For we must not fail to remark here, that every man owes his neighbour a service equivalent to what he has received from him. If, then, the art of the weaver had made no progress, if weaving were not executed in part by ‹gratuitous› forces, the weaver would still be occupied two or three hundred days in fabricating these stuffs, and our workman would require to give him two or three hundred days’ work in order to obtain the clothing he wants. And since the weaver cannot succeed, with all his wish to do so in obtaining two or three hundred days’ labour in recompense for the intervention of gratuitous forces, and for the progress achieved, we are warranted in saving that this progress has been effected to the advantage of the purchaser or consumer, and that it is a gain to society at large. ‹Conveyance.›—Prior to all progress, when the human race, like our day-labourer, was obliged to make use of primitive and unskilled labour, if a man had desired to have a load of a hundredweight transported from Paris to Bayonne, he would have had only this alternative, either to take the load on his own shoulders, and perform the work himself, travelling over hill and dale, which would have required a year’s labour, or else to ask some one to perform this rough piece of work for him; and as, by hypothesis, the person who undertook this work would have to employ the same means and the same time, he would undoubtedly demand a remuneration equal to a year’s labour. At that period, then, the value of unskilled labour being ‹one›, that of transport was 300 for the weight of a cwt. and a distance of 200 leagues. But things are changed now. In fact there is no workman in Paris who cannot obtain the same result by the sacrifice of two days’ labour. The alternative indeed is still the same. He must either do the work himself, or get others to do it for him by remunerating them. If our day-labourer perform it himself, it will still cost him a year of fatigue; but if he applies to men who make it their business, he will find twenty carriers to do what he wants for three or four francs, that is to say, for the equivalent of two days’ unskilled labour. Thus the value of such labour being [p232] represented by ‹one›, that of transport, which was represented by 300, is now reduced to ‹two›. In what way has this astonishing revolution been brought about? Ages have been required to accomplish it. Animals have been trained, mountains have been pierced, valleys have been filled up, bridges have been thrown across rivers, sledges and afterwards wheeled carriages have been invented, obstacles, which give rise to labour, services, value, have been removed; in short, we have succeeded in accomplishing, with labour equal to two, what our remote ancestors would have effected only by labour equal to 300. This progress has been realized by men who had no thought but for their own interests. And yet, who profits by it now? Our poor day-labourer, and with him society at large.