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