Let us consider the condition of a large town in which themanufacturers are numerous, independent, lovers of liberty,educated, and wealthy where the merchants participate in theirinterests and position, where the rentiers feel themselvescompelled to gain the respect of the public, where the publicservants are subject to the control of public opinion, where themen of science and art work for the public at large, and draw fromit their means of subsistence; let us consider the mass of mentaland material means which are combined together in such a narrowspace, and further how closely this mass of power is united throughthe law of the division of the operations of business and theconfederation of powers; we may note again how quickly everyimprovement, every progress in public institutions, and in socialand economical conditions, on the one hand, and how, on the otherhand, every retrogression, every injury of the public interests,must be felt by this mass; then, again, how easily this mass,living in one and the same place, can come to an agreement as totheir common objects and regulations, and what enormous means itcan concentrate on the spot for these purposes; and finally, inwhat a close union a community so powerful, enlightened, andliberty-loving, stands in relation to other similar communities inthe same nation -- if we duly consider all these things, we shalleasily be convinced that the influence on the maintenance andimprovement of the public welfare exercised by an agriculturalpopulation living dispersed over the whole surface of the country(however large its aggregate number may be) will be but slight incomparison with that of towns, whose whole power (as we have shown)depends upon the prosperity of their manufactures and of thosetrades which are allied to and dependent on them.
The predominating influence of the towns on the political andmunicipal conditions of the nation, far from being disadvantageousto the rural population, is of inestimable advantage to it.Theadvantages which the towns enjoy make them feel it a duty to raisethe agriculturists to the enjoyment of similar liberty,cultivation, and prosperity; for the larger the sum of thesemental; and social advantages is among the rural population, thelarger will be the amount of the provisions and raw materials whichthey send into the towns, the greater also will be the quantity ofthe manufactured goods which they purchase from the towns, andconsequently the prosperity of the towns.The country derivesenergy, civilisation, liberty, and good institutions from thetowns, but the towns insure to themselves the possession of libertyand good institutions by raising the country people to be partakersof these acquisitions.Agriculture, which hitherto merely supportedlandowners and their servants, now furnishes the commonwealth withthe most independent and sturdy defenders of its liberty.In theculture of the soil, also, every class is now able to improve itsposition.The labourer can raise himself to become a farmer, thefarmer to become a landed proprietor.The capital and the means oftransport which industry creates and establishes now giveprosperity to agriculture everywhere.Serfdom, feudal burdens, lawsand regulations which injure industry and liberty disappear.Thelanded proprietor will now derive a hundred times more income fromhis forest possessions than from his hunting.Those who formerlyfrom the miserable produce of serf labour scarcely obtained themeans of leading a rude country life, whose sole pleasure consistedin the keeping of horses and dogs and chasing game, who thereforeresented every infringement of these pleasures as a crime againsttheir dignity as lords of the soil, are now enabled by theaugmentation of their rents (the produce of free labour) to spenda portion of the year in the towns.There, through the drama andmusic, through art and reading, their manners are softened; theylearn by intercourse with artists and learned men to esteem mindand talents.From mere Nimrods they become cultivated men.Theaspect of an industrious community, in which everybody is strivingto improve his condition, awakens in them also the spirit ofimprovement.They pursue instruction and new ideas instead of stagsand hares.Returning to the country, they offer to the middle andsmall farmer examples worthy of imitation, and they gain hisrespect instead of his curse.
The more industry and agriculture flourish, the less can thehuman mind be held in chains, and the more are we compelled to giveway to the spirit of toleration, and to put real morality andreligious influence in the place of compulsion of conscience.
Everywhere has industry given birth to tolerance; everywhere has itconverted the priests into teachers of the people and into learnedmen.Everywhere have the cultivation of national language andliterature, have the civilising arts, and the perfection ofmunicipal institutions kept equal pace with the development ofmanufactures and commerce.It is from manufactures that thenation's capability originates of carrying on foreign trade withless civilised nations, of increasing its mercantile marine, ofestablishing a naval power, and by founding colonies, of utilisingits surplus population for the further augmentation of the nationalprosperity and the national power.
Comparative statistics show that by the complete and relativelyequal cultivation of manufactures and agriculture in a nationendowed with a sufficiently large and fertile territory, apopulation twice or three times as large can be maintained, andmaintained, moreover, in a far higher degree of well-being than ina country devoted exclusively to agriculture.From this it followsthat all the mental powers of a nation, its State revenues, itsmaterial and mental means of defence, and its security for nationalindependence, are increased in equal proportion by establishing init a manufacturing power.
At a time where technical and mechanical science exercise suchimmense influence on the methods of warfare, where all warlikeoperations depend so much on the condition of the national revenue,where successful defence greatly depends on the questions, whetherthe mass of the nation is rich or poor, intelligent or stupid,energetic or sunk in apathy; whether its sympathies are givenexclusively to the fatherland or partly to foreign countries;whether it can muster many or but few defenders of the country --at such a time, more than ever before, must the value ofmanufactures be estimated from a political point of view.
