CHAP. XIX.
Is the Introduction of Machines into Manufactures prejudicial to the Interest of a State, or hurtful to Population?
This I find has been made a question in modern times. The antients held in great veneration the inventors of the saw, of the lathe, of the wimble, of the potters wheel; but some moderns find an abuse in bringing mechanism to perfection: (see Les Interets de la France mal entendus, p. 272. 313.) the great Montesquieu finds fault with water mills, though I do not find that he has made any objection against the use of the plow.
Did people understand one another, it would be impossible that such points could suffer a dispute among men of sense; but the circumstances referred to, or presupposed, which authors almost always keep in their eye, though they seldom express them, render the most evident truths susceptible of opposition.
It is hardly possible suddenly to introduce the smallest innovation into the political oeconomy of a state, let it be ever so reasonable, nay ever so profitable, without incurring some inconveniencies. A room cannot be swept without raising dust, one cannot walk abroad without dirtying one’s shoes; neither can a machine, which abridges the labour of men, be introduced all at once into an extensive manufacture, without throwing many people into idleness.
In treating every question of political oeconomy, I constantly suppose a statesman at the head of government, systematically conducting every part of it, so as to prevent the vicissitudes of manners, and innovations, from hurting any interest within the commonwealth, by their natural and immediate effects or consequences. When a house within a city becomes crazy, it is taken down; this I call systematical ruin: were it allowed to fall, the consequences might be fatal in many respects. In like manner, if a number of machines are all at once introduced into the manufactures of an industrious nation, (in consequence of that freedom which must necessarily be indulged to all sorts of improvement, and without which a state cannot thrive) it becomes the business of the statesman to interest himself so far in the consequences, as to provide a remedy for the inconveniencies resulting from the sudden alteration. It is farther his duty to make every exercise even of liberty and refinement an object of government and administration; not so as to discourage or to check them, but to prevent the revolution from affecting the interests of the different classes of the people, whose welfare he is particularly bound to take care of.
The introduction of machines can, I think, in no other way prove hurtful by making people idle, than by the suddenness of it: and I have frequently observed, that all sudden revolutions, let them be ever so advantageous, must be accompanied with inconveniencies. A safe, honourable, and lasting peace, after a long, dangerous, and expensive war, forces a number of hands to be idle, and deprives them of bread. Peace then may be considered as a machine for defending a nation, at the political loss of making an army idle; yet no body, I believe, will alledge that in order to give bread to soldiers, sutlers, and undertakers, the war should be continued. But here I must observe, that it seems to be a palpable defect in policy, if a statesman shall neglect to find out a proper expedient (at whatever first expence it may be procured) for giving bread to those who, at the risk of their lives, have gone through so many fatigues for the service of their country. This expence should be charged to the account of the war, and a state ought to consider, that as their safety required that numbers should be taken out of the way of securing to themselves a lasting fund of subsistence, which would have rendered them independent of every body, (supposing that to have been the case) she becomes bound by the contract of society, which ties all together, to find them employment. Let me seek for another illustration concerning this matter.
I want to make a rampart cross a river, in order to establish a bridge, a mill, a sluice, &c. For this purpose, I must turn off the water, that is, stop the river; would it be a good objection against my improvement to say, that the water would overflow the neighbouring lands, as if I could be supposed so improvident as not to have prepared a new channel for it? Machines stop the river; it is the business of the state to make the new channel, as it is the public which is to reap the benefit of the sluice: I imagine what I have said will naturally suggest an answer to all possible objections against the introduction of machines; as for the advantages of them, they are so palpable that I need not insist upon them. There is however one case in which I think they may be disapproved of; but it seems a chimerical supposition, and is brought in here for no other purpose than to point out and illustrate the principle which, influences this branch of our subject.
If you can imagine a country peopled to the utmost extent of the fertility of the soil, and absolutely cut off from any communication with other nations; all the inhabitants fully employed in supplying the wants of one another, the circulation of money going forward regularly, proportionally, and uniformly through every vein, as I may call it, of the political body; no hidden or extraordinary demand at any time for any branch of industry; no redundancy of any employment; no possibility of increasing either circulation, industry, or consumption. In such a situation as that I should disapprove of the introduction of machines, as I disapprove of taking physic in an established state of perfect health. I disapprove of a machine only because it is an innovation in a state absolutely perfect in these branches of its political oeconomy; and where there is perfection there can be no improvement. I farther disapprove of it because it might force a man to be idle, who would be found thereby in a physical impossibility of getting his bread, in any other way than that in which he is supposed to be actually employed.
The present situation of every country in Europe, is so infinitely distant from this degree of perfection, that I must consider the introduction of machines, and of every method of augmenting the produce or facilitating the labour and ingenuity of man, as of the greatest utility. Why do people wish to augment population, but in order to compass these ends? Wherein does the effect of a machine differ from that of new inhabitants?
As agriculture, exercised as a trade, purges the land of idle mouths, and pushes them to a new industry which the state may turn to her own advantage; so does a machine introduced into a manufacture, purge off hands which then become superfluous in that branch, and which may quickly be employed in another.