This superior weight of wages, rent and all the elements of cost, in the
old, when compared with the young community, affects the manufacturer as
well as the farmer; and in some branches of manufactures it does so with
an overwhelming effect. But, generally speaking, the advantages of capital,
machinery, and the division of labour, render the old state altogether
predominant over the young one in these particulars. It would seem to be a
fixed law of nature, that the progress of society adds almost nothing to
the application of machinery to agriculture, but indefinitely to its
importance in manufactures. Observe an old man digging his garden with a
spade--that is the most productive species of cultivation; it is the last
stage of agricultural progress to return to it. No steam engines or steam
ploughs will ever rival it. But what is the old weaver toiling with his
hands, to the large steam-power mill, turning at once ten thousand
spindles? As dust in the balance. Man, by a beneficent law of his Maker,
is permanently secured in his first and best pursuit. It is in those which
demoralize and degrade, that machinery progressively encroaches on the
labour of his hands. England can undersell India in muslins and printed
goods, manufactured in Lancashire or Lanarkshire, out of cotton which grew
on the banks of the Ganges; for England though younger in years compared
to India, is old in civilization, wealth, and power. We should like to see
what profit would be made by exporting wheat from England, raised on land
paying thirty shillings an acre of rent, by labourers paid at two
shillings a-day, to Hindostan, where rice is raised twice a-year, on land
paying five shillings an acre rent, by labourers receiving twopence a-day
each.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account