CHAPTER VI
Of the Addition made during the last Hundred Years by Ability to the Product of the National Labour. This Increment the Product of Ability.
â—†1 Let us now turn to the history of production in this country during the past hundred years;
◆¹I havealready said something—but in very general terms—of what, at the close of the last century, the wealth of this country was. Let us now consider the subject a little more in detail, though we need not trouble ourselves with a great many facts and figures. The comparatively backward state of Ireland makes it easier to deal with Great Britain only; and the income of Great Britain was then, as I have said already, abouta hundred and forty million poundsannually. This amount was, as has been said already, also produced by Land, Capital, and Human Exertion, or, as we are now able to put it, by Land, Labour, Capital, and Ability;and according to the principles which I have already carefully explained, had the statistics of industry been recorded as fully as they are now, we should be able to assign to each cause a definite proportion of the product. Of what the Land produced, as distinct from the three other causes, we are indeed able to speak with sufficient accuracy as it is. It was practically the amount taken in rent; and the amount taken in rent was abouttwenty-five million pounds, or something between a fifth and sixth of the total. But the proportion produced respectively by Labour, Capital, and Ability cannot be determined with the same ease or exactness. There are, however, connected with this question, a number of well-known and highly significant facts, to a few of which I will call the reader’s attention.
â—†1 And consider the enormous increase both in agricultural production,
◆¹ Between the years 1750 and 1800, the population of Great Britain increased by barely so much as twenty-five per cent. It rose from about eight millions to about ten. Now during that period the number of hands employed in manufactures increased proportionally far faster than the total population. The cotton-spinners, for instance, increased fromfortytoeighty thousand.[32]Such being the case, it is of course evident that the increase of agricultural labourers cannot have been very great. It can hardly have been, at the utmost, so much as eighteen per cent.[33]And now let us glance at the history of agricultural products, as indicated by a few typical facts. In the year 1688, the number of sheep in Great Britain was estimated attwelve millions. In the year 1774, the number was estimated at almost the same figure; but between the years 1774 and 1800, thistwelve millionshad risen totwenty millions. During the same twenty-six years, the number of cattle had increased in almost the same proportion. That is to say, live-stock had increased by seventy-five per cent. Between the years 1750 and 1780 there was an average annual increase in agricultural capital ofseven million three hundred thousand pounds. But from the years 1780 and 1800 there was an average annual increase oftwenty-six million pounds; whilst between the years1750 and 1800 the farmer’s income had very nearly doubled,[34]and the total products of agriculture had increased sixty per cent.
â—†1 And in manufactures,
â—†2 That had recently taken place at the close of the last century.
◆¹ And now let us turn to manufactures. These, as a whole, had advanced more slowly; but the advance of certain of them had been yet more rapid and striking. It will be enough to mention two: the manufacture of cotton, to which I have called attention already; and an industry yet more important—the manufacture of iron. ◆² The amount of pig-iron produced annually in Great Britain during the earlier part of the last century was not more thantwenty thousand tons;[35]at the close of the century it was more thana hundred and eighty thousand. What may have been the increase in the amount of labour employed, cannot be said with certainty; but it cannot have been comparable to the increase of the product, which was, as we have just seen, eight hundred per cent;and it may again be mentioned that one single set of inventions, in the course of eight years, nearly doubled the product of each individual smelting furnace.[36]As to the cotton industry, our information is more complete. The amount of labour was doubled in forty years. The product was increased fifteen-fold in twenty-five.
â—†1 We shall see how obviously a part at least of this increase must have been due to Ability and Capital.
â—†2 And that Labour cannot really have produced the whole.
◆¹ My present aim, however, is to make no exact calculation respecting the extent to which production, taken as a whole, had during the period in question outstripped the increase of Labour; but merely to show the reader that the extent was very large; and that, according to the principles explained already, it was due altogether to the operation of Capital and Ability—or, to speak more exactly, of Ability operating through Capital. The truth of this statement with regard to the increase of manufactures has been shown and illustrated by the instance of Arkwright and the cotton industry. It will be well to mention at this point several analogous instances taken fromthe history of agriculture. ◆² Elkington, who inaugurated a new system of drainage, will supply us with one. One still more remarkable is supplied by Bakewell, who may be said to have played in practical life a part resembling that which Darwin has played in speculation. He discovered the method of improving the breeds of sheep and cattle by a system of selection and crossing that was not before known; and it was owing to the ability of this one man that “the breed of animals in England,†as Mr. Lecky points out, “was probably more improved in the course of a single fifty years than in all the recorded centuries that preceded it.†The close connection of such improvements with Capital is the constant theme of Arthur Young, though he was not consciously anything of a political economist, nor did he attempt to express his opinion in scientific language. But a still more effective witness is a distinguished modern Radical, Professor Thorold Rogers, who, though always ready, and, as many people would say, eager to espouse the side of Labour as against Capital and Ability,—especially when the two last belonged to the landed class—isyet compelled to assert as emphatically as Young himself, that the Ability and the Capital of this very class were in the last century “the pioneers of agricultural progressâ€â€”a progress which he illustrates by these picturesque examples: that it raised the average weight of the fatted ox from 400 lbs. to 1200 lbs., and increased the weight of the average fleece fourfold.
◆1 Therefore it is plain that Labour would not have created the whole of the national income a hundred years ago. But for argument’s sake we will concede that it produced the whole.
◆¹ It will therefore be apparent to every reader, that of the income of Great Britain at the close of the last century, Ability and Capital, as distinct from Labour, created a considerable part, though we need not determine what part. Accordingly, since the income of Great Britain, with a population often millions, was at that time abouta hundred and forty million pounds, orfourteen poundsper head,[37]it is evident that the Labour of apopulation often millionswas quite incapable, a hundred years ago, of producing by itself as much asfourteen poundsper head.[38]I will, however, merely for the sake of argument, and of keeping a calculation I am about to make far within the limits which strict truth would warrant, make a preposterous concession to any possible objector. I will concede that Labour by itself produced the entire value in question, and that Ability, as distinct from Labour, had nothing at all to do with it. I will concede that the faculties which produced the machines of Arkwright, which had already turned steam into an infant Hercules of industry, and was pouring into this island the wealth of the farthest Indies, were faculties of the same order as those which were possessed by any waggoner who had driven the same waggon along the same ruts for a lifetime. And I will now proceed to the calculation I spoke of. I shall state it first, and establish its truth afterwards.
â—†1 The whole income of Great Britain at that time wasa hundred and forty million pounds, and the populationten millions. Hence, as will be shown in the next Book, we get an indication of the utmost that Labour alone can produce. Now, a population often millionsat present producesthree hundred and fifty millionsannually.
◆¹ It will be seen, from what has just beensaid, that a hundred years ago the utmost that Labour could produce in the most advanced country of Europe wasa hundred and forty million poundsannually for a population often millions, or—let me repeat—fourteen poundsper head. The production per head is nowthirty-five pounds; or, for each ten millions of population,three hundred and fifty millions. The point on which presently I shall insist at length is this: that if Labour is to be credited with producing the whole of the smaller sum, the entire difference between the smaller sum and the larger is to be credited to Ability operating on industry through Capital. That is to say, for everythree hundred and fifty millionsof our present national income, Labour produces onlya hundred and forty millionswhilst Ability and Capital producetwo hundred and ten. But the fact may be put yet more clearly than this. Of our present national income ofthirteen hundred millions, Labour produces aboutfive hundred, whilst Ability and Capital produce abouteight hundred. It could indeed be shown, as I just now indicated, that Labour in reality producesless than this, and Ability and Capital more; but for argument’s sake we will let the calculation stand thus, in order that Labour shall be at all events credited with not less than its due.
â—†1 And it will accordingly be shown in the next Book that the whole of this increment is produced by Ability, and not by Labour.
◆¹ And now as to Capital and Ability, and theeight hundred millionsproduced by them, what has just been said can be put in a simpler way. Capital is not only the material means through which Ability acts on and assists Labour, but it is a material means which Ability has itself created. So long as Labour alone was the principal productive agent, those vast accumulations which are distinctive of the modern world were unknown and impossible. Professor Thorold Rogers has pointed out how small was the Capital of this country at so late a date as the close of the seventeenth century. Labour alone was unable to supply a surplus from which any such accumulation as we now call Capital could be taken. These became possible only by the increasing action of Ability. They were taken from the products which Ability added to the products of Labour, Capital thereforeisAbility in a double sense—not only in the sense that as a productiveagent it represents Ability, but in the sense that Ability has created it. We may therefore for the present leave Capital entirely out of our discussion, regarding it as comprehended under the term and the idea of Ability; although when we come to consider the question of distribution, we shall have to take account of the distinction between the two. But for the present we are concerned with the problem of production only; and in dealing with that part of it which alone is now before us, we have to do only with two, and not three forces—not with Labour, Ability, and Capital, but with Labour and Ability only.
The calculation, therefore, which was put forward just now may be expressed in yet simpler terms. Of our present national income ofthirteen hundred millions, Labour producesfive hundred millionsand Abilityeight hundred. And now comes another point which yet remains to be mentioned. When we speak of Labour, we mean not an abstract quality: what we mean is labouring men. Similarly, when we talk of Ability, we do not mean an abstract quality either: we mean men whopossess and exercise it. But whereas when we talk of Labour we mean an immense number of men, when we talk of Ability—as I shall show presently—we mean a number that by comparison is extremely small. The real fact then on which I am here insisting, and which I shall now proceed to substantiate and explain further, is that, whilst the immense majority of the population of this country produce little more than one-third of the income, a body of men who are comparatively a mere handful actually produce little less than two-thirds of it.