Knowledge is Power Part 4

"Let it not disgrace me, If I demand, before this royal view, What rub, or what impediment, there is, Why that the naked, poor, and mangled peace, Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births, Should not, in this best garden of the world, Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage?

Alas! she hath from France too long been chas'd; And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps, Corrupting in its own fertility.

Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart, Unpruned, dies; her hedges even-pleach'd, Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair Put forth disorder'd twigs: her fallow leas, The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory Doth root upon; while that the coulter rusts, That should deracinate such savagery: The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover, Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank, Conceives by idleness; and nothing teems But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs, Losing both beauty and utility: And as our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges, Defective in their natures, grow to wildness; Even so our houses, and ourselves and children, Have lost, or do not learn, for want of time, The sciences that should become our country."

[Ill.u.s.tration: d.y.k.es of Holland: destruction by bursting.]

We have heard it said that Tenterden steeple was the cause of Goodwin Sands. The meaning of the saying is, that the capital which was appropriated to keep out the sea from that part of the Kentish coast was diverted to the building of Tenterden steeple; and there being no funds to keep out the sea, it washed over the land.[14] The Goodwin Sands remain to show that man must carry on a perpetual contest to keep in subjection the forces of nature, which, as is said of fire, one of the forces, are good servants but bad masters. But these examples show, also, that in the social state our control of the physical forces of nature depends upon the right control of our own moral forces. There was injustice, doubtless, in misappropriating the funds which restrained the sea from devouring the land. Till men know that they shall work with justice on every side, they work feebly and unprofitably. England did not begin to acc.u.mulate largely and rapidly till the rights both of the poor man and the rich were to a certain degree established--till industry was free and property secure. Our great dramatic poet has described this security as the best characteristic of the reign of Queen Elizabeth:--

"In her days every man shall eat in safety Under his own vine what he plants."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Under his own vine"]

Shakspere derived his image from the Bible, where a state of security is frequently indicated by direct allusion to a man sitting under the shade of his own fig-tree or his own vine. In the days of Elizabeth, as compared with previous eras, there was safety, and a man might

"sing The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours."

We have gone on constantly improving these blessings. But let any circ.u.mstances again arise which may be powerful enough to destroy, or even molest, the freedom of industry and the security of property, and we should work once more without certainty. The elements of prosperity would not be constant and uniform. We should work with the apprehension that some hurricane of tyranny, no matter from what power, would arise, which would sweep away acc.u.mulation. When that hurricane did not rise, we might have comparative abundance, like the people of Egypt during the inundation of the Nile. We then should have an inundation of tranquillity. But if the tranquillity were not present--if lawless violence stood in the place of justice and security--we should be like the people of Egypt when the Nile did not overflow. We should suffer the extremity of misery; and that possible extremity would produce an average misery, even if tranquillity did return, because security had not returned. We should, if this state of things long abided, by degrees go back to the condition of Colchester in the fourteenth century, and thence to the universal marsh of two thousand years ago. The place where London stands would be, as it once was, a wilderness for howling wolves. The few that produced would again produce laboriously and painfully, without skill and without division of labour, because without acc.u.mulation; and it would probably take another thousand years, if men again saw the absolute need of security, to re-create what security has acc.u.mulated for our present use.

From the moment that the industry of this country began to work with security, and capital and labour applied themselves in union--perhaps not a perfect union, but still in union--to the great business of production, they worked with less and less expenditure of unprofitable labour. They continued to labour more and more profitably, as they laboured with knowledge. The labour of all rude nations, and of all uncultivated individuals, is labour with ignorance. Peter the wild boy, whom we have already mentioned, could never be made to perceive the right direction of labour, because he could not trace it through its circuitous courses for the production of utility. He would work under control, but, if left to himself, he would not work profitably. Having been trusted to fill a cart with manure, he laboured with diligence till the work was accomplished; but no one being at hand to direct him, he set to work as diligently to unload the cart again. He thought, as too many think even now, that the good was in the labour, and not in the results of the labour. The same ignorance exhibits itself in the unprofitable labour and unprofitable application of capital, even of persons far removed beyond the half-idiocy of Peter the wild boy. In the thirteenth century many of the provinces of France were overrun with rats, and the people, instead of vigorously hunting the rats, were persuaded to carry on a process against them in the ecclesiastical courts; and there, after the cause of the injured people and the injuring rats was solemnly debated, the rats were declared cursed and excommunicated if they did not retire in six days. The historian does not add that the rats obeyed the injunction; and doubtless the farmers were less prepared to resort to the profitable labour of chasing them to death when they had paid the ecclesiastics for the unprofitable labour of their excommunication. There is a curious instance of unprofitable labour given in a book on the Coal Trade of Scotland, written as recently as 1812. The people of Edinburgh had a pa.s.sion for buying their coals in immense lumps, and, to gratify this pa.s.sion, the greatest care was taken not to break the coals in any of the operations of conveying them from the pit to the cellar of the consumer. A wall of coals was first built within the pit, another wall under the pit's mouth, another wall when they were raised from the pit, another wall in the waggon which conveyed them to the port where they were shipped, another wall in the hold of the ship, another wall in the cart which conveyed them to the consumer, and another wall in the consumer's cellar; and the result of these seven different buildings-up and takings-down was, that after the consumer had paid thirty per cent. more for these square ma.s.ses of coal than for coal shovelled together in large and small pieces, his servant had daily to break the large coals to bits to enable him to make any use of them. It seems extraordinary that such waste of labour and capital should have existed amongst a highly acute and refined community within the last forty years. They, perhaps, thought they were making good for trade, and therefore submitted to the evil; while the Glasgow people, on the contrary, by saving thirty per cent. in their coals, had that thirty per cent. to bestow upon new enterprises of industry, and for new encouragements to labour.

The unprofitable applications of capital and labour which the early history of the civilization of every people has to record, and which, amongst many, have subsisted even whilst they held themselves at the height of refinement, have been fostered by the ignorance of the great, and even of the learned, as to the causes which, advancing production or r.e.t.a.r.ding it, advanced or r.e.t.a.r.ded their own interests, and the interests of all the community. Princes and statesmen, prelates and philosophers, were equally ignorant of

"What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so; What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat."

It was enough for them to consume; they thought it beneath them to observe even, much less to a.s.sist in, the direction of production. This was ignorance as gross as that of Peter the wild boy, or the excommunication of rats. It has always been the fashion of ignorant greatness to despise the mechanical arts. The pride of the Chinese mandarins was to let their nails grow as long as their fingers, to show that they never worked. Even European n.o.bles once sought the same absurd distinction. In France, under the old monarchy, no descendant of a n.o.bleman could embark in trade without the highest disgrace; and the principle was so generally recognised as just, that a French writer, even as recently as 1758, reproaches the sons of the English n.o.bility for the contrary practice, and asks, with an air of triumph, how can a man be fit to serve his country in Parliament after having meddled with such paltry concerns as those of commerce? Montesquieu, a writer in most respects of enlarged views, holds that it is beneath the dignity of governments to interfere with such trumpery things as the regulation of weights and measures. Society might have well spared the interference of governments with weights and measures if they had been content to leave all commerce equally free. But, in truth, the regulation of weights and measures is almost a solitary exception to the great principle which governments ought to practise, of not interfering, or interfering little, with commerce.

Louis XIV. did not waste more capital and labour by his ruinous wars, and by his covering France with fortifications and palaces, than by the perpetual interferences of himself and his predecessors with the freedom of trade, which compelled capital and labour to work unprofitably. The naturally slow progress of profitable industry is rendered more slow by the perpetual inclination of those in authority to divert industry from its natural and profitable channels. It was therefore wisely said by a committee of merchants to Colbert, the prime minister of France in the reign of Louis XIV., when he asked them what measures government could adopt to promote the interests of commerce,--"Let us alone, permit us quietly to manage our own business." It is undeniable that the interests of all are best promoted when each is left free to attend to his own interests, under the necessary social restraints which prevent him doing a positive injury to his neighbour. It is thus that agriculture and manufactures are essentially allied in their interests; that unrestrained commerce is equally essential to the real and permanent interests of agriculture and manufactures; that capital and labour are equally united in their interests, whether applied to agriculture, manufactures, or commerce; that the producer and the consumer are equally united in their most essential interest, which is, that there should be cheap production. While these principles are not understood at all, and while they are imperfectly understood, as they still are by many cla.s.ses and individuals, there must be a vast deal of unprofitable expenditure of capital, a vast deal of unprofitable labour, a vast deal of bickering and heart-burning between individuals who ought to be united, and cla.s.ses who ought to be united, and nations who ought to be united; and as long as it is not felt by all that their mutual rights are understood and will be respected, there is a feeling of insecurity which more or less affects the prosperity of all. The only remedy for these evils is the extension of knowledge. Louis XV. proclaimed to the French that the English were their "veritables ennemis," their true enemies. When knowledge is triumphant it will be found that there are no "veritables ennemis," either among nations, or cla.s.ses, or individuals.

The prejudices by which nations, cla.s.ses, and individuals are led to believe that the interest of one is opposed to the interest of another, are, nine times out of ten, as utterly absurd as the reason which a Frenchman once gave for hating the English--which was, "that they poured melted b.u.t.ter on their roast veal;" and this was not more ridiculous than the old denunciation of the English against the French, that "they ate frogs, and wore wooden shoes." When the world is disabused of the belief that the wealth of one nation, cla.s.s, or individual must be created by the loss of another's wealth, then, and then only, will all men steadily and harmoniously apply to produce and to enjoy--to acquire prosperity and happiness--lifting themselves to the possession of good

"By Reason's light, on Resolution's wings."

[14] Grey's Notes to Hudibras.

CHAPTER X.

Employment of machinery in manufactures and agriculture--Erroneous notions formerly prevalent on this subject--Its advantages to the labourer--Spade-husbandry-- The _principle_ of machinery--Machines and tools--Change in the condition of England consequent on the introduction of machinery--Modern New Zealanders and ancient Greeks--Hand-mills and water-mills.

One of the most striking effects of the want of knowledge producing disunions amongst mankind that are injurious to the interests of each and all, is the belief which still exists amongst many well-meaning but unreflecting persons, that the powers and arrangements which Capital has created and devised for the advancement of production are injurious to the great body of working-men in their character of producers. The great forces by which capital and labour now work,--forces which are gathering strength every day,--are acc.u.mulation of skill and division of employments. It will be for us to show that the applications of science to the manufacturing arts have the effect of ensuring cheap production and increased employment. These applications of science are princ.i.p.ally displayed in the use of MACHINERY; and we shall endeavour to prove that, although individual labour may be partially displaced, or unsettled for a time, by the use of this cheaper and better power than una.s.sisted manual labour, all are great gainers by the general use of that power.

Through that power all princ.i.p.ally possess, however poor they may be, many of the comforts which make the difference between man in a civilized and man in a savage state; and further, that, in consequence of machinery having rendered productions of all sorts cheaper, and therefore caused them to be more universally purchased, it has really increased the demand for that manual labour, which it appears to some, reasoning only from a few instances, it has a tendency to diminish.

In the year 1827 a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to examine into the subject of Emigration. The first person examined before that Committee was Joseph Foster, a working weaver of Glasgow. He told the Committee that he and many others, who had formed themselves into a society, were in great distress; that numbers of them worked at the _hand-loom_ from eighteen to nineteen hours a day, and that their earnings, at the utmost, did not amount to more than seven shillings a-week, and that sometimes they were as low as four shillings. That twenty years before that time they could readily earn a pound a-week by the same industry; and that as _power-loom_ weaving had increased, the distress of the hand-weavers also had increased in the same proportion.

The Committee then put to Joseph Foster the following questions, and received the following answers:--

"_Q._ Are the Committee to understand that you attribute the insufficiency of your remuneration for your labour to the introduction of machinery?

"_A._ Yes.

"_Q._ Do you consider, therefore, that the introduction of machinery is objectionable?

"_A._ We do not. The weavers in general, of Glasgow and its vicinity, do not consider that machinery can or ought to be stopped, or put down. They know perfectly well that machinery must go on, that it will go on, and that it is impossible to stop it.

They are aware that every implement of agriculture or manufacture is a portion of machinery, and, indeed, everything that goes beyond the teeth and nails (if I may use the expression) is a machine. I am authorized, by the majority of our society, to say that I speak their minds, as well as my own, in stating this."

It is worthy of note how the common sense of this working-man, a quarter of a century ago, saw clearly the great principle which overthrows, in the outset, all unreasoning hostility to machinery. Let us follow out his principle.

Amongst the many accounts which the newspapers in December, 1830, gave of the destruction of machinery by agricultural labourers, we observed that in the neighbourhood of Aylesbury a band of mistaken and unfortunate men destroyed all the machinery of many farms, _down even to the common drills_. The men conducted themselves, says the county newspaper, with civility; and such was their consideration, that they moved the machines out of the farm-yards, to prevent injury arising to the cattle from the nails and splinters that flew about while the machinery was being destroyed. They _could not make up their minds_ as to the propriety of destroying a horse-churn, and therefore that machine was pa.s.sed over.

A quarter of a century has made a remarkable difference in the feelings, even in the least informed, with regard to machinery. The majority of the people now know, as the weavers of Glasgow knew in 1827, that "machinery must go on, that it will go on, and that it is impossible to stop it." We therefore, adapting this volume to the improved times in which it is now published, think it needless to urge, as fully as we once did, any of the notions of the labourers of Aylesbury to their inevitable conclusions. It is sufficient briefly to show, that, if the labourers had been successful in their career, had broken all those ingenious implements which have aided in rendering British agriculture the most perfect in the world, they would not have advanced a single step in obtaining more employment, or being better paid.

We will suppose, then, that the farmer has yielded to this violence; that the violence has had the effect which it was meant to have upon him; and that he takes on all the hands which were out of employ, to thrash and winnow, to cut chaff, to plant with a dibber instead of with a drill, to do all the work, in fact, by the dearest mode instead of the cheapest. But he employs _just as many people as are absolutely necessary_, and no more, for getting his corn ready for market, and for preparing, in a slovenly way, for the seed-time. In a month or two the victorious destroyers find that not a single hand the more of them is really employed. And why not? There are no drainings going forward, the hedges and ditches are neglected, the dung-heap is not turned over, the chalk is not fetched from the pit; in fact, all those labours are neglected which belong to a state of agricultural industry which is brought to perfection. _The farmer has no funds to employ in such labours_; he is paying a great deal more than he paid before for the same, or a less, amount of work, because his labourers choose to do certain labours with rude tools instead of perfect ones.

We will imagine that this state of things continues till the next spring. All this while the price of grain has been rising. Many farmers have ceased to employ capital at all upon the land. The neat inventions, which enabled them to make a living out of their business, being destroyed, they have abandoned the business altogether. A day's work will now no longer purchase as much bread as before. The horse, it might be probably found out, was as great an enemy as the drill-plough; for, as a horse will do the field-work of six men, there must be six men employed, without doubt, instead of one horse. But how would the fact turn out? If the farmer still went on, in spite of all these losses and crosses, he might employ men in the place of horses, but not a single man more than the number that would work at the price of the keep of one horse. To do the work of each horse turned adrift, he would require six men; but he would only have about a shilling a-day to divide between these six--the amount which the horse consumed.

As the year advanced, and the harvest approached, it would be discovered that not one-tenth of the land was sown: for although the ploughs were gone, because the horses were turned off, and there was plenty of _labour_ for those who chose to labour for its own sake, or at the price of horse-labour, this amazing employment for human hands, somehow or other, would not quite answer the purpose. It has been calculated that the power of horses, oxen, &c., employed in husbandry in Great Britain is ten times the amount of human power. If the human power insisted upon doing all the work with the worst tools, the certainty is that not even one-tenth of the land could be cultivated. Where, then, would all this madness end? In the starvation of the labourers themselves, even if they were allowed to eat up all they had produced by such imperfect means. They would be just in the condition of any other barbarous people, that were ignorant of the inventions that const.i.tute the power of civilization. They would eat up the little corn which they raised themselves, and have nothing to give in exchange for clothes, and coals, and candles, and soap, and tea, and sugar, and all the many comforts which those who are even the worst off are not wholly deprived of.

All this may appear as an extreme statement; and certainly we believe that no such evils could have happened: for if the laws had been pa.s.sive, the most ignorant of the labourers themselves would, if they had proceeded to carry their own principle much farther than they had done, see in their very excesses the real character of the folly and wickedness to which it had led, and would lead them. Why should the labourers of Aylesbury not have destroyed the harrows as well as the drills? Why leave a machine which separates the clods of the earth, and break one which puts seed into it? Why deliberate about a horse-churn, when they were resolved against a winnowing-machine? The truth is, these poor men perceived, even in the midst of their excesses, the gross deception of the reasons which induced them to commit them. Their motive was a natural, and, if lawfully expressed, a proper impatience, under a condition which had certainly many hardships, and those hardships in great part produced by the want of profitable labour. But in imputing those hardships to machinery, they were at once embarra.s.sed when they came to draw distinctions between one sort of machine and another. This embarra.s.sment decidedly shows that there were fearful mistakes at the bottom of their furious hostility to machinery.

It has been said, by persons whose opinions are worthy attention, that spade-husbandry is, in some cases, better than plough-husbandry;--that is, that the earth, under particular circ.u.mstances of soil and situation, may be more fitly prepared for the influences of the atmosphere by digging than by ploughing. It is not our business to enter into a consideration of this question. The growth of corn is a manufacture, in which man employs the chemical properties of the soil and of the air in conjunction with his own labour, aided by certain tools or machines, for the production of a crop; and that power, whether of chemistry or machinery,--whether of the salt, or the chalk, or the dung, or the guano, which he puts upon the earth, or the spade or the plough which he puts into it,--that power which does the work easiest is necessarily the best, _because it diminishes the cost of production_. If the plough does not do the work so well as the spade, it is a less perfect machine; but the less perfect machine may be preferred to the more perfect, because, taking other conditions into consideration, it is a cheaper machine. If the spade, applied in a peculiar manner by the strength and judgment of the man using it, more completely turns up the soil, breaks the clods, and removes the weeds than the plough, which receives one uniform direction from man with the a.s.sistance of other animal power, then the spade is a more perfect machine in its combination with human labour than the plough is, worked with a lesser degree of the same combination. But still it may be a machine which cannot be used with advantage to the producer, and is therefore not desirable for the consumer. All such questions must be determined by the cost of production; and that cost in agriculture is made up of the rent of land, the profit of capital, and the wages of labour--or the portions of the produce belonging to the landlord, the farmer, and the labourer.

Where rent is high, as in the immediate neighbourhood of large towns, it is important to have the labour performed as carefully as possible, and the succession of crops stimulated to the utmost extent by manure and labour. It is economy to turn the soil to the greatest account, and the land is cultivated as a garden. Where rent is low, it is important to have the labour performed upon other principles, because one acre cultivated by hand may cost more than two cultivated by the plough; and though it may be the truest policy to carry the productiveness of the earth as far as possible, field cultivation and garden cultivation must have essential differences. In one case, the machine called a spade is used; in the other, the machine called a plough is employed. The use of the one or the other belongs to practical agriculture, and is a question only of relative cost.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Centre of gravity]

And this brings us to the great _principle_ of all machinery. A tool of the simplest construction is a machine; a machine of the most curious construction is only a complicated tool. There are many cases in the arts, and there may be cases in agriculture, in which the human arm and hand, with or without a tool, may do work that no machine can so well perform. There are processes in polishing, and there is a process in copper-plate printing, in which no substance has been found to stand in the place of the human hand. And, if therefore the man with a spade alone does a certain agricultural work more completely than a man guiding a plough, and a team of horses dragging it (which we do not affirm or deny), the only reason for this is, that the man with the spade is a better machine than the man with the plough and the horses.

The most stupid man that ever existed is, beyond all comparison, a machine more cunningly made by the hands of his Creator, more perfect in all his several parts, and with all his parts more exquisitely adapted to the regulated movement of the whole body, less liable to accidents, and less injured by wear and tear, than the most beautiful machine that ever was, or ever will be, invented. There is no possibility of supplying in many cases a subst.i.tute for the simplest movements of a man's body, by the most complicated movements of the most ingenious machinery. The laws of mechanism are the same whether applied to a man, or to a lever, or a wheel; but the man has more pliability than any combination of wheels and levers. "When a porter carries a burden, the att.i.tude of the body must accommodate itself to the position of the common centre of gravity of himself and his load. Thus, in the accompanying figures it will be observed that when the man stands upright the centre of gravity of the man G falls within the base of support; and if his load L falls without the base, as does likewise _g_, the common centre of gravity of the man and load, the consequence would be that he would fall backwards; but this is prevented, or, which is the same thing, the point _g_ is brought within the base by the man bending his body forward."[15] What is called the lay figure of the painter--a wooden image with many joints--may be bent here and there; but the artist who wanted to draw a porter with a load could not put a hundredweight upon the back of his image and keep it upon its legs. The natural machinery by which a man even lifts his hand to his head is at once so complex and so simple, so apparently easy and yet so entirely dependent upon the right adjustment of a great many contrary forces, that no automaton, or machine imitating the actions of man, could ever be made to effect this seemingly simple motion, without showing that the contrivance was imperfect,--that it was a mere imitation, and a very clumsy one. What an easy thing it appears to be for a farming man to thrash his corn with a flail; and yet what an expensive arrangement of wheels is necessary to produce the same effects with a thrashing-machine!

The truth is, that the man's arm and the flail form a much more curious machine than the other machine of wheels, which does the same work; and the real question as regards the value of the two machines is, which machine in the greater degree lessens the cost of production?

We state this principle broadly, in our examination into the value of machinery in diminishing the cost of producing human food. A machine is not perfect because it is made of wheels or cylinders, employs the power of the screw or the lever, is driven by wind or water or steam, but because it best a.s.sists the labour of man, by calling into action some power which he does not possess in himself. If we could imagine a man entirely dispossessed of this power, we should see the feeblest of animal beings. He has no tools which are a part of himself, to build houses like the beaver, or cells like the bee. He has not even learnt from nature to build, instinctively, by certain and unchangeable rules.

His power is in his mind; and that mind teaches him to subject all the physical world to his dominion, by availing himself of the forces which nature has spread around him. To act upon material objects he arms his weakness with tools and with machines. As we have before said, tools and machines are in principle the same. When we strike a nail upon the head with a hammer, we avail ourselves of a power which we find in nature--the effect produced by the concussion of two bodies; when we employ a water-wheel to beat out a lump of iron with a much larger hammer, we still avail ourselves of the same power. There is no difference in the nature of the instruments, although we call the one a tool, and the other a machine. Neither the tool nor the machine has any force of itself. In one case the force is in the arm, in the other in the weight of water which turns the wheel. The distinctions which have been taken between a tool and a machine are really so trivial, and the line of separation between the one and the other is so slight, that we can only speak of both as common instruments for adding to the efficiency of labour. The simplest application of a principle of mechanics to an every-day hand-tool may convert it into what is called a machine. Take a three-p.r.o.nged fork--one of the universal tools;--fasten a rope to the end of the handle; put a log under the fork as a fulcrum; and we have a lever, when pulled down by the rope, which will grub up a strongly-rooted large shrub in a few minutes. The labourer has called in a powerful ally. The tool has become a machine.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A tool made a machine]

The chief difference between man in a rude, and man in a civilized state of society is, that the one wastes his force, whether natural or acquired,--the other economizes, that is, saves it. The man in a rude state has very rude instruments; he therefore wastes his force: the man in a civilized state has very perfect ones; he therefore economizes it.

Should we not laugh at the gardener who went to hoe his potatoes with a stick having a short crook at the end? It would be a tool, we should say, fit only for children to use. Yet such a tool was doubtless employed by some very ancient nations; for there is an old medal of Syracuse which represents this very tool. The common hoe of the English gardener is a much more perfect tool, because it saves labour. Could we have any doubt of the madness of the man who would propose that all iron hoes should be abolished, to furnish more extensive employ to labourers who should be provided only with a crooked stick cut out of a hedge? The truth is, if the working men of England had no better tools than crooked sticks, they would be in a state of actual starvation. One of the chiefs of New Zealand, before that country had been colonized by us, told Mr.

Marsden, a missionary, that his wooden spades were all broken, and he had not an axe to make any more;--his canoes were all broken, and he had not a nail or a gimlet to mend them with;--his potato-grounds were uncultivated, and he had not a hoe to break them up with;--and that _for want of cultivation_ he and his people would have nothing to eat. This shows the state of a people without tools. The man had seen English tools, and knew their value.

About three or four hundred years ago, from the times of king Henry IV.

to those of king Henry VI., and, indeed, long before these reigns, there were often, as we have already mentioned, grievous famines in this country, because the land was very wretchedly cultivated. Men, women, and children perished of actual hunger by thousands; and those who survived kept themselves alive by eating the bark of trees, acorns, and pig-nuts. There were no machines then; but the condition of the labourers was so bad, that they could not be kept to work upon the land without those very severe and tyrannical laws noticed in Chap. VII., which absolutely forbade them to leave the station in which they were born as labourers, for any hope of bettering their condition in the towns. There were not labourers enough to till the ground, for they worked without any skill, with weak ploughs and awkward hoes. They were just as badly off as some of the people of Portugal and Spain, who are miserably poor, _because_ they have bad machines; or as the Chinese labourers, who have scarcely any machines, and are the poorest in the world. There was plenty of labour to be performed, but the tools were so bad, and the want of agricultural knowledge so universal, that the land was never half cultivated, and therefore all cla.s.ses were poorly off.

They had little corn to exchange for manufactures, and in consequence the labourer was badly clothed, badly lodged, and had a very indifferent share of the scanty crop which he raised. The condition of the labourer would have proceeded from bad to worse, had agricultural improvement not gone forward to improve the general condition of all cla.s.ses. Commons were enclosed; arable land was laid down to pasture; sheep were kept upon gra.s.s-land where wretched crops had before been growing. This was superseding labour to a great extent, and much clamour was raised about this plan, and probably a large amount of real distress was produced.

But mark the consequence. Although the money wages of labour were lowered, because there were more labourers in the market, the real amount of wages was higher, for better food was created by pasturage at a cheaper rate. The labourer then got meat who had never tasted it before; and when the use of animal food became general, there were cattle and corn enough to be exchanged for manufactured goods, and the labourer got a coat and a pair of shoes, who had formerly gone half naked. Step by step have we been going in the same direction for two centuries; and the agricultural industry of Great Britain is now as much directed to the production of meat, milk, b.u.t.ter, cheese, as to the growth of corn and other cereals. The once simple husbandry of our forefathers has become a scientific manufacture.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Spinning.]

There may be some persons still who object to machinery, because, having grown up surrounded with the benefits it has conferred upon them, without understanding the source of these benefits, they are something like the child who sees nothing but evil in a rainy day. The people of New Zealand very rarely came to us; but when they did come they were acute enough to perceive the advantages which machinery has conferred upon us, and the great distance in point of comfort between their state and ours, princ.i.p.ally for the reason that they have no machinery, while we have a great deal. One of these men burst into tears when he saw a rope-walk; because he perceived the immense superiority which the process of spinning ropes gave us over his own countrymen. He was ingenious enough, and so were many of his fellow islanders, to have twisted threads together after a rude fashion; but he knew that he was a long way off from making a rope. The New Zealander saw the spinner in the rope-walk, moving away from a wheel, and gradually forming the hemp round his body into a strong cord. By the operation of the wheel he is enabled so to twine together a number of separate fibres, that no one fibre can be separated from the ma.s.s, but forms part of a hard and compact body. A series of these operations produces a cable, such as may hold a barge at anchor. The twisted fibres of hemp become yarn; many yarns become a strand; three strands make a rope; and three ropes make a cablet, or small cable. By carefully untwisting all its separate parts, the principle upon which it is constructed is evident. The operation is a complex one; and the rope-maker is a skilled workman. Rope-making machinery is now carried much farther. But the wheel that twisted the hemp into yarn was a prodigy to the inquiring savage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Making Ropes by Huddart's Machinery.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: a.n.a.lysis of a Cablet.]