have most powerfully stimulated the production of wealth, and a large amount of wealth has been produced by their aid which could never have been produced without them. Moreover, the capacity which exists in England for the accumulation of capital, quickly repairs any encroachment that is made upon her circulating capital; and therefore it is doubtful whether the labourers in this country have been even temporarily injured by the extensive use of machinery, and by the rapid development of our railway system. But although the labourers as a body are not injured by the conversion of circulating into fixed capital, through the extended use of machinery, yet particular classes of labourers often suffer a serious and permanent injury from this cause. For instance, a man may spend seven years in acquiring special skill in performing some process of manufacture. The possession of this skill may be regarded as an important property, the pecuniary value of which to its possessor can be estimated by the difference between his wages and those of an ordinary labourer. This difference may be so great that the skilled workman can earn 47. a week, while the ordinary labourer can only earn 17. One day a machine is introduced which performs this particular process at one-fourth of the cost at which it was performed by the skilled mechanic. He is, of course, at once superseded; his skill, which before was worth 31. a-week, ceases to have any value, and he may have to descend to the condition of the ordinary labourer. In such a case the loss to the labourer is just as real as if he had been suddenly deprived of an income of 150l. a year, or if an owner of a landed estate suddenly found its letting value diminished by three-fourths. Many striking examples might be easily given of the loss inflicted on artisans who possess some special skill which is superseded by the invention of a machine. It is, for instance, not generally known that the curve given to the brim of the best gentlemen's hats is done by hand, and requires so much skill, precision, and nicety, that those who are engaged in this particular kind of work often earn as much as 71. or 81. a week. A machine has already been invented which moulds brims sufficiently well for the cheaper sort of hats, and some improvement may very probably be introduced into this machine which will enable it to supersede the highly-paid labour above referred to. In this case a special class of men who can now earn 71. or 81. a week would have to descend to the position of ordinary workmen, and would probably not earn so much as half their former wages. When therefore we hear of the opposition of certain classes of labourers to the introduction of machinery, we should remember that political economy affords no justification for the offhand way in which this opposition is often spoken of as irrational and unfounded. The reality of the loss which has to be borne by the labourers ought at once to be admitted; and as the loss is brought upon them by no fault of their own, the public ought at any rate to extend to them a kindly sympathy; sometimes the labourers might be induced, if calmly reasoned with, to relinquish a useless opposition to machinery: they not unfrequently increase the loss inflicted on them through the introduction of machinery by entering into a fruitless and costly struggle to resist its use. Probably the best way for the workmen to meet such a misfortune as that just described is to endeavour to find some other branch of industry, in which the kind of skill which they possess could be made to some extent available. The hand-loom weavers of Spitalfields, instead of clinging to an industry which has been superseded, and thus gradually sinking into deeper and deeper distress, would have done far better if they had sought employment in the silk-mills in the north of England. BOOK I. CH. IV. BOOK I. ductive power of land, CHAPTER V. ON THE PRODUCTIVE POWER OF THE THREE REQUISITES Variations The subject of the production of wealth will not be comin the pro- plete without an investigation of some of the laws upon which depends the amount or degree of productiveness of each of these requisites. All the materials upon which labour and capital are employed, are produced either directly or indirectly from the land. Wool is not a product of the land like cotton and timber, but the sheep from which the wool is clipped are fed by food obtained from the land. Land, labour, and capital are, therefore, the three requisites of production. The most casual observer will have noticed that each of these varies greatly in productiveness at different times, and in different places. Some of the richest tracts of land in England were not long since an uncultivated morass; Cambridgeshire and Norfolk are now amongst the largest corn-producing counties, yet Cambridge was once the home of the bittern and snipe, and Norfolk was little better than a rabbit-warren. At the present time England possesses land of every degree of fertility; the rich loam land of Sussex and the Lothians will let for 41. an acre; and large tracts of land on the moors of Yorkshire, if given to a farmer rent free, would not pay to be cultivated. There is also the greatest difference in the efficiency of labour. It has been calculated that an English mower will do as much work in a day as three Russian serfs, and the contractors for the French railways found that an English navvy was worth two French labourers. Such differences labour, BOOK I. tal. CH. V. in the value of labour mainly depend upon superior strength and stamina, but still greater differences arise from superior skill; many operations in the manufacture of commodities require, perhaps, a delicate touch or a quick dexterity which no amount of untrained labour could supply. Capital, directed by superior knowledge, and capimay effect what before was impossible; mines are now worked which no amount of labour and capital, unaided by the steam-engine, could have drained; and the application of a hundred times as much labour and capital would not produce the cloth which is now woven by the spinning-jenny and the power-loom. These considerations may, perhaps, suggest the opinion that we shall be obliged to call in the assistance of every science in order to investigate the laws which determine the productiveness of land, labour, and capital. For it may be said, agricultural chemistry makes known the constituents upon which depend the fertility of the soil; the difference in the stamina and strength of English and Russian labourers must be elucidated by appealing to physiology, and to other sciences. Again, the efficiency of machinery must be explained by the principles of mechanics. It, therefore, manifestly becomes necessary to place some limitation upon the scope of political economy, unless it is intended to embrace a vast number of other sciences. Now, it will be remembered, that no accurate definition of political economy was attempted to be given at the commencement of this work. It is far better that the reader should have the definition evolved for him as the subject gradually progresses. In the introductory chapter we described political economy to be the science which investigates the laws that determine the production, the distribution, and the exchange of wealth; it was, however, at the same time stated that this was rather a general description than an accurate definition. It is not an accurate definition, for it is already perceived that, even concerning the first branch of the subject, political economy does not investigate all the laws which concern the production of wealth; for if it did investigate those laws, chemistry, physiology, mathematics, and various other branches of knowledge, would form a part of the science of political neces sary limi our enquiries into the cause of tation of this variation. BOOK I. The productiveness of land. economy. It will be necessary therefore to place some limit upon our investigations; and the necessary limitation is provided by assuming that the facts which are acquired from other sciences are known, or at any rate are supposed to be true. Thus political economy assumes all that we can tell at the present time with regard to the fertility of the soil. It is not the business of political economy to decide whether chemistry can suggest any particular manure which will greatly increase the productiveness of the land; but if the land, by any such cause, is rendered more fertile, then political economy would trace the consequences of this increased fertility upon the production, the distribution, and the exchange of wealth. Again, it would be foreign to the subject of political economy to prove, by a physiological argument, the causes upon which the inferior strength of the French and Russian labourers depends; but political economy, assuming that this inferiority exists, without explaining its cause, or suggesting a remedy for its removal, traces its consequences upon the production, the distribution, and the exchange of wealth. Returning now to the immediate subject of this chapter; we have to consider the productiveness of land, labour, and capital, not as they depend on physical causes, but as they are determined by production on a large and small scale, by division of labour, by the accumulation of capital in joint-stock companies, and by various other such circumstances which we shall proceed to notice. The productiveness of land does not depend entirely upon its fertility; for the quantity of labour and capital which may be required to make the produce raised from the land available for consumption forms a very important element in estimating its productiveness. The rich alluvial plains of the Mississippi are almost unsurpassed in fertility; but a considerable portion of the wheat which is grown there is consumed in Europe; and the cost of carrying this wheat to the European markets is virtually so much deducted from the productiveness of the soil upon which the wheat was grown. When the valley of the Mississippi possesses population so dense as to consume all the wheat there grown, the land, although it may be not more fertile, will be more productive of wealth; for |