by the introduction of machinery is decidedly beneficial to the lower orders. The cotton trade is an
obvious instance of this: there is no reason however for wearying our readers with an examination of
our differences on this point from Mr. Mill, because our reasons are only the reverse side of those
which we have already exhibited in behalf of our opinion that any decrease in the demand for labour
from a similar cause is detrimental to the real interests of the labouring classes.
We have now examined the whole of what Mr. Mill calls the statics of the subject; that is, we have
inquired what in any given state of capital and population adjusts the remuneration of labour; and we
have found that the two efficient causes were the supply and demand for labour and the supply and
demand for a particular species of capital. We have now to treat of what in the continuation of the new
scientific metaphor is called the Dynamics of Political Economy: in other words, we must consider the
Laws according to which Capital is augmented and Population increases. We shall incidentally treat of
a problem which Mr. Mill has omitted formally to consider: viz., what in a progressive state of capital
apportions how much of it shall be of the remunerative and how much of the cooperative sort. It is
obvious that in our view this question is of great importance in reference to the interests of the
labouting classes; we believe also that we shall show strong reasons for thinking that Mr. Mill's
omission to consider it has led him into somewhat serious error.
The growth of capital, which we select for first consideration, varies, it is clear, directly with the
productiveness of industry and the disposition to save. The productiveness or efficiency depends on a
variety of causes, of which only the principal can here be specified, and of which Mr. Mill has nowhere
attempted a complete enumeration. However, it may be stated with sufficient truth for all really
important purposes, that the efficiency of industry increases with the knowledge of the productive arts,
the general intelligence of the people, and in agricultural communities with the natural fertility and
favourable situation of cultivable land. Fifty years ago it might have been not unimportant to dwell on
the importance of the cultivation of the productive sciences and their corresponding arts, but the
prodigious and evident strides which the scientific arts have recently made and the existence of such
conspicuous results as railroads, and steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, make it no longer
necessary to dilate on what has become a matter of familiar and popular knowledge. It will now also be
generally admitted that the intelligence of the workmen employed both in agriculture and still more in
manufactures is an important element in the efficiency of industry. It is incumbent on us to remark that
Mr. Mill has collected considerable evidence to prove that all workmen the English stand particularly in
need of some general education; other nations, the Italian it is said especially, seem to possess a
natural quickness of perception, by which they are able readily to master, at any time of their lives, new
single processes of manufacture. English labourers on the other hand have no such natural powers,
but are, as a rule, indebted to a general education for whatever power they possess of working at any
branch of industry save the particular one in which they have been brought up. The great authority for
this observation is the evidence taken before the Poor Law Commission on the subject of the training
of Pauper Children. There was, if we remember right, in the same evidence, and we are a little
surprised that Mr. Mill omits to refer to it, a rather remarkable body of testimony to the effect, that
though special branches and single processes of manufacture might be learnt by persons almost
entirely uneducated, yet that the power of making general arrangements or superintending efficiently
the work of others was almost always dependent on school teaching or on an equivalent selfeducation.
These two elements in the productiveness of industry are in an advancing state of society almost
always on the increase. It is very different with the third element, the intrinsic fertility of the soil. It is
obvious that, as a rule, the most productive land will be the first taken into cultivation, those who have
the first choice will in a general way choose the best. Moreover, the situation of land has an exactly
similar effect: the lands from desire of not falling themselves and not allowing their children to fall below
the condition which they themselves have been used to occupy. As a consequence of this, it is
contended, as we think justly, that though a large improvement in the condition of the people might be
attended with an immediate acceleration in the rate of increase, yet the next generation would grow up
in habits which they would be unwilling to forfeit by a general system of improvident marriage. As a
practical question, Mr. Mill thinks that no prudential restraint is practised by the agricultural labourers,
and that, if the increase of population were in the hands of that class only, the English people would
increase as fast as the American. So that there can be no ground for saying that an increase of comfort
would in our case, at least, diminish the providence of the labouting class. On the means by which Mr.
Mill would effect this desirable change we shall speak hereafter, and at present shall only add, that he
would very largely increase the funds expended on national education, so as to obtain, if possible, not
only the economic, but also the moral and intellectual requisites of a provident population.
As to the general doctrine, that a great increase in the comforts of the labouring classes is often a
check to the increase of their numbers, it fortunately happens that there is a case in point to which Mr.