manufacture, the machinery employed was
much more imperfect in those ancient, than
it is in the present times. It has since received
three very capital improvements, besides,
probably, many smaller ones, of which
it may be difficult to ascertain either the number
or the importance. The three capital improvements
are, first, the exchange of the rock
and spindle for the spinning-wheel, which,
with the same quantity of labour, will perform
more than double the quantity of work. Secondly,
the use of several very ingenious machines,
which facilitate and abridge, in a still
greater proportion, the winding of the worsted
and woollen yarn, or the proper arrangement
of the warp and woof before they are put into
the loom, an operation which, previous to
the invention of those machines, must have
been extremely tedious and troublesome.—Thirdly,
the employment of the fulling-mill
for thickening the cloth, instead of treading
it in water. Neither wind nor water mills of
any kind were known in England so early as
the beginning of the sixteenth century, nor,
so far as I know, in any other part of Europe
north of the Alps. They had been introduced
into Italy some time before.
The consideration of these circumstances
may, perhaps, in some measure, explain to us
why the real price both of the course and of
the fine manufacture was so much higher in
those ancient than it is in the present times.
It cost a greater quantity of labour to bring
the goods to market. When they were brought
thither, therefore, they must have purchased,
or exchanged for the price of, a greater quantity.
The coarse manufacture probably was, in
these ancient times, carried on in England in
the same manner as it always has been in countries
where arts and manufactures are in their
infancy. It was probably a household manufacture,
in which every different part of the
work was occasionally performed by all the
different members of almost every private family,
but so as to be their work only when
they had nothing else to do, and not to be the
principal business from which any of them derived
the greater part of their subsistence. The
work which is performed in this manner, it
has already been observed, comes always much
cheaper to market than that which is the principal
or sole fund of the workman's subsistence.
The fine manufacture, on the other
hand, was not, in those times, carried on in
England, but in the rich and commercial
country of Flanders; and it was probably
conducted then, in the same manner as now,
by people who derived the whole, or the principal
part of their subsistence from it. It was,
besides, a foreign manufacture, and must have
paid some duty, the ancient custom of tonnage
and poundage at least, to the king. This
duty, indeed, would not probably be very
great. It was not then the policy of Europe
to restrain, by high duties, the importation of
foreign manufactures, but rather to encourage
it, in order that merchants might be enabled
to supply, at as easy a rate as possible,
the great men with the conveniencies and luxuries
which they wanted, and which the industry
of their own country could not afford
them.
The consideration of these circumstances
may, perhaps, in some measure explain to us
why, in those ancient times, the real price of
the coarse manufacture was, in proportion to
that of the fine, so much lower than in the
present times.
Conclusion of the Chapter.
I shall conclude this very long chapter with
observing, that every improvement in the circumstances
of the society tends, either directly
or indirectly, to raise the real rent of land,
to increase the real wealth of the landlord, his
power of purchasing the labour, or the produce
of the labour of other people.
The extension of improvement and cultivations
tends to raise it directly. The landlord's
share of the produce necessarily increases with
the increase of the produce.
That rise in the real price of these parts of
the rude produce of land, which is first the
effect of the extended improvement and cultivation,
and afterwards the cause of their being
still further extended, the rise in the price
of cattle, for example, tends, too, to raise the
rent of land directly, and in a still greater
proportion. The real value of the landlord's
share, his real command of the labour of other
people, not only rises with the real value of
the produce, but the proportion of his share to
the whole produce rises with it.
That produce, after the rise in its real price,
requires no more labour to collect it than before.
A smaller proportion of it will, therefore,
be sufficient to replace, with the ordinary
profit, the stock which employs that labour.
A greater proportion of it must consequently
belong to the landlord.
All those improvements in the productive
powers of labour, which tend directly to reduce
the rent price of manufactures, tend indirectly
to raise the real rent of land. The
landlord exchanges that part of his rude produce,
which is over and above his own consumption,
or, what comes to the same thing,
the price of that part of it, for manufactured
produce. Whatever reduces the real price of
the latter, raises that of the former. An equal
quantity of the former becomes thereby equivalent
to a greater quantity of the latter; and
the landlord is enabled to purchase a greater
quantity of the conveniencies, ornaments, or
luxuries which he has occasion for.
Every increase in the real wealth of the society,
every increase in the quantity of useful