M. de Saint-Cricq: Undoubtedly nature creates the elements of all these things, but it is labour which produces the value. I was wrong myself in saying that labour created material objects, and that vicious form of expression has led me into other errors. It does not belong to man to create, to make anything out of nothing, be he agriculturist or manufacturer; and if by production is meant creation, all our labour must be marked down as unproductive, and yours, as merchants, more unproductive than all others, excepting perhaps my own.
The agriculturist, then, cannot pretend to have created corn, but he has created value; I mean to say, he has, by his labour, and that of his servants, labourers, reapers, etc., transformed into corn substances which had no resemblance to it whatever. The miller who converts the corn into flour, the baker who converts the flour into bread, do the same thing.
In order that man may be enabled to clothe himself, a multitude of operations are necessary. Prior to all intervention of human labour, the true raw materials of cloth are the air, the water, the heat, the gases, the light, the salts, which enter into its composition. These are the raw materials upon which strictly speaking, no human labour has been employed. They are vierges de tout travail humain; and since they have no value, I should never dream of protecting them. But the first application of labour converts these substances into grass and provender, a second into wool, a third into yarn, a fourth into a woven fabric, a fifth into clothing. Who can assert that the whole of these operations, from the first furrow laid open by the plough, to the last stitch of the tailor's needle, do not resolve themselves into labour?
And it is because these operations are spread over several branches of industry, in order to accelerate and facilitate the accomplishment of the ultimate object, which is to furnish clothing to those who have need of it, that you desire, by an arbitrary distinction, to rank the importance of such works in the order in which they succeed each other, so that the first of the series shall not merit even the name of labour, and that the last, being labour par excellence, shall be worthy of the favours of protection?
The Petitioners: Yes; we begin to see that corn, like wool, is not exactly a product of which it can be said that no human labour has been bestowed upon it; but the agriculturist has not, at least, like the manufacturer, done everything himself or by means of his workmen; nature has assisted him, and if there is labour worked up in corn, it is not the simple product of labour.
M. de Saint-Cricq: But its value resolves itself exclusively into labour. I am happy that nature concurs in the material formation of grain. I could even wish that it were entirely her work; but you must allow that I have constrained this assistance of nature by my labour, and when I sell you my corn you will remark this, that it is not for the labour of nature that I ask you to pay, but for my own.
But, as you state the case, manufactured commodities are no longer the exclusive products of labour. Is the manufacturer not beholden to nature in his processes? Does he not avail himself of the assistance of the steam-engine, of the pressure of the atmosphere, just as, with the assistance of the plough, I avail myself of its humidity? Has he created the laws of gravitation, of the transmission of forces, of affinity?
The Petitioners: Well, this is the case of the wool over again; but coal is assuredly the work, the exclusive work, of nature. It is indeed a product upon which no human labour has ever been bestowed.
M. de Saint-Cricq: Yes; nature has undoubtedly created the coal, but labour has imparted value to it. For the millions of years during which it was buried 100 fathoms under ground, unknown to everybody, it was destitute of value. It was necessary to search for it—that is labour; it was necessary to send it to market—that is additional labour. Then the price you pay for it in the market is nothing else than the remuneration of the labour of mining and transport.*
* I do not particularize the parts of the remuneration
falling to the lessee, the capitalist, etc., for several
reasons:—1st, Because, on looking at the thing more
closely, you will see that the remuneration always resolves
itself into the reimbursement of advances or the payment of
anterior labour. 2dly, Because, under the term labour, I
include not only the wages of the workmen, but the
legitimate recompense of everything which co-operates in the
work of production. 3dly (and above all), Because the
production of manufactured products is, like that of raw
materials, burdened with auxiliary remunerations other than
the mere expense of manual labour; and, moreover, this
objection, frivolous in itself, would apply as much to the
most delicate processes of manufacture, as to the rudest
operations of agriculture.