I.

workhouse, and placed at once under the view of C HA P. the fpectator. In thofe great manufactures, on the contrary, which are deftined to fupply the great wants of the great body of the people, every different branch of the work employs fo great a number of workmen, that it is impoffible to collect them all into the fame workhouse. We can feldom fee more, at one time, than those employed in one fingle branch. Though in fuch manufactures, therefore, the work may really be divided into a much greater number of parts, than in thofe of a more trifling nature, the divifion is not near fo obvious, and has accordingly been much less observed.

To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture; but one in which the divifion of labour has been very often taken notice of, the trade of the pin-maker; a workman not educated to this business (which the division of labour has rendered a diftinct trade), nor acquainted with the use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the fame divifion of labour has probably given occafion), could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewife peculiar trades. One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires

BOOK two or three diftinct operations; to put it on, is

a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another;
it is even a trade by itself to put them into the
paper; and the important business of making a
pin is, in this manner, divided into about eigh-
teen diftinct operations, which, in fome manu-
factories, are all performed by distinct hands,
though in others the fame man will fometimes
perform two or three of them. I have feen a
small manufactory of this kind where ten men
only were employed, and where fome of them
confequently performed two or three diftinct
operations. But though they were very poor,
and therefore but indifferently accommodated
with the neceffary machinery, they could, when
they exerted themselves, make among them
about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There
are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of
a middling fize.
Those ten perfons, therefore,

could make among them upwards of forty-eight
thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore,
making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand
pins, might be confidered as making four thou-
fand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they
had all wrought feparately and independently,
and without any of them having been educated
to this peculiar business, they certainly could not
each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one
pin in a day; that is, certainly, not the two
hundred and fortieth, perhaps not the four thou-
fand eight hundredth part of what they are at
prefent capable of performing, in consequence of

a proper

I.

a proper divifion and combination of their differ- CHA P. ent operations.

IN

In every other art and manufacture, the effects of the divifion of labour are fimilar to what they are in this very trifling one; though, in many of them, the labour can neither be fo much fubdivided, nor reduced to fo great a fimplicity of operation. The divifion of labour, however, fo far as it can be introduced, occafions, in every art, a proportionable increase of the productive powers of labour. The feparation of different trades and employments from one another, seems to have taken place, in confequence of this advantage. This feparation too is generally carried furtheft in those countries which enjoy the highest degree of industry and improvement; what is the work of one man in a rude state of fociety, being generally that of feveral in an improved one. In every improved fociety, the farmer is generally nothing but a farmer; the manufacturer, nothing but a manufacturer. The labour too which is neceffary to produce any one complete manufacture, is almost always divided among a great number of hands. How many different trades are employed in each branch of the linen and woollen manufactures, from the growers of the flax and the wool, to the bleachers and smoothers of the linen, or to the dyers and dreffers of the cloth! The nature of agriculture, indeed, does not admit of fo many fubdivifions of labour, nor of fo complete a feparation of one business from another, as manufactures. It is impoffible to separate fo entirely, the business of

the

BOOK the grazier from that of the corn-farmer, as the I. trade of the carpenter is commonly feparated

from that of the fmith. The spinner is almoft always a diftinct perfon from the weaver; but the ploughman, the harrower, the fower of the feed, and the reaper of the corn, are often the fame. The occafions for those different forts of labour returning with the different feafons of the year, it is impoffible that one man should be constantly employed in any one of them. This impoffibility of making fo complete and entire a feparation of all the different branches of labour employed in agriculture, is perhaps the reason why the improvement of the productive powers of labour in this art, does not always keep pace with their improvement in manufactures. The most opulent nations, indeed, generally excel all their neighbours in agriculture as well as in manufactures; but they are commonly more diftinguished by their fuperiority in the latter than in the former. Their lands are in general better cultivated, and having more labour and expence bestowed upon them, produce more in proportion to the extent and natural fertility of the ground. But this fuperiority of produce is feldom much more than in proportion to the fuperiority of labour and expence. In agriculture, the labour of the rich country is not always much more productive than that of the poor; or, at least, it is never fo much more productive, as it commonly is in manufactures. The corn of the rich country, therefore, will not always, in the fame degree of goodnefs, come cheaper to

market

I.

market than that of the poor. The corn of Po- CHA P. land, in the fame degree of goodness, is as cheap as that of France, notwithstanding the fuperior opulence and improvement of the latter country. The corn of France is, in the corn provinces, fully as good, and in moft years nearly about the fame price with the corn of England, though, in opulence and improvement, France is perhaps inferior to England. The corn-lands of England, however, are better cultivated than those of France, and the corn-lands of France are faid to be much better cultivated than thofe of Poland. But though the poor country, notwithstanding the inferiority of its cultivation, can, in fome measure, rival the rich in the cheapness and goodness of its corn, it can pretend to no fuch competition in its manufactures; at least if those manufactures fuit the foil, climate, and fituation of the rich country. The filks of France are

better and cheaper than thofe of England, becafe the filk manufacture, at least under the prefent high duties upon the importation of raw filk, does not fo well fuit the climate of England as that of France. But the hard-ware and the coarfe woollens of England are beyond all comparison fuperior to thofe of France, and much cheaper too in the fame degree of goodness. In Poland there are faid to be fcarce any manufactures of any kind, a few of thofe coarfer household manufactures excepted, without which no country can well fubfift.

THIS great increase of the quantity of work, which, in confequence of the divifion of labour,