§ 1. General Causes of Superior Productiveness.

The most evident cause of superior productiveness is what are called natural advantages. These are various. Fertility of soil is one of the principal. The influence of climate [is another advantage, and] consists in lessening the physical requirements of the producers.

In spinning very fine cotton thread, England's natural climate gives in some parts of the country such advantages in proper moisture and electric conditions that the operation can be carried on out-of-doors; while in the United States it is generally necessary to create an artificial atmosphere. In ordinary spinning in our country more is accomplished when the wind is in one quarter than in another. The dry northwest wind in New England reduces the amount of product, while the dry northeast wind in England has a similar effect, and it is said has practically driven the cotton-spinners from Manchester to Oldham, where the climate is more equably moist. The full reasons for these facts are not yet ascertained.

Experts in the woolen industry, also, explain that the quality and fiber of wool depend upon the soil and climate where the sheep are pastured. When Ohio sheep are transferred to Texas, in a few years their wool loses the distinctive quality it formerly possessed, and takes on a new character belonging to the breeds of Texas. The wool produced by one set of climatic conditions is quite different from that of another set, and is used by the manufacturers for different purposes.

In hot regions, mankind can exist in comfort with less perfect housing, less clothing; fuel, that absolute necessary of life in cold climates, they can almost dispense with, except for industrial uses. They also require less aliment. Among natural advantages, besides soil and climate, must be [pg 100] mentioned abundance of mineral productions, in convenient situations, and capable of being worked with moderate labor. Such are the coal-fields of Great Britain, which do so much to compensate its inhabitants for the disadvantages of climate; and the scarcely inferior resource possessed by this country and the United States, in a copious supply of an easily reduced iron-ore, at no great depth below the earth's surface, and in close proximity to coal-deposits available for working it. But perhaps a greater advantage than all these is a maritime situation, especially when accompanied with good natural harbors; and, next to it, great navigable rivers. These advantages consist indeed wholly in saving of cost of carriage. But few, who have not considered the subject, have any adequate notion how great an extent of economical advantage this comprises.

As the second of the [general] causes of superior productiveness, we may rank the greater energy of labor. By this is not to be understood occasional, but regular and habitual energy. The third element which determines the productiveness of the labor of a community is the skill and knowledge therein existing, whether it be the skill and knowledge of the laborers themselves or of those who direct their labor. That the productiveness of the labor of a people is limited by their knowledge of the arts of life is self-evident, and that any progress in those arts, any improved application of the objects or powers of nature to industrial uses, enables the same quantity and intensity of labor to raise a greater produce. One principal department of these improvements consists in the invention and use of tools and machinery.114

The deficiency of practical good sense, which renders the majority of the laboring-class such bad calculators—which makes, for instance, their domestic economy so improvident, lax, and irregular—must disqualify them for any but a low grade of intelligent labor, and render their industry far less productive than with equal energy it otherwise might be. [pg 101] The moral qualities of the laborers are fully as important to the efficiency and worth of their labor as the intellectual. Independently of the effects of intemperance upon their bodily and mental faculties, and of flighty, unsteady habits upon the energy and continuity of their work (points so easily understood as not to require being insisted upon), it is well worthy of meditation how much of the aggregate effect of their labor depends on their trustworthiness.

Among the secondary causes which determine the productiveness of productive agents, the most important is Security. By security I mean the completeness of the protection which society affords to its members.