are decidedly inferior to those which preceded them some centuries back.

On the whole, however, manufacturing industry has of late years, and especially in this country, accomplished an extraordinary advance in its productive capacities, and its importance as com pared with agriculture. In former ages every village probably had, as now, its inferior handicraftsmen-its smith, mason, carpenter, tailor, and shoemaker; while the more important branches of industry were carried on in towns, in which the manufacturers of valuable goods clustered together, for the purpose of mutual protection against the tyranny of the great and little robbers of those unsettled times, or along the course of such streams as afforded the necessary aid of water-power. But though the articles of clothing and ornament which ministered to the luxuries of the wealthy, were fabricated by artisans of this description, the more homely wants of the humbler classes were still chiefly supplied by the exercise of their own rude industry. The coarse clothing of the greater proportion of the people, woollens as well as linens, were, till within a very recent period, both spun and wove, or knitted, at home, by the wives and children of the agricultural labourers. Many objects of ornament and convenience were made in the same simple manner by the peasant and his family. It is chiefly within the last fifty years, and since the introduction, and especially since the improvements, of the steamengine by Watt, which led to the substitution of this wonderful power for that of water, wind, and

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human or brute force, that manufacturing industry has developed itself to an extent by which a great and striking change is being brought about in the habits, the manners, the relations, and the employments of our population. The number of persons at present engaged in the various branches of manufacture in this country nearly equals that of the persons employed in agriculture.*

ANALYSIS OF OCCUPATIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN.

(From Marshall's Statistics of the British Empire.)

From this table it appears that the agricultural and mining classes compose about 7-17ths of the whole population; the manufacturing class 5-17ths, the commercial class 2-17ths; the professional class, including the army and navy, and the non-producing class of proprietors and paupers, making up, in nearly equal moieties, the remaining 3-17ths. The decennial censuses that have been taken since the commencement of the present century shew the great change that has taken place in the employment of the people. In 1801, nearly one half the entire population of England was engaged in agriculture. In 1831 the proportion had fallen to about one-third.

They are, for the most part, concentrated in large and populous towns, many of which have grown up with astonishing rapidity upon those points where the abundance of coal and iron mines, watercarriage, or other facilities are found for the fabrication of any peculiar commodity. The existence of this portion of society is closely connected with the very variable condition of manufactures; and when war, impolitic restrictions on commerce, changes of taste and fashion, improvements in machinery, or any of the other casualties to which such trades are exposed, occasion a stagnation in the demand for their labour, large bodies of men are liable to be thrown out of work, and placed, for a time, in a state of suffering and idleness, which, in the absence of wise precautionary arrangements, cannot but threaten great danger to the public peace. On the other hand, the agricultural part of the population has certainly suffered much from the failure of those occupations which were formerly subsidiary to their principal one, and afforded them the means of profitably employing every idle hour, and nearly every member of their families, male or female, young or old. The loss of the minor domestic manufactures, formerly carried on by the agricultural labourer, has been a severe injury to his class, and the public tranquillity has perhaps suffered likewise through the consequent deterioration of his circumstances. These are undoubtedly evils, to which the vast, and we believe, on the whole, beneficial progress made by our manufacturing system, has unquestionably exposed us. It remains for the government to mitigate these evils, so far as

is practicable; and especially by all such arrangements as are fitted to encourage and facilitate the free migration of labour, the free exchange of its produce, and consequently its profitable employment.*

3. The commercial class consists of persons whose business it is to facilitate the operations both of the agriculturists and manufacturers, by supplying them with what articles they require, and taking of them what they have to dispose of. They are the agents in all the manifold exchanges that are going on between the different classes of producers and consumers; conveying goods of all kinds from place to place, so as to equalize the supply with the demand; purchasing whatever is to be sold, and selling whatever is required to be bought. Commerce divides itself, firstly, into the foreign, and internal or home trade; and the latter, into the wholesale and retail trades. These again branch out into almost numberless subdivisions, characterized by the nature of the article dealt in, or the particular line of business carried on.

There are several other classes which do not

* The picture drawn by Dr. Kay, in his valuable Tract, of the moral and physical condition of the working classes employed in the cotton manufacture in Manchester, together with the facts brought to light by the late Committees of the House of Commons on the employment of children in factories, add some frightful features to the character of our modern manufacturing system,- so frightful as to lead us to regret that it was ever introduced, if we were not certain that these horrors are by no means the necessary result of the system, but chiefly of the terrible struggle it has for years maintained under surprising difficulties, brought on by unwise legislation, and, above all, by a restricted commerce and an artificially appreciated currency. On these evils, and their proper remedies, more hereafter.

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seem to be easily referrible to any of the three principal heads; as the persons engaged in mining and quarrying, in fisheries, &c.

All these multiform subdivisions of employment are wholly spontaneous, the offspring of no preconcerted arrangements of the statesman or the legislator, but springing from that ever-active and inquisitive spirit of enterprise and ardour for gain by which individuals are urged to seize every opening for the employment of their ability or capital that promises remuneration. The result is incalculably beneficial to society, by reducing the cost and improving the quality of all that it consumes. If any saving can possibly be made in the cost of producing any article, by a subdivision of the necessary operations, it is immediately effected by the agency of this searching spirit; and the competition of producers is sure very shortly to secure all the benefit of the saving to the public at large, in a proportionately reduced price of the article.

The vast utility, for example, of the wholesale and retail dealers, who adjust the supply of commodities of all kinds with the utmost precision to the demand, is obvious on the slightest consideration. Acting under the influence of self-interest, and with a view solely to his own profit, each, knowing the probable wants of his peculiar market, is strongly interested in selling as much as he possibly can, and yet equally interested in causing nothing to be wasted through its remaining unsold. Each striving to carry away the custom of his rivals, by tempting the public with newer, better, more varied, or more alluring articles at