DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0048
INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL HISTORY.
the head, another grinding the point, a third sorting them into
papers or boxes. The first requires more skill than the second,
the second much more than the third. But if one person did all
three, the commonest labour would be paid at the rate of the
most skilful. Now the division of employments renders a
graduated scale of pay possible, such a scale being proportioned to
the difsiculty or easiness of the operation. Now all economies in
production are real improvements analogous to labour-saving
machines. Mr. Babbage told me that though he had originated
as far as he knew this criticism, he subsequently found something
very like it in the writings of an Italian economist, who had also
examined Smith's theory.
The other addition which my friend claimed to have made to
the exposition made by Smith was that the subdivision of employ-
ments and the consequent esficiency of labour depended on the
width of the market. If, therefore, economists are right in
assigning so important a function in manufacture to the division
of employments, it is plain that everything which widens the
market is an advantage, everything which cripples or curtails it
is an evil. Of course the width of the market must be ascer-
tained, and with it the power which the producer has to supply
the market. But this knowledge can only be acquired when trade
is free, for any attempt to impede the knowledge as to whether a
community can compete against any other community precludes
the possibility of learning whether we can employ our oppor-
tunities to the best advantage. The principle of the division of
employments then, taken with the conditions by which it is
surrounded, is an unanswerable argument in favour of free trade
for ourselves, whatever other nations may do, for in this way we
get the best and most solid information as to how we may supply
the market, and how we may thereupon make it increasingly
wide.
Now what is the esfect of the division of employments on the
workman, and his power of earning wages ? At first sight it
would seem that to tie him down to a single operation must be
not only to make him ineffective for all other, but to make his
calling eminently precarious. Thus we are told that fifty different
artisans are engaged in making the different parts of a watch, and
the head, another grinding the point, a third sorting them into
papers or boxes. The first requires more skill than the second,
the second much more than the third. But if one person did all
three, the commonest labour would be paid at the rate of the
most skilful. Now the division of employments renders a
graduated scale of pay possible, such a scale being proportioned to
the difsiculty or easiness of the operation. Now all economies in
production are real improvements analogous to labour-saving
machines. Mr. Babbage told me that though he had originated
as far as he knew this criticism, he subsequently found something
very like it in the writings of an Italian economist, who had also
examined Smith's theory.
The other addition which my friend claimed to have made to
the exposition made by Smith was that the subdivision of employ-
ments and the consequent esficiency of labour depended on the
width of the market. If, therefore, economists are right in
assigning so important a function in manufacture to the division
of employments, it is plain that everything which widens the
market is an advantage, everything which cripples or curtails it
is an evil. Of course the width of the market must be ascer-
tained, and with it the power which the producer has to supply
the market. But this knowledge can only be acquired when trade
is free, for any attempt to impede the knowledge as to whether a
community can compete against any other community precludes
the possibility of learning whether we can employ our oppor-
tunities to the best advantage. The principle of the division of
employments then, taken with the conditions by which it is
surrounded, is an unanswerable argument in favour of free trade
for ourselves, whatever other nations may do, for in this way we
get the best and most solid information as to how we may supply
the market, and how we may thereupon make it increasingly
wide.
Now what is the esfect of the division of employments on the
workman, and his power of earning wages ? At first sight it
would seem that to tie him down to a single operation must be
not only to make him ineffective for all other, but to make his
calling eminently precarious. Thus we are told that fifty different
artisans are engaged in making the different parts of a watch, and