Jacques Antoine, a famous member of the French Chamber after the Restoration, was born at Barcelonette, in the department of Basses-Alpes, in 1775. After receiving his education at Nimes, he entered the battalions of the Requisition in 1793, and for his bravery was soon promoted to the rank of captain. On the signing of the treaty of Campo-Formio in 1797, he devoted himself to the study of law, and practised at the bar, first at Digne, and afterwards at Aix. Elected in 1815 to represent his native department in the Chamber of Deputies summoned by Napoleon, he gained his first notoriety by vehemently opposing the restoration of the Bourbons. His patriotic eloquence, though unsuccessful in attaining its object, was probably the cause of his return to the Chamber in 1818. Manuel then became an ardent defender of the benefits that France had reaped from the revolution. Borne forward by his power of logic and his heroic firmness into the front ranks of the Opposition, he soon incurred the dislike of the ruling majority, and was destined to become an object of their vengeance. During the violent debates on the Spanish war in 1823, a remark in one of his speeches was construed by his enemies into an apology for regicide. His expulsion from the Chamber was decreed, and he was forced out by a body of soldiers, but was accompanied to Manuel I., his house by the whole of his party. Manuel was re-elected in 1824, and died in 1827.

Manuel I., Comnenus, Emperor of Constantinople, son of John II., was born about 1120. The warlike disposition which he showed in an expedition against the Turks induced his father, at his death in 1143, to bequeath to him the crown in preference to his elder brother Isaac. Through the zealous policy of his faithful minister Auxech, and his own popularity among the soldiers, Manuel was enabled to secure his father's gift. Fond of military glory, he immediately involved himself in that long series of wars which continued, with few intermissions, till the end of his reign. In 1144, by means of his general Demetrius Branas, he subdued his rebellious vassal Raymond, Prince of Antioch. The next year was rendered illustrious by his expedition into Isauria, during which he routed the invading Turks, drove them to their own dominions, and forced them to accept a truce on his own terms. Manuel, however, employed a cowardly policy towards Louis VII. of France and Conrad III. of Germany, the leaders of the crusade of 1147. Granting them a passage through his dominions, he yet secretly harassed them with every kind of annoyance, and apprised the Turks of their approach. Meanwhile Roger, the first King of Sicily, had declared war against the Emperor of the East, had taken Corfu, and had devastated Greece. Manuel, however, did not make reprisals until the Sicilian fleet, in 1148, had appeared before Constantinople, and had insulted the imperial city. He then formed a league with Venice, and joining his own well-equipped fleet with that of the republic, he swept the invaders from the Archipelago and the Ionian Sea, and captured seventeen of their galleys. Disembarking a host at Corfu before the year had ended, he invested that city both by sea and land; and by leading in person the most perilous onslaughts, and encouraging his men by his own prodigies of strength and valour, he compelled the inhabitants to surrender after an obstinate siege. In the prosecution of the same war Manuel subdued the Servians and Hungarians, who had risen in arms at the instigation of Roger. An expedition, which he had sent against Italy under Palaeologus, was also successful. Bari, Brundusium, and many other towns of Apulia and Calabria, surrendered, and Manuel now formed the project of uniting the Eastern and Western Empires, and of constituting himself sole Emperor of the Romans. By the aid of money he induced Pope Alexander III., and the free cities of Lombardy, to favour this design. But the pontiff soon afterwards changed his opinions; the free cities followed his example, and the republic of Venice, offended at some injustice offered to her merchants, also joined the foes of the Greek Empire. The death of Palaeologus, his lieutenant, and the accession of William the Bad to the throne of Sicily, soon completed the sum of Manuel's misfortunes. His forces soon afterwards were defeated by land and sea, and he was induced in 1155 to conclude an honourable peace with William, King of Sicily.

The next important war of Manuel's reign was waged against Geisa, King of Hungary. That prince, eager to recover the military reputation he had lost in his former battles with the Emperor of the East, crossed the Danube, and met the Greek forces, under Andronicus Contostephanus, near Zeugminum, where, after a stubborn and sanguinary contest, the Hungarian army was almost annihilated, and Geisa compelled to sue for immediate peace. Not so successful was the expedition which Manuel led in person against the Turks in 1176. He lost his army among the mountains of Pisidia, and was compelled by the Sultan Az-ed-din to sign a disadvantageous peace. This defeat, although partially retrieved by a more successful expedition in 1177, preyed upon the spirit of Manuel until he was cut off by a slow fever in 1181. The bravest warrior of his time, Manuel was yet destitute of the prudence and the stability of purpose proper alike to a great general and an able ruler. No sooner had he brought a war to a close, than he dismissed all thought of military enterprise, and in the long-continued indulgence of every sensual pleasure entirely forgot his former ambition. The exorbitant war taxes, wrung from the reluctant grasp of his subjects, were often expended for some unworthy purpose, while his soldiers remained unpaid. Alexis II., his only son, succeeded him.

Manuel II., Palaeologus, Emperor of Constantinople, succeeded his father John VI. in 1391, died in 1425, at the age of 77, and was succeeded by his son John VII. (See Constantinopolitan History.)

**MANUFACTURES.**

Definition. Manufactures (Latin, manus, a hand, and facio, I make), in political economy, a term employed to designate the changes or modifications made by art and industry in the form or substance of material articles, in the view of rendering them capable of satisfying some want or desire of man.

With the exception of fishing, hunting, mining, and such branches of industry as have for their object to obtain material products in the state in which they are fashioned by nature, all other branches may legitimately be comprised under the term Manufactures. Most commonly, indeed, we include in them only those branches in which the raw material or substance to be modified or worked upon is formed or converted into the desired articles by art and industry, without the intervention of the soil or of the vegetative powers of nature. But though this limitation of the term manufactures be in many respects convenient, it must not be supposed that by adopting it, we mean to insinuate that there is any real or substantial difference between the various divisions of industry. Agriculture is merely a peculiar variety of manufacture, in which the husbandman so prepares the ground and disposes of the seed, that, with the aid of the soil, and of the sun and showers, he may obtain a plentiful harvest. Without the assistance given by nature, his efforts would not be of the smallest avail. But her bounty is not confined to this or that department. It extends to, and is equally great in them all. Without the pressure of the atmosphere, the elasticity of steam, the influence of heat, and the endless variety of natural powers by which he is constantly assisted, the manufacturer would be powerless, and could not even make or mend a pen, or accomplish the most trivial task. His art consists in so applying his own labour and the natural powers at his command, that they may bring about the required changes or modifications in the articles subjected to their action in the best and cheapest manner. At bottom all the branches of operative industry rest on the same foundation. How muchsoever one undertaking may differ from another, the co-operation of genius and industry, of man and of natural agents, is necessary in them all. And hence, also, it follows, that they are all susceptible of indefinite improvement according as the progress of scientific discovery gives man a greater mastery over these agents, and enables him to employ them and his own energies with increased effect. The value of manufactured articles may always be resolved into the value of the raw material or matter on which the skill and labour of the artisan is exerted, and the value of that labour. These may, and, in fact, do vary in almost every degree as compared with each other. In some articles they approach near to equality; in others, as in most descriptions of gold and silver wares, the value of the raw material predominates very largely; and in others the value of the workmanship is by far the greatest. The value of the main-spring of a watch, or of a steel pen, is some hundred times that of the iron of which it is made; and the value of statuary, pictures, and other products of the fine arts, is almost wholly owing to the genius and labour of the artist.

In nothing, perhaps, is the transforming power of manufacturing industry—its ability to give to matter entirely new forms and new qualities—more strikingly evinced than in the production of glass and paper. It is impossible to exaggerate either the utility or the beauty of these fabrics. To the former we are mainly indebted for the comfort of our houses, and for that range and intensity of sight which enables us to survey regions at an almost inconceivable distance, and to detect and appreciate the minutest objects; while to the latter we owe the means by which our correspondence is carried on, our books, and, in fact, the greater part of our knowledge. And these inestimable commodities are formed out of such despised materials as sand, soda, and rags. In this case, and in that of many other articles, the metamorphosis is so very complete, that none who saw only the products, and knew nothing of their manufacture, would ever conjecture whence they had been derived. Though not productive of matter, industry is often productive of everything which makes it either desirable or valuable.

In saying that the value of manufactured goods is made up of the value of the raw material and the workmanship, it may perhaps be objected that nothing is set down to the account of natural agents. But though their co-operation be of the utmost importance, and generally, indeed, quite indispensable, yet as they are spontaneous gifts of nature, which may be appropriated by every body, and cost nothing, they have no exchangeable value, and cannot communicate a quality of which they are destitute to any thing else. In estimating, for example, the cost of importing a cargo of tea from China, or the value of the work performed by a locomotive engine, the buoyancy of the water, the action of the wind, the polarity of the magnet, and the expansive force of heated aqueous vapour, though contributing in the most essential manner to the results which, in fact, could not be accomplished without their powerful aid, are as completely left out of view as if they did not even exist. This principle is of fundamental importance, and holds universally. Whatever is useful or desirable in art and industry is a consequence or result of the labour or action of man, of capital, or of natural agents, or of two or all three combined. But in so far as the latter are concerned, their services are completely gratuitous; so that the cost or value of the result is always measured, without any reference to them, by the amount of labour or capital (the product of labour) or both, necessarily expended in bringing it about.

In this article manufactures are considered in their ordinary and limited sense, as comprising the processes whereby the required changes or modifications are produced, independently of vegetation, in existing substances or materials. The latter usually give their names to the peculiar departments wherein the processes to which they are severally subjected are carried on. Thus the designs of cotton, silk, and woollen manufactures, mean the working up of cotton-wool, raw silk, and sheep's wool into useful or desirable articles. Ship-building is the conversion of iron and wood, or of either, into ships. The linen manufacture is the conversion of flax into cloth; and so on. The knowledge of the modes in which particular businesses may be most profitably conducted, forms the peculiar science, craft, or mystery of those engaged in them.

It would far exceed our limits to enter into any details in regard to the management of different businesses; but there are certain circumstances or conditions which are necessary, and others which eminently contribute to the success of all varieties of manufacturing industry, and these we shall endeavour shortly to state. We shall also take leave to notice some of the peculiar drawbacks by which the great extension of manufactures is said to be accompanied, with the means by which they may be most effectually obviated, the economy and locality of factories, &c.

I. CIRCUMSTANCES FAVOURABLE TO THE PROGRESS OF MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY.

These are partly of a moral and political, and partly of a physical description. Of the former class the most important seem to be the security and free disposal of conducing persons and property; the absence of monopolies, and the non-interference of government in industrious undertakings; the freedom of commerce; the diffusion of knowledge; the cordial reception of foreigners; and the emulation and energy inspired by inequality of fortune and the gradual increase of taxation. Among the more prominent of the physical circumstances conducive to their progress are,—supplies of the raw material used in manufactures, with the command of power; that is, of coal, waterfalls, &c. A good deal also of the progress of manufactures seems to depend on the advantageous situation of a country for commerce, and on the nature of its climate. We shall briefly notice some of the more prominent of these circumstances.

a. Moral circumstances contributing to the Progress of Moral Manufactures.—It is unnecessary to take up the reader's time by enlarging on the necessity of security, and of contributing the free disposal of property, to success in manufacturing industry, and, indeed, in all laborious undertakings. Without security there can be neither industry nor invention. No man will engage in any undertaking, or exert either his bodily or mental powers, unless he be well convinced that he will be allowed to reap whatever advantage may accrue from the exertion of his labour, skill, or genius. Any doubt as to this is sure to paralyze his efforts. And if, owing to the weakness or ignorance of government, the prevalence of a revolutionary spirit, or other cause, the security of property were materially impaired, all sorts of industrious undertakings that did not promise an immediate return would be forthwith abandoned, and every person possessed of property would hasten to convey it out of the country. The want of security is the greatest of public calamities. Without it we can have nothing but the most abject poverty and barbarism. And supposing other things to be equal, the wealth and civilization of nations will be pretty nearly proportioned to the degree of security they respectively enjoy. Though every other circumstance conducive to the advancement of industry should exist in a country, they cannot, without security, be of any

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1 It is unnecessary for the purposes of this article to analyze the value of the raw material. In point of fact, however, it is wholly made up of the value of the labour required for its appropriation and conveyance to the place where it is to be modified or manufactured. The matter of commodities costs nothing. What is commonly called raw material has frequently a great deal of labour expended on its manufacture, as in the case of pig or bar iron, cotton wool, raw silk, flax, &c. material service. It compensates for many deficiencies; whereas nothing can make up for its wants. It is a sine qua non.

By the security indispensable to success in manufactures is not, however, meant that degree of security which exists in most countries that have made any progress in civilization, viz., the free enjoyment of the fruits of one's labour or ingenuity. Much more than this is required to make industrious undertakings be prosecuted on a grand scale with zeal and perseverance. Administration must be established on such a basis that the freedom and independence of those by whom manufactures are carried on may be as effectually secured as their property. The latter must be guaranteed against all arbitrary proceedings, whether on the part of government or of private parties. The standard of money must be preserved inviolate; public burdens fairly and equally imposed; justice speedily, cheaply, and honestly administered; and testators have full liberty to dispose of their property as they may think fit. Wherever any of these things are wanting, there can be no complete security; and, therefore, none of that unshakable confidence which makes capitalists invest large sums, of which posterity is to reap the principal or entire advantage; and which also gives its fullest extension to private and public enterprise and credit. That accumulation of capital which has taken place in England during the last hundred years, and which, besides enabling us to defray with little difficulty the cost of so many protracted and destructive wars, has covered the land with cities and all sorts of improvements, and the ocean with ships, would either not have taken place at all, or but in a very subordinate degree, had there been any serious doubt about its present or future security, or about the ability of the owner to employ it or bequeath it at pleasure. The various circumstances that will be immediately mentioned give us peculiar means and advantages for the production of wealth. But the consciousness of security is required to make these circumstances be turned to the best account, and the produce of industry largely saved and accumulated. And the more intense this consciousness becomes, the greater, ceteris paribus, will be the progress of the society in arts and industry.

The absence of monopolies, and the freedom to engage in industrious undertakings, conduce in no ordinary degree to the advancement of the arts. Every man is always exerting himself to find out how he may best extend his command over necessaries and conveniences; and sound policy requires that so long as he does not interfere with the rights and privileges of others, he should be allowed to pursue his own interest in his own way. Though human reason is limited and fallible, and we are often swayed by prejudices, and deceived by appearances, still it is sufficiently certain that the desire to promote our own purposes contributes more than anything else to render us clear-sighted and sagacious. "Nul sentiment dans l'homme," says M. Say, "ne tient son intelligence éveillée autant que l'intérêt personnel. Il donne de l'esprit aux plus simples." The principle that individuals are, speaking generally, the best judges of what is most beneficial for themselves, is now universally admitted to be the only one that can be safely relied on. No writer of authority has latterly ventured to maintain the doctrine, once so popular, that governments may advantageously interfere to regulate the pursuits of their subjects. It is their duty to preserve order; to prevent one from injuring another; to maintain, in short, the equal rights and privileges of all. But it is not possible for them to go one step further without receding from the principle of non-interference, and laying themselves open to the charge of acting partially by some and unjustly by others.

The most comprehensive experience confirms the truth of these remarks. The natural order of things has been less interfered with in Great Britain than in most other countries. Since the passing of the act of James I., in 1624, for the abolition of monopolies, full scope has been given to the competition of the home producers; and though the various resources of talent and genius have neither been so fully nor so early developed as they would have been had there been no restrictions on our intercourse with foreigners, they have been developed in a degree unknown to most other countries. France, previously to the Revolution, was divided into provinces, having each peculiar privileges and separate codes of revenue laws, and this also was the case with Germany, Spain, and Italy, so that they were not only deprived of the freedom of foreign, but even of internal commerce. The inhabitants of each province being in great measure isolated from the rest, there was comparatively little competition; and instead of invention and active exertion, there was nothing but routine and indifference. Holland and the United States have been the only countries that have enjoyed the same degree of internal freedom as Great Britain: And the former, notwithstanding the unfavourable physical circumstances under which she is placed, has long been, and still is, the richest country of Europe; while the latter, whose condition is in other respects more favourable, is advancing with giant steps in the career of improvement.

But the freedom of the home trade, or the stimulus given to invention by the competition of the different parties within the same country, how advantageous soever, is always very inferior to the stimulus given by an unrestricted foreign trade. A nation which admits, either freely or under moderate duties, the various productions of others, adopts that line of policy which is sure to bring her energies into the fullest activity. She profits by whatever inventions and discoveries may be made in countries the most remote, as well as among her nearest neighbours; at the same time that her manufacturers have not only to contend with each other, but with those of every other people. In a system of this sort, no branch or department of industry can be artificially bolstered up. Each must depend upon its own resources. And if, during a restricted trade, a business were introduced into a country which had no peculiar aptitude for carrying it on, it would most likely be extinguished when trade was made free. But this extinction, instead of being a loss to such country, is a gain. The capital and labour which were engaged in an unprofitable business, will henceforth be diverted to those pursuits which the inhabitants can carry on with more advantage; and their wealth, and that of the community of nations, will be increased by the better distribution of their labour.

It would be useless to enter, even if our limits permitted, into any lengthened details in regard to the advantages resulting to society from the division of labour; that is, from the execution of certain tasks or duties being committed to particular persons, possessing the age, strength, skill, and other qualifications required for their proper performance. These have been set in a clear light by Adam Smith and others, and are familiar to everybody. But it is not, perhaps, so generally known, that the division of labour is in a great degree dependent on the extent of the market, and that it becomes more perfect and complete according as the latter is more and more extended. There are many employments that cannot be carried on in thinly peopled countries; and of those that are, or may be, carried on in them or in others, there is hardly one which may not be improved and perfected by increasing the demand for the peculiar services or articles which it furnishes. To be satisfied of the truth of this statement we have only to look around us. Take the case of the cotton, the woollen, or the iron manufacture. These great departments of industry could not have attained to such vast magnitude, or been furnished with the complex machinery and the skilfully distributed labour employed in them, had the demand for their products been confined to a single province, or even to a single kingdom. Nothing less extensive than the market of the world would afford a field wide enough to keep them in constant employment. And hence it is, that while the freedom of trade stimulates the industry and ingenuity of the home producers, by bringing them into competition with myriads of foreigners, it affords an illimitable market for those products in which they have a superiority; and enables them continually to perfect every process, and to carry the employment of machinery and the division of labour to the greatest extent.

It is needless, however, to insist on considerations the justice of which is now all but universally admitted. But it was necessary, nevertheless, thus briefly to allude to them, inasmuch as they satisfactorily account for the greater part of the late extraordinary increase of our trade; that is, of its increase from the time that the commercial reforms of Sir Robert Peel came into full operation. Since 1842 the declared annual values of the exports of British produce have been as follows, viz.:

| Year | Annual value | |------|-------------| | 1842 | £1,381,023 | | 1843 | £657,979 | | 1844 | £53,542 | | 1845 | £60,111,082 | | 1846 | £57,786,876 | | 1847 | £58,842,377 | | 1848 | £52,849,445 | | 1849 | £63,995,025 |

The raw products included in the exports consist principally, as usually estimated, of unwrought iron, copper, tin, and lead; with coal, sheep's wool, butter, fish, salt, and a few other articles; their entire value not exceeding a seventh or an eighth part of the value of the exports. But we are by no means satisfied that iron and other metals should be reckoned in the list of raw products. On the contrary, we are clear that that designation should be restricted to the ores of the metals, and that it should not be applied to the metals after they have been extracted by an elaborate process from the ores. And supposing this classification were adopted, and the unwrought metals excluded from the list of raw products, the latter would not exceed a fifteenth or a sixteenth part of the entire amount of the exports.

The unprecedented increase in the value of the exports, exhibited in the above table, is in great measure the result of the policy of Sir Robert Peel, who, by repealing and greatly reducing the duties on most descriptions of foreign produce, occasioned a vast increase of importation. But he knew well that a great importation would occasion a great exportation; that the latter would increase in the same ratio as the former; and that by a free intercourse with others our manufacturing and industrial powers would be sharpened and improved to the utmost. And such has proved to be the case in a far greater degree than he, or any one, however sanguine or far-sighted, could have anticipated. The new system has brought all the faculties of the mind, and powers of the body, into full activity. And while the improvements of a century have been crowded into the short space of ten or a dozen years, we continue with unimpaired energy to make new inventions and discoveries.

But though the extraordinary increase of our trade since 1842 has been mainly (we should err if we supposed that it was wholly), owing to the greater freedom it has enjoyed during that period. Part of it is to be ascribed to the discovery of the gold-fields of California and Australia. Their astonishing productiveness, the encouragement they have given to emigration, and the rapid growth of a population which has had an almost unbounded command of the precious metals, at the same time that it has been destitute of most articles of accommodation, have led to an extraordinary demand for foreign produce, and especially for our manufactures. But it must not be forgotten that it was our comparatively free commercial policy that enabled us to avail ourselves to so great an extent of these advantages; and the presumption is, that but for it, we should have profited as little by them as the countries around us.

The ability to read, and the diffusion of instruction among all ranks and orders of the people, by the circulation of books and journals, the establishment of mechanics' institutes, &c., have had a material influence over the advancement of arts and industry. These circumstances have had the double advantage of multiplying the means and chances of improvement, and of preventing any invention or discovery, when made, from being lost or engrossed by a few. An uninstructed people, though possessed of the greatest capacities for the production and accumulation of wealth, being unable to turn them to good account, are usually poor and destitute; whereas an intelligent people, though placed in a comparatively unfavourable situation, never fail to become rich and prosperous. That "knowledge is power," is true in a physical as well as in a moral sense. The more familiar our acquaintance with, and the more complete our command over, natural agents, the greater, of course, will be our ability to make them subservient to our purposes, and to employ their uniting and boundless energies in the performance of that labour that must otherwise be wholly performed by man. The proud pre-eminence of civilized man over his less advanced brethren, mainly consists in the extensive employment of these agents. Like other things, production is proportioned to the strength of the means by which it is effected. The accommodations of a people in a low or backward state of civilization, who have nothing but their fingers and a few rude tools or simple instruments at their disposal, are necessarily limited in the extreme; whereas a people highly advanced in the arts press all the powers of nature into their service, and have an all but unlimited command of the various articles required for their subsistence and wellbeing.

For a lengthened period the reception given to foreigners in England was anything but cordial. In most countries, indeed, not advanced in civilization, strangers are uniformly the objects of popular dislike; and this feeling seems to have prevailed quite as much in England as anywhere else. But notwithstanding the various legal disabilities laid on foreigners, and the ill treatment they often experienced, their settlement here has been productive of the most advantageous results. The Flemings, invited over and protected by Edward III., gave the first great impulse to the woollen manufacture; and the immigrations from the Low Countries during the persecutions of the Duke of Alva, and from France subsequently to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, materially forwarded our trade and manufactures. During last century the prejudice against aliens lost much of its force; and most part of the disabilities under which they formerly laboured have been removed. But in all that respects the treatment of foreigners our policy has been less liberal and enlightened than that of the Dutch. In Holland they have always been received with open arms; and a short residence in the country, and a small payment to the state, entitled them to all the privileges enjoyed by natives. The highest authorities agree that this was one of the main causes of the extraordinary progress made by the republic in commerce and wealth. "It has always been our constant policy to make Holland a perpetual, safe, and secure asylum for all persecuted and oppressed strangers: no alliance, no treaty, no regard for, nor any solicitation of, any potentate whatever, has at any time been able to weaken or destroy, or make the state recede from protecting those who have fled to it for their own security and self-preservation. Throughout the whole course of all the persecutions and oppressions that have occurred..." in other countries, the steady adherence of the republic to this fundamental law has been the cause that many people have not only fled hither for refuge, with their whole stock in ready cash, and their most valuable effects, but have also settled and established many trades, fabrics, manufactures, arts, and sciences, in this country; notwithstanding the first materials for the said fabrics and manufactures were almost wholly wanting in it, and not to be procured but at a great expense from foreign parts.

The great inequality of fortune that has always prevailed in this country has had a material influence in exciting a spirit of invention and industry among the less opulent classes. It is not always because a man is absolutely poor that he is industrious and economical. He may have already amassed considerable wealth; but he continues with unabated energy to avail himself of every means by which he may hope to add to his fortune, that he may place himself on a level with the great landed proprietors, and those who give the tone to society in all that regards expense. No successful manufacturer or merchant ever considers that he has enough till he is able to live in something like the same style as the most opulent noblemen. Those, again, who are immediately below the highest become a standard to which the class next to them endeavour to elevate themselves; the impulse extending in this way from one rank to another, till it reaches to the very lowest classes, individuals belonging to which are always raising themselves by industry, address, and good fortune to the highest places in society. Had there been less inequality of fortune amongst us, there would have been less emulation, and industry would not have been so earnestly prosecuted. It is true, that the desire to emulate the great and the affluent, by embarking in a lavish course of expenditure, is often prematurely indulged in and carried to a culpable excess. But the evils thence arising make but a trifling deduction from the beneficial influence of that powerful stimulus which it gives to the inventive faculties, and to that desire to improve our condition, and to mount in the scale of society, which is the source of all that is great and elevated. Hence we should strongly disapprove of any system which, like the law of equal inheritance established in France, had any tendency artificially to equalize fortunes. To the absence of any such law, and the prevalence of customs of a totally different character, we may safely attribute a considerable portion of our superior wealth and industry.

We are also disposed to believe, how paradoxical soever such a notion may appear, that the taxation to which we have been subjected has, hitherto at least, been favourable to the progress of the country. It is not enough that a man has the means of rising in the world within his command; he must be so placed that, unless he avail himself of them, and put forth his energies, he will be cast down to a lower station. And this is what our taxation has effected: to the desire of rising in the world, implanted in the breast of every man, it superadded the fear of being thrown down to a lower place in society; and the two principles combined produced results that could not have been produced by either separately. Had taxation been carried beyond due bounds it would not have had this effect. But though considerably, its increase was not such as to make the contributors despair of being able to meet the sacrifices it imposed by increased skill and economy. And as the efforts they made in this view were far more than sufficient for their object, they occasioned a large addition to the public wealth that might not otherwise have existed.

b. Physical circumstances contributing to the progress of Manufactures.—Supplies of the raw material may be classed among the more prominent of this description of circumstances; and those who reflect on the nature, value, and importance of our manufactures of wool; of the useful metals, such as iron, tin, lead, copper, &c.; of leather and flax, spirits physical and beer, and so on; will readily admit that our success in circumstances has been materially facilitated by our possessing abundant supplies of the raw material. It is of less consequence, to the prosperity of a manufacture possesses considerable gross of value in small bulk, whether it be furnished from native resources, or be imported from abroad; though even in that case the advantage of having an internal supply, of which we cannot be deprived by the jealousy or hostility of others, is far from immaterial. But no nation can make any considerable progress in the manufacture of bulky and heavy articles, the conveyance of which to a distance necessarily occasions a large expense, unless she have supplies of the raw material within herself. Had we been destitute of iron ore, lead, and tin, we could never have distinguished ourselves by the magnitude and value of our manufactures of these articles. And any one who reflects on the advantages resulting to every branch of industry from being able to procure abundant supplies of iron at the cheapest rate, will be convinced that it is no easy matter to exaggerate the obligations we are under to our exhaustless stores of that mineral.

There is a passage in Locke so applicable to this subject Locke on that it deserves to be quoted:—“Of what consequence the supplies of discovery of one natural body and its properties may be to iron, human life, the whole great continent of America is a convincing instance; whose ignorance in useful arts, and want of the greatest part of the conveniences of life, in a country that abounded with all sorts of natural plenty, I think may be attributed to their ignorance of what was to be found in a very ordinary despicable stone—I mean the mineral of iron. And whatever we think of our parts or improvements in this part of the world, where knowledge and plenty seem to vie with each other, yet to any one that will seriously reflect on it, I suppose it will appear past doubt, that were the use of iron lost among us, we should in a few ages be unavoidably reduced to the wants and ignorance of the ancient savage Americans, whose natural endowments and provisions come no way short of those of the most flourishing and polite nations. So that he who first made known the use of that contemptible mineral, may be truly styled the father of arts and author of plenty.”

But of all the physical circumstances that have contributed to our advancement in manufactures and arts, of coal, none have had so much influence as our possession of the most valuable coal mines. They have conferred advantages on us not enjoyed in an equal degree by any other people. Our extraordinary success in the manufacture of iron, copper, &c., is not owing so much to our possessing the ores of these metals, as to our possessing the coal, by the aid of which the ores have been smelted and refined. But the paramount importance of coal as a manufacturing agent has been principally manifested since the invention of the steam-engine. Without a cheap and abundant supply of fuel, the engine, as now constructed, would be of comparatively little use. It is, as it were, the hands; but coal is the muscles by which they are set in motion, and without which their strength and dexterity could not be called into action, and would be of no use. Our coal mines may be regarded as vast magazines of hoarded or warehoused power; and, unless some such radical change be made on the steam-engine as should very decidedly lessen the quantity of fuel required to keep it in motion, or some equally serviceable machine, but moved by different means, be introduced, it is not at all likely that any nation should come into suc-

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1 Proposal for Amending the Trade of Holland, printed by authority in 1753; Eng. ed., p. 12. 2 Works, vol. I., p. 407. Ed. 1777. cessful competition with us in those departments in which steam-engines, or machinery moved by steam, may be profitably employed.

The advantageous situation of Britain for commerce, and the nature of the climate, have also powerfully contributed to the perfection of industry. Had we occupied a central internal situation like that of Switzerland, our facilities for dealing with others being so much the less, our progress would have been comparatively slow; and instead of being highly improved, our manufactures might have been still in their infancy. But being surrounded on all sides by the sea, or great highway of nations, we have been able to maintain an intercourse with the most remote as well as with the nearest countries, to supply them on the easiest terms with our manufactures, and to profit by the peculiar products and capacities of production possessed by each. With such advantages on our side, it would have been singular had we not shot ahead of most of our competitors in the race of improvement.

Our climate is peculiarly favourable to exertion and enterprise. It admits of most sorts of labour being vigorously prosecuted, even when the thermometer is highest; while its severity, without being too great, makes comfortable clothing and lodging indispensable; and, consequently, gives rise to numerous wants that, being either unknown or little sensible in more genial climates, require proportionally greater efforts for their supply. Its inequality, too, by requiring incessant care and attention on the part of the husbandmen, makes them vigilant and active as well as laborious; and the qualities that are thus naturally impressed on this great class are, through their example, universally diffused.

But despite what has been stated above, we are disposed to believe, how unphilosophical soever it may seem, that a good deal in the history of industry must be ascribed to chance, or to some lucky accident. Had Hargreaves, Arkwright, Watt, and Wedgwood not existed, or been born abroad, it is impossible to say how much it might have affected the state of industry here and elsewhere; but there appear to be sufficient grounds for thinking that it would have been at this moment materially different from what it actually is. A good deal, too, depends on priority. A country, town, or district, that has already established and made a considerable progress in manufactures, acquires, in consequence, an advantage that may enable it successfully to contend with competitors placed under what are naturally more favourable circumstances. But these are matters that will be noticed afterwards.

It seems to be the peculiar good fortune of England that, as respects all the great branches of manufacture, she has at once the advantages of priority and of acquired skill and dexterity on her side, as well as the natural advantages already noticed of abundant supplies of the raw material, of inexhaustible beds of coal, and of situation. Cotton is not an exception; for, though the raw material be the product of other countries, the freight upon it is not very considerable, and is but a trifling deduction from the other circumstances that seem to insure our superiority in its manufacture.

Manufacture of machinery is, however, in so far peculiar, that superiority in it conduces, more directly than superiority in anything else, to the improvement of all descriptions of manufacture. Machines are the tools or instruments by which most industrious undertakings are either partly or wholly carried on. And hence it is, that while a marked superiority in various branches of industry may exist, where machinery is defective, simultaneously with great inferiority in others, this is hardly possible where it is highly improved. Eminence in machine-making is almost sure to lead to eminence in every other department, and is the best means for securing their advancement.

Our superiority in the manufacture of machinery depends principally on the greater intelligence of our work-people, and our unlimited supplies of coal and iron. The latter is now either exclusively or largely used in the construction of ships and houses, and of a vast variety of instruments and articles that were formerly either wholly or in great part made of wood; and their efficiency and cheapness have been in consequence very greatly increased. The steam-engine, which is made entirely of iron, performs for us the work of many hundreds of thousands of men, and of many hundreds of thousands of horses; and while it performs most part of this work incomparably better than it could have been performed by men and horses, it saves a vast amount of toil and suffering. The slavish occupation of thrashing out corn is now wholly performed by thrashing-mills, which are mostly moved by steam; and at the same time that the employment of locomotive engines on railways has added greatly to the security of travelling, and make it be performed with a speed inferior only to that of lightning, it has terminated that over-exertion which the noblest of the lower animals were formerly compelled to make in the running of stage-coaches. It is impossible, in truth, to over-rate the advantages man owes to machinery; and the idea that it may be too much perfected or extended, is the most futile and absurd that can be imagined.

Besides the great discoveries—such as the introduction of the spinning-frame, the steam-engine, and the power-loom, which suddenly change the whole aspect and economy of industry, a variety of minor improvements are always being introduced, which, though separately they may be little attended to by careless observers, have in the aggregate a powerful influence. The economizing of power, the production of the same or better articles at less expense, the substitution of cheaper or more efficient, for dearer or less efficient labour, and so forth, are objects ever present to the mind of the intelligent manufacturer; and the advance made in them in the course of a few years is usually very great.

The late improvements in the steam-engine may be referred to as affording a striking illustration of what has now been stated. For a lengthened period after it came from the hands of Watt it remained nearly stationary. But during the last twenty, and more especially during the last ten years, many important innovations have been made, by driving the engines with greater speed, enlarging the capacity and improving the form of the boilers, and so on; the result being, that from the same weight of steam machinery we now obtain, at an average, at least 50 per cent. more work than formerly; and that, in many cases, the identical engines that yielded fifty horse power, are now yielding upwards of 100 horse power, with little or no increase of expense.

The manufacture of machinery for exportation is now become a large and rapidly increasing business. This is evident from the following account of the declared value of the exports of machinery from 1842 down to 1856, viz.:—

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1 Letter of Mr Nasmyth of Patricroft, near Manchester, an eminent engineer, in one of Mr Horner's Reports for 1852. It has, however, been frequently contended, and by parties not otherwise opposed to the freedom of trade, that in permitting the exportation of machinery we act unwisely; and in fact furnish our rivals in other countries with the principal instruments of our manufacturing superiority. But though specious, this statement is not entitled to much weight. It is not in our power, even if we attempted it, to enforce a monopoly of our improved machinery. The plans and patents according to which it is made, are published and sold to all who choose to buy them, whether natives or foreigners. And not only this, but English engineers, and the artisans by whom machines are made, are met with in every civilized country. All, therefore, that we should effect by prohibiting the exportation of the latter, would be the suppression of a large and lucrative branch of business; while, by forcing the foreigners to construct that machinery and mill-work for themselves, which they now buy from us, we should stimulate their invention, and endanger our ascendancy in a department which is not likely to be disturbed so long as we abide by our present policy.

II.—Disadvantages supposed to attend manufacturing eminence.

The above seem to be the principal circumstances which have contributed to the rapid growth of manufactures in Great Britain. This growth has not, however, been always regarded as advantageous. On the contrary, many eminent authorities have doubted whether the great extension of the manufacturing system be not accompanied with so many drawbacks as go far to counteract its beneficial influence.

It is, for example, alleged, that of the improvements which contribute so greatly to the extension of manufactures, some are occasionally productive of injury to the work-people. But it may be easily shown that this allegation is not worthy of much attention. The inconveniences which sometimes attend the introduction of improved machines and processes are merely temporary. If by an improvement in the manufacture of hats, or any other cause, the cost of their production were reduced a half, it is probable that the wages of the hands now engaged in the hat trade would be reduced, and that some of them would be dismissed. A little consideration will, however, make it evident that these disadvantageous results cannot fail of being very soon obviated; for, as those who formerly paid 10s. or 20s. for hats, will now only pay 5s. or 10s., they will have so much more to expend on other things. The demand for produce of one sort or other will not, therefore, be diminished; and the result will be, first, that hats being cheaper, more of them will be demanded; and, second, that a part of the money formerly laid out on them will henceforth be laid out on other things, the manufacture of which will give full employment to the artisans thrown out of the hat trade. Hence, in the end, it will be found, that while everybody is supplied with hats at half their former cost, not one individual will be deprived of employment, or have his wages reduced. And such is the inevitable result of all improvements in the arts, and of the opening of markets whence produce may be imported at a reduced price.

But short as this statement is, it was hardly necessary to show that improvements in machinery cannot really injure the labourer. To be satisfied of this, we have only to cast a rapid glance at the progress of the greatest of our manufactures. So late as 1760, not more, perhaps, than 3000 or 4000 persons were dependent in Great Britain on the cotton manufacture, which was so trifling as scarcely to attract any notice. But such and so vast has been the change in the interval, that the cotton trade is now, next to agriculture, the most important branch of industry carried on in the kingdom, furnishing the means of subsistence to from 1,250,000 to 1,500,000 persons. And to what but the improvement and extension of machinery are we indebted for this result, which has no parallel in the history of industry? The inventions and discoveries of Arkwright, Watt, Compton, Cartwright, and others, have created this all but boundless field for the employment of capital and work-people. The more efficient the machinery introduced the greater has been the demand for fresh supplies of labour; and such will necessarily be the result in all similar cases in all time to come.

In the course of its marvellous progress, some departments of the manufacture have come to be carried on by wholly different agents. Hand-spinning, whether by the common wheel or the jenny, has entirely disappeared; and hand-loom weaving is fast approaching its termination. And though its long agony has entailed many privations on a large number of persons, it should be borne in mind that the condition of the weavers, owing probably to the facility with which the business was learned, has never been prosperous. Luckily, they are now being rapidly absorbed into other businesses; and there cannot be a doubt that the final extinction of the class will be of especial advantage to the labourers.

The following table exhibits an account of the number of power-looms in 1836, 1850, and 1856:

| Fabric | 1836 | 1850 | 1856 | |--------|------|------|------| | Cotton | 108,751 | 249,627 | 298,847 | | Woollen | 2,150 | 8,455 | 14,453 | | Worsted | 2,969 | 32,417 | 38,956 | | Silk | 1,714 | 6,092 | 8,280 | | Flax | 209 | 3,670 | 7,659 | | Total | 115,783 | 301,445 | 369,205 |

The rapid increase in the number of power-looms employed in the linen trade has been in great measure owing to their extended use in Ireland. This has been accelerated by the rise in the price of labour consequent on the potato rot and the emigration; but it would have taken places, though not, perhaps, so soon, independently of these circumstances. Notwithstanding the cheapness of labour in Ireland, the flax manufacture made no real progress in till yarn was spun in factories; and the substitution of power-looms for hand-looms originates in the same cause,—in the wish to profit by the cheaper and more efficient service rendered by improved machinery. (See Post.)

Except in anomalous cases, like that of hand-loom weavers, the difficulties to which work-people are subjected in moving from a department to which they have been accustomed, when their services are no longer required in it, are more apparent than real. Many departments of industry are closely allied, and all of them have many things in common; so that an industrious and intelligent workman who is thrown out of one has seldom much difficulty, provided he be so disposed, in finding his way

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This qualification must not be lost sight of. The disinclination of the hand-loom weavers to abandon an employment in which they are to a considerable extent their own masters, has done much to prolong the period of their transition. into some other department. And it is also to be observed, that improvements are seldom so rapidly introduced as to occasion the dismissal of hands; the necessary change being usually effected by the check given to the entrance of new hands into the business.

But it is needless to insist farther on these points. The principal objections to the extension of manufactures depend on other considerations; and do not all admit of so conclusive an answer as those which refer to the improvement and extension of machinery.

The fact of their being crowded together has been said to be exceedingly injurious to the work-people engaged in factories; and that, from their attention being constantly restricted, in consequence of the extreme subdivision of labour, to some very limited or petty operation, and the want of free air and proper exercise, they degenerate, both intellectually and physically, and become inferior to the agriculturists, and those who prosecute their business in the fields. But these consequences, though at first sight they seem to follow naturally from the circumstances, have happily not been realized, in so far, at least, as respects the mental powers of the work-people. Instead of becoming more contracted, their intellectual capacities seem, on the contrary, to have expanded with the greater subdivision of their employments. And how unexpected soever this result may be, it is, after all, only what a less prejudiced inquiry might have led us to anticipate. The many occupations which the husbandman successively carries on, and the perpetual changes in the weather, and in the growth and appearance of the objects about which he is engaged, occupy his attention, and render him a stranger to that ennui, and desire for external excitement, so universally felt by those employed in indoor routine businesses. This craving, on the one hand, and the few facilities for rational enjoyment on the other, is a principal cause of the dissipation in which the work-people are so prone to indulge. But it has other and less objectionable consequences. By working together, factory labourers have many opportunities, of which those employed in the fields are comparatively destitute, of discussing all manner of topics. Their intellects are sharpened by the collision of opinion. They desire to know what is going on in the world; and by each contributing a small sum, they obtain an ample supply of newspapers and other periodical publications, and sometimes form book-clubs. But whatever doubt may exist as to its cause, there can be none in regard to the superior information of the work-people employed in factories. We do not believe that they were ever less intelligent than farm-labourers. But, whatever may have been the case formerly, none will venture to affirm that they are so at present, or that they are "mere machines, without sentiment or reason." (Ferguson On Civil Society, p. 308.)

The objection made to manufactures on account of their alleged injurious influence over the health of the work-people in factories, is not so easily disposed of. In so far, indeed, as the question may be supposed to refer to adult males, there is no evidence to prove that factory labour, provided it be not excessive, is productive of injurious results. But it is otherwise with children, or young persons of both sexes, and perhaps also with certain classes of females. The former are never, and the latter are frequently not their own masters. And though there has been much exaggeration on the subject, still there is no room for doubt that the individuals referred to have been subjected to tasks, and confined for periods, unsuited to their age, sex, and strength. We, therefore, are disposed to approve of the policy which has been adopted of excluding children under eight years of age from factories, and of limiting the labour of young persons from eight to thirteen years of age to 6½ hours a-day, and of those from thirteen to eighteen years of age to 10 hours a-day. But we should object to any restrictions being laid on the labour of adult males, or of such adult females as are their own masters. The State is bound to protect those who cannot protect themselves; but none else. It may also, perhaps, lay down and enforce some easy regulations for the prevention of accidents in factories. But, speaking generally, the less it interferes in such matters the better. Work-people who are sui juris can never safely rely on the government, or on any one but themselves. The interference of the magistrate will be but a miserable substitute for that prudence and forethought which it is their duty to exercise, and which can alone secure their well-being.

Exclusive of the circumstances now mentioned, there are others connected with the growth of manufactures, in respect of which it is not easy to arrive at any definite conclusion, but which, nevertheless, deserve serious consideration. Without, however, attempting to do more than opinions of glance at the subject, we may observe, that the tendency of manufactures appears to set strongly in favour of people's concentration; that is, to their being carried on in large establishments, belonging to a few great capitalists, where thousands of work-people are managed by a small number of overlookers. And in these establishments the lot of the labourers is apparently one of the least desirable. Their occupations are singularly monotonous, being little else than the endless repetition of the same set of precisely similar, and generally simple operations. It is alleged, too, that of the work-people in factories, probably not one in twenty, and certainly not one in ten, supposing they abide in them, can materially improve their condition, or rise to a higher station; and, though not the slaves of this or that master, they are, it is affirmed, the slaves of the factory system. But, while it must be admitted that these statements unhappily contain a good deal of truth, they are, notwithstanding, much coloured and exaggerated. It may be true that only a few of those employed in factories attain to independence, or even consideration; but as preferment in them, whatever may be its amount, is open to all, the great prizes which they offer, like those in a lottery, or in other occupations, attract crowds of competitors, and inspire them with a strong spirit of emulation, and with the hopes of success. In despite, however, of these and other countervailing influences, there seems, on the whole, little room for doubting that the factory system operates unfavourably on the bulk of those engaged in it. In some departments this may not be the case, but in the majority, and especially in those connected with spinning, weaving, and other merely routine employments, it is eminently so. It is certain, too, that the demand for the services of children and other young persons, and the ease with which factory labour may in general be learned, has had a powerful influence in depressing wages, and, consequently, in preventing the wonderful inventions and discoveries of the last half century from redounding so much to the advantage of the labouring classes as might otherwise have been anticipated. As compared, indeed, with the extraordinary progress made by the capitalists and employers of labour, the work-people can hardly be said to have made any very considerable advance, either in respect of their physical or moral condition. And hence the growth of unions and combinations, and of that discontent which is so very frequent among them. Their poverty, too, is rendered the more galling from the contrast which it presents to the wealth of their superiors, or of those with whom they are daily brought into contact. The latter, it is true, have generally sprung from the class to which they belong, and are mostly indebted for their greater riches to their greater genius, enterprise, and industry. But these circumstances being unknown to many, and speedily forgotten by others, they are said to owe their fortunes to chance or some lucky accident; and, except in peculiar instances, they are more generally, perhaps, regarded by those below them with feelings of envy or even ill-will, than as examples to be followed. This, of course, is not the case with the more generous, sanguine, and enterprising spirits in the workshops, who occasionally raise themselves to a level with their employers. But the great mass of factory work-people must be too conscious of their weaknesses and shortcomings to indulge in such anticipations. And in reality they have nothing before them but a life of continuous labour, cheered by few gleams of sunshine, and chequered principally by the recurrence of privations. Such being the case, can we wonder at the prevalence of that dissipation which is so much and so loudly complained of? On the contrary, the wonder is, that it is not a great deal more prevalent, and that discontent and disaffection are not more frequent and more widely spread.

Combinations are one of the favourite means to which work-people have had recourse of late years, to bring about an increase of wages, or a diminution of the hours of labour. But as we have already entered at considerable length, in the article Combinations, into an examination of their influence on industry and the condition of the labourer, it is needless to resume the inquiry in this place. We believe, however, that we are warranted in saying that it is very doubtful whether combinations to raise wages have ever been productive of any real advantage to the labouring classes; while it is certain that, on very many occasions, they have been exceedingly hostile to their interests.

This unsatisfactory state of things, which seems to grow necessarily out of the extension of manufactures, is apt to be seriously aggravated through the fluctuations to which they are subject from changes of fashion, the discovery of new methods of production, and the alterations which wars and other casualties not unfrequently make in commercial channels. It is true, indeed, that the extension and freedom of trade, by multiplying the relations of manufacturing and trading nations, renders them less dependent on circumstances affecting one or a few of their customers. But however much commerce may be extended, it is found that these as well as other nations mainly depend on a few countries for their principal supplies of the most necessary articles, while others afford the most advantageous outlets for their peculiar productions. A great manufacturing country is, therefore, exposed to vicissitudes to which it would otherwise be less liable; and hence, we may add, the expediency of its adopting a cautious and conciliatory course of policy, and of its avoiding unnecessary quarrels and contests with others.

If we be right in these statements, it follows that manufacturing eminence has, like many things else, its peculiar advantages and disadvantages. And though the latter are apparently of a very formidable description, they may, perhaps, be in a greater or less degree counterbalanced by the operation of circumstances of which we have not yet learned to estimate the influence.

Task-work. The principle of association, in regard to which so much has been said, will never, we apprehend, be found to be productive of any sensible advantage to the labourers. (See on this subject the article WAGES in this work.) But it would be quite otherwise were the practice of task-work, that is, of employing labourers by the piece or job, to become more general. By exactly apportioning the reward to the skill and industry of the labourer, task-work takes away all temptation to idleness, and makes workmen put forth all their powers. The more enterprising become contractors on a small scale, as well as labourers; and from one step to another often raise themselves to independence, and sometimes to affluence. It were, therefore, much to be wished that the system should be introduced, in as far as practicable, into all sorts of industrious undertakings, but especially into those branches of manufacture in which the condition of the labourers is the least favourable. It would not fail to imbue them with new hopes and new energies; and would be constantly raising numbers of those that were most deserving to improved positions. We are indeed well convinced that nothing would do so much as the extensive introduction of task-work into factories, to dry up the existing sources of discontent; to give all classes—the servants as well as the masters—the same spirit; and to satisfy them that their interests are really identical.

The difficulty which females belonging to the labouring classes experience in obtaining any more acceptable employment, is probably the principal cause that so many of them are found in factories. No doubt, however, the lightness of the labour, the little training required for its performance, and the power to leave them when one has a mind, are also powerful inducements to enter factories. But, however explained, the number of females engaged in them has increased from 195,508 in 1835 to 409,500 in 1856, of whom 25,982 were under thirteen years of age. The employment of so many females is a very important feature in factory economy, and is in many respects beneficial. It would be difficult, indeed, were the demand for their services in factories materially to decline, to provide them with other equally advantageous outlets. And yet the shutting up of great numbers of women in these establishments, and the close attention they have to give to their work, is productive of some results that are not a little injurious. Speaking generally, factory girls are very ill fitted for being housewives. They have little or no experience of their duties as such. The mill is their principal home; and however expert in the work they have to perform in it, they know little of anything else, and are most commonly ignorant, to an extent not easily to be imagined, of the arts by which their wages and those of their husbands may be best and most economically expended. The mischievous influence of this ignorance is too obvious to require being pointed out, and considerable efforts have latterly been made to lessen it by improving the education of girls, and instructing them in cookery, baking, sewing, washing, and other arts necessary to the wellbeing of their families. But though some improvement may be effected in the way now mentioned, it is, we apprehend, ille to expect that, however instructed, women employed in factories should generally make good wives and mothers. It is too much to expect that they should be able to attend at the same time to the mill and to their families. One or other is almost sure to be neglected; and the presumption is, that this will be the case with the latter rather than the former.

It is a curious circumstance that something like the factory system is now applied to the rearing of the children of the work-people engaged in factories; for receiving-houses (creches) are being established in the great manufacturing towns, where the mothers deposit their children on their way to the mills, and receive them again on their way back. And though in some respects a very considerable improvement, the adoption of this plan gives but a sorry idea of the state of the manufacturing population. Such, however, and so limited is the field for the employment of women in England compared with their vast numbers, that factory labour must be regarded, notwithstanding its many drawbacks, as having contributed materially to their welfare.

A great manufacturer, like a great landowner, has a duty of vast deal in his power, and, with little loss to himself, may master... do, and sometimes does, a great deal of good to his work- people. The truth indeed is, that in promoting and re- warding those labourers who distinguish themselves by their industry and good conduct, and in checking, in as far as may be in his power, the idleness and vicious pro- pensities of others, he is following a line of conduct that is highly conducive to his interests. But an enlightened and a generous master should do more than this. He should look upon his work-people as part of his family, should interest himself in their well-being, assist in providing schools for the education of their children, and forward any proper plan for improving their dwellings, for supply- ing them with good medical advice, and so forth. Those masters who can do much to promote the real interests of those in their employment, and who, notwithstanding, do little or nothing, lie under a heavy responsibility. They abdicate or abuse some of their most valuable privileges, and are culpable in more ways than one.

Owing to the facilities for obtaining supplies of skilled labour, and the convenience resulting from the vicinity of other establishments, factories may now, speaking generally, be more advantageously located in towns than in the country. This, however, has the disadvantage of making it comparatively difficult for the masters to inform them- selves with respect to the habits and mode of life of those in their service. But this circumstance will not excuse that neglect of the interests of the work-people in towns which is so frequently evinced by their employers. The con- duct of the former in the mill, the punctuality of their attendance, their cleanliness, and the way in which they per- form their allotted tasks, will throw a great deal of light on their character. And those indices should not merely lead the master to advance the deserving, but it should, also, lead him to inquire into the modes of life and habits of the others. And it is not easy to estimate the influence that his advice, exhortation, and threatenings, might have over their conduct.

Whatever else education may do for the work-people, we do not believe that it will do what is expected by some; that is, that it will make factory-labourers contented with their lot. On the contrary, we are disposed to think that its effect will rather be the reverse of this, and that that will be one of its principal advantages. It is clear, indeed, that if it had the effect supposed, it would be in so far dis- advantageous that it would, at one and the same time, weaken the motives for the introduction of those reforms into the factory system to which we have alluded, and im- pair the energies of the workmen, and their efforts to ad- vance themselves.

It is plain, therefore, that it is no easy matter to cast the horoscope of the manufacturing system, to estimate the changes it may undergo, or its ultimate influence over the condition of those among whom it may be established. Much will depend on future contingencies, and much also on the operation of principles to which new combinations of circumstances will no doubt give rise. The hopes of some, and the fears of others, may at present predominate; but no just confidence can be placed in the speculations of either class; and the final results will be learned only by a distant posterity.

III. FACTORIES (ECONOMY OF).

By a factory, in a general sense, is understood any building or inclosure within which any branch of manufac- turing industry is carried on. But in practice the term ap- pears to be confined to buildings of an extensive description, fitted up with machinery, and suited for the prosecution of one or more branches of manufacture. Factories in which cotton is spun being mostly on a large scale, are generally called spinning mills; and others have peculiar names according to the nature of the business to which they are devoted.

The skill and judgment of the manufacturer are evinced in nothing more than in the proper construction and eco- nomy of factories. Their suitability to the end in view, provided it be accomplished without any unnecessary ex- pense, is one of the most important elements in manufac- turing success. It may be laid down generally, that to insure this grand object, the machinery in factories should be of the best quality, and the labour to be performed dis- tributed so that the strength and capacity of those employed may be exactly apportioned to the tasks they have to per- form. And as any mistakes in regard to the selection of the individuals to be employed in factories, and more es- pecially of those appointed to superintend the different departments, would be quite fatal to their success, we may be sure that everything that is practicable will be done to guard against their occurrence. But it would be idle to attempt to lay down any precise rules in regard to the economy of these establishments, seeing that all arrange- ments must be accommodated to the successive improve- ments in the arts, the species and command of the power to be employed, the price and supply of labour, and so forth. The extent also to which the different branches of industry may be most advantageously congregated into a single establishment, is entirely a practical question for the sagacity of the manufacturer, the solution of which must depend on its greater or less proximity to others, and a variety of other circumstances. Though the principle of the division of labour should never be lost sight of in the construction of factories, neither should it be carried to an extreme. In some very extensive and prosperous factories in the principal seats of the cotton trade, the various pro- cesses, from the carding, spinning, and weaving of the wool, to the bleaching and printing of the cloths, are carried on under the same roof. Generally, however, some of the processes that in these instances are performed in one, are distributed among different establishments.

Of late years the question in regard to the interference of the police in the construction of factories has been a good deal mooted. On the whole, we are inclined to think, that if confined within moderate and well-defined limits, it may be advantageous. In the smaller and inferior class of facto- ries ventilation and cleanliness are apt to be neglected; and there does not appear to be any good reason why the police should not be permitted to see that these indispensable requisites for the health of the work-people are properly attended to, and to denounce their neglect. They may also be authorized to see that any peculiarly dangerous machine is properly fenced off, and to denounce or abate whatever can be fairly considered as a nuisance. But here, as in the case of the labourer, non-interference should be the rule, and interference the exception. The latter, indeed, is to be tolerated only when there is clear and unquestionable abuse.

Latterly it has been attempted to make factories consume their own smoke; but though this may be an expedient proceeding in the case of factories in towns or populous neighbourhoods, it is otherwise with those in the country or in thinly-peopled districts. There the smoke can do little or no injury.

Various branches of manufacture have, at one time or Domestic other, been wholly or partly carried on in the houses of the work-people. This was formerly the case with the spin- ning and weaving of wool, flax, &c., and it still continues to a considerable extent in the former department. These domestic manufactures, as they have been called, were sup- posed to be peculiarly advantageous, from their enabling the parties engaged in them to live in the country, away from the physical and moral contagion of great towns, and where they could now and then engage in the healthy labours of agriculture. But there was a good deal more imagination than of reality in these representations. In some respects, indeed, if we look only at the labourers, the balance of advantage may have been on their side. They had, we may take for granted, in the country good air and good water; but at the same time their cottages have generally been of the meanest description; their children, who were made to assist their parents at the earliest possible moment, had seldom any opportunity of being educated; and the work-people themselves have most frequently been idle and slovenly. The attempt to combine the pursuits of husbandry with those of manufactures, or to assign to those engaged in the latter small portions of land which they were to cultivate at extra hours, has had the precise result that was to be anticipated; whether in England, Ireland, or elsewhere, it has proved to be a failure, and has been injurious alike to both departments. Before spinning mills were so much as thought of, and the linen trade of Ireland was wholly domestic, Arthur Young said—

"If I had an estate in the south of Ireland, I would as soon introduce pestilence and famine as the linen manufacture upon it." (Travels in Ireland, part ii., p. 120, 4to edition.) There cannot, in fact, be any material improvement either in agriculture or manufactures till they are separated and apportioned to entirely different sets of individuals. A good ploughman cannot be also a good artizan. Inferior workmen may engage indiscriminately in different occupations; but to attain to excellence in any one art or calling, it is indispensable that it should be the exclusive business of those by whom it is carried on. And such being the case, none need regret that the mixing up of agriculture and manufacturing employments has ceased to be regarded as favourable, and is now generally abandoned.

Still, however, certain varieties of what may be called domestic manufactures, or manufactures carried on in separate establishments on a small scale, continue to exist in a few circumscribed localities. Thus, the spinning and weaving of woollen yarn and cloth by power not being so extensively practised as in the cotton trade, the old hand-jenny and the hand-loom are in pretty extensive use in the district of which Leeds is the centre; and there, consequently, a variety of domestic manufacture keeps its ground. The parties by whom it is carried on have generally from two to six or more looms, and employ, besides their own families, more or fewer journeymen, according to the magnitude of their business. Formerly they were in the habit of carrying the wool in these little factories through all its stages, till it arrived at the state of undressed cloth. But for a considerable time past the domestic and factory systems have been so intermixed, that some of the processes in the manufacture are performed at public mills constructed for that purpose, but the cloth is almost wholly dressed and packed in Leeds.

Should the spinning and weaving of wool by power come to be perfected to the same degree as the spinning and weaving of cotton, the domestic manufacture now referred to will have to be abandoned; and this result is taking place. The processes for the spinning of wool by machinery are being perfected, and the number of power-looms employed in the weaving of wool has increased from 2045 in 1835 to 9459 in 1850, and 14,453 in 1856. The presumption consequently is, that the factory system is destined to become as preponderating in this as in other departments. The period of transition will, of course, be longer or shorter according to the progress of invention, the rate of wages, &c.; but of the transition being effected in the end, there can be no reasonable doubt.

Some departments of the hardware trade are also prosecuted in cottages, but they are of little importance.

None but the simplest descriptions of machinery can be introduced into cottages or small establishments. Whenever, therefore, it is found that the work executed by their assistance may be executed more cheaply or better by means of more powerful and complex machinery, the former necessarily begin to be abandoned. And it is fortunate that their abandonment is attended by few or none of the mischievous effects by which it was formerly supposed it would be accompanied.

Perhaps it is hardly necessary, seeing that this book is intended for the special use of Englishmen, to state that these conclusions, how applicable soever to Great Britain, Russia, France, the greater part of the United States, and other countries similarly situated, do not apply to countries with a severe climate, or to such as are very thinly peopled. In Russia, British America, Oregon, &c., the ordinary pursuits of agriculture can only be carried on for about five or six months in the year, or perhaps less, so that the peasants, if they did not engage in other employments while the land is covered with snow or bound by frost, would be idle for more than half their time. Hence in such countries the apportionment of employments to different individuals cannot be carried to anything like the extent to which it may be carried in more temperate climates; and the person who for one portion of the year is a farm labourer, is during the other portion a weaver, a carpenter, a smith, a shoemaker, or something, or, it may be, several things else. The peculiar situation of Russia makes this system be practised to a very great extent in that empire. The peasants are all artizans of one sort or other as well as husbandmen, and hence the surprising facility with which they turn from one thing to another.

In Russia, Hungary, Poland, and all imperfectly civilized countries, the cottages of the peasantry are not distributed over the surface, as in Britain, but are congregated into hamlets or villages. And it is a curious fact that these villages, instead of being addicted to many, generally confine themselves to some one occupation, exchanging their surplus products for those of the adjoining villages at the fairs so frequent in those countries, or by the intervention of pedlars or agents travelling from place to place. There is therefore in Russia a greater subdivision of employments than might perhaps have been expected; and the system seems to be well calculated for the peculiar circumstances under which the empire is placed. In those provinces where the population is thinly scattered over the surface, and the villages small and at great distances from each other, the division of employments becomes less perfect, and the manufactures which are carried on from generation to generation, usually with little change, are altogether primitive and domestic.

But though, under such circumstances it would be idle to suppose that Russia should succeed in the finer branches of manufacture, or in those required for the wealthier and more refined portion of the community, there are certain branches, such as the manufacture of coarse linen and canvas, mats, leather, &c., in which she has peculiar and important advantages. And her real interests would be best promoted by opening her ports to the free importation of those articles in the production of which foreigners have a superiority; for this would give the most effectual as well as the most natural stimulus to the export of her raw products, which are the main elements of her wealth, and to those industrial pursuits in which the superiority is on her side.

Unluckily, however, this has not been hitherto the policy of the Russian government. Spinning and weaving mills, conducted on the plan followed in England, have been established at Moscow and elsewhere in Russia. And a

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1 See parish the statements in regard to manufactures in the valuable works of Haxthausen and Tegoborski on Russia. great variety of factories have been set on foot by the nobles in different parts of the empire, the labourers in which are the slaves of the proprietors, employed for certain periods under a sort of corvée or statute-labour system. But notwithstanding the wonderful aptitude of the Russian peasantry to execute the tasks allotted to them, it is not to be imagined that factories carried on by compulsory and reluctant labour should prove successful; and, in point of fact, the products made in them are at once bad and dear, while the processes continue nearly stationary. And even the best managed factories, or those which are carried on by work-people, who are free on paying an obrok or tax to their lords, could not support themselves were they not protected by high duties on foreign fabrics. The home demand for their productions is inconsiderable. The great bulk of the population being supplied by domestic manufactures, their only dependence must be placed on the stinted demand of the upper classes resident in the few great towns, and on the export trade. And little or no stress can be laid on the latter; for, with the exception of some inconsiderable outlets along her Asiatic frontier, the chances are ten to one that the foreign markets are already supplied with cheaper and better articles.

IV. LOCALITY OF MANUFACTURES.

The locality of manufactures depends principally on physical causes, but partly, also, on accidental circumstances. Among the former may be mentioned facility of commanding power in the shape of waterfalls or steam; proximity to the raw material, as in the case of the iron manufacture; and to the demand, as in the case of cabinetmaking, brewing, and other businesses carried on in great cities; and so forth.

During the first half of last century, when the iron trade of England was of very trifling dimensions, it was partly carried on in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex,¹ not so much on account of the abundance of the ore in these counties, as of the furnaces being readily supplied with fuel from their numerous woods and copses. And notwithstanding the repeated interference of the legislature in their behalf, the woods referred to, as well as those in other parts of the kingdom, were so much exhausted in 1740-50, when the make of iron did not exceed from 17,000 to 18,000 tons a-year, that had not other means been discovered of smelting the ores, the business must have been strangled in its cradle. This contingency had, indeed, been long obvious; and in the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, and the early part of that of James I., efforts were made, partly in the view of preventing the destruction of timber, and partly of turning small coal (which was reckoned of no value) to account, to employ the latter in the making of iron. And these efforts were so far successful, that in 1621 Lord Dudley took out a patent for the manufacture of iron by means of pit-coal, he being able to produce by his process about three tons of iron a week!² But though his lordship's patent was expressly excepted from the act of 1624 (21 Jac. I., c. 3) for the abolition of monopolies, his works were destroyed by an ignorant rabble, and he was well nigh ruined by his efforts to improve and perfect an invention which has since proved to be of such transcendent utility.³ It appears, in consequence, to have been for a lengthened period almost entirely forgotten, and in 1740 or thereabouts it was only introduced into a single work in Coalbrookdale. But since that epoch, or rather since 1760 or 1770, when it was brought into general use, the manufacture has steadily increased; and of late years its progress has been so very extraordinary, that the make, which amounted in 1830 to about 678,000 tons, amounted in 1855 to no fewer than about 3,325,000 tons! At this moment the produce of iron in Great Britain is supposed to be about equal to the produce of all other countries, including the United States. In the latter the annual make may at present (1857) amount to about 850,000 or 900,000 tons.

We may mention, in farther illustration of the extension of the iron trade, that, exclusive of the vast additional quantities consumed at home, the real value of the exports of iron and steel, wrought and unwrought, has increased as follows, viz.:—

| Year | Make (tons) | |------|------------| | 1842 | 1,245,717 | | 1845 | 3,501,895 | | 1850 | 5,359,655 | | 1854 | 11,674,675 | | 1855 | 9,472,885 | | 1856 | 12,986,674 |

Next to Lord Dudley's invention, the progress of the iron manufacture has been principally owing to the improvement of the steam-engine, the invention of the process of puddling, and the introduction of the hot blast.

It is needless, perhaps, to add, that the works in Kent and Surrey have been long abandoned, and that iron is now produced exclusively in those districts in which coal as well as iron ore is most plentiful.

The vast increase in the production of iron has been mainly occasioned by its greater cheapness, which has enabled it to be applied to a great many purposes to which it would be quite unsuitable were it much more expensive. But it is said, that this greater cheapness has led to a deterioration of the quality of iron, as well as to the increase of its supply. And such, we believe, is the case. It is not clear on what the superiority of some descriptions of foreign iron depends, whether it be the preferable quality of the ore, the use of wood as fuel, the slower processes generally followed, and the greater care taken in the manufacture. But whatever the causes may be, the fact of a superior article being produced is unquestionable. It is material, however, to bear in mind that the better article costs a proportionally higher price; and as an inferior and cheaper article such as is generally made in Great Britain, suits the great majority of purposes quite as well as the other, our manufacturers have done wisely in adapting their supply to the general demand. When superior iron is required, it can be produced on its price being paid, or it can be imported. Like any other description of produce, it may be had of all qualities and at all rates. But its manufacture in England would never have attained to anything like its present value and importance, had not cheapness, rather than excellence, been the grand object of our producers.

Seeing that an abundant supply of iron at a moderate Restrictive price is indispensable to success in the arts, it might have been expected that those countries anxious to attain to eminence in manufactures, would not fail to adopt every means that might tend to lessen its price and increase its supply; and we incline to think that if bounties on importation were ever justifiable, it would be in the case of iron. But, by a singular inconsistency, the reverse of this usually takes place; and nothing is more common than for states to impose high duties on iron brought from abroad, or to prohibit its importation, at the very moment that they are labouring to bolster up manufactures. It is needless to dwell on the contradictory nature of such a policy; which, however, is that of France, Russia, and most other countries. Owing to the scarcity of coal, and other circumstances, their producers cannot furnish iron except at a comparatively high price; and to encourage them to persevere in a

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¹ The railings round St Paul's Cathedral were cast in Sussex. ² The Metallus Martis of Dud Dudley, Lord Dudley's son, in which an account is given of the circumstances connected with his lordship's invention and the patent, was published in 1665. Having become very scarce, it has recently been reprinted, with some additional matter illustrative of the early history of the trade. disadvantageous business, government lays heavy duties on foreign iron; or, in other words, does all that it can to raise the price and deteriorate the quality of the instruments and machines principally employed in industrious undertakings! It is said by M. Tegoborski, that owing to the restraints on its importation, the scarcity and high price of iron in Russia are such that the horses of the peasantry are seldom shod, and that their ploughs, harrows, and other agricultural implements are made wholly of wood. Wherever a *felo de se* policy of this sort is adopted, it would be idle to expect that industry should make any progress. Our ascendancy in manufactures will not be in much peril so long as it is generally acted upon.

When Sir Richard Arkwright's inventions began to be applied to the spinning of cotton, spinning-mills were most frequently erected in situations which had a considerable command of water-power, though in other respects they might be far from convenient. But the discoveries of Watt relieved the cotton-spinners from the necessity of seeking power at the sacrifice of other advantages. And while the steam-engine enabled them to command an unvarying amount of power (which was seldom the case with water), it also enabled them to build their mills in towns and other localities where labour and other things could be procured with the greatest advantage.

The extensive employment of steam in the greater number of factories is the reason that they are now mostly found in districts where coal is abundant. Owing, however, to the greater economy in the use of coal, one ton of which is now made to furnish as much power as 2½ or 3 tons did some years ago, and the facilities afforded for its conveyance by means of railways and steam navigation, businesses established in districts where it is wanting, may, from the better training of the work-people, and the possession of the market, be able to maintain for a lengthened period their former ascendancy. But the greater cost of coal or power, or an inconvenient situation, is still, notwithstanding all that has been done to lessen it, a considerable and perpetually operating disadvantage. And the desire to escape from its influence seldom fails in the end to tempt some of those who are newly entering into the trade to establish factories where the motive power may be had at less cost. And when the example has once been set, and a population familiar with the business got together in the new locality, it will most likely be wholly transferred thither, unless, as may very possibly happen, the advantages on its side should be otherwise neutralized.

But though command of power and readiness of access be powerful requisites to the success of most manufactures, the localities in which peculiar businesses are established would seem to depend as much on accident as on anything else. Why, for example, should Manchester be the great seat of the cotton, Birmingham of the hardware, Bradford of the worsted, and Leeds of the cloth trade? We apprehend that no better answer can be given to this question than that, from accidental or inappreciable circumstances, the businesses referred to happened to be early established in these towns, and that their situation having been found to be peculiarly well fitted for the improved processes of later times, they have preserved their early superiority. Had they been situated in districts without coal, or comparatively inaccessible, their early proficiency, though it might have enabled them to struggle for a while with the greater advantages enjoyed by their competitors in other districts, would not have been sufficient to secure their continued lead, or even existence. They must, like the Kentish iron-works, have been in the end abandoned. But having the good fortune to possess, in addition to early and peculiar skill in their respective trades, all the means and appliances required to secure their further advancement, their progress has been continuous and extraordinary, and their supremacy is at present more undisputed than at any former period.

Manchester is said, in Leland's *Itinerary*, written in the reign of Henry VIII., to be "the fairest, best builded, quickest, and most populous town of Lancashire" (*Itin.*, p. 94, edit. 1769). But Leland says nothing of manufactures; and we are indebted for the earliest notice of the cotton trade of Manchester to a tract by Lewis Roberts, published in 1641, in which he says that "the inhabitants buy cotton wool in London, which comes from Cyprus and Smyrna, which they work up into fustians, vermillions, dimitties, and other stuffes." But it is to be observed that the wool only of these fabrics consisted of cotton, the warp being then, and long after, formed wholly of linen yarn, which was partly brought from Ireland; and that the importations of cotton yarn and raw cotton were then, and down to a comparatively late period, quite inconsiderable. Such was the late and feeble beginning of that manufacture which an unprecedented combination of discoveries here and abroad has since so prodigiously increased.

The superiority of Birmingham in the manufacture of cutlery and hardware was as conspicuous in the days of Henry VIII. as at present. Leland says—"There be many smithes in the towne that use to make knives and all manner of cutting tools, and many foriners that make bittes, and a great many naylors; soe that a great part of the towne is maintained by smithes whose have their iron and sea cole out of Staffordshire." (*Itin.*, vol. iv., part ii., p. 114.)

Sheffield has been long famous for its cutlery. Chaucer says of the miller of Trumpington,—"A Sheffield whittle bare he in his hose" (*Miller's Tale*, l. 3930). Leeds and Bradford are both referred to as manufacturing towns by Leland and Camden.

The growth of the linen manufacture in Belfast and Linen and Dundee, both of which are destitute of water-power and of manufacture coal, may appear perhaps to militate against the previous statements; but when rightly considered, this will not be found to be the case.

The spinning and weaving of flax was established in the farm-houses and cottages of Ulster by settlers from Scotland, in the reign of James I., and it was improved by refugees expelled from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. This domestic manufacture, which has been the theme of much undeserved eulogy, was perpetuated, down to a recent period, by the continued subdivision of the land; the parcels occupied by families not being sufficient to afford them employment. While this system prevailed, it was customary for agents from Belfast and other towns to visit the country fairs and markets to buy up the raw or brown webs, which were mostly conveyed to the former, where, after being bleached, lapped, finished, and packed, they were exported partly to Britain and partly to foreign parts. In this way Belfast became the principal seat of the linen trade of Ulster, and its merchants were rendered familiar not only with the various details of the home trade, but also with the various circumstances affecting the supply and demand for linens in the countries to which they were exported.

Matters went on in Ulster nearly in the way now stated till between 1825 and 1830. In the meantime, however, the machinery that had been first applied to the spinning of cotton began to be applied to the spinning of flax; and

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1 "Treasure of Traffic," p. 73, in Select Tracts on Commerce, reprinted for the Political Economy Club in 1856. after this had been effected, some enterprising parties, among whom the Messrs Mulholland were the first, constructed flax-mills in Belfast, with the view of supplying the cottage weavers with yarn. The speculation proved eminently successful. Precisely the same causes that had given the first great stimulus to mill-spinning in Lancashire and other parts of England were in operation in Ulster. The processes of spinning and weaving were most frequently carried on together in the same cottages; but the families of the weavers being unable to furnish them with sufficient quantities of yarn, the latter were in the habit of collecting additional supplies from spinners and others not attached to looms. A good deal of the weavers' time was thus frittered away; and being frequently ill, or only half-employed, they were apt to contract bad habits. Under these circumstances we need not be surprised to learn, that no sooner had the mill-spun yarn come into the market, than it was eagerly sought after by the weavers and their employers; and being cheaper than that spun by the common hand-wheel, and the supply regular and abundant, the latter was in no very lengthened period entirely thrown aside. Many of the families who had previously been engaged in spinning emigrated to Belfast, where they found employment in the flax-mills that were multiplied on all sides; while the greater number of those who continued in the country are now employed in the embroidery of muslins, which are sent in vast quantities to be sewed in Ulster, from Glasgow, the grand seat of the muslin trade.

The excellence of the bleaching in the country contiguous to Belfast is one of those circumstances to which the progress and present prosperity of its manufacture is in no inconsiderable degree to be ascribed. Whether it be occasioned by some peculiarity of the water, the humidity of the atmosphere, or the mildness of the winter, is unknown. But of the pre-eminence of Ulster in this art there can be no question. So much is this the case, that English power-loom fabrics and Belgian brown webs are regularly sent to Ulster to be bleached.

Such seems to be the main features in the progress of the linen trade of Belfast. Its situation made it the natural emporium of the business, and it had attained to eminence as such before the command of natural power was supposed to be of much consequence. Now, however, this is found to be of primary importance. And as coals for the mills must be brought from Ayrshire and Cumberland, and the machinery used in them from Manchester, these circumstances operate as a serious drawback on Belfast, and it remains to be seen whether she will be able permanently to maintain her present ascendancy. The superiority of her bleaching grounds, the skill of her work-people, who are familiar with all the details of the business, and the greater cheapness of their labour, have all helped to turn the balance in her favour. But the latter circumstance was a good deal more decided a few years since than at present; and despite its influence, the cotton-mills which were constructed previously to the flax-mills have had to be given up. It is probable, too, that the progressive employment of power-looms in the weaving of linen, into which they are already very extensively introduced, may eventually operate to the prejudice of Belfast. But in a case of this sort, where so many unforeseen contingencies may arise, little stress can be safely laid on any conclusions as to the precise results that may be expected to take place at some future period. It is plain, however, that in the present state of manufacturing industry, the disadvantages that attach to Belfast and other places similarly situated, are of a rather formidable description. They may no doubt be fully counterbalanced by peculiar advantages; but if not, they can hardly fail in the long run to sap the foundations of their prosperity.

Most part of the statements now made with respect to the linen trade of Belfast apply with but little alteration to that of Dundee. At an early period the manufacture of coarse linens for home use and for exportation was carried on in the towns of Dundee, Arbroath, Montrose, &c., and in the villages and hamlets of the adjacent districts. Some portion of the raw material was raised at home, but by far the greater portion was imported from abroad, especially from Russia. Dundee early took the lead in this business, and became the principal centre of the trade. For a lengthened period the manufacture was bolstered up by means of bounties and prohibitions. But notwithstanding their assistance, it made but a slow progress till after mills for the spinning of the yarn were introduced. Since, then, however, its advance, despite the repeal of the bounty, has been quite extraordinary, and it is at present in a prosperous condition.

In the case of Dundee, as in that of Belfast, early acquaintance with the trade, a convenient situation for the exportation of the manufactured goods and the importation of the raw material, and a good harbour, gave her advantages of which her citizens have availed themselves with an energy and enterprise which have seldom if ever been surpassed. Still, however, the want of water-power and of a supply of native coal are considerable impediments to the progress of the manufacture; and the fair presumption would seem to be, that in the end they must have the same influence here which we have seen they may be expected to have in Belfast. It may, perhaps, be worth while to add, in corroboration of this view of the matter, that the manufacture of cottons, which was also attempted here as well as in Belfast, has long ceased to exist.

We subjoin some statements illustrative of the extent, progress, and location of the factories for the production of textile fabrics.—(See Table on next page.)

Of the 2046 cotton factories in England and Wales in 1856, no fewer than 1480 were situated in Lancashire; Manchester being the metropolis of the trade. The remaining factories were principally situated in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Cheshire, and Derbyshire.

The cotton trade of Scotland is mostly restricted to the counties of Lanark and Renfrew, and that of Ireland (which is inconsiderable) to Antrim. But while the business has of late years been very greatly extended in England, it has been nearly stationary in Scotland, and has fallen off in Ireland.

The embroidery of muslins, a branch of the cotton trade Embroidery which is highly deserving of attention, was commenced in derry of Scotland about 1825, and is almost wholly carried on by muslins, Glasgow houses. It is now of first-rate importance, its increase not having been surpassed by that of any other branch of industry, and equalled by very few. At present (1857) one Glasgow house employs in its central establishment in that city no fewer than 500 men and 1500 women, besides employing from 20,000 to 30,000 females, partly in Ayrshire and other parts of Scotland, but principally in Ireland! In all, above fifty houses are engaged in the trade; and the total sum paid as wages to females in the western parts of Scotland, and in Ireland, is believed to amount to L750,000 a-year. The embroidery is entirely executed by hand, the attempts to execute it by machinery having failed, or been found to be too expensive. The

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1 We have been greatly indebted in compiling these remarks to a very valuable paper on this subject communicated to us by Sir James E. Tennent. Abstract Account of the Number of Factories for Spinning and Weaving Cotton, Sheep's Wool, Worsted, Flax, and Manufactures Silk, in the United Kingdom, in 1856; showing also the Number of Spindles and Power-Looms, and of the Individuals (classified according to their sexes and ages) employed in the same.—(From the Parliamentary Paper, No. 7, Sess. 1857.)

| Description of Factories | No. of Factories | No. of Spindles | No. of Power Looms | Amount of Moving Power | No. of Children under 12 Years of Age | No. of Males between 13 and 18 Years of Age | No. of Females above 13 Years of Age | No. of Males above 18 Years of Age | Total Numbers Employed | |--------------------------|-----------------|----------------|--------------------|-----------------------|--------------------------------------|------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|----------------------------------|------------------------| | Cotton Factories, England and Wales | 2046 | 25,818,576 | 275,590 | 79,836 | 6551 | 14,024 | 9,911 | 329 | 374 | 2,006 | 26,715 | 2,122 | 799 | 1,223 | 2,122 | 3,345 | | Scotland | 152 | 2,041,139 | 21,624 | 7,641 | 2330 | 329 | 374 | 2,006 | 26,715 | 2,122 | 799 | 1,223 | 2,122 | 3,345 | | Ireland | 12 | 150,952 | 1,633 | 524 | 250 | 424 | 424 | 424 | 424 | 424 | 424 | 424 | 424 | 424 | 424 | 424 | | **Total** | **2210** | **28,010,217** | **298,847** | **88,091** | **9,131** | **14,593** | **10,285** | **38,941** | **211,742** | **103,882** | **157,186** | **222,027** | **379,213** | | Woollen Factories, England and Wales | 1282 | 1,469,949 | 13,726 | 16,265 | 6261 | 3,742 | 2,914 | 9,828 | 25,918 | 25,728 | 40,998 | 28,822 | 69,120 | | Scotland | 196 | 272,225 | 665 | 1,197 | 1746 | 31 | 15 | 1,232 | 4,321 | 3,679 | 4,942 | 4,338 | 9,280 | | Ireland | 27 | 14,798 | 62 | 28 | 404 | 1 | ... | 74 | 338 | 208 | 343 | 308 | 641 | | **Total** | **1505** | **1,785,962** | **14,453** | **17,490** | **8411** | **3,774** | **2,929** | **11,134** | **30,579** | **30,675** | **45,583** | **33,508** | **79,091** | | Worsted Factories, England and Wales | 511 | 1,208,726 | 38,819 | 13,159 | 1301 | 4,828 | 6,286 | 7,063 | 50,540 | 17,653 | 29,752 | 56,938 | 86,695 | | Scotland | 8 | 21,137 | 135 | 250 | 34 | ... | 2 | 41 | 656 | 196 | 237 | 658 | 890 | | Ireland | 6 | 5,086 | 2 | 3 | 96 | ... | ... | 14 | 175 | 20 | 34 | 175 | 175 | | **Total** | **525** | **1,234,549** | **38,956** | **13,473** | **1431** | **4,828** | **6,400** | **7,116** | **51,371** | **18,079** | **30,023** | **57,771** | **87,794** | | Flax Factories, England and Wales | 129 | 441,759 | 1,987 | 3,639 | 1005 | 683 | 584 | 1,932 | 13,037 | 3,551 | 6,166 | 13,621 | 19,287 | | Scotland | 168 | 278,204 | 4,011 | 5,529 | 817 | 118 | 308 | 3,174 | 23,083 | 5,039 | 8,331 | 22,391 | 31,222 | | Ireland | 110 | 567,980 | 1,091 | 5,219 | 2113 | 52 | 61 | 3,844 | 19,743 | 5,033 | 8,949 | 19,804 | 28,753 | | **Total** | **417** | **1,288,043** | **7,589** | **14,287** | **2035** | **853** | **933** | **8,550** | **55,863** | **13,643** | **23,446** | **56,816** | **80,202** | | Silk Factories, England | 454 | 1,063,555 | 9,260 | 4,238 | 816 | 719,069 | 1946,425 | 4,609 | 33,200 | 10,055 | 16,739 | 38,561 | 55,200 | | Scotland | 5 | 30,244 | ... | 122 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | | Ireland | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | | **Total** | **460** | **1,093,799** | **9,260** | **4,260** | **816** | **719,067** | **1953,448** | **4,106** | **33,823** | **10,121** | **16,859** | **39,238** | **56,137** |

**GENERAL SUMMARY.**

| Total Number of Factories | No. of Factories | No. of Spindles | No. of Power Looms | Amount of Moving Power | Steam. Water | M. | F. | M. & F. | |---------------------------|-----------------|----------------|--------------------|-----------------------|-------------|---|---|-------| | England and Wales | 4492 | 33,122,165 | 339,929 | 117,158 | 16,904 | 22,996 | 20,773 | 1945 | 4,225 | 69,311 | 205,700 | 156,056 | 241,209 | 200,788 | 472,997 | | Scotland | 555 | 2,043,049 | 26,435 | 14,779 | 4,527 | 485 | 700 | 7 | 153 | 6,030 | 55,300 | 14,290 | 21,279 | 56,153 | 77,432 | | Ireland | 155 | 738,308 | 3,388 | 5,774 | 2,803 | 53 | 61 | ... | ... | 4,355 | 22,378 | 6,140 | 10,649 | 22,439 | 33,088 | | **Total of United Kingdom** | **5117** | **33,503,580** | **369,265** | **137,711** | **23,724** | **24,537** | **21,534** | **1953** | **4448** | **70,247** | **383,378** | **176,400** | **273,137** | **409,390** | **682,527** |

The value of the exports of all sorts of cotton goods and yarn in the undermentioned years has been as follows, viz.—

| Year | Cotton goods | Yarn | |------|--------------|------| | 1862 | £13,907,884 | £7,771,464 | | 1863 | £21,873,697 | £6,353,704 | | 1864 | £30,219,099 | £8,955,671 |

The subjoined table, taken from the carefully-compiled and comprehensive statement of Messrs Holt and Company of Liverpool, dated 31st December 1856, shows in a very striking manner the progress and principal circumstances connected with the cotton manufacture since 1816:

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1 We are indebted for most part of this information to our learned and excellent friend, Dr Strang, chamberlain of Glasgow. ### MANUFACTURES

**Statement of the Imports into, the Exports from, and of the Consumption, Prices, &c., of Cotton Wool in Great Britain, in different Years, from 1816 to 1856, both inclusive.**

| Average Weekly Consumption | 1816 | 1820 | 1830 | 1835 | 1840 | 1845 | 1850 | 1854 | 1858 | 1866 | |---------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------| | Upland | ... | 2,918| 5,452| 5,896| 5,346| 7,243| 4,450| 5,731| 7,809| 5,681| | Orleans and Alabama | 290 | 1,192| 4,756| 7,823| 13,854| 17,162| 15,788| 23,452| 21,919| 24,948| | Sea Island | ... | 409 | 460 | 354 | 392 | 392 | 529 | 427 | 550 | 662 | | **Total United States** | 4,036| 4,519| 10,688| 14,073| 10,592| 24,804| 20,767| 29,610| 30,278| 31,291| | Brazil | 1,589| 2,408| 3,602| 2,339| 1,444| 2,192| 3,310| 1,925| 2,198| 2,798| | Egyptian | ... | 508 | 446 | 540 | 1,062| 1,542| 2,160| 2,359| 2,457| 2,457| | East Indies | 207 | 1,518| 940 | 1,069| 2,227| 1,888| 3,385| 3,996| 5,383| 5,181| | Demerara, West India, &c.| 655 | 534 | 284 | 421 | 260 | 331 | 121 | 108 | 185 | 260 | | **Total,** | 6,488| 8,979| 16,002| 18,318| 24,063| 30,277| 29,125| 37,829| 40,403| 41,987| | Packages annually consumed.| 337,400| 465,900| 832,100| 954,100| 1,251,300| 1,674,400| 1,514,500| 1,967,100| 2,101,000| 2,183,300| | Aver. weight of packages consumed in lbs. | 263 | 258 | 208 | 333 | 367 | 385 | 388 | 394 | 399 | 408 | | Weekly consumption in packages, average | 408 lbs. | 5,093| 7,786| 13,636| 15,327| 21,643| 28,571| 27,607| 38,531| 39,612| 41,987| | Average weight of packages imported, in lbs. | 256 | 249 | 300 | 331 | 365 | 386 | 392 | 408 | 396 | 414 | | Packages exported | 29,300| 23,400| 33,400| 102,800| 119,700| 122,800| 271,800| 316,600| 316,900| 338,700| | Lbs. consumed annually imported in millions and tenths | 939 | 143-9| 261-2| 561-7| 583-4| 716-3| 685-6| 886-6| 901-1| 1021- | | Lbs. weight consumed | 887 | 120-3| 247-6| 318-1| 458-9| 609-6| 588-2| 776-1| 839-1| 891-4 | | Lbs. weight in ports | 19-2 | 110-5| 91-4 | 733 | 162-9| 400-8| 194-1| 329-6| 177-4| 130- | | Lbs. weight in Great Britain, ditto | 127-0| 118-8| 89-6 | 207-0| 453-5| 231-6| 271-2| 208-9| 196-2| | Average price per lb. of Uplands in Liverpool | 18½d. | 11½d. | 6½d. | 10½d. | 6½d. | 4½d. | 7¼d. | 5½d. | 5½d. | 6d. | | Ditto, ditto, Fernams | 26½d. | 15½d. | 8½d. | 14½d. | 9½d. | 6½d. | 7¼d. | 7¼d. | 7¼d. | 7¼d. | | Ditto, ditto, Surats | 15½d. | 8½d. | 5½d. | 7¼d. | 4½d. | 3½d. | 3½d. | 3½d. | 4½d. |

**N.B.—Messrs Holt and Co. estimate the average weight of the packages imported in 1856 at 423 lbs. per bag Upland; 454 lbs. Orleans and Alabama; 330 lbs. Sea Island; 181 lbs. Brazil; 309 lbs. Egyptian; 355 lbs. East Indian; and 175 lbs. West Indian.**

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**Of the 1282 woollen factories in England and Wales, 807, or nearly two-thirds of the whole, belong to Yorkshire. The trade has for some years past been increasing very rapidly in the West Riding, while it has been declining in most other parts of the kingdom.**

**The worsted manufacture, which has latterly been very greatly increased, is principally concentrated in Yorkshire, Bradford being its centre. Recently, however, a considerable number of worsted factories have been constructed in Worcester.**

We borrow from the report of the jury on woollen and worsted manufactures in the Great Exhibition of 1851, the following details illustrative of the progress of the trade in Bradford:

"The first factory in Bradford was built in 1793; but it was not until thirty years afterwards that the power-loom was introduced, and considerably later before its use became general. From the year 1825 the worsted manufacture has made most rapid and unprecedented progress. Up to that period, and for some years afterwards, all the goods were made from wool alone; but about the year 1834 manufactures of worsted weft and cotton warp were first brought forward, and gave a great impetus to the trade. This was still further increased by the introduction in 1836 of the wool of the alpaca, an animal of the llama tribe, inhabiting the mountain ranges of Peru. Considerable difficulties were at first experienced in the working of this material; but they were ultimately overcome, and the alpaca manufacture now ranks as a very important branch of the worsted trade. About the same time, or shortly afterwards, mohair, or goat's wool, from Asia Minor, was brought into general use in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and many beautiful fabrics were produced from it. Silk also, in combination with wool, alpaca, and mohair, has been largely used. Improved machinery has been devised; more rapid processes of manufacture adopted; and the results of all these improvements, and the introduction of these new materials have been—the opening of new branches of industry, the quadrupling within thirty years of the number of work-people employed, and the production of an immense variety of fabrics for the purposes of clothing and furniture."

"The rapid progress of the trade may be illustrated by a reference to the town of Bradford, which is the centre of the manufacture, and the great market where its productions are disposed of. The population of the borough has increased in the following ratio, viz.:—

In 1801 it was ......................... 13,264 In 1821 .................................. 26,309 In 1841 .................................. 66,718 In 1851 .................................. 103,782

"At the beginning of the present century there were only three mills in Bradford; there are now (1851) upwards of 160.

"The following returns show the extent of its present manufacturing operations. They comprise the parish of Bradford and the village of Bingley—

Number of spindles ........................................... 355,792 Number of power-looms ....................................... 17,294 Moving power, steam (horse-power) ......................... 3,884 Do. water do. .................................................. 134 Children employed under 13 years of age,—Males 1,469 Do. do. .......................................................... 1,729" And notwithstanding the many confident predictions to the contrary, the trade has since continued progressively to extend itself on all sides. The manufacturers, seeing they could no longer depend for support on custom-house regulations, became aware of the necessity of exertion; old and worn-out machinery was replaced by the newest and most improved; processes were simplified and perfected; and it is admitted on all hands that the manufacture made greater advances between 1826 and 1840 than it had done in the course of the previous century.

In 1845 Sir Robert Peel reduced the 30 per cent. ad valorem duty on foreign silks when imported to 15 per cent.; and while this wise and liberal measure went far to suppress the smuggling that previously prevailed, it gave a new stimulus to the invention and ingenuity of the manufacturers. The business has in consequence been very largely extended; so much so, that the value of the exports of silk goods, which in 1842 amounted to only £590,189, had increased in 1856 to £2,968,938,—a memorable and signal example of the powerful and beneficial influence of that free commercial policy which Sir Robert Peel did so much to introduce.

Exclusive of the return of factories, &c., previously referred to, similar returns were obtained in 1835, 1838, and 1850. The following comparative statements deduced from these returns show the progress of the factory system in so far as it applies to textile fabrics since 1838:

| Description | Factories in 1838 | Factories in 1850 | Factories in 1856 | Per cent. increase from 1838 to 1856 | |-------------|------------------|------------------|------------------|-------------------------------------| | Cotton Factories | 1819 | 1932 | 2210 | 21,493,387 | | Woollen | 1322 | 1497 | 1553 | 13,842,662 | | Worsted | 416 | 504 | 529 | 21,884,102 | | Flax | 392 | 393 | 417 | 6,977,551 | | Silk | 268 | 277 | 400 | 71,641,179 | | Total | 4217 | 4600 | 5117 | 21,342,186 |

N.B.—A return was obtained of the number of factories in 1835, but being evidently incomplete, no good purpose would be served by quoting it.

Inasmuch, however, as the size and efficiency of factories has been greatly increased since 1838, the mere increase of their number affords no just criterion of their increased capacity of production. This will be evident from the following returns:

Account of the Horse Power, distinguishing between Steam and Water, employed in the Factories of the United Kingdom in 1838, 1850, and 1856, with their increase per cent., from 1838 to 1856.

| Material | 1838 | 1850 | 1856 | Per cent. increase from 1838 to 1856 | |----------|------|------|------|-------------------------------------| | Cotton | 46,826 | 12,977 | 59,803 | 62,419,455 | | Woollen | 11,525 | 9,092 | 20,617 | 25-629,335 | | Worsted | 5,863 | 1,313 | 7,176 | 107-692,907 | | Flax | 7,412 | 3,677 | 11,088 | 65-228,801 | | Silk | 2,457 | 927 | 3,384 | 52-455,082 | | Total | 75,083 | 27,926 | 102,060 | 58-162,615 |

1 Report of Mr Redgrave, factory inspector, October 1854. * These returns are taken from the Report of the Inspectors of factories for the half year ending 31st October 1856, but we have added the column of percentages. Account of the Total Number of Persons employed in the Factories of the United Kingdom in 1835, 1838, 1850, and 1856, with their Increase per cent. from 1838 to 1856.

| Fabric | Hands employed in | Per cent. increase from 1838 to 1856 | |--------|------------------|-------------------------------------| | | 1835 | 1838 | | Cotton | 210,386 | 259,104 | | Woollen| 55,461 | 54,808 | | Worsted| 15,880 | 31,476 | | Flax | 33,212 | 43,557 | | Silk | 30,745 | 34,303 | | Total | 354,684 | 423,400 |

Bringing these proportions together, we have the following:

Account, exhibiting the Increase per cent. in the Number of Factories in the United Kingdom, and in the Amount of the Power used and the Number of Hands employed in them, from 1838 to 1856.

| Fabric | Increase per cent. 1838 to 1856 | |--------|-------------------------------| | Cotton | 21,495,327 | | Woollen| 13,849,562 | | Worsted| 26,201,923 | | Flax | 6,377,551 | | Silk | 71,641,791 |

These accounts set the increasing size and efficiency of factories in the clearest light, and strikingly illustrate the statements already made in regard to their tendency to increase. Notwithstanding the apparent contradictory nature of the allegation, the truth is, that the factory system may in reality be increasing when the number of factories is diminishing. Thus in Scotland the number of cotton factories fell off from 192 in 1838 to 152 in 1856, while the horse-power employed in them rose during the same interval from 8340 to 9971.

At an average of the United Kingdom, the number of spindles in a factory was—

| Fabric | In 1850 | In 1856 | |--------|---------|---------| | Cotton | 14,000 | 17,000 | | Worsted| 2,200 | 3,400 | | Flax | 2,700 | 3,700 |

The average number of spindles kept in motion per horse power was—

| Fabric | In 1850 | In 1856 | |--------|---------|---------| | Cotton factories | 275 | 315 | | Worsted | 86 | 102 |

In woollen and flax factories the proportions were nearly the same.

Weaving factories have been supposed to form an exception to the tendency to the concentration of the business in large establishments. But this result is apparent only, and is occasioned by the extensive introduction of power-looms into the worsted, flax, and silk trades, the factories for which are not upon so extensive a scale as those for cotton-weaving, to which they were first applied.

It is perhaps hardly necessary to advert to the regulations intended to secure the quality of manufactured goods that were formerly so very general. These are now almost everywhere abolished; and it appears to be generally conceded that in this, as in most other things, the free competition of the producers is the only principle on which any reliance can ordinarily be placed for securing superiority of fabric, as well as cheapness. Wherever industry is emancipated from all sorts of restraints, those who carry it on endeavour, by lessening the cost or improving the fabric of their goods, or both, to extend their business; and the intercourse that subsists among the different classes of society is so very intimate, that an individual who should attempt to undersell his neighbours by substituting a showy and flimsy for a substantial article, would be very soon exposed, and be obliged to reduce its price to its proper level. Cheaper articles are often advantageously substituted for those that are dearer; but it is not possible to substitute inferior for superior articles, and maintain them in the place of the latter, without making a proportional reduction in their price. A manufacturer has not only the eyes of his customers but of the trade upon him; and while any scheme for diminishing expense excites their competition, all attempts at fraud are most commonly ruinous to the future prospects of the party. A character for honesty and fair dealing is, in the arts as in everything else, of the highest value.

Wherever public marks or regulations are introduced, their tendency is to weaken or extinguish that spirit of invention and enterprise which is indispensable to manufacturing eminence. When a man's muslins, or silks, or linens, come up to the official standard, he has no motive to improve them still more. Whereas, when there is no standard other than the public taste, he has, in the more as well as in the less advanced stages of his art or craft, the same desire to attract demand and to extend his dealings; and this he can only do by reducing the price of his goods, or suiting them still better to the real or imaginary wants of his customers or of the public.

It is obvious, too, that the plan of subjecting manufactured products to examination by government agents must lead to all sorts of abuse. When this baneful practice used to be carried on, the higher marks were frequently fixed, not to the best goods, but to those whose producers were best able to promote the interests of the examiners.

Consistently with what is now stated, we have to regret that when the bounty on herrings was repealed in 1830, the government did not also abolish the "Fishery Board," and the officers and regulations it had appointed and enacted. So long as the bounty existed, it was proper that those who claimed it should be subjected to such regulations as government chose to enforce. But after its repeal, we see no reason why the fishery should not have been made perfectly free, and every one allowed to prepare his herrings as he thought best. It is said, indeed, that were there no inspection, frauds of all sorts would be practised; that the barrels would be ill made and of a deficient size; that the fish would not be properly packed; that the bottom and middle of the barrels would be filled with bad ones, a few good ones only being placed at the top; that there would not be a sufficiency of pickle, &c. But it is obvious that the reasons alleged in vindication of the official inspection which it is proposed to continue in the case of the herring fishery, might be alleged in vindication of a similar inspection in almost every other branch of industry. It is, in point of fact, utterly worthless. It is an attempt on the part of government to do that for their subjects, which they can do better for themselves. Supposing the official inspection and brand were put an end to, the different curers would have brands of their own; and it would be their object to improve and perfect the quality of their fish, that they might dispose of them more readily and at a better price. It is no answer to this reasoning to say, that at present herrings with the official brand are preferred to those without it. The fact of its having been long in use, and held forth as a guarantee of goodness, has created, without any just ground, a prejudice in its favour. But when it is abolished, and official prestige has ceased to influence opinion, competition will do its work. The fish of those Manufacturers that are found to be best and cheapest will be sure to be in the greatest demand; while all attempts at fraud will not fail to drive those by whom they may be made from the market. Of the many thousand barrels of pork, and the many hundreds of thousands of bales of cotton, annually exported from the United States, those that are falsely packed make an all but inappreciable fraction; indeed, such a thing is very rarely heard of. And yet no one supposes that there is any very material difference between the morale of the packers of pork and cotton, and those of fish. Were the official brand abolished, the latter, like the former, would very soon find that their advantage would be most effectually promoted by their fish being not only above suspicion but of the best quality.

But though, speaking generally, the abolition of the examination system has been of the greatest advantage, there are a few departments which are so very peculiar that it may perhaps be beneficially enforced in them. Fire-arms, for example, cannot be readily tested by ordinary persons; and as any defect in their construction is most dangerous, we are disposed to agree with those who think that it would be good policy to prohibit the sale of all muskets, fowling-pieces, pistols, &c., that have not been tried and approved at a public proof-house. If a man buy a barrel of inferior herrings, or a piece of bad cambric or calico, no great harm is done, and he will not return to the shop where he was cheated. But it is quite another matter if he buy a defective fowling-piece. In this case he may lose his life as well as his money; and hence the advantage of the previous examination.

Precisely the same reasoning applies to the case of cables and anchors. It is but seldom that they can be tested by the buyers. And as the safety of the ship and crew may be compromised by the cable having a single bad link, or the anchor being improperly constructed, it appears expedient that they should be subjected to an efficient test before being used.

The imposition of the stamp on plate has been defended on the like grounds; that is, on the difficulty of determining whether an article be of the standard quality or not, and the consequent expediency of affording a guarantee to the purchaser. It is, however, contended that in this case (and the same reasoning applies, though in a less degree, to the case of fire-arms and cables) the security is far from complete; and that the forgery of the stamps, and their transference from one piece of plate to another, of inferior quality, make them rather a cover to than a security against fraud. On the whole, however, we have little doubt that they are useful. The forgery of a stamp being reckoned in the public estimation a much more serious offence than the substitution of a spurious for a genuine article, the fair inference is, that it will be more rarely committed.

It is not uncommon for the brands or marks of eminent manufacturers to be adopted abroad, and sometimes even at home, and affixed to wares of an inferior character. The total prevention of practices of this sort needs not, we fear, be looked for. Still, one should think that such police arrangements might be adopted as would prevent such practices at home, and such engagements entered into with foreign countries as might go far to hinder them from becoming injuriously prevalent in those countries; more especially as it is not difficult, by the intervention of the press, to expose these mal-practices, and make them redound to the disgrace of those by whom they are adopted.

To begin at this time of day to argue in favour of the greater cheapness of products manufactured by individuals working on their own account, and reaping all the advantages of superior skill and economy, as compared with those manufactured by agents employed by government, may perhaps be considered a mere waste of time. In as far as argument, authority, experience can settle a question of this sort, it has been settled a thousand times over.

And yet, how singularsoever it may appear, proposals are every now and then made to governments by individuals, who are bold enough to promise that, provided they are employed for the purpose, they will engage to produce such and such articles of better quality, and at lower prices than they can be bought for in the market. And though it be natural enough to expect that such offers should occasionally be made, especially by those who have broken down in the management of their own affairs, it is, we think, not a little surprising that they should be listened to, and still more that in some cases they should be acted upon.

It is alleged in vindication of such conduct, that though the greater cheapness and efficiency of articles produced under a system of open competition be true generally, the case in question, whatever it may be, is an exception. And this is pretended to be proved by estimates of the cost of the articles to be produced, which are not really, in one case in five hundred, worth the paper on which they are written. In such estimates some most important items of expense, and some important considerations, are wholly lost sight of, or are carefully kept in the background. Thus, suppose it were proposed that a government should manufacture paper, cloth, muskets, or other articles for itself, it would be told that the raw material would cost so much, the labour so much, and that the produce could be turned out at some two-thirds or less of the sum for which it could be bought. But every one who knows anything of the matter, knows that a vast number of other items besides raw material and labour enter into the cost of manufactured goods. The mills and factories in which the articles are produced cost large sums; and the articles must be charged not only with the interest of the sums laid out in the construction of the mills, &c., but with a farther sum to insure them against fire, to keep them in working order, and to form a sinking fund to replace them when they are worn out. But this is not all. Inventions are constantly being made; so that the most efficient machinery of to-day may be the least efficient in a year or two, and must consequently be changed at whatever cost. And not only this, but the goods or articles produced in 1856 or 1857, and which were then supposed to be the best of their kind, or the most suitable for the end in view, may be in a short while superseded by others, for the production of which the machinery now in use may be totally inapplicable. And besides mills and machinery, governments which are foolish enough to enter into such undertakings must have men to work them. And what are they to do with them when they have no work on which to employ them, or when they become old, or are ruined by accident? They cannot turn them adrift; they must maintain them in one way or other; and the cost of their maintenance will be a part, and in the end no inconsiderable one, of the cost of the articles. But it is needless to insist farther on these and the many similar considerations which will occur to the reader. Those who really believe that products manufactured by government agents can be furnished as cheaply as those manufactured by private parties, may believe, on quite as good evidence, in the truth of Mormonism, spirit-rapping, or any other quackery or folly of the day.

But it is said, that though the goods manufactured by governments may not be so cheap, they will be of better quality than those made by private parties, and that there will be less chance of inferior articles being mixed with them. But we deny that such is the case. Let governments select the best patterns for the articles they want, and they will obtain them quite as good, or better if it be desired, under a system of open competition. If not, the blame does not rest with the makers, but with the over- lookers or parties appointed to receive and test the articles. If the latter be qualified for their duty, and do it, the makers must do theirs or be ruined.

It has been more than once suggested to the Russian Government to introduce the system of private enterprise and economy into the manufacture of arms carried on at Tula. Select, it has been said, the best models of the arms to be manufactured; appoint skilful and competent parties from England and elsewhere to see that the articles produced are in all respects equal to the patterns, and offer their production to the lowest bidder. We have been assured that were this system adopted, the cost of the establishment would be reduced a half or more; that the quality of the muskets and other arms would be decidedly improved; and that there would be much greater facilities than at present for introducing new inventions and improvements.

All speculations in regard to the future condition of any great department of industry must necessarily be of a very vague and doubtful character. They involve so many considerations which are all liable to perpetual changes, the causes and consequences of which it is impossible to appreciate beforehand, that but little dependence can be placed even on those that are most carefully elaborated. But, were we called upon to express an opinion on the subject, we should say, that provided the public tranquillity and the free disposal and security of property be maintained intact, there is nothing to make it be supposed that the British manufacturing system has arrived at, and much less that it has passed, its zenith.

It has been said by Hume, that "manufactures gradually shift their places, leaving those countries and provinces which they have already enriched, and flying to others, whither they are allured by the cheapness of provisions and labour; till they have enriched those also, and are again banished by the same causes." (Essay on Money.)

This is one of the few instances in which Hume has allowed his better judgment to be swayed by popular prejudice. There has not, in truth, been any transfer of the kind to which he refers. The manufactures of the ancient world, which were almost entirely domestic, were not transferred to, but were destroyed by the barbarians; while in modern times the industry of Spain and of the Italian cities of the middle ages fell a sacrifice to the influence of the Inquisition, the establishment of an oppressive system of government, and the discovery of the route to India by the Cape of Good Hope. We have yet to learn that a single instance can be pointed out in the history of the world where, security and other things being about equal, manufactures and trade have left a rich to settle in a poor country. The persecutions of Philip II. and the Duke of Alva, and not the greater poverty of Holland and Zealand, made the manufacturers and merchants of Ghent, Bruges, and Antwerp, seek an asylum in them and in England.

Even in their earliest stages, or when manufactures are principally carried on by the hand, we doubt whether a poor has any advantage over a rich country. Wages may be nominally lower in the former, but the probability is, that they are really dearer. It was said by an excellent judge (Arthur Young) who visited Ireland in 1776-79, that labour in Essex was cheaper at 2s. 6d. than in Tipperary at 5d. a day. Estimated by the work done in a given time, which is the only just standard, labour is uniformly cheaper in rich and industrious than in poor and idle countries. And unless the latter have other and more substantial advantages on their side, their apparently low wages will do them no good and their neighbours no injury.

But if such be the case in the earlier stages of manufactures, the lowness of wages, were it real, and not nominal, has infinitely less influence in determining their locality when they are highly advanced. That is then mainly determined by the command of power, of capital, and of skilled labour. Where these are wanting, or obtainable only in an inferior degree, improved manufactures cannot exist. And as these are enjoyed by this country in the highest perfection, the inference is, that we shall continue, so long as we preserve our security and our freedom, to maintain our manufacturing ascendancy.

The circumstance of the cotton manufacture being dependent for by far the larger portion of the raw material on importations from the United States, has recently been made the subject of a good deal of discussion. It has been said that this state of things is not a little hazardous; that cotton, in the event of anything occurring to involve us in hostilities with the States, or that might injuriously affect the growth of cotton in them, our manufacturers might be exposed to the greatest difficulties, and the wellbeing of a large class of our people seriously compromised. It is alleged too, that, independently of the considerations now mentioned, it may be doubted whether America will be able to meet the increasing demand for cotton; and hence it is contended that we should encourage its growth in India, Africa, and elsewhere. But we are not disposed to attach much weight to these considerations. The Americans would suffer as much as we should do, or more, by laying an embargo on the exportation of cotton, which measure, were it really attempted, would inevitably bring about a disruption of the Union. And unless some rash and ill-advised proceedings take place with respect to the slaves, of which there is no prospect, there is every reason to anticipate a very large increase in the produce of cotton in the United States. It is to be observed, too, that should the demand increase for a while faster than the supply, the consequent increase of price would give a new and powerful stimulus to production, which would probably in the end sink prices lower than ever. Neither, we confess, have we much faith in the speculations of those who say that the supplies from India may be largely augmented. Indian cotton is mostly of inferior quality, and the tenure of the land and the character of the natives present formidable obstacles to its extended cultivation. And if little needs be expected from India, far less should be expected from Africa. The prospects of the manufacture will be bad indeed when it comes to depend in any considerable degree on African imports.

On the whole, it would seem that this is a case in which the laissez faire and laissez passer policy is the most proper that can be followed. The interests of the merchants and manufacturers will lead them to find out the best markets in which to buy the raw material, as well as those in which to sell the finished articles. A rise of a few cents per pound in the price of cotton will do ten times more to stimulate its production in the most suitable localities than all the speeches at all the meetings that will be held on the subject during the next half century. (J. H. M.) Manuzio, Aldo Pio (or Manutius), the first of those justly celebrated printers who were in Italy what the Stephens afterwards became in France and Geneva, was born in 1447 at Bassiano, in the Roman state. He was educated at Rome, and after completing his course of study, repaired to Ferrara to study Greek under Guarini, a learned professor of that language. In 1482 he quitted Ferrara, then threatened with a siege by the Venetians, and retired to Mirandola, where he was received with distinction by the all-accomplished Pico. Yielding to the entreaties of Alberto Pio, he then went to Carpi, where he was soon joined by Pico, the uncle of the prince. In the course of the year 1488 he repaired to Venice, a city which, from its position, its commerce, and the literary taste of its inhabitants, appeared the best suited for his design. His first object was to make himself advantageously known, and, with this view, he commenced by giving public instructions in Greek and Latin; but in the meantime he was very busily occupied in organizing his printing-house; and at length, in 1494, he published the poem of Hero and Leander in Greek and Latin, which was followed by the Grammar of Lascaris, that of Theodore Gaza, and the works of Theocritus, Apollonius, and Herodian. But it was the publication of the works of Aristotle which placed Manuzio in the first rank of printers. This edition alone, though less correct than the greater part of those which followed it, would be sufficient to earn for Manuzio the gratitude of posterity, and to justify all the commendations which have been bestowed upon him. Before this time the greater part of books had been printed in the folio or largest size; Manuzio, however, conceived the happy idea of publishing a collection of the Latin classics in a more convenient form, and with this view he had a character cast in imitation (it is said) of the hand-writing of Petrarch, and employed it for the first time in the impression of his Virgil which appeared in 1501. This character, long afterwards known by the name of Aldine, and now by that of Italic, was designed and cut by Francesco di Bologna. The multiplicity of works which now issued from his presses having rendered it impossible for one individual to superintend the impressions, he had recourse to the assistance of some learned men, his personal friends; and out of this association of persons, united in one common object, he formed the Aldine Academy, whose short duration did not prevent it from attaining great celebrity. It reckoned amongst its members Bembo, Erasmus, Battista Egnazio, and Andrea Navagero, who every year burned, in honour of Catullus, a copy of Martial; the monk Bolzani, the first who wrote in Latin the principles of Greek grammar; Aleyconio, who is accused of having destroyed the only manuscript of Cicero's treatise De Gloria, after having transferred its finest passages to one of his own works; the Greek Musurus Demetrius Chalcondylas, who published the first edition of Homer; and Alejandro, afterwards cardinal. In 1506 war obliged Aldo to withdraw from Venice; and during his absence his goods were pillaged and his domains seized. In 1507 he resumed his typographical labours, and subsequently formed a partnership with Andrea Torezano d'Asola, his father-in-law, of which Aldo was constituted the head. He was on the point of publishing a Bible in three languages, when he was in 1515 removed by death, at the age of sixty-eight, leaving his son Paolo to prosecute his father's designs.

The Greek editions which issued from the presses of Aldo are less correct than either the Latin or the Italian editions; but it should be remembered that he had frequently only a single manuscript, incomplete or half effaced, from which to reproduce a work, and that the conservation of many is entirely owing to his laborious patience. The mark of his press, it is well known, is a dolphin coiled round an anchor. Besides the prefaces, and the Greek or Latin dissertations with which he enriched most of his editions, Manuzio was the author of several works, which would of themselves have been sufficient to insure to him a distinguished place amongst the learned men of his age, if he had not been the most celebrated printer it produced. Of these works the most important are—Rudimenta Grammaticae Linguae Latinae, Venice, 1501, in 4to; Grammaticae Institutiones Graecae, 1515, in 4to; Dictionarium Graeco-Latinum, 1497, 1524, in folio; De Metris Horatianis, a little work often reprinted during the sixteenth century; Scripta Trium longe rarissima demum edita et illustrata, Bassano, 1506, in 8vo. The Abbé Morelli is the editor of this collection, which contains a poem of Aldus, entitled Musarum Panegyris, in two little pieces addressed to the Prince of Carpi. The original edition in 4to, without date, must have appeared before 1489. Manuzio translated from Greek to Latin the Grammar of Lascaris, the Ba-trachomyomachia, the Sentences of Phocylides, the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, and the Fables of Æsop and of Gai-rhas (Bacchus). (See Life of Aldus Manutius the Elder, by Unger, augmented by Geret, Wittenberg, 1753, in 4to; also his Life by Mami.)

Paolo, son of the preceding, was born at Venice in 1512, and after the death of his father remained under the care of his maternal uncle, Andrea Torresano. After his uncle's death in 1529, the printing establishment was re-opened in 1533, for the common benefit of the heirs of Aldo and Andrea d'Asola, with Paolo at its head. In imitation of his father, he sought the assistance of learned men, of whose counsels he availed himself; published new editions, particularly of the Latin classics, much more correct than the preceding ones; and enriched them with prefaces, notes, and indexes, the usefulness of which now began to be felt. On the erection of the Venetian Academy in 1558, Paolo Manuzio was appointed professor of eloquence and director of the academical press. On the dissolution of this institution in 1561, a letter from Cardinal Seripandi induced Paolo to repair to Rome, in order to superintend the impression of the works of the Fathers. The first work which proceeded from the new printing establishment was a small treatise of Cardinal Pole, De Concilio et Reformatione Anglici, dated 1562. He died on the 6th April 1574. During the last years of his life his presses had begun to decline, yet Paolo Manuzio, as a printer and editor, was equal to his illustrious father; and his works place him in the rank of the best critics and most polished writers of his age. These were,—Epistolae ad libri xii. Praefationes, &c., Venice, 1580, in 8vo; Lettere Volgari diverse in quattro libri, ibid. 1560, in 8vo; Degli Elementi e di loro notabili Effetti, ibid. 1557, in 4to; Antiquitatum Romanarum liber de Legibus, ibid. 1557, in folio, with an ample index; Liber de Senatu Romano, ibid. 1581, in 4to; De Comitiis Romanorum, Bologna, 1585, in folio; De Civitate Romana, Rome, 1585, in 4to. These four last treatises have been inserted in the Thesaurus Antiquitatum Romanarum, tom. i. and ii. Manuzio translated into Latin the Philippics of Demosthenes, Venice, 1549, 1552, in 4to; and he published Commentaries on the Familiar Letters of Cicero, the Letters to Atticus, Brutus, and Quintus; and the Orations, as well as Scholia, on the oratorical and philosophical treatises of the same author.

Manzanares, a town of New Castile, Spain, capital of the partido of its own name, in the province of Ciudad Real, 98 miles S. of Madrid. Situated in a vast plain 1882 feet above the sea level, it enjoys a serene sky and salubrious climate. The small river Azuel flows near it, and the high road of Andalucia passes through it, forming its main street. The houses are mostly well built, with open courts, covered in summer with an awning. To the S.E. of the town is the ancient castle called De Peñas Borras, with wall and fosse; it was repaired and garrisoned during the war of independence. Besides a grammar school there are six other schools in the town, an hospital, and a recently erected parish church of modern Gothic architecture. The country around is perfectly flat, and quite destitute of wood and water, so that the soil, though fertile, requires careful irrigation; and the want of fuel is supplied with rye-straw, manure, olive, and vine cuttings. The productions of the district are wheat, rye, anise, saffron, potatoes, wine, and oil. A good deal of sheep and horned cattle are reared, as well as mules for plough and carriage. Of manufactures, the town contains four of linen cloth, as many of woollen, besides several of soap and brandy; and lime and tile kilns. It is rather noted for its excellent carriage-makers and workers in iron. A considerable number of the inhabitants are carriers, conveying grain, wine, oil, and oranges, &c., to Madrid, Andalusia, and Valencia. There is a market every Thursday. Pop. (1845) 9060.