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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 manufactories, are all performed by diftinct hands, though in others the fame man will fometimes perform two or three of them. I have feen a fmall 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 perfon, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thoufand 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 confequence of

a proper

a proper divifion and combination of their c H A P. different operations.

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, feems 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 induftry and improvement; what is the work of one man in a rude ftate of fociety, being generally that of feveral in an improved one. In every improved fociety, the farmer is generally nothing but a farmer; the manufac turer, 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 fmoothers 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 bufinefs from another, as manufactures. It is impoffible to separate so entirely, the business of

the

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I.

BOOK the grazier from that of the corn-farmer, as the trade of the carpenter is commonly separated from that of the fmith. The fpinner is almost 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 thofe different forts of labour returning with the different feafons of the year, it is impoffible that one man fhould be con, ftantly 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 reafon why the improvement of the productive powers of labour in this art, does not always keep pace with their improvement in manufactures. The moft 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 goodness, come cheaper to

market

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market than that of the poor. The corn of c HA P. Poland, 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 thofe 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 cheapnefs 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, because 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 comparifon fuperior to thofe of France, and much cheaper too in the fame degree of goodness. In Poland there are faid to be scarce any manufactures of any kind, a few of thofe coarfer household manufactures excepted, without which no country can well fubfift.

This great increafe of the quantity of work, which, in confequence of the divifion of labour,

BOOK the fame number of people are capable of per

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forming, is owing to three different circumftances; firft, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; fecondly, to the faving of the time which is commonly loft in paffing from one fpecies of work to another; and laftly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.

First, the improvement of the dexterity of the workman neceffarily increases the quantity of the work he can perform; and the divifion of labour, by reducing every man's bufinefs to fome one fimple operation, and by making this operation the fole employment of his life, neceffarily increases very much the dexterity of the workman. A common fmith, who, though accustomed to handle the hammer, has never been used to make nails, if upon fome particular occafion he is obliged to attempt it, will scarce, I am affured, be able to make above two or three hundred nails in a day, and those too very bad ones. A fmith who has been accuftomed to make nails, but whofe fole or principal bufinefs has not been that of a nailer, can feldom with his utmost diligence make. more than eight hundred or a thousand nails in a day. I have feen feveral boys under twenty years of age who had never exercised any other trade but that of making nails, and who, when they exerted themfelves, could make, each of them, upwards of two thousand three hundred nails in a day. The making of a nail, however, is by no means one

of

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