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list2-第13部分
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in which; from want of a powerful and steadily developing
manufacturing industry; the entire increase of population tends to
throw itself on agriculture for employment; consumes all the
surplus agricultural production of the country; and as soon as it
has considerably increased either has to emigrate or share with the
agriculturists already in existence the land immediately at hand;
till the landed property of every family has become so small that
it produces only the most elementary and necessary portion of that
family's requirements of food and raw materials; but no
considerable surplus which it might exchange with the manufacturers
for the manufactured products which it requires。 Under a normal
development of the productive powers of the State; the greater part
of the increase of population of an agricultural nation (as soon as
it has attained a certain degree of culture) should transfer itself
to manufacturing industry; and the excess of the agricultural
products should partly serve for supplying the manufacturing
population with provisions and raw materials; and partly for
procuring for the agriculturists the manufactured goods; machines;
and utensils which they require for their consumption; and for the
increase of their own production。
If this state of things sets in at the proper time;
agricultural and industrial productive power will increase
reciprocally; and indeed ad infinitum。 The demand for agricultural
products on the part of the industrial population will be so great;
that no greater number of labourers will be diverted to
agriculture; nor any greater division of the existing land be made;
than is necessary to obtain the greatest possible surplus produce
from it。 In proportion to this surplus produce the population
occupied in agriculture will be enabled to consume the products of
the workmen employed in manufacturing。 A continuous increase of the
agricultural surplus produce will occasion a continuous increase of
the demand for manufacturing workmen。 The excess of the
agricultural population will therefore continually find work in the
manufactories; and the manufacturing population will at length not
only equal the agricultural population in numbers; but will far
exceed it。 This latter is the condition of England; that which we
formerly described is that of part of France and Germany。 England
was principally brought to this natural division of industrial
pursuits between the two great branches of industry; by means of
her flocks of sheep and woollen manufactures; which existed there
on a large scale much sooner than in other countries。 In other
countries agriculture was crippled mainly by the influence of
feudalism and arbitrary power。 The possession of land gave
influence and power; merely because by it a certain number of
retainers could be maintained which the feudal proprietor could
make use of in his feuds。 The more vassals he possessed; so many
more warriors he could muster。 It was besides impossible; owing to
the rudeness of those times; for the landed proprietor to consume
his income in any other manner than by keeping a large number of
servants; and he could not pay these better and attach them to his
own person more surely than by giving them a bit of land to
cultivate under the condition of rendering him personal service and
of paying a smaller tax in produce。 Thus the foundation for
excessive division of the soil was laid in an artificial manner;
and if in the present day the Government seeks by artificial means
to alter that system; in so doing it is merely restoring the
original state of things。
In order to restrain the continued depreciation of the
agricultural power of a nation; and gradually to apply a remedy to
that evil in so far as it is the result of previous institutions;
no better means exists (apart from the promotion of emigration)
than to establish an internal manufacturing power; by which the
increase of population may be gradually drawn over to the latter;
and a greater demand created for agricultural produce; by which
consequently the cultivation of larger estates may be rendered more
profitable; and the cultivator induced and encouraged to gain from
his land the greatest possible amount of surplus produce。
The productive power of the cultivator and of the labourer in
agriculture will always be greater or smaller according to the
degree in which the exchange of agricultural produce for
manufactures and other products of various kinds can proceed more
or less readily。 That in this respect the foreign trade of any
nation which is but little advanced can prove in the highest degree
beneficial; we have shown in another chapter by the example of
England。 But a nation which has already made considerable advances
in civilisation; in possession of capital; and in population; will
find the development of a manufacturing power of its own infinitely
more beneficial to its agriculture than the most flourishing
foreign trade can be without such manufactures; because it thereby
secures itself against all fluctuations to which it may be exposed
by war; by foreign restrictions on trade; and by commercial crises;
because it thereby saves the greatest part of the costs of
transport and commercial charges incurred in exporting its own
products and in importing manufactured articles; because it derives
the greatest advantages from the improvements in transport which
are called into existence by its own manufacturing industry; while
from the same cause a mass of personal and natural powers hitherto
unemployed will be developed; and especially because the reciprocal
exchange between manufacturing power and agricultural power is so
much greater; the closer the agriculturist and manufacturer are
placed to one another; and the less they are liable to be
interrupted in the exchange of their various products by accidents
of all kinds。
In my letters to Mr。 Charles J。 Ingersoll; President of the
Society for Promoting Arts and Industries in Philadelphia; of the
year 1828 (entitled; 'Outlines of a New System of Political
Economy'); I tried to explain the advantages of a union of the
manufacturing power with agriculture in one and the same country;
and under one and the same political power; in the following
manner。 Supposing you did not understand the art of grinding corn;
which has certainly been a great art in its time; supposing further
that the art of baking bread had remained unknown to you; as
(according to Anderson) the real art of salting herrings was still
unknown to the English
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