concluding remarks of Mr. R. A. Arnold are most consolatory:-"I am proud to have borne a very humble share of duty in the national calamity. The time is not far distant when we shall look only to the benefits derived from it; when we shall remember only the noble conduct of those who suffered in the charity of those who gave, and the examples of management and governance which it has recorded. It will have proved that England is not, and cannot be, dependent upon a single branch of industry; it will have repaired the insecure foundation of the cotton trade; it has evoked kindlier feelings between class and class, and forcibly taught our duty towards our neighbour." QUESTIONS UPON CHAPTER XVI. 1. How was native material formerly made available for use in England? 2. By what people was cotton first grown and manufactured? 3. What discovery opened the cotton trade between India and Europe? 4. What brought the cotton and the silk manufacturers into England? 5. What were the processes of the cotton manufacture in England in 1760? 6. What was the great impediment to the operations of the weaver? 7. What was the revolution effected by Arkwright's invention of the spinning machine? 8. Describe the principle of this machine. 9. What change in the cotton manufacture has been effected by Crompton's spinning-mule and the subsequent self-acting mule? 10. What improvement did the use of machinery produce in the fabric of cotton ? 11. What effect has the introduction of machinery in Europe had on the cotton trade of India? 12. What are the moral effects of the decrease in the price of cotton-goods resulting from the introduction of machinery? 13. What was the effect on the employment of labour of the introduction of machinery into the cotton manufacture? 14. What was the change effected in the labour of India? 15. When, and by whom, was the first power-loom produced? 16. Was it a benefit, or otherwise, that it should supersede the handloom? 17. If the resistance to invention had prevented the establishment of the spinning-machine and the power-loom, what would have been the effects on the cotton and silk trades, and on the employment of labour? 18. What was the effect of Bonaparte's decree for the exclusion of English produce from the continent? 19. What are the machines to make machines connected with the cotton manufacture? 20. What has been the effect of the consequent diminished cost of machinery? CHAPTER XVII. The woollen manufacture-Divisions of employment-Early history-Prohibitory laws-Alpaca wool-shoddy-Middle-age legislation-Sumptuary laws -The silk manufacture-Ribbon-weaving-The linen manufacture-Clothprinting-Bleaching. THOSE who have not taken the trouble to witness, or to inquire into, the processes by which they are surrounded with the conveniences and comforts of civilized life, can have no idea of the vast variety of ways in which invention is at work to lessen the cost of production. The people of India, who spin their cotton wholly by hand, and weave their cloth in a rude loom, would doubtless be astonished when they first saw the effects of machinery, in the calico which is returned to their own shores, made from the material brought from their own shores, cheaper than they themselves could make it. But their indolent habits would not permit them to inquire how machinery produced this wonder. There are many amongst us who only know that the wool grows upon the sheep's back, and that it is converted into a coat by labour and machinery. They do not estimate the prodigious power of thought--the patient labour-the unceasing watchfulness-the frequent disappointment-the uncertain profit-which many have had to encounter in bringing this machinery to perfection, and in organizing the modes of its working, in connection with labour. Further, their knowledge of history may have been confined to learning by rote the dates when kings began to reign, with the names of the battles they fought or the rebels they executed. Of the progress of commerce and the arts, they may have been taught little. The records of wool constitute a real part of the history of England; and form, in our opinion, a subject of far more permanent importance than the scandalous annals of the wives of Henry VIII., or the mistresses of Charles II. Let us first take a broad view of the more prominent facts that belong to our woollen manufacture; and then proceed to notice those of other textile fabrics. The reader will remember that when the fur-traders refused to advance to John Tanner a supply of blankets for his winter consumption, he applied himself to make garments out of moose-skins. The skin was ready manufactured to his hands when he had killed and stripped the moose; but still the blanket brought from England across the Atlantic was to him a cheaper and a better article of clothing than the moose-skin which he had at hand; and he felt it a privation when the trader refused it to him upon the accustomed credit. It never occurred to him to think of manufacturing a blanket; although he was in some respects a manufacturer. He was a manufacturer of sugar, amongst the various trades which he followed. He used to travel about the country till he had found a grove of mapletrees; and here he would sit down for a month or two till he had extracted sugar from the maples. Why did he not attempt to make blankets? He had not that Accumulated Knowledge, and he did not work with that Division of Labour, which are essential to the manufacture of blankets -both of which principles are developing to their highest perfection when capital enables the manufacture of woollencloth, or any other article, to be carried forward upon a large scale. We will endeavour to trace what accumulations of skill, and what divisions of employment, were necessary to enable Tanner to clothe himself with a piece of woollencloth. We shall not stop to inquire whether the skill has produced the division of employment, or the division of employment has produced the skill. It is sufficient for us to show, that the two principles are in ioint operation, unitedly carrying forward the business of production in the most profitable manner. It is enough for us to know, that where there is no skill there is no division of employment, and where there is no division of employment there is no skill. Skill and division of employment are inseparably wedded. If they could be separated, they would in their separation, cease to work profitably. They are kept together by the constant energy of capital, devising the most profitable direction for labour. Before a blanket can be made, we must have the material for making a blanket. Tanner had not the material, because he was not a cultivator. Before wool can be grown there must be, as we have shown, appropriation of land. When this appropriation takes place, the owner of the land either cultivates it himself, which is the earliest stage in the division of agricultural employment,-or he obtains a portion of the produce in the shape of corn or cattle, or in a money payment. Hence a tenantry. But the tenant, to manufacture wool at the greatest advantage, must possess capital, and carry forward the principle of the division of employment by hiring labourers. We use the word manufacture of wool advisedly; for all farming processes are manufacturing processes, and invariably reduce themselves to change of form, as all commercial processes reduce themselves to change of place. If the capital of the farmer is sufficient to enable him to farm upon a large scale, he divides his labourers; and one becomes a shepherd, one a ploughman,- -one sows the ground, and one washes and shears the sheep, more skilfully than another. If he has a considerable farm, he divides his land, also, upon the same principle, and has pasture, and arable, and rotation of crops. By these divisions he is enabled to manufacture wool cheaper than the farmer upon a small scale, who employs one man to do everything, and has not a proper proportion of pasture and arable, or a due rotation of crops. At every division of employment skill must be called forth in a higher perfection than when two or more employments Q |