The misery of the savage hunter, who dies so frequently of hunger, is not equal to that of millions of families, whom a manufacturer sometimes dismisses; because at least there remains to the former, all the energy, and all the intelligence, which he has put to proof during all his life. When he dies for want of finding game, he yields to a necessity which nature herself presents, and to which he knew, from the beginning, he must submit, as to sickness, or to old age. But the artisan, dismissed from his workshop, with his wife and children, has beforehand lost the strength of his soul and his body; he is still surrounded with riches; he still sees beside him, at every step, the food which he requires; and if society refuses him the labour by which he offers, till his last moment, to purchase bread, it is men, not nature, that he blames.
Even when persons do not actually die of hunger; even when the aids of charity are eagerly administered to all indigent families, discouragement and suffering produce their cruel effects on the poor, the diseases of the soul are communicated to the body, epidemics are multiplied, children die in a few months after their birth, and the suppression of labour causes more cruel ravages than the cruellest war: besides, fatal habits, either of mendicity or idleness, take root in the population; another course is given to trade, another direction to fashion, and even after death has cleared the ranks of workmen, those who remain are no longer in a condition to support the competition of foreigners.
The causes of diminution in the demand for labour, often belong to polity, properly so called, rather than to political economy. There is, perhaps, none more efficacious than the loss or diminution of liberty, When a nation begins to alienate this precious possession, each citizen thinks himself less secure of his fortune, of the fruits of his labour; each abates something of the activity of his mind, and his spirit of industry. The virtues which accompany labour, - sobriety, constancy, economy - give place to the vices of idleness, to intemperance, dissipation, and forgetfulness of the future. Trade, industry, activity, are regarded with contempt, in a state where the people are nothing, whilst all distinction, all honours, are reserved for noble indolence. Favour, intrigue, flattery, and all the arts of courtiers, which debase the soul, are roads to fortune, much more sure and rapid than strength of character, bold and enterprising activity, or a spirit of speculation. Intriguers are multiplied daily; they regard with contempt those who follow the only honourable path to fortune, that in which none makes progress except by his merit or his labour.
One cause of depopulation is, however, presented, which lies within the narrowest range of political economy. The progress of the arts, the progress of industry, and hence even that of wealth and prosperity, discover economical methods of producing all the fruits of labour, by employing a smaller number of workmen.
Animals are substituted for men in almost all the details of agriculture; and machines are substituted for men in all the operations of manufactures. So long as a nation finds within its reach a market sufficiently extensive to secure for all its productions a prompt and advantageous circulation, each of those discoveries is an advantage, because, instead of diminishing the number of workmen, it augments the mass of labour and its produce. A nation which happens to originate discoveries, succeeds, for a long time, in extending its market in proportion to the number of hands set free by every new invention. It immediately employs them in augmenting the produce, which the discovery promises to furnish at a cheaper rate. But a period arrives at last, when the whole civilized world is but one market, and when new customers cannot be found in new nations.
The demand of the universal market is then a precise quantity, which the different industrious nations dispute with each other; if one furnish more, another must furnish less. The total sale can only be increased by the progress of general opulence, or because conveniences, formerly confined to the rich, are brought within the reach of the poor.
The invention of the stocking frame, by means of which one man does as much work as a hundred did before, was a benefit for humanity, only because, at the same time, the progress of civilization, of population, and of wealth, increased the number of consumers. New counties adopted the customs of Europe; and this article of dress, formerly reserved for the rich, has now descended to the poorest classes. But if, at the present day, some new discovery should enable us, by a single stocking-frame, to do the work which ten years ago was done by a hundred, this discovery would be a national misfortune; for the number of consumers can scarcely increase, and it would then be the number of producers which would be diminished.
