certain degree of development. Inversely, the former division reacts upon and developes and multiplies the latter. Simultaneously, with the differentiation of the instruments of labour, the industries that produce these instruments, become more and more differentiated.[1] If the manufacturing system seize upon an industry, which, previously, was carried on in connexion with others, either as a chief or as a subordinate industry, and by one producer, these industries immediately separate their connexion, and become independent. If it seize upon a particular stage in the production of a commodity, the other stages of its production become converted into so many independent industries. It has already been stated, that where the finished article consists merely of a number of parts fitted together, the detail operations may re-establish themselves as genuine and separate handicrafts. In order to carry out more perfectly the division of labour in manufacture, a single branch of production is, according to the varieties of its raw material, or the various forms that one and the same raw material may assume, split up into numerous, and to some extent, entirely new manufactures. Accordingly, in France alone, the first half of the 18th century, over 100 different kinds of silk stuffs were woven, and in Avignon, it was law, that “every apprentice should devote himself to only one sort of fabrication, and should not learn the preparation of several kinds of stuff at once.” The territorial division of labour, which confines special branches of production to special districts of a country, acquires fresh stimulus from the manufacturing system, which exploits every special advantage.[2] The Colonial system and the opening out of the markets of the world, both of which are included in the general conditions of existence of the manufacturing period, furnish rich material for developing the division of labour in society. It is not the place, here, to go on to
- ↑ Thus, the fabrication of shuttles formed, as early as the 17th century, a special branch of industry in Holland.
- ↑ “Whether the woollen manufacture of England is not divided into several parts or branches appropriated to particular places, where they are only or principally manufactured; fine cloths in Somersetshire coarse in Yorkshire, long ells at Exeter, soles at Sudbury, crapes at Norwich, linseys at Kendal, blankets at Whitney, and so forth.” (Berkeley: “The Querist,” 1750, p. 520.)
