Power of skill—Cheap production—Population and production—Partial and temporary evils—Intelligent labour—Division of labour—General knowledge—The Lowell Offering—Union of forces.

We have thus, without pretending to any approach to completeness, taken a rapid view of many of the great branches of industry in this country. We have exhibited capital working with accumulation of knowledge; we have shown labour working with skill. We desire to show that the counter-control to the absorbing power of capital is the rapidly developing power of skill—for that, also, is capital. Knowledge is power, because knowledge is property. Mr. Whitworth, whose Report on American Manufactures we have several times quoted, says that the workmen of the United States, being educated, perform their duty "with less supervision than is required when dependence is to be placed upon uneducated hands." He adds, "It rarely happens that a workman, who possesses peculiar skill in his craft, is disqualified to take the responsible position of superintendent, by the want of education and general knowledge, as is frequently the case in this country." This is a reproach which every young person in our land ought, as speedily as possible, to wipe out. The means of education may not be quite so universal here as in the United States; but they are ample to produce a large increase of that skill and that trustworthiness which are the most efficient powers which those who work for their living can possibly command, for elevating their individual positions, and for elevating the great body of workers throughout the realm. One of the most essential steps towards the attainment of this elevation is the conviction that manual labour, to be effective, must adapt itself almost wholly to the direction of science; and that under that direction unskilled labour necessarily becomes skilled, and limited trust enlarges into influential responsibility.

Those who have taken a superficial view of the question of scientific application say, that, only whenever there is a greater demand than the existing means can supply, is any new discovery in mechanics a benefit to society, because it gives the means of satisfying the existing wants; but that, on the contrary, whenever the things produced are sufficient for the consumers, the discovery is a calamity, because it does not add to the enjoyments of the consumers; it only gives them a better market, which better market is bought at the price of the existence of the producers.

All such reasoning is false in principle, and unsupported by experience. There is no such thing, nor, if machines went on improving for five hundred years at the rate they have done for the last century, could there be any such thing, as a limit to the wants of the consumers. The great mass of facts which we have brought together in this book must have shown, that the cheaper an article of necessity becomes, the more of it is used; that when the most pressing wants are supplied, and supplied amply by cheapness, the consumer has money to lay out upon new wants; that when these new wants are supplied cheaply, he goes on again and again to other new wants; that there are no limits, in fact, to his wants as long as he has any capital to satisfy them. Bear in mind this; that the first great object of every invention and every improvement is to confer a benefit upon the consumers,—to make the commodity cheap and plentiful. The working man stands in a double character; he is both a producer and a consumer. But we will be bold to say that the question of cheapness of production is a much more important question to be decided in his favour as a consumer, than the question of dearness of production to be decided in his favour as a producer. The truth is, every man tries to get as much as he can for his own labour, and to pay as little as he can for the labour of others. If a mechanic, succeeding in stopping the machine used in his own trade, by any strange deviation from the natural course of things were to get higher wages for a time, he himself would be the most injured by the extension of the principle. When he found his loaf cost him two shillings instead of sixpence; when he was obliged to go to the river with his bucket for his supply of water; when his coals cost a guinea a bushel instead of eighteen pence; when he was told by the hosier that his worsted stockings were advanced from a shilling a pair to five shillings; when, in fact, the price of every article that he uses should be doubled, trebled, and, in nine cases out of ten, put beyond the possibility of attainment;—what, we ask, would be the use to him of his advance in wages? Let us never forget that it is not for the employment of labourers, but for the benefit of consumers, that labour is employed at all. The steam-engines are not working in the coal-pits of Northumberland, and the ships sailing from the Tyne to the Thames, to give employment to colliers and to sailors, but to make coals cheap in London. If the people of London could have the coals without the steam-engines and the ships, it would be better for them, and better for the rest of the world. If they could get coals for nothing, they would have more produce to exchange for money to spend upon other things; and the comforts, therefore, of every one of us would be increased.

This increase of comfort, some may say, is a question that more affects the rich than it affects the great mass. This again is a mistake. The whole tendency of the improvements of the last four hundred years has not only been to lift the meanest, in regard to a great many comforts, far above the condition of the rich four hundred years ago, but absolutely to place them, in many things, upon a level with the rich of their own day. They are surrounded, as we have constantly shown throughout this book, with an infinite number of comforts and conveniences which had no existence two or three centuries ago; and those comforts and conveniences are not used only by a few, but are within the reach of almost all men. Every day is adding something to our comforts. Our houses are better built—our clothes are cheaper—we have a number of domestic utensils, whose use even was unknown to our ancestors—we can travel cheaply from place to place, and not only travel at less expense, but travel ten times quicker than the richest man could travel two hundred years ago. The bulk of society is not only advancing steadily to the same level in point of many comforts with the rich, but is gaining that knowledge which was formerly their exclusive possession. Let all of us who are producers keep fast hold of that last and best power.

We have endeavoured to show throughout this book that the one great result of machinery, and of every improvement in art, is to lessen the cost of production; to increase the benefit to the consumer. But it is a most fortunate arrangement of the social state, as we have also shown, that cheap production gives increased employment. The same class of false reasoners who consider that the wants of society are limited, cry out, it is better to have a population of men than of steam-engines. That might be true, if the steam-engines did put out the men; but inasmuch as they increase the productions by which men are maintained, they increase the men. What has increased the population of England nearly ten-fold during the last five hundred years, but the improvement of the arts of life, which has enabled more men to live within the land? There is no truth so clear, that as the productions of industry multiply, the means of acquiring those productions multiply also. The productions which are created by one producer furnish the means of purchasing the productions created by another producer; and, in consequence of this double production, the necessities of both the one and the other are better supplied. The multiplication of produce multiplies the consumers of produce. There are, probably, upon the average, no more hats made in the year than there are heads to wear them; but as there are twenty-one millions of heads of the British subjects of Queen Victoria, and there were only five millions of the British subjects of Queen Anne, it is self-evident that the hat-makers have four times as much work as they had a century and a half ago. What has given the hat-makers four times as much work? The quadrupling of the population. And what has quadrupled the population? The quadrupling of produce—the quadrupling of the means of maintaining that population. It is a remarkable fact, derived from the official returns, that whilst our exports of home produce and manufactures have increased about twofold in price since the commencement of the century, they have increased eight-fold in quantity. Their real or declared value indicates the price. What is called the official value indicates the quantity. What is true of our exports is also true of our home-consumption. The great multiplication of produce is accompanied, proportionately, with a far greater diminution of price.

There is a just and eloquent passage in the Registrar-General's Report upon the Census of 1851, which we gladly copy:—

"With all that we now see around us, it is difficult to place ourselves in the position of the people of 1751; and to understand either the simplicity of the means, or the greatness of the task which has since been achieved by the people of England and Scotland. It is evident, however, that if the whole that they have accomplished had been proposed as a project, or been held out as the policy of the greatest minister then living, its difficulty and grandeur would have overwhelmed him with confusion. If in the height of power he had thus addressed the people of Britain, would he not have been heard with justifiable incredulity?—'These islands and Ireland are occupied by the men of many separate states that are now happily united. After the settlement on the land of tribes, fleets, and armies of Celts, of Saxons, of Danes, and of Normans—and after centuries of patient culture, its fertile soil sustains seven millions of people in its whole length from the Isle of Wight to the Shetland Islands. We cannot—for the mighty power is not given us—say, let there be on the European shores of the Atlantic ocean—three Great Britains. But the means exist for creating on this land, in less than a hundred years, two more nations, each in number equal to the existing population, and of distributing them, over its fields, in cottages, farms, and towns, by the banks of its rivers, and around its immemorial hills: and they will thus be neither separated by longer roads, nor wider seas, but be neighbours, fellow-workers, and fellow-countrymen on the old territory; wielding by machines the forces of nature, that shall serve them with the strength of thousands of horses, on roads, and seas,—in mines, manufactories, and ships. Subsistence shall be as abundant as it is now, and luxuries, which are confined to the few, shall be enjoyed by multitudes. The wealth of the country—its stock and its produce—shall increase in a faster ratio than the people. All this shall be accomplished without any miraculous agency, by the progress of society,—by the diffusion of knowledge and morals,—by improvements,—and improvements chiefly in the institution of marriage—'that true source of human offspring,' whence,

'Founded in reason, loyal, just, and pure, Relations dear, and all the charities Of father, son, and brother, first were known.'"

If the reader has rightly considered the various facts which we have presented, he will long before this have come to the conclusion, that it, is for the general interests of society that every invention, which has a tendency to diminish the cost of production, shall have the most perfect freedom to go forward. He will also have perceived, that the exercise of this natural right, this proud distinction, of man, to carry on the work of improvement to the fullest extent of his capacity and knowledge, can never be wholly stopped, however it may be opposed. It may be suspended by the ignorance of a government—it may be clamoured down by the prejudice of a people; but the living principle which is in it can never be destroyed. To deny that this blessing, as well as many other blessings which we enjoy, is not productive of any particular evil, would be uncandid and unwise. Every change produced by the substitution of a perfect machine instead of an imperfect one, of a cheap machine instead of a dear one, is an inconvenience to those who have been associated with the imperfect and the dear machines. It is a change that more or less affects the interests of capitalists as well as of workmen. In a commercial country, in a highly civilized community, improvement is hourly producing some change which affects some interests. Every new pattern which is introduced in hardware deranges for a moment the interests of the proprietors of the old moulds. Every new book, upon any specific subject upon which books have formerly been written, lessens the value of the copyright of those existing books. What then? Is every improvement, which thus produces a slight partial injury, to be discountenanced, because of this inevitable condition which we find at every step in the march of society? Or rather, ought we not to feel that every improvement brings healing upon its wings, even to those for whom it is a momentary evil;—that if it displaces their labour or their capital for a season, it gives new springs to the general industry, and calls forth all labour and all capital to higher and more successful exertions? At every advance which improvement makes, the partial and temporary evils of improvement are more and more lessened. In the early stages of social refinement, when a machine for greatly diminishing labour is for the first time introduced, its effects in displacing labour for an instant may be seen in the condition of great masses of people. It is the first step which is the most trying. Thus, when printing superseded the copies of books by writing, a large body of people were put out of employ;—they had to seek new employ. It was the same with the introduction of the spinning machinery,—the same with the power-loom. It would be presumptuous to say that no such great changes could again happen in any of the principal branches of human industry; but it may be said, that the difficulty of superseding our present expeditious and cheap modes of manufacture is daily increasing. The more machines are multiplied, that is, the more society approaches towards perfection, the less room is there for those great inventions which change the face of the world. We shall still go on improving, doubtless; but ingenuity will have a much narrower range to work in. It may perfect the machines which we have got, but it will invent fewer original machines. And who can doubt, that the nearer we approach to this state, the better will it be for the general condition of mankind? Who can doubt whether, instead of a state of society where the labourers were few and wretched, wasting human strength, unaided by art, in labours which could be better performed by wind, and water, and steam,—by the screw and the lever,—it would not be better to approach as nearly as we can to a state of society where the labourers would be many and lightly tasked, exerting human power in its noblest occupation, that of giving a direction by its intelligence to the mere physical power which it had conquered? Surely, a nation so advanced as to apply the labour of its people to occupations where a certain degree of intelligence was required, leaving all that was purely mechanical to machines and to inferior animals, would produce for itself the greatest number of articles of necessity and convenience, of luxury and taste, at the cheapest cost. But it would do more. It would have its population increasing with the increase of those productions; and that population employed in those labours alone which could not be carried on without that great power of man by which he subdues all other power to his use,—his reason.

But it is not only science which has determined, and is more and more determining, the condition of the great body of operatives, but the organization of industry upon the factory principle, so universal and so powerful, has rendered it impossible for the future that the larger amount of the labour of a country should be regarded as an insulated force. It must work in conjunction with higher and more powerful forces.

In France, which, as a commercial and manufacturing country, was considerably behind the advance of England, it was a common practice, in many villages and small towns, not very long ago, for the weavers to make the looms and other implements of their trade. In the fifteenth century, in the same country, before an apprentice could be admitted to the privilege of a master-weaver, it was not only necessary for him to prove that he understood his trade as a weaver, but that he was able to construct all the machines and tools with which he carried on his craft. Those who know anything of the business of weaving will very readily come to the conclusion that the apprentice of the fifteenth century, whose skill was put to such a proof, was both an indifferent weaver and an indifferent mechanician;—that in the attempt to unite two such opposite trades, he must have excelled in neither;—and that in fact the regulation was one of those monstrous violations of the freedom of industry, which our ancestors chose to devise for the support of industry.

Carrying the principle of a division of labour to the other extreme point, we have seen that a vast number of persons are engaged in the manufacture of a piece of cloth,[29] who, if individually set to carry the workmanship of that piece of cloth through all its stages, would be utterly incompetent to produce it at all, much less to produce it as durable and beautiful as the cloth which we all daily consume. How would the sorter of the wool, for example, know how to perform the business of the scourer, or of the dyer, or of the carder? or the carder that of the spinner or the weaver? or the weaver that of the miller, or boiler, or dyer, or brusher, or cutter, or presser? We must be quite sure that, if any arbitrary power or regulation, such as compelled the weaver of the fifteenth century to make his own loom, were, on the other hand, to compel a man engaged in any one branch of the manufacture of woollen cloth to carry that manufacture through all its stages, the production of cloth would be utterly suspended; and that the workmen being incompetent to go on, the wages of the workmen could no longer be paid;—for the wages of labour are paid by the consumer of the produce of labour, and here there would be nothing to consume.

The great principle, therefore, which keeps the division of labour in full activity is, that the principle is necessary to production upon a scale that will maintain the number of labourers engaged in working in the cheapest, because most economical manner, through the application of that mode of working. The labourers, even if the principle were injurious to their individual prosperity and happiness, which we think it is not, could not dispense with the principle, because it is essential to economical production; and if dear production were to take the place of economical production, there would be a proportionately diminished demand for products, and a proportionate diminution of the number of producers.

The same laws of necessity which render it impossible for the working men to contend against the operation of the division of labour,—even if it were desirable that they should contend against it, as far as their individual interests are concerned,—render it equally impossible that they should contend against the operation of accumulation of knowledge in the direction of their labour. The mode in which accumulation of knowledge influences the direction of their labour is, that it furnishes mechanical and chemical aids to the capitalist for carrying on the business of production. The abandonment of those mechanical and chemical aids would suspend production, and not in the slightest degree increase, but greatly diminish, and ultimately destroy, the power of manual labour, seeking to work without those mechanical and chemical aids. The abandonment of the division of labour would work the same effects. There would be incomparably less produced on all sides; and the workmen on all sides, experiencing in their fullest extent the evils which result from diminished production, would all fall back in their condition, and day by day have less command of the necessaries and comforts of life, till they sank into utter destitution.

We dwell principally on the effects of accumulation of knowledge and division of labour on the working man as a consumer, because it is the more immediate object of this volume to consider such questions with reference to production. But the condition of the working man as a producer is, taking the average of all ranks of producers, greatly advanced by the direction which capital gives to labour, by calling in accumulation of knowledge and division of labour. If the freedom of labour were not established upon the same imperishable basis as the security of property, we might, indeed, think that it was a pitiable thing for a man to labour through life at one occupation, and believe that it was debasing to the human intellect and morals to make for ever the eye of a needle, or raise a nap upon woollen cloth. The Hindoos, when they instituted their castes, which compelled a man to follow, without a possibility of emerging from it, the trade of his fathers, saw the general advantage of the division of labour; but they destroyed the principle which could make it endurable to the individual. They destroyed the Freedom of Industry. "To limit industry or genius, and narrow the field of individual exertion by any artificial means, is an injury to human nature of the same kind as that brought on by a community of possessions. Where there is no stimulus to industry, things are worst; where industry is circumscribed, they cannot prosper; and are then only in a healthy state, when every avenue to personal advantage is open to every talent and disposition. A state of equality is an instance of the first case; the division of the people into castes, as among the Ancient Egyptians, and still among the Hindoos, of the second. This division has been considered by all intelligent travellers as one powerful cause of the stationary character of the inhabitants of that country: and the effect would have been still more pernicious, if time or necessity had not introduced some relaxation into the rigorous restrictions originally established, and so ancient as to be attributed to Siva. As long, however, as the rule is generally adhered to, that a man of a lower class is restricted from the business of a higher class, so long, we may safely predict, India will continue what it is in point of civilization. An approach to the same effect may be witnessed in the limitation of honours, privileges, and immunities in some countries of Europe."[30]

In those manufactures and trades where the division of labour is carried to the greatest extent, such as the cotton and silk trades, workmen readily change from one branch to the other, without molestation, and without any great difficulty of adapting themselves to a new occupation. The simpler the process in which a workman has been engaged—and every process is rendered more simple by the division of labour—the easier the transition: and the principal quality which is required to make the transition is, that stock of general knowledge which the division of labour enables a man to attain: and which, in point of fact, is attained in much higher perfection in a large manufactory, than in that rude state where one man is more or less compelled to do everything for his body, and therefore has no leisure to do anything for his mind. There are evils, undoubtedly, in carrying the division of labour to an extreme point; but we think that those very evils correct themselves, because they destroy the great object of the principle, and give imperfect instead of perfect production. The moral evils which some have dreaded may assuredly be corrected by general education, and in fact are corrected by the union of numbers in one employment. What sharpens the intellect ought, undoubtedly, to elevate the morals; and, indeed, it is only false knowledge which debases the morals. Knowledge and virtue, we believe, are the closest allies; and wisdom is the fruit of knowledge and virtue.

The same principles as to the course which the division of labour should lead the labourer to pursue, apply to the higher occupations of industry. No man of learning has ever very greatly added to the stock of human knowledge, without devoting himself, if not exclusively, with something like an especial dedication of his time and talents, to one branch of science or literature. In the study of nature we have the mathematician, the astronomer, the chemist, the botanist, the zoologist, and the physician engaged, each in his different department. In the exposition of moral and political truths, we have the metaphysician, the theologian, the statesman, the lawyer, occupied each in his peculiar study or profession. A mental labourer, to excel in any one of these branches, must know something of every other branch. He must direct indeed the power of his mind to one department of human knowledge; but he cannot conquer that department without a general, and, in many respects, accurate knowledge of every other department. The same principle produces the same effects, whether applied to the solution of the highest problem in geometry, or the polishing of a pin. The division of labour must be regulated by the acquisition of general knowledge.

There was probably no more striking example ever given of the union of factory labour with a taste for knowledge and an ardour for mental improvement, than was presented by the young women working in the cotton-manufactories of Lowell, in the United States. They wrote and published for their own amusement, a magazine, called 'The Lowell Offering,' in which the writers exhibited remarkable attainments, and no common facility of composition. The author of the present volume made a selection from 'The Lowell Offering,' which he introduced to English notice by a preface, one passage of which may be extracted as an illustration of the argument before us:—

"In dwelling upon the thoughts of others, in fixing their own thoughts upon some definite object, these factory girls have lifted themselves up into a higher region than is attained by those, whatever be their rank, whose minds are not filled with images of what is natural and beautiful and true. They have raised themselves out of the sphere of the partial and the temporary, into the broad expanse of the universal and the eternal. During their twelve hours of daily labour, when there were easy but automatic services to perform, waiting upon a machine—with that slight degree of skill which no machine can ever attain—for the repair of the accidents of its unvarying progress, they may, without a neglect of their duty, have been elevating their minds in the scale of being by cheerful lookings-out upon nature; by pleasant recollections of books; by imaginary converse with the just and wise who have lived before them; by consoling reflections upon the infinite goodness and wisdom which regulates this world, so unintelligible without such a dependence. These habits have given them cheerfulness and freedom amidst their uninterrupted toils. We see no repinings against their twelve hours' labour, for it has had its solace. Even during the low wages of 1842, which they mention with sorrow but without complaint, the same cultivation goes on; 'The Lowell Offering' is still produced. To us of England these things ought to be encouraging. To the immense body of our factory operatives the example of what the girls of Lowell have done should be especially valuable. It should teach them that their strength, as well as their happiness, lies in the cultivation of their minds. To the employers of operatives, and to all of wealth and influence amongst us, this example ought to manifest that a strict and diligent performance of daily duties, in work prolonged even more than in our own factories, is no impediment to the exercise of those faculties, and the gratification of those tastes, which, whatever was once thought, can no longer be held to be limited by station. There is a contest going on amongst us, as it is going on all over the world, between the hard imperious laws which regulate the production of wealth, and the aspirations of benevolence for the increase of human happiness. We do not deplore the contest; for out of it must come a gradual subjection of the iron necessity to the holy influences of love and charity. Such a period cannot, indeed, be rashly anticipated by legislation against principles which are secondary laws of nature; but one thing nevertheless is certain—that such an improvement of the operative classes, as all good men—and we sincerely believe amongst them the great body of manufacturing capitalists,—ardently pray for, and desire to labour in their several spheres to attain, will be brought about in a parallel progression with the elevation of the operatives themselves in mental cultivation, and consequently in moral excellence."[31]

The division of labour in carrying forward the work of production is invariably commanded, because it is perfected, by the union of forces, or co-operation. The process of manufacturing a piece of woollen cloth is carried on by division of labour, and by union of forces, working together. In fact, if there were not that ultimate co-operation, the division of labour would be not only less productive than labour without division, but it would not be productive at all. The power of large capital is the power which, as society is arranged, compels this division of parts for the more complete production of a whole. A large cloth manufactory, as we have seen, exhibits itself to the eye chiefly in the division of labour; but all that division ends in a co-operation for the production of a piece of cloth. A ship, with five hundred men on board, each engaged in various duties, and holding different ranks, is an example of the division of labour; but the division ends in a co-operation to carry the ship from one port to another, and, if it be a ship of war, to defend it from the attacks of an enemy. Those who would direct the principle of co-operation into a different channel, by remodelling society into large partnerships, do not, because they cannot, depart, in the least degree, from the principles we have laid down. They must have production, and therefore they must have division of labour; the division of labour involves degrees of skill; the whole requires to be carried on with accumulation of former labour or capital, or it could not exist. The only difference proposed is, that the labourers shall be the capitalists, and that each shall derive a share in the production, partly from what now is represented as his profits as a capitalist, and partly from what is represented as his wages as a labourer; but that all separate property shall be swallowed up in joint property. But we mention this subject here to show that even those who aspire to remodel society cannot change the elements with which it is now constructed, and must work with the same principles, however different may be the names of those principles, and however varied in their application. This is in favour even of the ultimate success of the principles of co-operation, if they should be found practically to work for the increase of the happiness of mankind; which would not be effected by equalizing the distribution of wealth, if, at the same time, its production were materially checked. This view of the subject goes to show that no sudden or violent change is necessary. In many things society has always acted on the principles of co-operation. As civilization extends, the number of instances has hitherto increased; and if there is no natural maximum to the adoption of these principles (which remains to be seen), men may gradually slide more and more into them, and realize all sane expectations, without any reconstruction of their social system,—any pulling down and building up again of their morals or their houses.[32]

It is this union of forces which, whether it prevail in a single manufactory, in a manufacturing town viewed in connexion with that manufactory, in an agricultural district viewed in connexion with a manufacturing town, in a capital viewed in connexion with both, in a kingdom viewed in connexion with all its parts, and in the whole world viewed in connexion with particular kingdoms;—it is this union of forces which connects the humblest with the highest in the production of utility. The poor lad who tends sheep upon the downs, and the capitalist who spends thousands of pounds for carrying forward a process to make the wool of these sheep into cloth, though at different extremities of the scale, are each united for the production of utility. The differences of power and enjoyment (and the differences of enjoyment are much less than appear upon the surface) between the shepherd boy and the great cloth-manufacturer, are apparently necessary for the end of enabling both the shepherd boy and the capitalist to be fed, and clothed, and lodged, by exchanges with other producers. They are also necessary for keeping alive that universal, and, therefore, as it would appear, natural desire for the improvement of our condition, which, independently of the necessity for the satisfaction of immediate wants, more or less influences the industry of every civilized being as to the hopes of the future. It is this union which constitutes the real dignity of all useful employments, and may make the poorest labourer feel that he is advancing the welfare of mankind as well as the richest capitalist; and that, standing upon the solid foundation of free exchange, the rights of the one are as paramount as the rights of the other, and that the rights of each have no control but the duties of each. We believe that the interests of each are also inseparably united, and that the causes which advance or retard the prosperity of each are one and the same.

[29] See Chapter XVII.