CHAP. III.
THAT THE DIVISION OF LABOUR IS LIMITED
BY THE EXTENT OF THE MARKET.
As it is the power of exchanging that gives
occasion to the division of labour, so the extent
of this division must always be limited by
the extent of that power, or, in other words,
by the extent of the market. When the market
is very small, no person can have any encouragement
to dedicate himself entirely to
one employment, for want of the power to exchange
all that surplus part of the produce of
his own labour, which is over and above his
own consumption, for such parts of the produce
of other men's labour as he has occasion
for.
There are some sorts of industry, even of
the lowest kind, which can be carried on nowhere
but in a great town. A porter, for example,
can find employment and subsistence
in no other place. A village is by much too
narrow a sphere for him; even an ordinary
market-town is scarce large enough to afford
him constant occupation. In the lone houses
and very small villages which are scattered
about in so desert a country as the highlands
of Scotland, every farmer must be butcher,
baker, and brewer, for his own family. In
such situations we can scarce expect to find
even a smith, a carpenter, or a mason, within
less than twenty miles of another of the same
trade. The scattered families that live at
eight or ten miles distance from the nearest
of them, must learn to perform themselves a
great number of little pieces of work, for
which, in more populous countries, they
would call in the assistance of these workmen.
Country workmen are almost everywhere
obliged to apply themselves to all the
different branches of industry that have so
much affinity to one another as to be employed
about the same sort of materials. A country
carpenter deals in every sort of work that
is made of wood; a country smith in every
sort of work that is made of iron. The former
is not only a carpenter, but a joiner, a
cabinet-maker, and even a carver in wood, as
well as a wheel-wright, a plough-wright, a
cart and waggon-maker. The employments
of the latter are still more various. It is impossible
there should be such a trade as even
that of a nailer in the remote and inland parts
of the highlands of Scotland. Such a workman
at the rate of a thousand nails a-day, and
three hundred working days in the year, will
make three hundred thousand nails in the
year. But in such a situation it would be
impossible to dispose of one thousand, that is,
of one day's work in the year.
As by means of water-carriage, a more extensive
market is opened to every sort of industry
than what land-carriage alone can afford
it, so it is upon the sea-coast, and along
the banks of navigable rivers, that industry of
every kind naturally begins to subdivide and
improve itself, and it is frequently not till a
long time after that those improvements extend
themselves to the inland parts of the
country. A broad-wheeled waggon, attended
by two men, and drawn by eight horses, in
about six weeks time, carries and brings back
between London and Edinburgh near four
ton weight of goods. In about the same
time a ship navigated by six or eight men,
and sailing between the ports of London and
Leith, frequently carries and brings back two
hundred ton weight of goods. Six or eight
men, therefore, by the help of water-carriage,
can carry and bring back, in the same time,
the same quantity of goods between London
and Edinburgh as fifty broad-wheeled waggons,
attended by a hundred men, and drawn
by four hundred horses. Upon two hundred
tons of goods, therefore, carried by the cheapest
land-carriage from London to Edinburgh,
there must be charged the maintenance of a
hundred men for three weeks, and both the
maintenance and what is nearly equal to
maintenance the wear and tear of four hundred
horses, as well as of fifty great waggons.
Whereas, upon the same quantity of goods
carried by water, there is to be charged only
the maintenance of six or eight men, and the
wear and tear of a ship of two hundred tons
burthen, together with the value of the superior
risk, or the difference of the insurance
between land and water-carriage. Were there
no other communication between those two
places, therefore, but by land-carriage, as no
goods could be transported from the one to
other, except such whose price was very
considerable in proportion to their weight,
they could carry on but a small part of that
commerce which at present subsists between
them, and consequently could give but a small
part of that encouragement which they at
present mutually afford to each other's industry.
There could be little or no commerce
of any kind between the distant parts
of the world. What goods could bear the
expense of land-carriage between London and
Calcutta? Or if there were any so precious as
to be able to support this expense, with what
safety could they be transported through the
territories of so many barbarous nations?
Those two cities, however, at present carry on
a very considerable commerce with each other,
and by mutually affording a market, give a
good deal of encouragement to each other's
industry.
Since such, therefore, are the advantages of
water-carriage, it is natural that the first improvements
of art and industry should be
made where this conveniency opens the whole
world for a market to the produce of every
sort of labour, and that they should always be