Feeble resources of civilized man in a desert—Ross Cox, Peter the Wild Boy,
and the Savage of Aveyron—A Moskito Indian on Juan Fernandez—Conditions
necessary for the production of utility[6]
CHAPTER II.
Society a system of exchanges—Security of individual property the principle
of exchange—Alexander Selkirk and Robinson Crusoe—Imperfect appropriation
and unprofitable labour[14]
CHAPTER III.
Adventures of John Tanner—Habits of the American Indians—Their sufferings
from famine, and from the absence among them of the principle of
division of labour—Evils of irregular labour—Respect to property—Their
present improved condition—Hudson's Bay Indians[23]
CHAPTER IV.
The Prodigal—Advantages of the poorest man in civilized life over the richest
savage—Savings-banks, deposits, and interest—Progress of accumulation—Insecurity
of capital, its causes and results—Property, its constituents—Accumulation
of capital[38]
CHAPTER V.
Common interests of Capital and Labour—Labour directed by Accumulation—Capital
enhanced by Labour—Balance of rights and duties—Relation
of demand and supply—Money exchanges—Intrinsic and representative
value of money[49]
CHAPTER VI.
Importance of capital to the profitable employment of labour—Contrast
between the prodigal and the prudent man: the Dukes of Buckingham and
Bridgewater—Making good for trade—Unprofitable consumption—War
against capital in the middle ages—Evils of corporate privileges—Condition
of the people under Henry VIII.[60]
CHAPTER VII.
Rights of labour—Effects of slavery on production—Condition of the Anglo
Saxons—Progress of freedom in England—Laws regulating labour—Wages
and prices—Poor-law—Law of settlement[71]
CHAPTER VIII.
Possessions of the different classes in England—Condition of Colchester in
1301—Tools, stock-in-trade, furniture, &c.—Supply of food—Comparative
duration of human life—Want of facilities for commerce—Plenty
and civilization not productive of effeminacy—Colchester in the present
day[82]
CHAPTER IX.
Certainty the stimulus to industry—Effects of insecurity—Instances of
unprofitable labour—Former notions of commerce—National and class
prejudices, and their remedy[96]
CHAPTER X.
Employment of machinery in manufactures and agriculture—Erroneous
notions formerly prevalent on this subject—Its advantages to the labourer—Spade-husbandry—The
principle of machinery—Machines and tools—Change
in the condition of England consequent on the introduction of
machinery—Modern New Zealanders and ancient Greeks—Hand-mills
and water-mills[106]
CHAPTER XI.
Present and former condition of the country—Progress of cultivation—Evil
influence of feudalism—State of agriculture in the sixteenth century—Modern
improvements—Prices of wheat—Increased breadth of land under
cultivation—Average consumption of wheat—Implements of agriculture
now in use—Number of agriculturists in Great Britain[124]
CHAPTER XII.
Production of a knife—Manufacture of iron—Raising coal—The hot-blast—Iron
bridges—Rolling bar-iron—Making steel—Sheffield manufactures—Mining
in Great Britain—Numbers engaged in mines and metal manufactures[139]
CHAPTER XIII.
Conveyance and extended use of coal—Consumption at various periods—Condition
of the roads in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—Advantages
of good roads—Want of roads in Australia—Turnpike-roads—Canals—Railway
of 1680—Railway statistics[157]
CHAPTER XIV.
Houses—The Pyramids—Mechanical power—Carpenters' tools—American
machinery for building—Bricks—Slate—Household fittings and
furniture—Paper-hangings—Carpets—Glass—Pottery—Improvements
effected through the reduction or repeal of duties on domestic
requirements[174]
CHAPTER XV.
Dwellings of the people—Oberlin—The Highlander's candlesticks—Supply
of water—London waterworks—Street-lights—Sewers[199]
CHAPTER XVI.
Early intercourse with foreign nations—Progress of the cotton
manufacture—Hand-spinning—Arkwright—Crompton—Power-loom—Cartwright—Especial
benefits of machinery in this manufacture[213]
CHAPTER XVII.
The woollen manufacture—Divisions of employment—Early history—Prohibitory
laws—The Jacquard loom—Middle-age legislation—Sumptuary
laws—The silk manufacture—Ribbon-weaving—The linen
manufacture—Cloth-printing—Bleaching[233]
CHAPTER XVIII.
Hosiery manufacture—The stocking-frame—The circular hosiery-machine—Hats—Gloves—Boots
and shoes—Straw-plat—Artificial flowers—Fans—Lace—Bobbin-net
machine—Pins—Needles—Buttons—Toys—Lucifer-matches—Envelopes[255]
CHAPTER XIX.
Labour-saving contrivances—The nick in Types—Tags of laces—Casting
shot—Candle-dipping—Tiring a wheel—Globe-making—Domestic aids
to labour—Aids to mental labour—Effects of severe bodily labour on
health and duration of life[276]
CHAPTER XX.
Influences of knowledge in the direction of labour and capital—Astronomy:
Chronometer—Mariner's compass—Scientific travellers—New materials
of manufactures—India-rubber—Gutta-percha—Palm-oil—Geology—Inventions
that diminish risk—Science raising up new employments—Electricity—Galvanism—Sun-light—Mental
labourers—Enlightened public sentiment[295]
CHAPTER XXI.
Invention of printing—Effects of that art—A daily newspaper—Provincial
newspapers—News-writing of former periods—Changes in the character
of newspapers—Steam conveyance—Electric telegraph—Organization of
a London newspaper-office—The printing-machine—The paper-machine—Bookbinding—Paper-duty[323]
CHAPTER XXII.
Power of skill—Cheap production—Population and production—Partial
and temporary evils—Intelligent labour—Division of labour—General
knowledge—'The Lowell Offering'—Union of forces[344]
CHAPTER XXIII.
Accumulation—Productive and unproductive consumption—Use of capital—Credit—Securit
of property—Production applied to the satisfaction
of common wants—Increase of comforts—Relations of capitalist and
labourer[361]
CHAPTER XXIV.
Natural law of wages—State-laws regulating wages—Enactments regulating
consumption—The labour-fund and the want-fund—Ratio of capital to
population—State of industry at the end of the seventeenth century—Rise
of manufactures—Wages and prices—Turning over capital[381]
CHAPTER XXV.
What political economy teaches—Skilled labour and trusted labour—Competition
of unskilled labour—Competition of uncapitalled labour—Itinerant
traders—The contrast of organized industry—Factory-labour
and garret-labour—Communism—Proposals for state organization
of labour—Social Publishing Establishment—Practical co-operation[398]