 plantation acres of land, previously unproductive mountain waste, upon which they grew, last year, crops valued by competent practical persons at £3,896, being in the proportion of £15 18s. each tenant; and their live stock, consisting of cattle, horses, sheep, and pigs, now actually upon the estates, is valued, according to the present prices of the neighboring markets, at £4,162, of which £1,304 has been added since February, 1844, being at the rate of £16 19s. for the whole period, and £5 6s. for the last year; during which time their stock has thus increased in value a sum equal to their present annual rent; and by the statisti¬ cal tables and returns referred to in previous reports, it is proved that the tenants, in general, improve their little farms, and increase their cultivation and crops, in nearly direct proportion to the number of available working persons of both sexes, of which their families con¬ sist.” There cannot be a stronger testimony to the superior amount of gross, and MEANS OF ABOLISHING COTTIER TENANCY 323 § 2. Thus far I had written in 1856. Since that time the great crisis of Irish industry has made further progress, and it is necessary to consider how its present state affects the opin¬ ions, on prospects or on practical measures, expressed in the previous part of this chapter. The principal change in the situation consists in the great diminution, holding out a hope of the entire extinction, of cottier tenure. The enormous decrease in the number of small holdings and increase in those of a medium size, attested by the statistical returns, sufficiently prove the general fact, and all testimonies show that the tendency still continues.* It is prob¬ able that the repeal of the corn laws, necessitating a change in the exports of Ireland from the products of tillage to those of pasturage, would of itself have sufficed to bring about this even of net produce, raised by small farming under any tolerable system of landed tenure; and it is worthy of at¬ tention that the industry and zeal were greatest among the smaller holders; Colonel Robinson noticing, as excep¬ tions to the remarkable and rapid progress of improvement, some tenants who were “ occupants of larger farms than twenty acres, a class too often deficient in the enduring industry indis¬ pensable for the successful prosecution of mountain improvements.” * There is, however, a partial counter- current, of which I have not seen any public notice. “ A class of men, not very numerous, but sufficiently so to do much mischief, have, through the Landed Estates Court, got into posses¬ sion of land in Ireland, who, of all classes, are least likely to recognize the duties of a landlord’s position. These are small traders in towns, who by dint of sheer parsimony, frequently com¬ bined with money-lending at usurious rates, have succeeded, in the course of a long life, in scraping together as much money as will enable them to buy fifty or a hundred acres of land. These peo¬ ple never think of turning farmers, but, proud of their position as landlords, pro¬ ceed to turn it to the utmost account. An instance of this kind came under my notice lately. The tenants on the prop¬ erty were, at the time of the purchase, some twelve years ago, in a tolerably comfortable state. Within that period their rent has been raised three several times; and it is now, as I am informed by the priest of the district, nearly double its amount at the commence¬ ment of the present proprietor’s reign. The result is that the people, who were formerly in tolerable comfort, are now reduced to poverty: two of them have left the property and squatted near an adjacent turf bog, where they exist trust¬ ing for support to occasional jobs. If this man is not shot, he will injure himself through the deterioration of his property, but meantime he has been getting eight or ten per cent, on his purchase-money. This is by no means a rare case. The scandal which such occurrences cause, casts its reflection on transactions of a wholly different and perfectly legitimate kind, where the re¬ moval of the tenants is simply an act of mercy for all parties. “ The anxiety of landlords to get rid of cottiers is also to some extent neu¬ tralized by the anxiety of middlemen to get them. About one-fourth of the whole land of Ireland is held under long leases; the rent received when the lease is of long standing, being generally greatly under the real value of the land. It rarely happens that land thus held is cultivated by the owner of the lease; instead of this, he sublets it at a rack rent to small men, and lives on the ex¬ cess of the rent which he receives over that which he pays. Some of these leases are always running out; and as they draw towards their close, the mid¬ dleman has no other interest in the land than, at any cost of permanent deterio¬ ration, to get the utmost out of it during the unexpired period of the term. For this purpose the small cottier tenants precisely answer his turn. Middlemen in this position are as anxious to obtain cottiers as tenants, as the landlords are to be rid of them; and the result is a transfer of this sort of tenant from one class of estates to the other. The move¬ ment is of limited dimensions, but it does exist, and so far as it exists, neu¬ tralizes the general tendency. Perhaps it may be thought that this system will reproduce itself; that the same motives which led to the existence of middle¬ men will perpetuate the class; but there is no danger of this. Landowners are now perfectly alive to the ruinous con¬ sequences of this system, however con¬ venient for a time; and a clause against sub-letting is now becoming a matter of course in every lease.”—(Private Com¬ munication from Professor Cairnes.) 3 2 4 POLITICAL ECONOMY revolution in tenure. A grazing farm can only be managed by a capitalist farmer, or by the landlord. But a change involving so great a displacement of the population, has been immensely facilitated and made more rapid by the vast emigration, as well as by that greatest boon ever conferred on Ireland by any Gov¬ ernment, the Encumbered Estates Act; the best provisions of which have since, through the Landed Estates Court, been permanently incorporated into the social system of the coun¬ try. The greatest part of the soil of Ireland, there is reason to believe, is now farmed either by the landlords, or by small cap¬ italist farmers. That these farmers are improving in circum¬ stances, and accumulating capital, there is considerable evi¬ dence, in particular the great increase of deposits in the banks of which they are the principal customers. So far as that class is concerned, the chief thing still wanted is security of tenure, or assurance of compensation for improvements. The means of supplying these wants are now engaging the attention of the most competent minds; Judge Longfield’s address, in the autumn of 1864, and the sensation created by it, are an era in the subject, and a point has now been reached when we may confidently expect that within a very few years something ef¬ fectual will be done. But what, meanwhile, is the condition of the displaced cot¬ tiers, so far as they have not emigrated; and of the whole class who subsist by agricultural labor, without the occupation of any land ? As yet, their state is one of great poverty, with but slight prospect of improvement. Money wages, indeed, have risen much above the wretched level of a generation ago: but the cost of subsistence has also risen so much above the old potato standard, that the real improvement is not equal to the nominal; and according to the best information to which I have access, there is little appearance of an improved standar.d of living among the class. The population, in fact, reduced though it be, is still far beyond what the country can support as a mere grazing district of England. It may not, perhaps, be strictly true that, if the present number of inhabitants are to be maintained at home, it can only be either on the old vicious system of cottierism, or as small proprietors growing their own food. The lands which will remain under tillage would, no doubt, if sufficient security for outlay were given, admit of a more extensive employment of laborers by the small MEANS OF ABOLISHING COTTIER TENANCY 325 capitalist farmers; and this, in the opinion of some competent judges, might enable the country to support the present num¬ ber of its population in actual existence. But no one will pre¬ tend that this resource is sufficient to maintain them in any con¬ dition in which it is fit that the great body of the peasantry of a country should exist. Accordingly the emigration, which for a time had fallen off, has, under the additional stimulus of bad seasons, revived in all its strength. It is calculated that within the year 1864 not less than 100,000 emigrants left the Irish shores. As far as regards the emigrants themselves and their posterity, or the general interests of the human race, it would be folly to regret this result. The children of the immigrant Irish receive the education of Americans, and enter, more rapidly and completely than would have been possible in the country of their descent, into the benefits of a higher state of civilization. In twenty or thirty years they are not mentally distinguishable from other Americans. The loss, and the dis¬ grace, are England’s: and it is the English people and govern¬ ment whom it chiefly concerns to ask themselves, how far it will be to their honor and advantage to retain the mere soil of Ireland, but to lose its inhabitants. With the present feel¬ ings of the Irish people, and the direction which their hope of improving their condition seems to be permanently taking, England, it is probable, has only the choice between the de¬ population of Ireland, and the conversion of a part of the labor¬ ing population into peasant proprietors. The truly insular ignorance of her public men respecting a form of agricultural economy which predominates in nearly every other civilized country, makes it only too probable that she will choose the worse side of the alternative. Yet there are germs of a ten¬ dency to the formation of peasant proprietors on Irish soil, which require only the aid of a friendly legislator to foster them ; as is shown in the following extract from a private com¬ munication by my eminent and valued friend, Professor Cairnes:— “ On the sale, some eight or ten years ago, of the Thomond, Portarlington, and Kingston estates, in the Encumbered Es¬ tates Court, it was observed that a considerable number of oc¬ cupying tenants purchased the fee of their farms. I have not been able to obtain any information as to what followed that proceeding—whether the purchasers continued to farm their 326 POLITICAL ECONOMY small properties, or under the mania of landlordism tried to es¬ cape from their former mode of life. But there are other facts which have a bearing on this question. In those parts of the country where tenant-right prevails, the prices given for the good will of a farm are enormous. The following figures, taken from the schedule of an estate in the neighborhood of Newry, now passing through the Landed Estates Court, will give an idea, but a very inadequate one, of the prices which this mere customary right generally fetches. “ Statement showing the prices at which the tenant-right of certain farms near Newry was sold:— Lot Acres Rent Purchase-money of tenant-right 23 £74 £33 24 77 240 13 39 no 14 34 85 IO 33 172 5 13 75 8 26 130 11 33 130 2 5 5 Total. no ^344 ^980 “ The prices here represent on the whole about three years’ purchase of the rental: but this, as I have said, gives but an inadequate idea of that which is frequently, indeed of that which is ordinarily, paid. The right, being purely customary, will vary in value with the confidence generally reposed in the good faith of the landlord. In the present instance, circum¬ stances have come to light in the course of the proceedings con¬ nected with the sale of the estate, which give reason to believe that the confidence in this case was not high; consequently, the rates above given may be taken as considerably under those which ordinarily prevail. Cases, as I am informed on the highest authority, have in other parts of the country come to light, also in the Landed Estates Court, in which the price given for the tenant-right was equal to that of the whole fee of the land. It is a remarkable fact that people should be found to give, say twenty or twenty-five years’ purchase, for land which is still subject to a good round rent. Why, it will be asked, do MEANS OF ABOLISHING COTTIER TENANCY 327 they not purchase land out and out for the same, or a slightly larger, sum? The answer to this question, I believe, is to be found in the state of our land laws. The cost of transferring land in small portions is, relatively to the purchase money, very considerable, even in the Landed Estates Court; while the good will of a farm may be transferred without any cost at all. The cheapest conveyance that could be drawn in that Court, where the utmost economy, consistent with the present mode of remunerating legal services, is strictly enforced, would, irre¬ spective of stamp duties, cost f 10—a very sensible addition to the purchase of a small peasant estate: a conveyance to trans¬ fer a thousand acres might not cost more, and would probably not cost much more. But in truth, the mere cost of conveyance represents but the least part of the obstacles which exist to ob¬ taining land in small portions. A far more serious impediment is the complicated state of the ownership of land, which renders it frequently impracticable to subdivide a property into such portions as would bring the land within the reach of small bid¬ ders. The remedy for this state of things, however, lies in measures of a more radical sort than I fear it is at all probable that any House of Commons we are soon likely to see would even with patience consider. A registry of titles may succeed in reducing this complex condition of ownership to its simplest expression; but where real complication exists, the difficulty is not to be got rid of by mere simplicity of form; and a regis¬ try of titles—while the powers of disposition at present enjoyed by landowners remain undiminished, while every settler and testator has an almost unbounded license to multiply interests in land, as pride, the passion for dictation, or mere whim may suggest—will, in my opinion, fail to reach the root of the evil. The effect of these circumstances is to place an immense pre¬ mium upon large dealings in land—indeed in most cases prac¬ tically to preclude all other than large dealings; and while this is the state of the law, the experiment of peasant proprietor¬ ship, it is plain, cannot be fairly tried. The facts, however, which I have stated show, I think, conclusively, that there is no obstacle in the disposition of the people to the introduction of this system/’ I have concluded a discussion, which has occupied a space almost disproportioned to the dimensions of this work; and I here close the examination of those simpler forms of social 3 2 8 POLITICAL ECONOMY economy in which the produce of the land either belongs un- dividedly to one class, or is shared only between two classes. We now proceed to the hypothesis of a threefold division of the produce, among laborers, landlords, and capitalists; and in order to connect the coming discussion as closely as pos¬ sible with those which have now for some time occupied us, I shall commence with the subject of Wages. . Chapter XI.—Of Wages § i. Under the head of Wages are to be considere d, first , the causes which determine or influence the wages of labo r genera lly, and second ly, tjie differences that exist between th e wages of different employments. It is convenient to keep these two classes of consideration separate; and in discussing the law of wages, to proceed in the first instance as if there were no other kind of labor than common unskilled labor, of the aver- age degree of hardness and disagreeableness. Wa^es, like other things, may be regu late d either by com¬ petition or by custom. In this country there are few kinds of labor of which the remuneration would not be lower than it is, if the employer took the full advantage of competition. Com¬ petition, however, must be regarded, in the present state of so¬ ciety, as the principal regulator of wages, and custom or in¬ dividual character only as a modifying circumstance, and that in a comparatively slight degree. Wages, then, depend mainly upon the demand and supp ly of labor; or as it i s often expressed, on the propo rtion be¬ tweenpopulation and capita l. By population i s here m eant the number only of the laboring class, or ratHer of those who work for hire ; and by capital, only circulating capital, and not even the whole of that, but the part which is exp en dedjn {he direct purchase of labor. To this, however, must be added all f unds which, with out forming a part of capital, are paid i n exchange for labor, such as the wages of soldiers, domest ic servants, and all other unproductive laborers. There is un- fortunately no mode of express ing by one familiar term, the aggregate of w hat may be called the wages-tund o i a country : and as the wages ol productive labor form near ly th** ™hn1p fff that fund, it is usual to overlook the smallera nd l ess imp ortant WAGES 3 2 9 ? art, and to say that wages depend on population and capita l, t Will be Convenient tQ employ this pypre^ion, r^mprnhprinor, fiowever, to con sider it as elliptical, and not as a literal state¬ ment of the entire truth. With these limitations of the terms, wage s not only depend upon the relative amount of capita l and populat ion, but cann ot. under the rule of com petition, be affected by anything else. Wages (meaning, of course, the general rate) cannot rise, but Tjy an increase of the aggregate funds employed in hir ing la¬ borers, or a diminution in the number of the c ompetitors for Vi 7^7 nor fall, except either by a diminution of the funds de ¬ voted to paying labor, or by an increas e in the n umber of laborers to be paid. § 2. There are, however, some facts in apparent contradic¬ tion to this doctrine, which it is incumbent on us to consider and explain. For instance, it is a common saying that wages are high * when trade is good. The demand for labor in any particular employment is more pressing, and higher wages are paid, when there is a brisk demand for the commodity produced; and the contrary when there is what is called a stagnation : then work¬ people are dismissed, and those who are retained must sub¬ mit to a reduction of wages: though in these cases there is neither more nor less capital than before. This is true; and is one of those complications in the concrete phenomena, which obscure and disguise the operation of general causes; but it is not really inconsistent with the principles laid down. Capi¬ tal which the owner does not employ in purchasing labor, but keeps idle in his hands, is the same thing to the laborers, for the time being, as if it did not exist. All capital is, from the varia¬ tions of trade, occasionally in this state. A manufacturer, find¬ ing a slack demand for his commodity, forbears to employ la¬ borers in increasing a stock which he finds it difficult to dispose of; or if he goes on until all his capital is locked up in unsold goods, then at least he must of necessity pause until he can get paid for some of them. But no one expects either of these states to be permanent; if he did, he would at the first oppor¬ tunity remove his capital to some other occupation, in which it would still continue to employ labor. The capital remains unemployed for a time, during which the labor market is over¬ stocked, and wages fall. Afterwards the demand revives, and 330 POLITICAL ECONOMY perhaps becomes unusually brisk, enabling the manufacturer to sell his commodity even faster than he can produce it: his whole capital is then brought into complete efficiency, and if he is able, he borrows capital in addition, which would other¬ wise have gone into some other employment. At such times wages, in his particular occupation, rise. If we suppose, what in strictness is not absolutely impossible, that one of these fits of briskness or of stagnation should affect all occupations at the same time, wages altogether might undergo a rise or a fall. These, however, are but temporary fluctuations: the capital now lying idle will next year be in active employment, that which is this year unable to keep up with the demand will in its turn be locked up in crowded warehouses; and wages in these several departments will ebb and flow accordingly: but noth¬ ing can permanently alter general wages, except an increase or a diminution of capital itself (always meaning by the term, the funds of all sorts, destined for the payment of labor) com¬ pared with the quantity of labor offering itself to be hired. Again, it is another common notion that high prices make high wages; because the producers and dealers, being better off, can afford to pay more to their laborers. I have already said that a brisk demand, which causes temporary high prices, causes also temporary high wages. But high prices, in them¬ selves, can only raise wages if the dealers, receiving more, are induced to save more, and make an addition to their capital, or at least to their purchases of labor. This is indeed likely enough to be the case; and if the high prices came direct from heaven, or even from abroad, the laboring class might be bene¬ fited, not by the high prices themselves, but by the increase of capital occasioned by them. The same effect, however, is often attributed to a high price which is the result of restrictive laws, or which is in some way or other to be paid by the remaining members of the community; they having no greater means than before to pay it with. High prices of this sort, if they ben¬ efit one class of laborers, can only do so at the expense of others ; since if the dealers by receiving high prices are enabled to make greater savings, or otherwise increase their purchases of labor, all other people by paying those high prices, have their means of saving, or of purchasing labor, reduced in an equal degree; and it is a matter of accident whether the one alteration or the other will have the greatest effect on the labor WAGES 33 1 market. Wages will probably be temporarily higher in the employment in which prices have risen, and somewhat lower in other employments: in which case, while the first half of the phenomenon excites notice, the other is generally over¬ looked, or if observed, is not ascribed to the cause which really produced it. Nor will the partial rise of wages last long: for though the dealers in that one employment gain more, it does not follow that there is room to employ a greater amount of savings in their own business: their increasing capital will probably flow over into other employments, and there counter¬ balance the diminution previously made in the demand for labor by the diminished savings of other classes. Another opinion often maintained is, that wages (meaning of course money wages) vary with the price of food; rising when it rises, and falling when it falls. This opinion is, I con¬ ceive, only partially true: and in so far as true, in no way affects the dependence of wages on the proportion between capital and labor: since the price of food, when it affects wages at all, affects them through that law. Dear or cheap food caused by variety of seasons does not affect wages (unless they are artificially adjusted to it by law or charity): or rather, it has some tendency to affect them in the contrary way to that supposed; since in times of scarcity people generally compete more violently for employment, and lower the labor market against themselves. But dearness or cheapness of food, when of a permanent character, and capable of being calculated on beforehand, may affect wages. In the first place, if the laborers have, as is often the case, no more than enough to keep them in working condition, and enable them barely to support the ordi¬ nary number of children, it follows that if food grows per¬ manently dearer without a rise of wages, a greater number of the children will prematurely die; and thus wages will ulti¬ mately be higher, but only because the number of people will be smaller, than if food had remained cheap. But, secondly, even though wages were high enough to admit of food’s be¬ coming more costly without depriving the laborers and their families of necessaries; though they could bear, physically speaking, to be worse off, perhaps they would not consent to be so. They might have habits of comfort which were to them as necessaries, and sooner than forego which, they would put an additional restraint on their power of multiplication; so that 33 2 POLITICAL ECONOMY wages would rise, not by increase of deaths but by diminution of births. In these cases, then, wages do adapt themselves to the price of food, though after an interval of almost a genera¬ tion. Mr. Ricardo considers these two cases to comprehend all cases. He assumes, that there is everywhere a minimum rate of wages : either the lowest with which it is physically pos¬ sible to keep up the population, or the lowest with which the people will choose to do so. To this minimum he assumes that the general rate of wages always tends; that they can never be lower, beyond the length of time required for a diminished rate of increase to make itself felt, and can never long continue higher. This assumption contains sufficient truth to render it admissible for the purposes of abstract science; and the con¬ clusion which Mr. Ricardo draws from it, namely, that wages in the long run rise and fall with the permanent rise of food, is, like almost all his conclusions, true hypothetically, that is, granting the suppositions from which he sets out. But in the application to practice, it is necessary to consider that the min¬ imum of which he speaks, especially when it is not a physical, but what may be termed a moral minimum, is itself liable to vary. If wages were previously so high that they could bear reduction, to which the obstacle was a high standard of com¬ fort habitual among the laborers, a rise of the price of food, or any other disadvantageous change in their circumstances, may operate in two ways: it may correct itself by a rise of wages, brought about through a gradual effect on the pruden¬ tial check of population; or it may permanently lower the standard of living of the class, in case their previous habits in respect of population prove stronger than their previous habits in respect of comfort. In that case the injury done to them will be permanent, and their deteriorated condition will be¬ come a new minimum, tending to perpetuate itself as the more ample minimum did before. It is to be feared that of the two modes in which the cause may operate, the last is the most fre¬ quent, or at all events sufficiently so, to render all propositions ascribing a self-repairing quality to the calamities which befall the laboring classes, practically of no validity. There is con¬ siderable evidence that the circumstances of the agricultural laborers in England have more than once in our history sus¬ tained great permanent deterioration, from causes which operated by diminishing the demand for labor, and which, if WAGES 333 population had exercised its power of self-adjustment in obedi¬ ence to the previous standard of comfort, could only have had a temporary effect: but unhappily the poverty in which the class was plunged during a long series of years, brought that pre¬ vious standard into disuse; and the next generation, growing up without having possessed those pristine comforts, multi¬ plied in turn without any attempt to retrieve them.* The converse case occurs when, by improvements in agri¬ culture, the repeal of corn laws, or other such causes, the neces¬ saries of the laborers are cheapened, and they are enabled with the same wages, to command greater comforts than before. Wages will not fall immediately; it is even possible that they may rise; but they will fall at last, so as to leave the laborers no better off than before, unless, during this interval of pros¬ perity, the standard of comfort regarded as indispensable by the class, is permanently raised. Unfortunately this salutary effect is by no means to be counted upon: it is a much more difficult thing to raise, than to lower, the scale of living which the laborers will consider as more indispensable than marrying and having a family. If they content themselves with enjoying the greater comfort while it lasts, but do not learn to require it, they will people down to their old scale of living. If from pov¬ erty their children had previously been insufficiently fed or im¬ properly nursed, a greater number will now be reared, and the competition of these, when they grow up, will depress wages, probably in full proportion to the greater cheapness of food. If the effect is not produced in this mode, it will be produced by earlier and more numerous marriages, or by an increased num¬ ber of births to a marriage. According to all experience, a great increase invariably takes place in the number of marriages, in seasons of cheap food and full employment. I cannot, there¬ fore, agree in the importance so often attached to the repeal ol the corn laws, considered merely as a laborer’s question, or to any of the schemes, of which some one or other is at all times in vogue, for making the laborers a very little better off. Things which only affect them a very little, make no perma¬ nent impression upon their habits and requirements, and they * See the historical sketch of the con¬ dition of the English peasantry, pre¬ pared from the best authorities by Mr. William Thornton, in his work entitled “ Over- Population and Its Remedy”: a work honorably distinguished from most others which have been published in the present generation, by its rational treat¬ ment of questions affecting the eco¬ nomical condition of the laboring classes. 334 POLITICAL ECONOMY soon slide back into their former state. To produce permanent advantage, the temporary cause operating upon them must be sufficient to made a great change in their condition—a change such as will be felt for many years, notwithstanding any stimu¬ lus which it may give during one generation to the increase of people. When, indeed, the improvement is of this signal char¬ acter, and a generation grows up which has always been used to an improved scale of comfort, the habits of this new genera¬ tion in respect to population become formed upon a higher minimum, and the improvement in their condition becomes permanent. Of cases in point, the most remarkable is France after the Revolution. The majority of the population being suddenly raised from misery, to independence and comparative comfort; the immediate effect was that population, notwith¬ standing the destructive wars of the period, started forward with unexampled rapidity, partly because improved circum¬ stances enabled many children to be reared who would other¬ wise have died, and partly from increase of births. The suc¬ ceeding generation however grew up with habits considerably altered; and though the country was never before in so pros¬ perous a state, the annual number of births is now nearly sta¬ tionary,* and the increase of population extremely slow.f § 3. Wages depend, then, on the proportion between the number of the laboring population, and the capital or other funds devoted to the purchase of labor; we will say, for short¬ ness, the capital. If wages are higher at one time or place than at another, if the subsistence and comfort of the class of hired laborers are more ample, it is for no other reason than because capital bears a greater proportion to population. It is not the absolute amount of accumulation or of production, that is of * Supra, pp. 177, 178. t A similar, though not an equal im¬ provement in the standard of living took place among the laborers of England during the remarkable fifty years from 1715 to 1765, which were distinguished by such an extraordinary succession of fine harvests (the years of decided defi¬ ciency not exceeding five in all that period) that the average price of wheat during those years was much lower than during the previous half century. Mr. Malthus computes that on the average of sixty years preceding 1720, the la¬ borer could purchase with a day’s earn¬ ings only two-thirds of a peck of wheat, while from 1720 to 1750 he could pur¬ chase a whole peck. The average price of wheat according to the Eton tables, for fifty years ending with 1715, was 41s. 7%d. the quarter, and for the last twenty- three of these, 45s. 8d., while for the fifty years following, it was no more than 34s. 1 id. So considerable an im¬ provement in the condition of the labor¬ ing class, though arising from the acci¬ dents of seasons, yet continuing for more than a generation, had time to work a change in the habitual requirements pf the laboring class; and this period is always noted as the date of “a marked improvement of the quality of the food consumed, and a decided elevation in the standard of their comforts and con¬ veniences.”—(Malthus, “ Principles of Political Economy,” p. 225.) For the character of the period, see Mr. Tooke’s excellent “ History of Prices,” vol. i. pp. 38 to 61, and for the prices of corn, the Appendix to that work. WAGES 335 importance to the laboring class; it is not the amount even of the funds destined for distribution among the laborers: it is the proportion between those funds and the numbers among whom they are shared. The condition of the class can be bet¬ tered in no other way than by altering that proportion to their advantage: and every scheme for their benefit, which does not proceed on this as its foundation, is, for all permanent pur¬ poses, a delusion. In countries like North America and the Australian colonies, where the knowledge and arts of civilized life, and a high effective desire of accumulation, co-exist with a boundless ex¬ tent of unoccupied land; the growth of capital easily keeps pace with the utmost possible increase of population, and is chiefly retarded by the impracticability of obtaining laborers enough. All, therefore, who can possibly be born, can find employment without overstocking the market: every labor¬ ing family enjoys in abundance the necessaries, many of the comforts, and some of the luxuries of life; and, unless in case of individual misconduct, or actual inability to work, poverty does not, and dependence needs not, exist. A similar advan¬ tage, though in a less degree, is occasionally enjoyed by some special class of laborers in old countries, from an extraordinar¬ ily rapid growth, not of capital generally, but of the capital employed in a particular occupation. So gigantic has been the progress of the cotton manufacture since the inventions of Watt and Arkwright, that the capital engaged in it has probably quadrupled in the time which population requires for doubling. While, therefore, it has attracted from other employments nearly all the hands which geographical circumstances and the habits or inclinations of the people rendered available; and while the demand it created for infant labor has enlisted the im¬ mediate pecuniary interest of the operatives in favor of pro¬ moting, instead of restraining, the increase of population; nevertheless wages in the great seats of the manufacture are generally so high, that the collective earnings of a family amount, on an average of years, to a very satisfactory sum ; and there is, as yet, no sign of permanent decrease, while the ef¬ fect has also been felt in raising the general standard of agricul¬ tural wages in the counties adjoining. But those circumstances of a country, or of an occupation, in which population can with impunity increase at its utmost 336 POLITICAL ECONOMY rate, are rare, and transitory. Very few are the countries pre¬ senting the needful union of conditions. Either the industrial arts are backward and stationary, and capital therefore in¬ creases slowly; or the effective desire of accumulation being low, the increase soon reaches its limit; or, even though both these elements are at their highest known degree, the increase of capital is checked, because there is not fresh land to be re¬ sorted to, of as good quality as that already occupied. Though capital should for a time double itself simultaneously with popu¬ lation, if all this capital and population are to find employment on the same land, they cannot without an unexampled succes¬ sion of agricultural inventions continue doubling the produce; therefore, if wages do not fall, profits must; and when profits fall, increase of capital is slackened. Besides, even if wages did not fall, the price of food (as will be shown more fully hereafter) would in these circumstances necessarily rise; which is equiva¬ lent to a fall of wages. Except, therefore, in the very peculiar cases which I have just noticed, of which the only one of any practical importance is that of a new colony, or a country in circumstances equivalent to it; it is impossible that population should increase at its utmost rate without lowering wages. Nor will the fall be stopped at any point, short of that which either by its physical or its moral operation, checks the increase of population. In no old country, therefore, does population increase at anything like its utmost rate ; in most, at a very moderate rate: in some countries not at all. These facts are only to be accounted for in two ways. Either the whole number of births which nature admits of, and which happen in some circumstances, do not take place; or if they do, a large proportion of those who are born, die. The retardation of increase results either from mor¬ tality or prudence; from Mr. Malthus’s positive, or from his preventive check: and one or the other of these must and does exist, and very powerfully too,, in all old societies. Wherever population is not kept down by the prudence either of indi¬ viduals or of the state, it is kept down by starvation or disease. Mr. Malthus has taken great pains to ascertain, for almost every country in the world, which of these checks it is that operates: and the evidence which he collected on the subject, in his Essay on Population, may even now be read with advan¬ tage. Throughout Asia, and formerly in .most European coun- WAGES 337 tries in which the laboring classes were not in personal bond¬ age, there is, or was, no restrainer of population but death. The mortality was not always the result of poverty: much of it pro¬ ceeded from unskilful and careless management of children, from uncleanly and otherwise unhealthy habits of life among the adult population, and from the almost periodical occur¬ rence of destructive epidemics. Throughout Europe these causes of shortened life have much diminished, but they have not ceased to exist. Until a period not very remote, hardly any of our large towns kept up its population, independently of the stream always flowing into them from the rural districts: this was still true of Liverpool until very recently ; and even in Lon¬ don, the mortality is larger, and the average duration of life shorter, than in rural districts where there is much greater poverty. In Ireland, epidemic fevers, and deaths from the ex¬ haustion of the constitution by insufficient nutriment, have al¬ ways accompanied even the most moderate deficiency of the potato crop. Nevertheless, it cannot now be said that in any part of Europe, population is principally kept down by disease, still less by starvation, either in a direct or in an indirect form. The agency by which it is limited is chiefly preventive, not (in the language of Mr. Malthus) positive. But the preventive remedy seldom, I believe, consists in the unaided operation of prudential motives on a class wholly or mainly composed of laborers for hire, and looking forward to no other lot. In Eng¬ land, for example, I much doubt if the generality of agricultural laborers practise any prudential restraint whatever. They gen¬ erally marry as early, and have as many children to a marriage, as they would or could do if they were settlers in the United States. During the generation which preceded the enactment of the present Poor Law, they received the most direct encour¬ agement to this sort of improvidence: being not only assured of support, on easy terms, whenever out of employment, but even when in employment, very commonly receiving from the parish a weekly allowance proportioned to their number of chil¬ dren ; and the married with large families being always, from a short-sighted economy, employed in preference to the un¬ married ; which last premium on population still exists. Un¬ der such prompting, the rural laborers acquired habits of reck¬ lessness, which are so congenial to the uncultivated mind, that in whatever manner produced, they in general long survive 33 8 POLITICAL ECONOMY their immediate causes. There are so many new elements at work in society, even in those deeper strata which are inacces¬ sible to the mere movements on the surface, that it is hazardous to affirm anything positive on the mental state or practical im¬ pulses of classes and bodies of men, when the same assertion may be true to-day, and may require great modification in a few years’ time. It does, however, seem, that if the rate of in¬ crease of population depended solely on the agricultural la¬ borers, it would, as far as dependent on births, and unless re¬ pressed by deaths, be as rapid in the southern counties of England as in America. The restraining principle lies in the very great proportion of the population composed of the mid¬ dle classes and the skilled artisans, who in this country almost equal in number the common laborers, and on whom prudential motives do, in a considerable degree, operate. § 4. Where a laboring class who have no property but their daily wages, and no hope of acquiring it, refrain from over¬ rapid multiplication, the cause, I believe, has always hitherto been, either actual legal restraint, or a custom of some sort which, without intention on their part, insensibly moulds their conduct, or affords immediate inducements not to marry. It is not generally known in how many countries of Europe direct legal obstacles are opposed to improvident marriages. The communications made to the original Poor Law Commission by our foreign ministers and consuls in different parts of Eu¬ rope, contain a considerable amount of information on this subject. Mr. Senior, in his preface to those communications,* says that in the countries which recognize a legal right to reliet, “ marriage on the part of persons in the actual receipt of relief appears to be everywhere prohibited, and the marriage of those who are not likely to possess the means of independent support is allowed by very few. Thus we are told that in Norway no one can marry without ‘ showing, to the satisfaction of the cler¬ gyman, that he is permanently settled in such a manner as to offer a fair prospect that he can maintain a family/ “ In Mecklenburg, that ‘ marriages are delayed by conscrip¬ tion in the twenty-second year, and military service for six years ; besides, the parties must have a dwelling, without which a clergyman is not permitted to marry them. The men marry * Forming an Appendix (F) to the and also published by authority as a General Report of the Commissioners, separate volume. WAGES 339 at from twenty-five to thirty, the women not much earlier, as both must first gain by service enough to establish themselves.’ “ In Saxony, that ‘ a man may not marry before he is twenty- one years old, if liable to serve in the army. In Dresden, pro- fessionists (by which word artisans are probably meant) may not marry until they become masters in their trade.’ “ In Wurtemberg, that ‘ no man is allowed to marry till his twenty-fifth year, on account of his military duties, unless per¬ mission be especially obtained or purchased: at that age he must also obtain permission, which is granted on proving that he and his wife would have together sufficient to maintain a family or to establish themselves; in large towns, say from 800 to 1000 florins (from £66 13s. 4d. to £84 3s. 4d;) in smaller, from 400 to 500 florins : in villages, 200 florins (£16 13s. 4d.)’ ” * The minister at Munich says, “ The great cause why the number of the poor is kept so low in this country arises from the prevention by law of marriages in cases in which it cannot be proved that the parties have reasonable means of subsist¬ ence ; and this regulation is in all places and at all times strictly adhered to. The effect of a constant and firm observance of this rule has, it is true, a considerable influence in keeping down the population of Bavaria, which is at present low for the ex¬ tent of country, but it has a most salutary effect in averting extreme poverty and consequent misery.” f At Lubeck, “ marriages among the poor are delayed by the necessity a man is under, first, of previously proving that he is in a regular employ, work, or profession, that will enable him to maintain a wife: and secondly, of becoming a burgher, and equipping himself in the uniform of the burgher guard, which together may cost him nearly £4.” J At Frankfort, “ the gov¬ ernment prescribes no age for marrying, but the permission to marry is only granted on proving a livelihood.” § The allusion, in some of these statements, to military duties, points out an indirect obstacle to marriage, interposed by the laws of some countries in which there is no direct legal re¬ straint. In Prussia, for instance, the institutions which com¬ pel every able-bodied man to serve for several years in the army, at the time of life at which imprudent marriages are most likely * Preface, p. xxxix. t Appendix, p. 419. § Ibid., p. 567. t Preface, p. xxxiii., or p. 554 of the Appendix itself. 340 POLITICAL ECONOMY to take place, are probably a full equivalent, in effect on popu¬ lation, for the legal restrictions of the smaller German states. “ So strongly,” says Mr. Kay, “ do the people of Switzerland understand from experience the expediency of their sons and daughters postponing the time of their marriages, that the councils of state of four or five of the most democratic of the cantons, elected, be it remembered, by universal suffrage, have passed laws by which all young persons who marry before they have proved to the magistrate of their district that they are able to support a family, are rendered liable to a heavy fine. In Lucerne, Argovie, Unterwalden, and I believe, St. Gall, Schweitz, and Uri, laws of this character have been in force for many years.” * § 5. Where there is no general law restrictive of marriage, there are often customs equivalent to it. When the guilds or trade corporations of the Middle Ages were in vigor, their by¬ laws or regulations were conceived with a very vigilant eye to the advantage which the trade derived from limiting competi¬ tion : and they made it very effectually the interest of artisans not to marry until after passing through the two stages of ap¬ prentice and journeyman, and attaining the rank of master.f * Kay, as before cited, i. 68. f “ In general,” says Sismondi, “ the number of masters in each corporation was fixed, and no one but a master could keep a shop, or buy and sell on his own account. Each master could only train a certain number of apprentices, whom he instructed in his trade; in some cor¬ porations he was only allowed one. Each master could also employ only a lim¬ ited number of workmen, who were called companions, or journeymen; and in the trades in which he could only take one apprentice, he was only al¬ lowed to have one, or at most two jour¬ neymen. No one was allowed to buy, sell, or work at a trade, unless he was either an apprentice, a journeyman, or a master; no one could become a journey¬ man without having served a given num¬ ber of years as an apprentice, nor a master, unless he had served the same number of years as a journeyman, and < unless he had also executed what was called his chef d’ceuvre (masterpiece) a piece of work appointed in his trade, and which was to be judged of by the corporation. It is seen that this organi¬ zation threw entirely into the hands of the masters the recruiting of the trade. They alone could take apprentices; but they were not compelled to take any; accordingly they required to be paid, often at a very high rate, for the favor; and a young man could not enter into a trade if he had not, at starting, the sum required to be paid for his appren¬ ticeship, and the means necessary for his support during that apprenticeship; since for four, five, or seven years, all his work belonged to his master. His dependence on the master during that time was complete; for the master’s will, or even caprice, could close the door of a lucrative profession upon him. After the apprentice became a journeyman he had a little more freedom; he could en¬ gage with any master he chose, or pass from one to another; and as the condi¬ tion of a journeyman was only accessi¬ ble through apprenticeship, he now be¬ gan to profit by the monopoly from which he had previously suffered, and was almost sure of getting well paid for a work which no one else was allowed to perform. He depended, however, on the corporation for becoming a master, and did not, therefore, regard himself as being yet assured of his lot, or as hav¬ ing a permanent position. In general he did not marry until he had passed as a master. “ It is certain both in fact and in theory that the existence of trade cor¬ porations hindered, and could not but hinder, the birth of a superabundant population. By the statutes of almost all the guilds, a man could not pass as master before the age of twenty-five: but if he had no capital of his own, if he had not made sufficient savings, he con¬ tinued to work as a journeyman much WAGES 34i In Norway, where the labor is chiefly agricultural, it is forbid¬ den to engage a farm-servant for less than a year; which was the general English practice until the poor laws destroyed it, by enabling the farmer to cast his laborers on parish pay when¬ ever he did not immediately require their labor. In conse¬ quence of this custom, and of its enforcement by law, the whole of the rather limited class of agricultural laborers in Norway have an engagement for a year at least, which if the parties are content with one another, naturally becomes a permanent en¬ gagement : hence it is known in every neighborhood whether there is, or is likely to be, a vacancy, and unless there is, a young man does not marry, knowing that he could not obtain em¬ ployment. The custom still exists in Cumberland and West¬ moreland, except that the term is half a year instead of a year; and seems to be still attended with the same consequences. The farm-servants are “ lodged and boarded in their masters’ houses, which they seldom leave until, through the death of some relation or neighbor, they succeed to the ownership or lease of a cottage farm. What is called surplus labor does not here exist.” * I have mentioned in another chapter the check to population in England during the last century, from the difficulty of obtaining a separate dwelling place, f Other cus¬ toms restrictive of population might be specified: in some parts of Italy, it is the practice, according to Sismondi, among the poor, as it is well known to be in the higher ranks, that all but one of the sons remain unmarried. But such family ar¬ rangements are not likely to exist among day-laborers. They are the resource of small proprietors and metayers, for pre¬ venting too minute a subdivision of the land. In England generally there is now scarcely a relic of these in¬ direct checks to population; except that in parishes owned by one or a very small number of landowners, the increase of resi¬ dent laborers is still occasionally obstructed, by preventing cot¬ tages from being built, or by pulling down those which exist; thus restraining the population liable to become locally charge¬ able, without any material effect on population generally, the longer; some, perhaps the majority of artisans, remained journeymen all their lives. There was, however, scarcely an instance of their marrying before they were received as masters: had they been so imprudent as to desire it, no father would have given his daughter to a man without a position.”—“ New Principles of Political Economy,” book iv., chap. 10. See also Adam Smith, book i., chap. 10, part 2. * See Thornton on “ Over-Popula¬ tion,” page 18, and the authorities there cited. t Supra, p. 99. 342 POLITICAL ECONOMY work required in those parishes being performed by laborers settled elsewhere. The surrounding districts always feel them¬ selves much aggrieved by this practice, against which they can¬ not defend themselves by similar means, since a single acre of land owned by anyone who does not enter into the combination, enables him to defeat the attempt, very profitably to himself, by covering that acre with cottages. To meet these complaints it has already been under the consideration of Parliament to abolish parochial settlements, and make the poor rate a charge not on the parish, but on the whole union. If this proposition be adopted, which for other reasons is very desirable, it will re¬ move the small remnant of what was once a check to popula¬ tion: the value of which, however, from the narrow limits of its operation, must now be considered very trifling. § 6. In the case, therefore, of the common agricultural la¬ borer, the checks to population may almost be considered as non-existent. If the growth of the towns, and of the capital there employed, by which the factory operatives are maintained at their present average rate of wages notwithstanding their rapid increase, did not also absorb a great part of the annual ad¬ dition to the rural population, there seems no reason in the present habits of the people why they should not fall into as miserable a condition as the Irish previous to 1846; and if the market for our manufactures should, I do not say fall off, but even cease to expand at the rapid rate of the last fifty years, there is no certainty that this fate may not be reserved for us. Without carrying our anticipations forward to such a calamity, which the great and growing intelligence of the factory popula¬ tion would, it may be hoped, avert, by an adaptation of their habits to their circumstances; the existing condition of the la¬ borers of some of the most exclusively agricultural counties. Wiltshire, Somersetshire, Dorsetshire, Bedfordshire, Bucking¬ hamshire, is sufficiently painful to contemplate. The laborers of these counties, with large families, and eight or perhaps nine shillings for their weekly wages when in full employment, have for some time been one of the stock objects of popular com¬ passion: it is time that they had the benefit also of some applica¬ tion of common sense. Unhappily, sentimentality rather than common sense usually presides over the discussion of these subjects; and while there is a growing sensitiveness to the hardships of the poor, and a WAGES 343 ready disposition to admit claims in them upon the good offices of other people, there is an all but universal unwillingness to face the real difficulty of their position, or advert at all to the conditions which nature has made indispensable to the improve¬ ment of their physical lot. Discussions on the condition of the laborers, lamentations over its wretchedness, denunciations of all who are supposed to be indifferent to it, projects of one kind or another for improving it, were in no country and in no time of the world so rife as in the present generation; but there is a tacit agreement to ignore totally the law of wages, or to dismiss it in a parenthesis, with such terms as “ hard-hearted Mal¬ thusianism; ” as if it were not a thousand times more hard-heart¬ ed to tell human beings that they may, than that they may not, call into existence swarms of creatures who are sure to be mis¬ erable, and most likely to be depraved; and forgetting that the conduct, which it is reckoned so cruel to disapprove, is a degrad¬ ing slavery to a brute instinct in one of the persons concerned, and most commonly, in the other, helpless submission to a re¬ volting abuse of power. So long as mankind remained in a semi-barbarous state, with the indolence and the few wants of the savage, it probably was not desirable that population should be restrained: the pressure of physical want may have been a necessary stimulus, in that stage of the human mind, to the exertion of labor and ingenuity re¬ quired for accomplishing that greatest of all past changes in hu¬ man modes of existence, by which industrial life attained pre¬ dominance over the hunting, the pastoral, and the military or predatory state. Want, in that age of the world, had its uses, as even slavery had; and there may be corners of the earth where those uses are not yet superseded, though they might easily be so were a helping hand held out by more civilized com¬ munities. But in Europe the time, if it ever existed, is long past, when a life of privation had the smallest tendency to make men either better workmen or more civilized beings. It is, on the contrary, evident, that if the agricultural laborers were bet¬ ter off, they would both work more efficiently, and be better citizens. I ask, then, is it true, or not, that if their numbers were fewer they would obtain higher wages? This is the question, and no other: and it is idle to divert attention from it, by at¬ tacking any incidental position of Malthus or some other writer, and pretending that to refute that, is to disprove the principle of 344 POLITICAL ECONOMY population. Some, for instance, have achieved an easy victory over a passing remark of Mr. Malthus, hazarded chiefly by way of illustration, that the increase of food may perhaps be assumed to take place in an arithmetical ratio, while population increases in a geometrical: when every candid reader knows that Mr. Malthus laid no stress on this unlucky attempt to give numerical precision to things which do not admit of it, and every person capable of reasoning must see that it is wholly superfluous to his argument. Others have attached immense importance to a cor¬ rection which more recent political economists have made in the mere language of the earlier followers of Mr. Malthus. Several writers have said that it is the tendency of population to increase faster than the means of subsistence. The assertion was true in the sense in which they meant it, namely that population would in most circumstances increase faster than the means of subsist¬ ence, if it were not checked either by mortality or by prudence. But inasmuch as these checks act with unequal force at dif¬ ferent times and places, it was possible to interpret the language of these writers as if they had meant that population is usually gaining ground upon subsistence, and the poverty of the people becoming greater. Under this interpretation of their meaning, it was urged that the reverse is the truth: that as civilization ad¬ vances, the prudential check tends to become stronger and pop¬ ulation to slacken its rate of increase, relatively to subsistence; and that it is an error to maintain that population, in any im¬ proving community, tends to increase faster than, or even so fast as subsistence. The word tendency is here used in a totally different sense from that of the writers who affirmed the propo¬ sition: but waiving the verbal question, is it not allowed on both sides, that in old countries, population presses too closely upon the means of subsistence? And though its pressure di¬ minishes, the more the ideas and habits of the poorest class of laborers can be improved, to which it is to be hoped that there is always some tendency in a progressive country, yet since that tendency has hitherto been, and still is, extremely faint, and (to descend to particulars) has not yet extended to giving to the Wiltshire laborers higher wages than eight shilllings a week, the only thing which it is necessary to consider is, whether that is a sufficient and suitable provision for a laborer? for if not, popu¬ lation does, as an existing fact, bear too great a proportion to the wages fund; and whether it pressed still harder or not quite so POPULAR REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES 345 hard at some former period, is practically of no moment, except that, if the ratio is an improving one, there is the better hope that by proper aids and encouragements it may be made to im¬ prove more and faster. It is not, however, against reason, that the argument on this subject has to struggle; but against a feeling of dislike, which will only reconcile itself to the unwelcome truth, when every device is exhausted by which the recognition of that truth can be evaded. It is necessary, therefore, to enter into a detailed ex¬ amination of these devices, and to force every position which is taken up by the enemies of the population principle, in their de¬ termination to find some refuge for the laborers, some plausible means of improving their condition, without requiring the ex¬ ercise, either enforced or voluntary, of any self-restraint, or any greater control than at present over the animal power of multi¬ plication. This will be the object of the next chapter. Chapter XII.—Of Popular Remedies for Low Wages § i. The simplest expedient which can be imagined for keep¬ ing the wages of labor up to the desirable point, would be to fix them by law: and this is virtually the object aimed at in a variety of plans which have at different times been, or still are, current, for remodelling the relation between laborers and employers. No one probably ever suggested that wages should be absolutely fixed; since the interests of all concerned, often require that they should be variable; but some have proposed to fix a minimum of wages, leaving the variations above that point to be adjuste d by competition . ^Anot her plan, which ha s found many advocate s among the lead ers of the operatives, is th at councils should be for med, which in Engl a nd have beencalled local board s of le, in France “ conseils de prud\ommes!’ and other names: consisting o f delegates from the wo rkpeople and fr om the em ¬ ployers, who, meeting in conference, should agree upon a rate TTf ' lvag es. a - n tl brortltllgat'e it fr om autnontv . to be b inding g en¬ eral ly on employers and workmen; the gr ound of decision be- Ing, n ot the state of the labor-market, but natural equity: to provide that the workmen shall have reasonable wages, and the capitalists reasonable profits. Others again (but these are rather philanthropists interesting themselves for the laboring classes, than the laboring people 346 POLITICAL ECONOMY themselves) are shy of admitting the interference of authority in contracts for labor: they fear that if law intervened, it would intervene rashly and ignorantly; they are convinced that two parties, with opposite interests, attempting to adjust those in¬ terests by negotiation through their representatives on principles of equity, when no rule could be laid down to determine what was equitable, would merely exasperate their differences instead of healing them; but what it is useless to attempt by the legal sanction, these persons desire to compass by the moral. Every employer, they think, ought to give sufficient wages; and if he does it not willingly, should be compelled to it by general opin¬ ion; the test of sufficient wages being their own feelings, or what they suppose to be those of the public. This is, I think, a fair representation of a considerable body of existing opinion on the subject. I desire to confine my remarks to the principle involved in all these suggestions, without taking into account practical diffi¬ culties, serious as these must at once be seen to be. I shall sup¬ pose that by one or other of these contrivances, wages could be kept above the point to which they would be brought by com¬ petition. This is as much as to say, above the highest rate which can be afforded by the existing capital consistently with em¬ ploying all the laborers. For it is a mistake to suppose that competition merely keeps down wages. It is equally the means by which they are kept up. When there are any laborers un¬ employed, these, unless maintained by charity, become com¬ petitors for hire, and wages fall; but when all who were out of work have found employment, wages will not, under the freest system of competition, fall lower. There are strange notions afloat concerning the nature of competition. Some people seem to imagine that its effect is something indefinite; that the com¬ petition of sellers may lower prices, and the competition of laborers may lower wages down to zero, or some un¬ assignable minimum. Nothing can be more unfounded. Goods can only be lowered in price by competition, to the point which calls forth buyers sufficient to take them off; and wages can only be lowered by competition until room is made to admit all the laborers to a share in the distribution of the wages-fund. If they fell below this point, a portion of capital would remain unemployed for want of laborers; a counter-competition would commence on the side of capitalists, and wages would rise. POPULAR REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES 347 Since, t h erefore, t he rate of wages which res ults from compe- titi on distributes the whole wages-fund among the whole labo r- mg population; if law o r opinion succeeds in fixing wages a bove this rate, some laborers are kept out of employment; and as it is not the intention of the philanthropists that these should starve, they must be pro vi ded for by a forced increase of the w ages- fund; by a comp uls ory saving . It is nothing to fix a minimum of wages, unless there be a provision that work, or wages at least, be found for all who apply for it. This, accordingly, is al¬ ways part of the scheme; and is consistent with the ideas of more people than would approve of either a legal or a moral minimum of wages. Popular sentiment looks upon it as the ( jutv of the rich, or of the state T to find employm ent for all t he poor^ If the moral influence of opinion does not induce the rich to spare from their consumption enough to set all the poor to work at “ reasonable wages,” it is supposed to be incumbent on the state to lay on taxes for the purpose, either by local rates or votes of public money. The proportion between labor and the wages-fund would thus be modified to the advantage of the la¬ borers, not by restriction of population, but by an increase of capital. § 2. If this claim on society could be limited to the existing generation; if nothing more were necessary than a compulsory accumulation, sufficient to provide permanent employment at ample wages for the existing numbers of the people; such a proposition would have no more strenuous supporter than my¬ self. Society mainly consists of those who live by bodily labor; and if society, that is, if the laborers, lend their physical force to protect individuals in the enjoyment of superfluities, they are entitled to do so, and have always done so, with the reservation of a power to tax those superfluities for purposes of public util¬ ity; among which purposes the subsistence of the people is the foremost. Since no one is responsible for having been born, no pecuniary sacrifice is too great to be made by those who have more than enough, for the purpose of securing enough to all persons already in existence. But it is another thing altogether, when those who have pro¬ duced and accumulated are called upon to abstain from con¬ suming, until they have given food and clothing, not only to all who now exist, but to all whom these or their descendants may think fit to call into existence. Such an obligation acknowl- 348 POLITICAL ECONOMY edged and acted upon, would suspend all checks, both positive and preventive; there would be nothing to hinder population from starting forward at its rapidest rate; and as the natural increase of capital would, at the best, not be more rapid than before, taxation, to make up the growing deficiency, must ad¬ vance with the same gigantic strides. The attempt would of course be made to exact labor in exchange for support. But experience has shown the sort of work to be expected from recipients of public charity. When the pay it not given for the sake of the work, but the work found for the sake of the pay, in¬ efficiency is a matter of certainty: to extract real work from day-laborers without the power of dismissal, is only practicable by the power of the lash. It is conceivable, doubtless, that this objection might be got over. The fund raised by taxation might be spread over the labor-market generally, as seems to be in¬ tended by the supporters of the “ right to employment ” in France; without giving to any unemployed laborer a right to demand support in a particular place or from a particular func¬ tionary. The power of dismissal, as regards individual laborers, would then remain; the government only undertaking to create additional employment when there was a deficiency, and reserv¬ ing, like other employers, the choice of its own workpeople. But let them work ever so efficiently, the increasing population could not, as we have so often shown, increase the produce pro¬ portionally: the surplus, after all were fed, would bear a less and less proportion to the whole produce and to the population: and the increase of people going on in a constant ratio, while the increase of produce went on in a diminishing ratio, the sur¬ plus would in time be wholly absorbed; taxation for the support of the poor would engross the whole income of the country; the payers and the receivers would be melted down into one mass. The check to population either by death or prudence, could not then be staved off any longer, but must come into operation sud¬ denly and at once; everything which places mankind above a nest of ants or colony of beavers, having perished in the interval. These consequences have been so often and so clearly pointed out by authors of reputation, in writings known and accessible, that ignorance of them on the part of educated persons is no longer pardonable. It is doubly discreditable in any person set¬ ting up for a public teacher, to ignore these considerations; to dismiss them silently, and discuss or declaim on wages and poor- POPULAR REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES 349 laws, not as if these arguments could be refuted, but as if they did not exist. Everyone has a right to live. We will suppose this granted. But no one has a right to bring creatures into life, to be sup¬ ported by other people. Whoever means to stand upon the first of these rights must renounce all pretension to the last. If a man cannot support even himself unless others help him, those others are entitled to say that they do not also undertake the support of any offspring which it is physically possible for him to summon into the world. Yet there are abundance of writers and public speakers, including many of most ostentatious pre¬ tensions to high feeling, whose views of life are so truly brutish, that they see hardship in preventing paupers from breeding hereditary paupers in the workhouse itself. Posterity will one day ask with astonishment, what sort of people it could be among whom such preachers could find proselytes. It would be possible for the state to guarantee employment at ample wages to all who are born. But if it does this, it is bound in self-protection, and for the sake of every purpose for which government exists, to provide that no person shall be born without its consent. If the ordinary and spontaneous motives to self-restraint are removed, others must be substituted. Re¬ strictions on marriage, at least equivalent to those existing in some of the German States, or severe penalties on those who have children when unable to support them, would then be in¬ dispensable. Society can feed the necessitous, if it takes their multiplication under its control; or (if destitute of all moral feel¬ ing for the wretched offspring) it can leave the last to their dis¬ cretion, abandoning the first to their own care. But it cannot with impunity take the feeding upon itself, and leave the multi¬ plying free. To give profusely to the people, whether under the name of charity or of employment, without placing them under such in¬ fluences that prudential motives shall act powerfully upon them, is to lavish the means of benefiting mankind, without attaining the object. Leave the people in a situation in which their condi¬ tion manifestly depends upon their numbers, and the greatest permanent benefit may be derived from any sacrifice made to improve the physical well-being of the present generation, and raise, by that means, the habits of their children. But remove the regulation of their wages from their own control; guarantee 350 POLITICAL ECONOMY to them a certain payment, either by law, or by the feeling of the community; and no amount of comfort that you can give them will make either them or their descendants look to their own self-restraint as the proper means for preserving them in that state. You will only make them indignantly claim the continu¬ ance of your guarantee, to themselves and their full complement of possible posterity. On these grounds some writers have altogether condemned the English poor-law, and any system of relief to the able-bodied, at least when uncombined with systematic legal precautions against over-population. The famous Act of the 43d of Eliza¬ beth undertook, on the part of the public, to provide work and wages for all the destitute able-bodied: and there is little doubt that if the intent of that Act had been fully carried out, and no means had been adopted by the administrators of relief to neu¬ tralize its natural tendencies, the poor-rate would by this time have absorbed the whole net produce of the land and labor of the country. It is not at all surprising, therefore, that Mr. Mal- thus and others should at first have concluded against all poor- laws whatever. It required much experience, and careful ex¬ amination of different modes of poor-law management, to give assurance that the admission of an absolute right to be supported at the cost of other people, could exist in law and in fact, without fatally relaxing the springs of industry and the restraints of pru¬ dence. This, however, was fully substantiated, by the investiga¬ tions of the original Poor Law Commissioners. Hostile as they are unjustly accused of being to the principle of legal relief, they are the first who fully proved the compatibility of any Poor Law in which a right to relief was recognized, with the permanent in¬ terests of the laboring class and of posterity. By a collection of facts, experimentally ascertained in parishes scattered through¬ out England, it was shown that the guarantee of support could be freed from its injurious effects upon the minds and habits of the people, if the relief, though ample in respect to necessaries, was accompanied with conditions which they disliked, consist¬ ing of some restraints on their freedom, and the privation of some indulgences. Under this proviso, it may be regarded as irrevocably established, that the fate of no member of the com¬ munity needs be abandoned to chance; that society can, and therefore ought to insure every individual belonging to it against the extreme of want; that the condition even of those who are POPULAR REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES 35i unable to find their own support, needs not be one of physical suffering, or the dread of it, but only of restricted indulgence, and enforced rigidity of discipline. This is surely something gained for humanity, important in itself, and still more so as a step to something beyond; and humanity has no worse enemies than those who lend themselves, either knowingly or uninten¬ tionally, to bring odium on this law, or on the principles in which it originated. § 3. Next to the attempts to regulate wages, and provide arti¬ ficially that all who are willing to work shall receive an adequate price for their labor, we have to consider another class of popu¬ lar remedies, which do not profess to interfere with freedom of contract; which leave wages to be fixed by the competition of the market, but, when they are considered insufficient, endeavor by some subsidiary resource to make up to the laborers for the insufficiency. Of this nature was the expedient resorted to by parish authorities during thirty or forty years previous to 1834, generally known as the Allowance System. This was first intro¬ duced, when through a succession of bad seasons, and conse¬ quent high prices of food, the wages of labor had become inade¬ quate to afford to the families of the agricultural laborers the amount of support to which they had been accustomed. Senti¬ ments of humanity, joined with the idea then inculcated in high quarters, that people ought not to be allowed to suffer for hav¬ ing enriched their country with a multitude of inhabitants, in¬ duced the magistrates of the rural districts to commence giving parish relief to persons already in private employment; and when the practice had once been sanctioned, the immediate in¬ terest of the farmers, whom it enabled to throw part of the support of their laborers upon the other inhabitants of the par¬ ish, led to a great and rapid extension of it. The principle of this scheme being avowedly that of adapting the means of every family to its necessities, it was a natural consequence that more should be given to the married than to the single, and to those who had large families than to those who had not: in fact, an allowance was usually granted for every child. So direct and positive an encouragement to population is not, however, in¬ separable from the scheme: the allowance in aid of wages might be a fixed thing, given to all laborers alike, and as this is the least objectionable form which the system can assume, we will give it the benefit of the supposition. POLITICAL ECONOMY 352 It is obvious that this is merely another mode of fixing a min¬ imum of wages; no otherwise differing from the direct mode, than in allowing the employer to buy the labor at its market price, the difference being made up to the laborer from a public fund. The one kind of guarantee is open to all the objections which have been urged against the other. It promises to the laborers that they shall all have a certain amount of wages, how¬ ever numerous they may be: and removes, therefore, alike the positive and the prudential obstacles to an unlimited increase. But besides the objections common to all attempts to regulate wages without regulating population, the allowance system has a peculiar absurdity of its own. This is, that it inevitably takes from wages with one hand what it adds to them with the other. There is a rate of wages, either the lowest on which the people can, or the lowest on which they will consent, to live. We will suppose this to be seven shillings a week. Shocked at the wretchedness of this pittance, the parish authorities humanely make it up to ten. But the laborers are accustomed to seven, and though they would gladly have more, will live on that (as the fact proves) rather than restrain the instinct of multiplication. Their habits will not be altered for the better by giving them parish pay. Receiving three shillings from the parish, they will be as well off as before though they should increase sufficiently to bring down wages to four shillings. They will accordingly people down to that point; or perhaps, without waiting for an increase of numbers, there are unemployed laborers enough in the workhouse to produce the effect at once. It is well known that the allowance system did practically operate in the mode described, and that under its influence wages sank to a lower rate than had been known in England before. During the last century, under a rather rigid administration of the poor-laws, population increased slowly, and agricultural wages were con¬ siderably above the starvation point. Under the allowance sys¬ tem the people increased so fast, and wages sank so low, that with wages and allowance together, families were worse off than they had been before with wages alone. When the laborer de¬ pends solely on wages, there is a virtual minimum. If wages fall below the lowest rate which will enable the population to be kept up, depopulation at least restores them to that lowest rate. But if the deficiency is to be made up by a forced con¬ tribution from all who have anything to give, wages may fall POPULAR REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES 353 below starvation point; they may fall almost to zero. This de¬ plorable system, worse than any other form of poor-law abuse yet invented, inasmuch as it pauperizes not merely the unem¬ ployed part of the population but the whole, has been abolished, and of this one abuse at least it may be said that nobody professes to wish for its revival. § 4. But while this is (it is to be hoped) exploded, there is another mode of relief in aid of wages, which is still highly popu¬ lar; a mode greatly preferable, morally and socially, to parish allowance, but tending, it is to be feared, to a very similar eco¬ nomical result: I mean the much-boasted Allotment System. This, too, is a contrivance to compensate the laborer for the insufficiency of his wages, by giving him something else as a supplement to them: but instead of having them made up from the poor-rate, he is enabled to make them up for himself, by renting a small piece of ground, which he cultivates like a garden by spade labor, raising potatoes and other vegetables for home consumption, with perhaps some additional quantity for sale. If he hires the ground ready manured, he sometimes pays for it at as high a rate as £8 an £cre: but getting his own labor and that of his family for nothing, he is able to gain several pounds by it even at so high a rent.* The patrons of the system make it a great point that the allotment shall be in aid of wages, and not a substitute for them; that it shall not be such as a la¬ borer can live on, but only sufficient to occupy the spare hours and days of a man in tolerably regular agricultural employment, with assistance from his wife and children. They usually limit the extent of a single allotment to a quarter, or something be¬ tween a quarter and half an acre. If it exceeds this, without being enough to occupy him entirely, it will make him, they say, a bad and uncertain workman for hire: if it is sufficient to take him entirely out of the class of hired laborers, and to become his sole means of subsistence, it will make him an Irish cottier: for which assertion, at the enormous rents usually demanded, there is some foundation. But in their precautions against cot- tierism, these well-meaning persons do not perceive, that if the system they patronize is not a cottier system, it is, in essentials, neither more nor less than a system of conacre. There is no doubt a material difference between eking out in- * See the Evidence on the subject of Allotments, collected by the Commis-' sioners of Poor Law Inquiry. VOL. I.—23 354 POLITICAL ECONOMY sufficient wages by a fund raised by taxation, and doing the same thing by means which make a clear addition to the gross produce of the country. There is also a difference between helping a laborer by means of his own industry, and subsidizing him in a mode which tends to make him careless and idle. On both these points, allotments have an unquestionable advantage over parish allowances. But in their effect on wages and popu¬ lation, I see no reason why the two plans should substantially differ. All subsidies in aid of wages enable the laborer to do with less remuneration, and therefore ultimately bring down the price of labor by the full amount, unless a change be wrought in the ideas and requirements of the laboring class; an alteration in the relative value which they set upon the gratification of their instincts, and upon the increase of their comforts and the com¬ forts of those connected with them. That any such change in their character should be produced by the allotment system, appears to me a thing not to be expected. The possession of land, we are sometimes told, renders the laborer provident. Property in land does so; or what is equiyalent to property, oc¬ cupation on fixed terms and on a permanent tenure. But mere hiring from year to year was never found to have any such effect. Did possession of land render the Irishmen provident? Testimonies, it is true, abound, and I do not seek to discredit them, of the beneficial change produced in the conduct and con¬ dition of laborers, by receiving allotments. Such an effect is to be expected while those who hold them are a small number; a privileged class, having a status above the common level, which they are unwilling to lose. They are also, no doubt, almost al¬ ways, originally a select class, composed of the most favorable speciments of the laboring people: which, however, is attented with the inconvenience that the persons to whom the system facilitates marrying and having children, are precisely those who would otherwise be the most likely to practice prudential restraint. As affecting the general condition of the laboring class, the scheme, as it seems to me, must be either nugatory or mischievous. If only a few laborers have allotments, they are naturally those who could do best without them, and no good is done to the class: while, if the system were general, and every or almost every laborer had an allotment, I believe the effect would be much the same as when every or almost every laborer had an allowance in aid of wages. I think there can be no doubt POPULAR REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES 355 that if, at the end of the last century, the Allotment instead of the Allowance system had been generally adopted in England, it would equally have broken down the practical restraints on population which at that time did really exist; population would have started forward exactly as in fact it did; and in twenty years, wages plus the allotment would have been, as wages plus the allowance actually were, no more than equal to the former wages without any allotment. The only difference in favor of allotments would have been, that they make the people grow their own poor-rates. I am at the same time quite ready to allow, that in some cir¬ cumstances, the possession of land at a fair rent, even without ownership, by the generality of laborers for hire, operates as a cause not of low, but of high wages. This, however, is when their land renders them, to the extent of actual necessaries, inde¬ pendent of the market for labor. There is the greatest differ¬ ence between the position of people who live by wages, with land as an extra resource, and of people who can, in case of ne¬ cessity, subsist entirely on their land, and only work for hire to add to their comforts. Wages are likely to be high where none are compelled by necessity to sell their labor. “ People who have at home some kind of property to apply their labor to, will not sell their labor for wages that do not afford them a better diet than potatoes and maize, although in saving for themselves they may live very much on potatoes and maize. We are often surprised in travelling on the Continent, to hear of a rate of day’s wages very high, considering the abundance and cheap¬ ness of food. It is want of the necessity or inclination to take work, that makes day-labor scarce, and, considering the price of provisions, dear, in many parts of the Continent, where property in land is widely diffused among the people.” * There are parts of the Continent where, even of the inhabitants of the towns, scarcely one seems to be exclusively dependent on his ostensible employment; and nothing else can explain the high price they put on their services, and the carelessness they evince as to whether they are employed at all. But the effect would be far different if their land or other resources gave them only a frac¬ tion of a subsistence, leaving them under an undiminished neces¬ sity of selling their labor for wages in an overstocked market. Their land would then merely enable them to exist on smaller * Laing’s “ Notes of a Traveller,” p. 456. 356 POLITICAL ECONOMY wages, and to carry their multiplication so much the further be¬ fore reaching the point below which they either could not, or would not, descend. To the view I have taken of the effect of allotments, I see no argument which can be opposed, but that employed by Mr. Thornton,* with whom on this subject I am at issue. His de¬ fence of allotments is grounded on the general doctrine, that it is only the very poor who multiply without regard to conse¬ quences, and that if the condition of the existing generation could be greatly improved, which he thinks might be done by the allotment system, their successors would grow up with an in¬ creased standard of requirements, and would not have families until they could keep them in as much comfort as that in which they had been brought up themselves. I agree in as much of this argument as goes to prove that a sudden and Very great improvement in the condition of the poor, has always, through its effect on their habits of life, a chance of becoming permanent. What happened at the time of the French Revolution is an exam¬ ple. But I cannot think that the addition of a quarter or even half an acre to every laborer’s cottage, and that too at a rack rent, would (after the fall of wages which would be necessary to ab¬ sorb the already existing mass of pauper labor) make so great a difference in the comforts of the family for a generation to come, as to raise up from childhood a laboring population with a really higher permanent standard of requirements and habits. So small a portion of land could only be made a permanent benefit, by holding out encouragement to acquire by industry and sav¬ ing, the means of buying it outright: a permission which, if ex¬ tensively made use of, would be a kind of education in fore¬ thought and frugality to the entire class, the effects of which might not cease with the occasion. The benefit would however arise, not from what was given them, but from what they were stimulated to acquire. No remedies for low wages have the smallest chance of being efficacious, which do not operate on and through the minds and habits of the people. While these are unaffected, any contriv¬ ance, even if successful, for temporarily improving the condi¬ tion of the very poor, would but let slip the reins by which population was previously curbed; and could only, therefore, con¬ tinue to produce its effect, if, by the whip and spur of taxation, * See Thornton on “ Over-Population,” chap. viii. REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES 357 capital were compelled to follow at an equally accelerated pace. But this process could not possibly continue for long together, and whenever it stopped, it would leave the country with an in¬ creased number of the poorest class, and a diminished propor¬ tion of all except the poorest, or, if it continued long enough, with none at all. For “ to this complexion must come at last ” all social arrangements, which remove the natural checks to population without subsistuting any others. Chapter XIII.—The Remedies for Low Wages Further Considered § i. By what means, then, is poverty to be contended against? How is the evil of low wages to be remedied? If the ex¬ pedients usually recommended for the purpose are not adapted to it, can no others be thought of? Is the problem incapable of solution? Can political economy do nothing, but only object to everything, and demonstrate that nothing can be done ? If this were so, political economy might have a needful, but would have a melancholy, and a thankless task. If the bulk of the human race are always to remain as at present, slaves to toil in which they have no interest, and therefore feel no interest—drudging from early morning till late at night for bare necessaries, and with all the intellectual and moral defi¬ ciencies which that implies—without resources either in mind or feelings—untaught, for they cannot be better taught than fed; selfish, for all their thoughts are required for themselves; without interests or sentiments as citizens and members of society, and with a sense of injustice rankling in their minds, equally for what they have not, and for what others have; I know not what there is which should make a person with any capacity of reason, concern himself about the destinies of the human race. There would be no wisdom for anyone but in extracting from life, with Epicurean indifference, as much personal satisfaction to himself and those with whom he sym¬ pathizes, as it can yield without injury to anyone, and letting the unmeaning bustle of so-called civilized existence roll by unheeded. But there is no ground for such a view of human affairs. Poverty, like most social evils, exists because men follow their brute instincts without due consideration. But society is possible, precisely because man is not necessarily a 35 s POLITICAL ECONOMY brute. Civilization in every one of its aspects is a struggle against the animal instincts. Over some even of the strongest of them, it has shown itself capable of acquiring abundant con¬ trol. It has artificialized large portions of mankind to such an extent, that of many of their most natural inclinations they have scarcely a vestige or a remembrance left. If it has not brought the instinct of population under as much restraint as is needful, we must remember that it has never seriously tried. What efforts it has made, have mostly been in the contrary di¬ rection. Religion, morality, and statesmanship have vied with one another in incitements to marriage, and to the multiplica¬ tion of the species, so it be but in wedlock. Religion has not even yet discontinued its encouragements. The Roman Catholic clergy (of any other clergy it is unnecessary to speak, since no other have any considerable influence over the poorer classes) everywhere think it their duty to promote marriage, in order to prevent fornication. There is still in many minds a strong religious prejudice against the true doctrine. The rich, pro¬ vided the consequences do not touch themselves, think it im¬ pugns the wisdom of Providence to suppose that misery can result from the operation of a natural propensity: the poor think that “ God never sends mouths but he sends meat.” No one would guess from the language of either, that man had any voice or choice in the matter. So complete is the confusion of ideas on the whole subject: owing in a great degree to the mystery in which it is shrouded by a spurious delicacy, which prefers that right and wrong should be mismeasured and confounded on one of the subjects most momentous to human welfare, rather than that the subject should be freely spoken of and discussed. People are little aware of the cost to man¬ kind of this scrupulosity of speech. The diseases of society can, no more than corporal maladies, be prevented or cured without being spoken about in plain language. All experience shows that the mass of mankind never judge of moral questions for themselves, never see anything to be right or wrong until they have been frequently told it; and who tells them that they have any duties in the matter in question, while they keep within matrimonial limits? Who meets with the smallest condemna¬ tion, or rather, who does not meet with sympathy and benevo¬ lence, for any amount of evil which he may have brought upon himself and those dependent on him, by this species of inconti- REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES 359 nence? While a man who is intemperate in drink, is discoun¬ tenanced and despised by all who profess to be moral people, it is one of the chief grounds made use of in appeals to the benevolent, that the applicant has a large family and is unable to maintain them.* One cannot wonder that silence on this great department of human duty should produce unconsciousness of moral obliga¬ tions, when it produces oblivion of physical facts. That it is possible to delay marriage, and to live in abstinence while un¬ married, most people are willing to allow: but when persons are once married, the idea, in this country, never seems to enter anyone’s mind that having or not having a family, or the num¬ ber of which it shall consist, is amenable to their own control. One would imagine that children were rained down upon mar¬ ried people, direct from heaven, without their being art or part in the matter; that it was really, as the common phrases have it, God’s will, and not their own, which decided the numbers of their offspring. Let us see what is a Continental philoso¬ pher’s opinion on this point; a man among the most benevolent of his time, and the happiness of whose married life has been celebrated. “ When dangerous prejudices,” says Sismondi,f “have not become accredited, when a morality contrary to our true duties toward others, and especially toward those to whom we have given life, is not inculcated in the name of the most sacred authority; no prudent man contracts matrimony before he is in a condition which gives him an assured means of living, and no married man has a greater number of children than he can properly bring up. The head of a family thinks, with reason, that his children may be contented with the condition in which he himself has lived; and his desire will be that the rising generation should represent exactly the departing one: that one son and one daughter arrived at the marriageable age should replace his own father and mother; that the children of his children should in their turn replace himself and his wife ; that his daughter should find in another family the precise equivalent of the lot which will be given in his own family to the daughter of another, and that the income which sufficed * Little improvement can be expected and clergy are foremost to set the ex¬ in morality until the producing large ample of this kind of incontinence families is regarded with the same feel- what can be expected from the poor? ings as drunkenness or any other physi- t “ New Principles of Political Econo- cal excess. But while the aristocracy my,” book vii. chap. 5. 3 6 ° POLITICAL ECONOMY for the parents will suffice for the children.” In a country in¬ creasing in wealth, some increase of numbers would be admis¬ sible, but that is a question of detail, not of principle. “ When¬ ever this family has been formed, justice and humanity require that he should impose on himself the same restraint which is submitted to by the unmarried. When we consider how small, in every country, is the number of natural children, we must admit that this restraint is on the whole sufficiently effectual. In a country where population has no room to increase, or in which its progress must be so slow as to be hardly perceptible, when there are no places vacant for new establishments, a father who has eight children must expect, either that six of them will die in childhood, or that three men and three women among his cotemporaries, and in the next generation three of his sons and three of his daughters, will remain unmarried on his account.” § 2. Those who think it hopeless that the laboring classes should be induced to practise a sufficient degree of prudence in regard to the increase of their families, because they have hith¬ erto stopped short of that point, show an inability to estimate the ordinary principles of human action. Nothing more would probably be necessary to secure that result, than an opinion generally diffused that it was desirable. As a moral principle, such an opinion has never yet existed in any country: it is curious that it does not so exist in countries in which, from the spontaneous operation of individual forethought, population is, comparatively speaking, efficiently repressed. What is prac¬ tised as prudence, is still not recognized as duty; the talkers and writers are mostly on the other side, even in France, where a sentimental horror of Malthus is almost as rife as in this country. Many causes may be assigned, besides the modern date of the doctrine, for its not having yet gained possession of the general mind. Its truth has, in some respects, been its detriment. One may be permitted to doubt whether, except among the poor themselves (for whose prejudices on this sub¬ ject there is no difficulty in accounting) there has ever yet been, in any class of society, a sincere and earnest desire that wages should be high. There has been plenty of desire to keep down the poor-rate, but, that done, people have been very will¬ ing that the working classes should be ill off. Nearly all who are not laborers themselves, are employers of labor, and are REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES 3 61 not sorry to get the commodity cheap. It is a fact, that even Boards of Guardians, who are supposed to be official apostles of anti-population doctrines, will seldom hear patiently of any¬ thing which they are pleased to designate as Malthusianism. Boards of Guardians in rural districts, principally consist of farmers, and farmers, it is well known, in general dislike even allotments, as making the laborers “ too independent.” From the gentry, who are in less immediate contact and collision of interest with the laborers, better things might be expected, and the gentry of England are usually charitable. But charitable people have human infirmities, and would, very often, be se¬ cretly not a little dissatisfied if no one needed their charity: it is from them one oftenest hears the base doctrine, that God has decreed there shall always be poor. When one adds to this, that nearly every person who has had in him any active spring of exertion for a social object, has had some favorite reform to effect, which he thought the admission of this great principle would throw into the shade; has had corn laws to repeal, or taxation to reduce, or small notes to issue, or the charter to carry, or the church to revive or abolish, or the aristocracy to pull down, and looked upon everyone as an enemy who thought anything important except his object; it is scarcely wonderful that since the population doctrine was first promulgated, nine- tenths of the talk has always been against it, and the remaining tenth only audible at intervals; and that it has not yet pene¬ trated far among those who might be expected to be the least willing recipients of it, the laborers themselves. But let us try to imagine what would happen if the idea became general among the laboring class, that the competition of too great numbers was the principal cause of their poverty; so that every laborer looked (with Sismondi) upon every other who had more than the number of children which the circum¬ stances of society allowed to each, as doing him a wrong—as filling up the place which he was entitled to share. Anyone who supposes that this state of opinion would not have a great effect on conduct, must be profoundly ignorant of human nat¬ ure ; can never have considered how large a portion of the motives which induce the generality of men to take care even of their own interests, is derived from regard for opinion— from the expectation of being disliked or despised for not doing it. In the particular case in question, it is not too much to 362 POLITICAL ECONOMY say that over-indulgence is as much caused by the stimulus of opinion as by the mere animal propensity; since opinion uni¬ versally, and especially among the most uneducated classes, has connected ideas of spirit and power with the strength of the instinct, and of inferiority with its moderation or absence; a perversion of sentiment caused by its being the means, and the stamp, of a dominion exercised over other human beings. The effect would be great of merely removing this factitious stimu¬ lus; and when once opinion shall have turned itself into an adverse direction, a revolution will soon take place in this de¬ partment of human conduct. We are often told that the most thorough perception of the dependence of wages on population will not influence the conduct of a laboring man, because it is not the children he himself can have that will produce any effect in generally depressing the labor market. True: and it is also true, that one soldier’s running away will not lose the battle; accordingly it is not that consideration which keeps each soldier in his rank: it is the disgrace which naturally and inevitably attends on conduct by any one individual, which if pursued by a majority, everybody can see would be fatal. Men are seldom found to brave the general opinion of their class, unless supported either by some principle higher than regard for opin¬ ion, or by some strong body of opinion elsewhere. It must be borne in mind also, that the opinion here in ques¬ tion, as soon as it attained any prevalence, would have powerful auxiliaries in the great majority of women. It is seldom by the choice of the wife that families are too numerous; on her devolves (along with all the physical suffering and at least a full share of the privations) the whole of the intolerable domes¬ tic drudgery resulting from the excess. To be relieved from it would be hailed as a blessing by multitudes of women who now never venture to urge such a claim, but who would urge it, if supported by the moral feelings of the community. Among the barbarisms which law and morals have not yet ceased to sanction, the most disgusting surely is, that any human being should be permitted to consider himself as having a right to the person of another. If the opinion were once generally established among the laboring class that their welfare required a due regulation of the numbers of families, the respectable and well-conducted of the body would conform to the prescription, and only those REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES 363 would exempt themselves from it, who were in the habit of making light of social obligations generally; and there would be then an evident justification for converting the moral obliga¬ tion against bringing children into the world who are a burden to the community, into a legal one; just as in many other cases of the progress of opinion, the law ends by enforcing against recalcitrant minorities, obligations which to be useful must be general, and which, from a sense of their utility, a large major¬ ity have voluntarily consented to take upon themselves. There . would be no need, however, of legal sanctions, if women were admitted, as on all other grounds they have the clearest title to be, to the same rights of citizenship with men. Let them cease to be confined by custom to one physical function as their means of living and their source of influence, and they would have for the first time an equal voice with men in what concerns that function: and of all the improvements in reserve for mankind which it is now possible to foresee, none might be expected to be so fertile as this in almost every kind of moral and social benefit. It remains to consider what chance there is that opinion and feelings, grounded on the law of the dependence of wages on population, will arise among the laboring classes; and by what means such opinions and feelings can be called forth. Before considering the grounds of hope on this subject, a hope which many persons, no doubt, will be ready, without consideration, to pronounce chimerical, I will remark, that unless a satisfac¬ tory answer can be made to these two questions, the industrial system prevailing in this country, and regarded by many writers as the ne plus ultra of civilization—the dependence of the whole laboring class of the community on the wages of hired labor— is irrevocably condemned. The question we are considering is, whether, of this state of things, overpopulation and a degraded condition of the laboring class are the inevitable consequence. If a prudent regulation of population be not reconcilable with the system of hired labor, the system is a nuisance, and the grand object of economical statesmanship should be (by what¬ ever arrangements of property, and alterations in the modes of applying industry), to bring the laboring people under the influence of stronger and more obvious inducements to this kind of prudence, than the relation of workmen and employers can afford. 3 6 4 POLITICAL ECONOMY But there exists no such incompatibility. The causes of pov¬ erty are not so obvious at first sight to a population of hired laborers, as they are to one of proprietors, or as they would be to a socialist community. They are, however, in no way mysterious. The d ependence of wages on the number of com¬ petitors for employment, is so far from hard of comprehension , or un intelligibl e to the laboring classes, that bv great bodie s of them it is a lrea dy recognized and habitually acted on. It is Tamiliar to all Trades Unions; every successful combinatio n to k eep up wages, owes its success to contrivances for restric t¬ ing the number of the com petitors; all skil led trade s are a nxious to keep down their own numbers, and many impose, or endeavor to impo se, as a co nditi on upon employers, that they shall no t ta ke more than a pre scrib ed number of appren tices. There is, of course, a great difference between limiting their numbers by excluding other people, and doing the same thing by a restraint imposed on themselves: but the one as much as the other shows a clear perception of the relation between their numbers and their remuneration. The principle is understood in its applica¬ tion to any one employment, but not to the general mass of em¬ ployment. For this there are several reasons: first, the opera¬ tion of causes is more easily and distinctly seen in the more circumscribed field: secondly, skilled artisans are a more in¬ telligent class than ordinary manual laborers; and the habit of concert, and of passing in review their general condition as a trade, keeps up a better understanding of their collective in¬ terests : thirdly and lastly, they are the most provident, because they are the best off, and have the most to preserve. What, however, is clearly perceived and admitted in particular in¬ stances, it cannot be hopeless to see understood and acknowl¬ edged as a general truth. Its recognition, at least in theory, seems a thing which must necessarily and immediately come to pass, when the minds of the laboring classes become capable of taking any rational view of their own aggregate condition. Of this the great majority of them have until now been inca¬ pable, either from the uncultivated state of their intelligence, or from poverty, which leaving them neither the fear of worse, nor the smallest hope of better, makes them careless of the con¬ sequences of their actions, and without thought for the future. § 3. For the purpose therefore of altering the habits of the laboring people, there is need of a twofold action, directed si- REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES 3 6 5 multaneously upon their intelligence and their poverty. An effective national education of the children of the laboring class, is the first thing needful: and, coincidently with this, a system of measures which shall (as the Revolution did in France) ex¬ tinguish extreme poverty for one whole generation. This is not the place for discussing, even in the most general manner, either the principles or the machinery of national edu¬ cation. But it is to be hoped that opinion on the subject is advancing, and that an education of mere words would not now be deemed sufficient, slow as our progress is toward pro¬ viding anything better even for the classes to whom society professes to give the very best education it can devise. Without entering into disputable points, it may be asserted without scruple, that the aim of all intellectual training for the mass of the people, should be to cultivate common sense; to qualify them for forming a sound practical judgment of the circum¬ stances by which they are surrounded. Whatever, in the intel¬ lectual department, can be superadded to this, is chiefly orna¬ mental ; while this is the indispensable groundwork on which education must rest. Let this object be acknowledged and kept in view as the thing to be first aimed at, and there will be little difficulty in deciding either what to teach, or in what manner to teach it. An education directed to diffuse good sense among the people, with such knowledge as would qualify them to judge of the ten¬ dencies of their actions, would be certain, even without any direct inculcation, to raise up a public opinion by which intem¬ perance and improvidence of every kind would be held discred¬ itable, and the improvidence which overstocks the labor market would be severely condemned, as an offence against the common weal. But though the sufficiency of such a state of opinion, sup-. posing it formed, to keep the increase of population within j proper limits, cannot, I think, be doubted; yet, for the forma- 1 tion of the opinion, it would not do to trust to education alone. Education is not compatible with extreme poverty. It is im¬ possible effectually to teach an indigent population. And it is difficult to make those feel the value of comfort who have never enjoyed it, or those appreciate the wretchedness of a pre¬ carious subsistence, who have been made reckless by always living from hand to mouth. Individuals often struggle upward into a condition of ease; but the utmost that can be expected 366 POLITICAL ECONOMY from a whole people is to maintain themselves in it; and im¬ provement in the habits and requirements of the mass of un¬ skilled day laborers will be difficult and tardy, Unless means can be contrived of raising the entire body to a state of tolerable comfort, and maintaining them in it until a new generation grows up. Toward effecting this object there are two resources avail¬ able, without wrong to anyone, without any of the liabilities of mischief attendant on voluntary or legal charity, and not only without weakening, but on the contrary strengthening every incentive to industry, and every motive to forethought. § 4. The first is, a great national measure of colonization. I mean, a grant of public money, sufficient to remove at once, and establish in the colonies, a considerable fraction of the youthful agricultural population. By giving the preference, as Mr. Wakefield proposes, to young couples, or when these can¬ not be obtained, to families with children nearly grown up, the expenditure would be made to go the furthest possible to¬ ward accomplishing the end, while the colonies would be sup¬ plied with the greatest amount of what is there in deficiency and here in superfluity, present and prospective labor. It has been shown by others, and the grounds of the opinion will be exhibited in a subsequent part of the present work, that coloni¬ zation on an adequate scale might be so conducted as to cost the country nothing, or nothing that would not be certainly repaid; and that the funds required, even by way of advance, would not be drawn from the capital employed in maintaining labor, but from that surplus which cannot find employment at such profit as constitutes an adequate remuneration for the abstinence of the possessor, and which is therefore sent abroad for investment, or wasted at home in reckless speculations. That portion of the income of the country which is habitually inef¬ fective for any purpose of benefit to the laboring class, would bear any draught which it could be necessary to make on it for the amount of emigration which is here in view. The second resource would be, to devote all common land, hereafter brought into cultivation, to raising a class of small proprietors. It has long enough been the practice to take these lands from public use, for the mere purpose of adding to the domains of the rich. It is time that what is left of them should be retained as an estate sacred to the benefit of the poor. The REMEDIES FOR LOW WAGES 367 machinery for administering it already exists, having been cre¬ ated by the General Inclosure Act. What I would propose (though, I confess, with small hope of its being soon adopted) is, that in all future cases in which common land is permitted to be inclosed, such portion should first be sold or assigned as is sufficient to compensate the owners of manorial or common rights, and that the remainder should be divided into sections of five acres or thereabouts, to be conferred in absolute property on individuals of the laboring class who would reclaim and bring them into cultivation by their own labor. The prefer¬ ence should be given to such laborers, and there are many of them, as had saved enough to maintain them until their first crop was got in, or whose character was such as to induce some responsible person to advance to them the requisite amount on their personal security. The tools, the manure, and in some cases the subsistence also, might be supplied by the parish, or by the state; interest for the advance, at the rate yielded by the public funds, being laid on as a perpetual quit-rent, with power to the peasant to redeem it at any time for a moderate number of years’ purchase. These little landed estates might, if it were thought necessary, be made indivisible by law ; though, if the plan worked in the manner designed, I should not appre¬ hend any objectionable degree of subdivision. In case of in¬ testacy, and in default of amicable arrangement among the heirs, they might be bought by government at their value, and regranted to some other laborer who could give security for the price. The desire to possess one of these small properties would probably become, as on the Continent, an inducement to prudence and economy pervading the whole laboring popula¬ tion; and that great desideratum among a people of hired la¬ borers would be provided, an intermediate class between them and their employers; affording them the double advantage, of an object for their hopes, and, as there would be good reason to anticipate, an example for their imitation. It would, however, be of little avail that either or both of these measures of relief should be adopted, unless on such a scale, as would enable the whole body of hired laborers remain¬ ing on the soil to obtain not merely employment, but a large addition to the present wages—such an addition as would en¬ able them to live and bring up their children in a degree of com¬ fort and independence to which they have hitherto been stran- 368 POLITICAL ECONOMY gers. When the object is to raise the permanent condition of a people, small means do not merely produce small effects, they produce no effect at all. Unless comfort can be made as habit¬ ual to a whole generation as indigence is now, nothing is ac¬ complished; and feeble half measures do but fritter away re¬ sources, far better reserved until the improvement of public opinion and of education shall raise up politicians who will not think that merely because a scheme promises much, the part of statesmanship is to have nothing to do with it. I have left the preceding paragraphs as they were written, since they remain true in principle, though it is no longer urgent to apply their specific recommendations to the present state of this country. The extraordinary cheapening of the means of transport, which is one of the great scientific achievements of the age, and the knowledge which nearly all classes of the people have now acquired, or are in the way of acquiring, of the con¬ dition of the labor market in remote parts of the world, have opened up a spontaneous emigration from these islands to the new countries beyond the ocean, which does not tend to dimin¬ ish, but to increase; and which, without any national measure of systematic colonization, may prove sufficient to effect a mate¬ rial rise of wages in Great Britain, as it has already done in Ireland, and to maintain that rise unimpaired for one or more generations. Emigration, instead of an occasional vent, is be¬ coming a steady outlet for superfluous numbers; and this new fact in modern history, together with the flush of prosperity occasioned by free trade, have granted to this overcrowded country a temporary breathing time, capable of being employed in accomplishing those moral and intellectual improvements in all classes of the people, the very poorest included, which would render improbable any relapse into the overpeopled state. Whether this golden opportunity will be properly used, depends on the wisdom of our councils; and whatever depends on that, is always in a high degree precarious. The grounds of hope are, that there has been no time in our history when mental progress has depended so little on governments, and so much on the general disposition of the people; none in which the spirit of improvement has extended to so many branches of human affairs at once, nor in which all kinds of suggestions tending to the public good, in every department, from the hum¬ blest physical to the highest moral or intellectual, were heard DIFFERENCES OF WAGES 369 with so little prejudice, and had so good a chance of becoming known and being fairly considered. Chapter XIV.—Of the Differences of Wages in Different Employments § 1. In treating of wages, we have hitherto confined our¬ selves to the causes which operate on them generally, and en masse; the laws which govern the remuneration of ordinary or average labor: without reference to the existence of differ¬ ent kinds of work which are habitually paid at different rates, depending in some degree on different laws. We will now take into consideration these differences, and examine in what man¬ ner they affect or are affected by the conclusions already es¬ tablished. A well-known and very popular chapter of Adam Smith * contains the best exposition yet given of this portion of the subject. I cannot indeed think his treatment so complete and exhaustive as it has sometimes been considered; but as far as it goes, his analysis is tolerably successful. The differences, he says, arise partly from the policy of Eu¬ rope, which nowhere leaves things at perfect liberty, and partly “ from certain circumstances in the employments themselves, which either really, or at least in the imaginations of men, make up for a small pecuniary gain in some, and counterbalance a great one in others.” These circumstances he considers to be: “ First, the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the em¬ ployments themselves; secondly, the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning them ; thirdly, the con¬ stancy or inconstancy of employment in them; fourthly, the small or great trust which must be reposed in those who exer¬ cise them; and fifthly, the probability or improbability of suc¬ cess in them.” Several of these points he has very copiously illustrated: though his examples are sometimes drawn from a state of facts now no longer existing. “ The wages of labor vary with the ease or hardship, the cleanliness or dirtiness, the honorableness or dishonorableness of the employment. Thus, in most places, take the year round, a journeyman tailor earns less than a journeyman weaver. His work is much easier.” Things have * “ Wealth of Nations,” book i. chap. 10. VOL. I.—24 37° POLITICAL ECONOMY much altered, as to a weaver’s remuneration, since Adam Smith’s time; and the artisan whose work was more difficult than that of a tailor, can never, I think, have been the common weaver. “ A journeyman weaver earns less than a journeyman smith. His work is not always easier, but it is much cleanlier.” A more probable explanation is, that it requires less bodily strength. “ A journeyman blacksmith, though an artificer, sel¬ dom earns so much in twelve hours as a collier, who is only a laborer, does in eight. His work is not quite so dirty, is less dangerous, and is carried on in daylight, and above ground. Honor makes a great part of the reward of all honorable pro¬ fessions. In point of pecuniary gain, all things considered,” their recompense is, in his opinion, below the average. “ Dis¬ grace has the contrary effect. The trade of a butcher is a brutal and an odious business; but it is in most places more profitable than the greater part of common trades. The most detestable of all employments, that of public executioner, is, in proportion to the quantity of work done, better paid than any common trade whatever.” One of the causes which make hand-loom weavers cling to their occupation in spite of the scanty remuneration which it now yields, is said to be a peculiar attractiveness, arising from the freedom of action which it allows to the workman. “ He can play or idle,” says a recent authority,* “ as feeling or incli¬ nation lead him; rise early or late, apply himself assiduously or carelessly, as he pleases, and work up at any time, by in¬ creased exertion, hours previously sacrificed to indulgence or recreation. There is scarcely another condition of any portion of our working population thus free from external control. The factory operative is not only mulcted of his wages for absence, but, if of frequent occurrence, discharged altogether from his employment. The bricklayer, the carpenter, the painter, the joiner, the stonemason, the outdoor laborer, have each their appointed daily hours of labor, a disregard of which would lead to the same result.” Accordingly, “ the weaver will stand by his loom while it will enable him to exist, however miserably; and many, induced temporarily to quit it, have returned to it again, when work was to be had.” “ Employment is much more constant,” continues Adam * Mr. Muggeridge’s Report to the Handloom Weavers Inquiry Commis¬ sion. DIFFERENCES OF WAGES 37i Smith, “ in some trades than in others. In the greater part of manufactures, a journeyman may be pretty sure of employ¬ ment almost every day in the year that he is able to work ” (the interruptions of business arising from overstocked markets, or from a suspension of demand, or from a commercial crisis, must be excepted). “ A mason or bricklayer, on the contrary, can work neither in hard frost nor in foul weather, and his em¬ ployment at all other times depends upon the occasional calls of his customers. He is liable, in consequence, to be frequently without any. What he earns, therefore, while he is employed, must not only maintain him while he is idle, but make him some compensation for those anxious and desponding moments which the thought of so precarious a situation must sometimes occa¬ sion. When the computed earnings of the greater part of man¬ ufacturers, accordingly, are nearly upon a level with the day wages of common laborers, those of masons and bricklayers are generally from one-half more to double those wages. No species of skilled labor, however, seems more easy to learn than that of masons and bricklayers. The high wages of those work¬ men, therefore, are not so much the recompense of their skill, as the compensation for the inconstancy of their employment. “ When the inconstancy of the employment is combined with the hardship, disagreeableness, and dirtiness of the work, it sometimes raises the wages of the most common labor above those of the most skilful artificers. A collier working by the piece is supposed, at Newcastle, to earn commonly about double, and in many parts of Scotland about three times, the wages of common labor. His high wages arise altogether from the hard¬ ship, disagreeableness, and dirtiness of his work. His employ¬ ment may, upon most occasions, be as constant as he pleases. The coal-heavers in London exercise a trade which in hardship, dirtiness, and disagreeableness, almost equals that of colliers; and from the unavoidable irregularity in the arrivals of coal- ships, the employment of the greater part of them is necessarily very inconstant. If colliers, therefore, commonly earn double and triple the wages of common labor, it ought not to seem un¬ reasonable that coal-heavers should sometimes earn four or five times those wages. In the inquiry made into their condition a few years ago, it was found that at the rate at which they were then paid, they could earn about four times the wages of common labor in London. How extravagant soever these earn- 37 2 POLITICAL ECONOMY ings may appear, if they were more than sufficient to compen¬ sate all the disagreeable circumstances of the business, there would soon be so great a number of competitors as, in a trade which has no exclusive privilege, would quickly reduce them to a lower rate.” These inequalities of remuneration, which are supposed to compensate for the disagreeable circumstances of particular employments, would, under certain conditions, be natural con¬ sequences of perfectly free competition: and as between em¬ ployments of about the same grade, and filled by nearly the same description of people, they are, no doubt, for the most part, realized in practice. But it is altogether a false view of the state of facts, to present this as the relation which generally exists between agreeable and disagreeable employments. The really exhausting and the really repulsive labors, instead of being better paid than others, are almost invariably paid the worst of all, because performed by those who have no choice. It would be otherwise in a favorable state of the general labor market. If the laborers in the aggregate, instead of exceeding, fell short of the amount of employment, work which was gen¬ erally disliked would not be undertaken, except for more than ordinary wages. But when the supply of labor so far exceeds the demand that to find employment at all is an uncertainty, and to be offered it on any terms a favor, the case is totally the reverse. Desirable laborers, those whom everyone is anxious to have, can still exercise a choice. The undesirable must take what they can get. The more revolting the occupation, the more certain it is to receive the minimum of- remuneration, be¬ cause it devolves on the most helpless and degraded, on tho se yffio from squalid poverty, or from want of skill and education, are rejected from all other em ploy ments. Partly from this cause, and partly from the natural and artificial monopolies which will be spoken of presently, the inequalities of wages are generally in an opposite direction to the equitable principle of compensation erroneously represented by Adam Smith as the general law of the remuneration of labor. The hardships and the earnings, instead of being directly proportional, as in any just arrangements of society they would be, are generally in an inverse ratio to one another. One of the points best illustrated by Adam Smith, is the in- fluence exerci sed on the remuneration of an employment b v the DIFFERENCES OF WAGES 373 ^uncer taint y of success in it. JL the chances are great of total failure, the reward in case of success must be su fficient to make up, in the general estimation, fo r those adverse cha nces. But, owing to another principle of human nature, if the reward comes m the shape of a few great prizes, it u sually attr acts co mpetitors m such numbers that the avera ge remuneration may be reduced f not only to zero, but even to a negative quantity . The success of lotteries proves that this is possible: since the aggregate body of adventurers in lotteries necessarily lose, otherwise the undertakers could not gain. The case of certain professions is considered by Adam Smith to be similar. “ The probability that any particular person shall ever be qualified for the em¬ ployment to which he is educated, is very different in different occupations. In the greater part of mechanic trades, success is almost certain, but very uncertain in the liberal professions. Put your son apprentice to a shoemaker, there is little doubt of his learning to make a pair of shoes; but send him to study the law, it is at least twenty to one if ever he makes such pro¬ ficiency as will enable him to live by the business. In a per¬ fectly fair lottery, those who draw the prizes ought to gain all that is lost by those who draw the blanks. In a profession where twenty fail for one that succeeds, that one ought to gain all that should have been gained by the unsuccessful twenty. The^ counsellor-at-law, who, perhaps, at near forty .year s of ag