.
Independently of any difficulties respecting the import of corn,
variations in the channels of manufacturing industry and in the
facilities of obtaining a vent for its produce are perpetually
recurring. Not only during the last four or five years, but during
the whole course of the war, have the wages of manufacturing labour
been subject to great fluctuations. Sometimes they have been
excessively high, and at other times proportionably low; and even
during a peace they must always remain subject to the fluctuations
which arise from the caprices of taste and fashion, and the
competition of other countries. These fluctuations naturally tend to
generate discontent and tumult and the evils which accompany them;
and if to this we add, that the situation and employment of a
manufacturer and his family are even in their best state
unfavourable to health and virtue, it cannot appear desirable that a
very large proportion of the whole society should consist of
manufacturing labourers. Wealth, population and power are, after
all, only valuable, as they tend to improve, increase, and secure
the mass of human virtue and happiness.

Yet though the condition of the individual employed in common
manufacturing labour is not by any means desirable, most of the
effects of manufactures and commerce on the general state of society
are in the highest degree beneficial. They infuse fresh life and
activity into all classes of the state, afford opportunities for the
inferior orders to rise by personal merit and exertion, and
stimulate the higher orders to depend for distinction upon other
grounds than mere rank and riches. They excite invention, encourage
science and the useful arts, spread intelligence and spirit, inspire
a taste for conveniences and comforts among the labouring classes;
and, above all, give a new and happier structure to society, by
increasing the proportion of the middle classes, that body on which
the liberty, public spirit, and good government of every country
must mainly depend.

If we compare such a state of society with a state merely
agricultural, the general superiority of the former is
incontestable; but it does not follow that the manufacturing system
may not be carried to excess, and that beyond a certain point the
evils which accompany it may not increase further than its
advantages. The question, as applicable to this country, is not
whether a manufacturing state is to be preferred to one merely
agricultu