diftributed among the different ranks and conditions of men in the Introduction. fociety, make the subject of the First Book of this Inquiry.

WHATEVER be the actual state of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which labour is applied in any nation, the abundance or scantiness of its annual supply muft depend, during the continuance of that ftate, upon the proportion between the number of those who are annually employed in useful labour, and that of those who are not fo employed. The number of ufeful and productive labourers, it will hereafter appear, is every where in proportion to the quantity of capital stock which is employed in setting them to work, and to the particular way in which it is fo employed. The Second Book, therefore, treats of the nature of capital stock, of the manner in which it is gradually accumulated, and of the different quantities of labour which it puts into motion, according to the different ways in which it is employed.

NATIONS tolerably well advanced as to skill, dexterity, and judgment, in the application of labour, have followed very different plans in the general conduct or direction of it; and those plans have not all been equally favourable to the greatness of its produce. The policy of fome nations has given extraordinary encouragement to the industry of the country; that of others to the induftry of towns. Scarce any nation has dealt equally and impartially with every fort of industry. Since the downfal of the Roman empire, the policy of Europe has been more favourable to arts, manufactures, and commerce, the industry of towns; than to agriculture, the industry of the country. The circumftances which seem to have introduced and established this policy are explained in the Third Book.

THOUGH those different plans were, perhaps, firft introduced by the private interests and prejudices of particular orders of men, withB 2

out

Introduction. out any regard to, or forefight of, their confequences upon the general welfare of the fociety; yet they have given occasion to very different theories of political economy; of which fome magnify the importance of that induftry which is carried on in towns, others of that which is carried on in the country. Those theories have had a confiderable influence, not only upon the opinions of men of learn

ing, but upon the public conduct of princes and fovereign ftates. I have endeavoured, in the Fourth Book, to explain, as fully and diftinctly as I can, those different theories, and the principal effects which they have produced in different ages and nations.

To explain in what has confifted the revenue of the great body of the people, or what has been the nature of those funds, which, in different ages and nations, have fupplied their annual confumption, is the object of thefe Four firft Books. The Fifth and laft Book treats of the revenue of the fovereign, or commonwealth. In this Book I have endeavoured to fhow; firft, what are the neceffary expences of the fovereign, or commonwealth; which of those expences ought to be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole fociety; and which of them, by that of fome particular part only, or of fome particular members of it: fecondly, what are the different methods in which the whole fociety may be made to contribute towards defraying the expences incumbent on the whole fociety, and what are the principal advantages and inconveniencies of each of thofe methods: and, thirdly and laftly, what are the reafons and causes which have induced almost all modern governments to mortgage fome part of this revenue, or to contract debts, and what have been the effects of those debts upon the real wealth, the annual produce of the land and labour of the fociety.

BOOK

BOOK I.

Of the Caufes of Improvement in the productive Powers of Labour, and of the Order according to which its Produce is naturally distributed among the different Ranks of the People.

TH

CHAP. I.

Of the Divifion of Labour.

HE greatest improvement in the productive powers of Labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, feem to have been the effects of the divifion of labour.

THE effects of the divifion of labour, in the general business of fociety, will be more eafily understood, by confidering in what manner it operates in fome particular manufactures. It is commonly supposed to be carried furtheft in fome very trifling ones; not perhaps that it really is carried further in them than in others of more importance: but in thofe trifling manufactures which are deftined to fupply the fmall wants of but a fmall number of people, the whole number of workmen must neceffarily be fmall; and those employed in every different branch of the work can often be collected into the fame workhouse, and placed at once under the view of the fpec-. tator. In those great manufactures, on the contrary, which are destined to supply the great wants of the great body of the people, every different branch of the work employs fo great a number of

workmen,

L

I.

BOOK workmen, that it is impoffible to collect them all into the fame workhouse. We can feldom fee more, at one time, than those employed in one fingle branch. Though in such manufactures, therefore, the work may really be divided into a much greater number of parts, than in those of a more trifling nature, the divifion is not near fo obvious, and has accordingly been much less obferved.

To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture; but one in which the divifion of labour has been very often taken notice of, the trade of the pin-maker; a workman not educated to this business (which the divifion of labour has rendered a diftinct trade), nor acquainted with the ufe of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the fame division of labour has probably given occafion), could fcarce, perhaps, with his utmost induftry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out the wire, another straights it› a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires 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 eighteen diftinct operations, which in fome manufactories are all performed by diftinct hands, though in others the fame man will sometimes 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 necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about

I.

twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of CHA P. 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 person, therefore, making a tenth part of fortyeight thousand pins, might be confidered as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately and independently, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar bufinefs, 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 thousand eight hundredth part of what they are at present capable of performing, in confequence of a proper divifion and combination of their different operations.

IN other art and manufacture, the effects of the divifion every 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 thofe countries which enjoy the highest degree of industry and improvement; what is the work of one man, in a rude state of fociety, being generally that of feveral, in an improved one. In every improved fociety, the farmer is generally nothing but a farmer; the manufacturer, 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