CH. VI. BOOK IV. estimation, or from the children of persons who, if originally of a lower rank, have succeeded in raising themselves by their exertions. The liberal professions are mostly supplied by the sons of either the professional or the idle classes: the more highly skilled manual employments are filled up from the sons of skilled artisans or the class of tradesmen who rank with them the lower classes of skilled employments are in a similar case; and unskilled labourers, with occasional exceptions, remain from father to son in their pristine condition. Consequently the wages of each class have hitherto been regulated by the increase of its own population, rather than that of the general population of the country." But he goes on, "The changes, however, now so rapidly taking place in usages and ideas are undermining all these distinctions." But all such sharp lines of division between industrial grades are fade away. His prescience has been vindicated by the progress of change since he wrote. The broad lines of division which he pointed out have been almost obliterated by the rapid action of those causes which, as we saw earlier in the chapter, are tending to reducing the amount of skill and ability required in some occupations and increasing it in others. We cannot any longer regard different occupations as distributed among four great planes; but we may perhaps think of them as resembling a long flight of steps of unequal breadth, some of them being so broad as to act as landing stages1. Or even better still we might picture to ourselves two flights of stairs, one representing the "hard-handed industries" and the other "the soft-handed industries; " because the vertical division between these two is in fact as broad and as clearly marked as the horizontal division between any two grades. Provisional conclusion. But though parents generally bring up their children to occupations in their own grade, and therefore the total supply 1 Thus Mill's classification had lost a great part of its value when Cairnes adopted it (Leading Principles, p. 72). A classification more suited to our exist ing conditions is offered by Mr Giddings (Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 1. pp. 69-71). It is open to the objection that it draws broad lines of division where Nature has made no broad lines; but it is perhaps as good as any division of industry into four grades can be. His divisions are (i) automatic manual labour, including common labourers and machine tenders; (ii) responsible manual labour, including those who can be entrusted with some responsibility and labour of selfdirection; (iii) automatic brain workers, such as bookkeepers, and (iv) responsible brain workers, including the superintendents and directors. MOBILITY BETWEEN GRADES AND WITHIN GRADES. of labour in any grade in one generation is in a great measure determined by the numbers in that grade in the preceding generation, yet within the grade itself there is greater mobility. If the advantages of any one occupation in it rise above the average, there is a quick influx of youth from other occupations into the grade. The vertical movement from one grade to another is seldom very rapid or on a very large scale; but, when the advantages of a grade have risen relatively to the difficulty of the work required of it, many small streams of labour, both youthful and adult, will begin to flow towards it; and though none of them may be very large, they will together have a sufficient volume to satisfy before long the increased demand for labour in that grade. We must defer to a later stage a fuller discussion of the obstacles which the conditions of any place and time oppose to the free mobility of labour, and also of the inducements which they offer to anyone to change his occupation or to bring up his son to an occupation different from his own. But we have seen enough to conclude that, other things being equal, an increase in the earnings that are to be got by labour increases its rate of growth; or, in other words, a rise in its demand price increases the supply of it. If the state of knowledge, and of social and domestic habits be given, then the numbers and vigour of the people as a whole, and the numbers of any trade in particular, may be said to have a supply price in this sense, that there is a certain level of the demand price which will keep them stationary; that a higher price would cause them to increase, and that a lower price would cause them to decrease. 279 BOOK IV. CH. VI. CHAPTER VII. BOOK IV. wealth among barbarous peoples. THE GROWTH OF WEALTH. § 1. THE earliest forms of wealth were probably implements for hunting and fishing, and personal ornaments; and, Forms of in cold countries, clothing and huts'. During this stage the domestication of animals began; but at first they were probably cared for chiefly for their own sake, because they were beautiful, and it was pleasant to have them; they were, like articles of personal ornament, desired because of the immediate gratification to be derived from their possession rather than as a provision against future needs. Gradually the herds of domesticated animals increased; and during the pastoral stage they were at once the pleasure and the pride of their possessors, the outward emblems of social rank, and by far the most important store of wealth accumulated as a provision against future needs. Forms of wealth in early stages of civilization. As numbers thickened and the people settled down to agriculture, cultivated land took the first place in the inventory of wealth; and that part of the value of the land which was due to improvements (among which wells held a conspicuous place) became the chief element of capital, in the 1 A short but suggestive study of the growth of wealth in its early forms, and of the arts of life, is given in Tylor's Anthropology. 2 Bagehot (Economic Studies, pp. 163–5) after quoting the evidence which Mr Galton has collected on the keeping of pet animals by savage tribes, points out that we find here a good illustration of the fact that however careless a savage race may be for the future, it cannot avoid making some provision for it. A bow, a fishing-net, which will do its work well in getting food for to-day, must be of service for many days to come: a horse or a canoe that will carry one well to-day, must be a stored-up source of many future enjoyments. The least provident of barbaric despots may raise a massive pile of buildings, because it is the most palpable proof of his present wealth and power. EARLY FORMS OF WEALTH. 281 CH. VII. narrower sense of the term. Next in importance came houses, BOOK IV. domesticated animals, and in some places boats and ships; but the implements of production whether for use in agriculture or in domestic manufactures remained for a long time of little value. In some places, however, precious stones and the precious metals in various forms became early a leading object of desire and a recognized means of hoarding wealth; while, to say nothing of the palaces of monarchs, a large part of social wealth in many comparatively rude civilizations took the form of edifices for public purposes, chiefly religious, and of roads and bridges, of canals and irrigation works. For many thousands of years these remained the Until recently chief forms of accumulated wealth. In towns indeed houses there was and household furniture took the first place, and stocks of the more expensive of raw materials counted for a good deal; sive forms but though the inhabitants of the towns had often more capital. wealth per head than those of the country, their total numbers were small; and their aggregate wealth was very much less than that of the country. During all this time the only trade that used very expensive implements was the trade of carrying goods by water: the weavers' looms, the husbandman's ploughs and the blacksmith's anvils were of simple construction and were of little account beside the merchant's ships. But in the eighteenth century England inaugurated the area of expensive implements. little use of expen of auxiliary recent have in The implements of the English farmer had been rising But in slowly in value for a long time; but the progress was quick- years they ened in the eighteenth century. After a while the use first creased of water power and then of steam power caused the rapid very fast. substitution of expensive machinery for inexpensive hand tools in one department of production after another. As in earlier times the most expensive implements were ships and in some cases canals for navigation and irrigation, so now they are the means of locomotion in general;-railways and tramways, canals, docks and ships, telegraph and telephone systems and water-works: even gas-works might almost come under this head, on the ground that a great part of their plant is devoted to distributing the gas. After these come mines and iron and chemical works, ship-building yards, BOOK IV. printing-presses, and other large factories full of expensive machinery. CH. VII. On whichever side we look we find that the progress and diffusion of knowledge are constantly leading to the adoption of new processes and new machinery which economize human effort on condition that some of the effort is spent a good while before the attainment of the ultimate ends to which it is directed. It is not easy to measure this progress exactly, because many modern industries had no counterpart in ancient times. But let us compare the past and present conditions of the four great industries the products of which have not changed their general character: viz. agriculture, the building, the cloth-making, and the carrying trades. In the first two of these hand work still retains an important place: but even in them there is a great development of expensive machinery. Compare for instance the rude implements of an Indian Ryot even of to-day with the equipment of a progressive Lowland farmer'; and consider the brickmaking, mortar-making, sawing, planing, moulding and slotting machines of a modern builder, his steam cranes and his electric light. And if we turn to the textile trades, or at least to those of them which make the simpler products, we find each operative in early times content with implements the cost of which was equivalent to but a few months of his labour; while in modern times it is estimated that for each man, woman and child employed there is a capital in plant alone of about £200, or say the equivalent of five years' labour. 1 The farm implements for a first class Ryot family, including six or seven adult males are a few light ploughs and hoes chiefly of wood, of the total value of about 13 rupees (Sir G. Phear, Aryan Village, p. 233) or the equivalent of their work for about a month; while the value of the machinery alone on a well equipped large modern arable farm amounts to £3 an acre (Equipment of the Farm, edited by J. C. Morton) or say a year's work for each person employed. They include steam-engines, trench, subsoil and ordinary ploughs, some to be worked by steam and some by horse power; various grubbers, harrows, rollers, clodcrushers, seed and manure drills, horse hoes, rakes, hay-making, mowing and reaping machines, steam or horse threshing, chaff cutting, turnip cutting, haypressing machines and a multitude of others. Meanwhile there is an increasing use of silos and covered yards, and constant improvements in the fittings of the dairy and other farm buildings, all of which give great economy of effort in the long run, but require a larger share of it to be spent in preparing the way for the direct work of the farmer in raising agricultural produce. |