36

MANUFACTURES.

metal is to be cut in a lathe, for example, there is one angle at which the cutting toolmust be held to ensure the cleanest cut; it is quite natural that the idea of fixing the toolat that angle should present itself to an intelligent workman. The necessity of movingthe tool slowly, and in a direction parallel to itself, would suggest the use of a screw, andthus arises the sliding rest. It was probably the idea of mounting a chisel in a frame, toprevent its cutting too deeply, which gave rise to the common carpenter’s plane. In otherinstances a blow from a hammer is employed, and experience teaches the proper forcerequired. The transition from the hammer held in the hand to one mounted upon anaxis, and lifted regularly to a certain height by the foot, requires perhaps a greaterdegree of invention. Yet it is not difficult to perceive that if the hammer always fallsfrom the same height its effect must be always the same,union of When each process has been reduced to the use of some simple tool, the union of all

masses. these actuated by one moving power constitutes a Machine . In contriving tools andprocesses, the operative workmen are perhaps most successful, but it requires far otherhabits to combine into one Machine these scattered Arts. A previous education as aworkman in the peculiar Trade is undoubtedly a valuable preliminary, but to do it withany reasonable expectation of success, an extensive knowledge of Machinery , and thepower of making mechanical drawings are essensially requisite. Such accomplish-ments are now much more frequent than they were formerly, and their absence wasperhaps one of the causes of the multitude of failures in the early history of many of ourManufactures.

Such are the principles usually assigned as the cause of the advantages resulting fromthe division of labour. As in our view of the question a very prominent cause has beenaltogether unnoticed, we shall give them in the words of Adam Smith .

“ The great increase in the quantity of work which in consequence of the division of“ labour the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different“ circumstances: first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman ; secondly,f ‘ to the saving of time, which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to“ another ; and, lastly, to the invention of a great number of Machines which facilitate“ and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.”

Now although these causes are all important ones, and have each their influence in theresult, yet it appears to us that any explanation of the cheapness of Manufactured articlesas resulting from the division of labour, would be incomplete if the following principlewere omitted to be stated.

labour"^ That the master Manufacturer , by dividing the work to be executed into different processes,eac h re( iuiring different degrees of skill and of force, can purchase exactly that precisechase pre- quantity which is necessary for each process ;* whereas, if the whole work were executed bu

cisely that » . . - , ° •'

portion of °^ ie workman , it is evident that that workman must possess sufficient skill to perform the

quired. " " —-- —

The writer of this Essay derived his first knowledge of this principle from a personal examination of avariety of Manufactories and Workshops devoted to different purposes; but he has since found that it has beendistinctly stated in the Work of Gioja, Nuovo Prospetto delle Scienze Economiche , 6 tom. 4to. Milano, 1815,tom. i. capo iv.

Manu-

factures.