Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

tion, or the combined action of numbers. Of this great aid to production, a single department, known by the name of Division of Labour, has engaged a large share of the attention of political economists; most deservedly indeed, but to the exclusion of other cases and exemplifications of the same comprehensive law. Mr. Wakefield was, I believe, the first to point out, that a part of the subject had, with injurious effect, been mistaken for the whole; that a more fundamental principle lies beneath that of the division of labour, and comprehends it.

to be treated apart. This is, co-opera- | place, and in the same way. The savages of New Holland never help each other, even in the most simple operations; and their condition is hardly superior, in some respects it is inferior, to that of the wild animals which they now and then catch. Let any one imagine that the labourers of England should suddenly desist from helping each other in simple employments, and he will see at once the prodigious advantages of simple cooperation. In a countless number of employments, the produce of labour is, up to a certain point, in proportion to such mutual assistance amongst the workmen. This is the first step in social improvement." The second is, when "one body of men having combined their labour to raise more food than they require, another body of men are induced to combine their labour for the purpose of producing more clothes than they require, and with those clothes buying the surplus food of the other body of labourers; while, if both bodies together have produced more food and clothes than they both require, both bodies obtain, by means of exchange, a proper capital for setting more labourers to work in their respective occupations." To simple co-operation is thus superadded what Mr. Wakefield terms Complex Co-operation. The one is the combination of several labourers to help each other in the same set of operations; the other is the combination of several labourers to help one another by a division of operations.

Co-operation, he observes,* is "of two distinct kinds: first, such cooperation as takes place when several persons help each other in the same employment; secondly, such co-operation as takes place when several persons help each other in different employments. These may be termed Simple Co-operation and Complex Co-operation. "The advantage of simple co-operation is illustrated by the case of two greyhounds running together, which, it is said, will kill more hares than four greyhounds running separately. In a vast number of simple operations performed by human exertion, it is quite obvious that two men working together will do more than four, or four times four men, each of whom should work alone. In the lifting of heavy weights, for example, in the felling of trees, in the sawing of timber, in the gathering of much hay or corn during a short period of fine weather, in draining a large extent of land during the short season when such a work may be properly conducted, in the pulling of ropes on board ship, in the rowing of large boats, in some mining operations, in the erection of a scaffolding for building, and in the breaking of stones for the repair of a road, so that the whole of the road shall always be kept in good order; in all these simple operations, and thousands more, it is absolutely necessary that many persons should work together, at the same time, in the same

*Note to Wakefield's edition of Adam Smith, vol. i. p. 26.

There is an important distinction between simple and complex co-operation.

Of the former, one is always conscious at the time of practising it: it is obvious to the most ignorant and vulgar eye. Of the latter, but a very few of the vast numbers who practise it are in any degree conscious. The cause of this distinction is easily seen. When several men are employed in lifting the same weight, or pulling the same rope, at the same time, and in the same place, there can be no sort of doubt that they co-operate with each other; the fact is impressed on the mind by the mere sense of sight; but

when several men, or bodies of men, are employed at different times and places, and in different pursuits, their co-operation with each other, though it may be quite as certain, is not so readily perceived as in the other case: in order to perceive it, a complex operation of the mind is required."

In the present state of society the breeding and feeding of sheep is the occupation of one set of people, dressing the wool to prepare it for the spinner is that of another, spinning it into thread of a third, weaving the thread into broadcloth of a fourth, dyeing the cloth of a fifth, making it into a coat of a sixth, without counting the multitude of carriers, merchants, factors, and retailers put in requisition at the successive stages of this progress. All these persons, without knowledge of one another or previous understanding, co-operate in the production of the ultimate result, a coat. But these are far from being all who co-operate in it; for each of these persons requires food, and many other articles of consumption, and unless he could have relied that other people would produce these for him, he could not have devoted his whole time to one step in the succession of operations which produces one single commodity, a coat. Every person who took part in producing food or erecting houses for this series of producers, has, however unconsciously on his part, combined his labour with theirs. It is by a real, though unexpressed, concert, "that the body who raise more food than they want, can exchange with the body who raise more clothes than they want; and if the two bodies were separated, either by distance or disinclination-unless the two bodies should virtually form themselves into one, for the common object of raising enough food and clothes for the whole-they could not divide into two distinct parts the whole operation of producing a sufficient quantity of food and clothes."

§ 2. The influence exercised on coduction by the separation of employments, is more fundamental than, from the mode in which the subject is

usually treated, a reader might be induced to suppose. It is not merely that when the production of different things becomes the sole or principal occupation of different persons, a much greater quantity of each kind of article is produced. The truth is much beyond this. Without some separation of employments, very few things would be produced at all.

Suppose a set of persons, or a number of families, all employed precisely in the same manner; each family settled on a piece of its own land, on which it grows by its labour the food required for its own sustenance, and as there are no persons to buy any surplus produce where all are producers, each family has to produce within itself whatever other articles it consumes. In such circumstances, if the soil was tolerably fertile, and population did not tread too closely on the heels of subsistence, there would be, no doubt, some kind of domestic manufactures; clothing for the family might perhaps be spun and woven within it, by the labour probably of the women (a first step in the separation of employments); and a dwelling of some sort would be erected and kept in repair by their united labour. But beyond simple food (precarious, too, from the variations of the seasons), coarse clothing, and very imperfect lodging, it would be scarcely possible that the family should produce anything more. They would, in general, require their utmost exertions to ac complish so much. Their power even of extracting food from the soil would be kept within narrow limits by the quality of their tools, which would necessarily be of the most wretched description. To do almost anything in the way of producing for themselves articles of convenience or luxury, would require too much time, and, in many cases, their presence in a different place. Very few kinds of industry, therefore, would exist; and that which did exist, namely the production of necessaries, would be extremely inefficient, not solely from imperfect implements, but because, when the ground and the domestic industry fed

by it had been made to supply the necessaries of a single family in tolerable abundance, there would be little motive, while the numbers of the family remained the same, to make either the land or the labour produce

more.

But suppose an event to occur, which would amount to a revolution in the circumstances of this little settlement. Suppose that a company of artificers, provided with tools, and with food sufficient to maintain them for year, arrive in the country and establish themselves in the midst of the population. These new settlers occupy themselves in producing articles of use or ornament adapted to the taste of a simple people; and before their food is exhausted they have produced these in considerable quantity, and are ready to exchange them for more food. The economical position of the landed population is now most materially altered. They have an opportunity given them of acquiring comforts and luxuries. Things which, while they depended solely on their own labour, they never could have obtained, because they could not have produced, are now accessible to them if they can succeed in producing an additional quantity of food and necessaries. They are thus incited to increase the productiveness of their industry. Among the conveniences for the first time made accessible to them, better tools are probably one; and apart from this, they have a motive to labour more assiduously, and to adopt contrivances for making their labour more effectual. By these means they will generally succeed in compelling their land to produce, not only food for themselves, but a surplus for the new comers, wherewith to buy from them the products of their industry. The new settlers constitute what is called a market for surplus agricultural produce and their arrival has enriched the settlement not only by the manufactured articles which they produce, but by the food which would not have been produced unless they had been there to consume it.

There is no inconsistency between

this doctrine, and the proposition wo before maintained, that a market for commodities does not constitute employment for labour.* The labour of the agriculturists was already pro vided with employment; they are not indebted to the demand of the new comers for being able to maintain themselves. What that demand does for them is, to call their labour into increased vigour and efficiency; to stimulate them, by new motives, to new exertions. Neither do the new comers owe their maintenance and employment to the demand of the agriculturists: with a year's subsistence in store, they could have settled side by side with the former inhabitants, and produced a similar scanty stock of food and necessaries. Nevertheless, we see of what supreme importance to the productiveness of the labour of producers, is the existence of other producers within reach, employed in a different kind of industry. The power of exchanging the products of one kind of labour for those of another, is a condition, but for which, there would almost always be a smaller quantity of labour altogether. When a new market is opened for any product of industry, and a greater quantity of the article is consequently produced, the increased production is not always obtained at the expense of some other product; it is often a new creation, the result of labour which would otherwise have remained unexerted; or of assistance rendered to labour by improvements or by modes of co-operation to which recourse would not have been had if an inducement had not been offered for raising a larger produce.

§ 3. From these considerations it appears that a country will seldom have a productive agriculture, unless it has a large town population, or the only available substitute, a large export trade in agricultural produce to supply a population elsewhere. I use the phrase town population for shortness, to imply a population non-agricultural; which will generally be collected in towns or large villages, for * Supra, pp. 49–55.

the sake of combination of labour. | customs, which are the rea! framework The application of this truth by Mr. of Indian society, make provision for Wakefield to the theory of colonization, joint action in the cases in which it is has excited much attention, and is seen to be necessary; or where they doubtless destined to excite much fail to do so, the government (when more. It is one of those great practical tolerably well administered) steps in, discoveries, which, once made, appear and by an outlay from the revenue, so obvious that the merit of making executes by combined labour the tanks, them seems less than it is. Mr. embankments, and works of irrigation, Wakefield was the first to point out which are indispensable. The implethat the mode of planting new settle- ments and processes of agriculture are ments, then commonly practised- however so wretched, that the produce setting down a number of families side of the soil, in spite of great natural by side, each on its piece of land, all fertility and a climate highly favourable employing themselves in exactly the to vegetation, is miserably small and same manner, though in favourable the land might be made to yield food circumstances it may assure to those in abundance for many more than the families a rude abundance of mere present number of inhabitants, without necessaries, can never be other than departing from the system of small unfavourable to great production or holdings. But to this the stimulus is rapid growth and his system con- wanting, which a large town populasists of arrangements for securing that tion, connected with the rural districts every colony shall have from the first by easy and unexpensive means of a town population, bearing due propor- communication, would afford. That tion to its agricultural, and that the town population, again, does not grow cultivators of the soil shall not be so up, because the few wants and unaswidely scattered as to be deprived by piring spirit of the cultivators (joined distance, of the benefit of that town until lately with great insecurity of population as a market for their pro- property, from military and fiscal raduce. The principle on which the pacity) prevent them from attempting scheme is founded, does not depend on to become consumers of town produce. any theory respecting the superior pro- In these circumstances the best chance ductiveness of land held in large of an early development of the producportions, and cultivated by hired la- tive resources of India, consists in the bour. Supposing it true that land rapid growth of its export of agriculyields the greatest produce when tural produce (cotton, indigo,_sugar, divided into small properties and cul- coffee, &c.) to the markets of Europe. tivated by peasant proprietors, a town The producers of these articles are population would be just as necessary consumers of food supplied by their to induce those proprietors to raise fellow-agriculturists in India; and the that larger produce: and if they were market thus opened for surplus food too far from the nearest seat of non- will, if accompanied by good governagricultural industry to use it as a ment, raise up by degrees more exmarket for disposing of their surplus, tended wants and desires, directed and thereby supplying their other either towards European commodities, wants, neither that surplus nor any or towards things which will require equivalent for it would, generally for their production in India a larger speaking, be produced. manufacturing population.

It is, above all, the deficiency of town population which limits the prouctiveness of the industry of a country ike India. The agriculture of India is onducted entirely on the system of mall holdings. There is, however, a considerable amount of combination of labour. The village institutions and

§ 4. Thus far of the separation of employments, a form of the combination of labour without which there cannot be the first rudiments of industrial civilization. But when this separation is thoroughly established; when it has become the general practice for each

producer to supply many others with one commodity, and to be supplied by others with most of the things which he consumes; reasons not less real, though less imperative, invite to a further extension of the same principle. It is found that the productive power of labour is increased by carrying the separation further and further; by breaking down more and more every process of industry into parts, so that each labourer shall confine himself to an ever smaller number of simple operations. And thus, in time, arise those remarkable cases of what is called the division of labour, with which all readers on subjects of this nature are familiar. Adam Smith's illustration from pin-making, though so well known, is so much to the point, that I will venture once more to transcribe it. "The business of making a pin is divided into about eighteen distinct operations. One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on, is a peculiar business; to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper.

And

M. Say furnishes a still stronger example of the effects of division of labour-from a not very important branch of industry certainly, the manufacture of playing cards. "It is said by those engaged in the business, that each card, that is, a piece of pasteboard of the size of the hand, before being ready for sale, does not undergo fewer than seventy operations, every one of which might be the occupation of a distinct class of workmen. if there are not seventy classes of workpeople in each card manufactory, it is because the division of labour is not carried so far as it might be; because the same workman is charged with two, three, or four distinct operations. The influence of this distribution of employments is immense. I have seen a card manufactory where thirty workmen produced daily fifteen thousand five hundred cards, being above five hundred cards for each labourer; and it may be presumed that if each of these workmen were obliged to perform all the operations himself, even suppo sing him a practised hand, he would not perhaps complete two cards in a day and the thirty workmen, instead of fifteen thousand five hundred cards, would make only sixty."*

I have seen a small manufactory where ten men only were employed, and where some of them, consequently, performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately and independently, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made Economy of Machinery and Manufac twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day."tures, 3rd Edition, p. 201.

In watchmaking, as Mr. Babbage observes, "it was stated in evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons, that there are a hundred and two distinct branches of this art, to each of which a boy may be put apprentice; and that he only learns his master's department. and is unable, after his apprenticeship has expired, without subsequent instruction, to work at any other branch. The watchfinisher, whose business it is to put together the scattered parts, is the only one, out of the one hundred and two persons, who can work in any other department than his own.Ӡ

SAY, Cours d'Economie Politique Pratique, vol. i. p. 340.

labour occasioned by this minute division of

It is a remarkable proof of the economy of

occupations, that an article, the production of which is the result of such a multitude of manual operations, can be sold for a trifling

sum.

« НазадПродовжити »