only do to the best effect where the division of labor is introduced, that the greatest increase of wealth will take place. 5. Increases the power of capital in production. Division of labor tends to concentrate manufactures into large establishments, and these have greatly the advantage over smaller ones. Suppose seven men are engaged in making hats, having each a separate building, with all the necessary tools and apparatus, and $1,000 in capital; or one man engaged in the business, employing several persons, one establishment, and having $7,000 in capital. The small manufacturers must purchase on a small scale. A few hundred dollars' worth at a time would be all they would wish and all they could use to advantage. The large dealer would, of course, purchase largely. He would be known in the market as an extensive dealer. He could purchase all his stock in packages or large quantities, and of course buy cheaper. His operations being so much larger, he could afford to go oftener to market, and thus keep himself better informed in regard to whatever he wished to sell or purchase. These circumstances would give him such advantages over the small dealer as in the end to put a stop to the business of the latter. This operation is a common one, exemplified in a thousand instances at the present day. It is a necessary consequence of division of labor. It seems to be a law that as you divide labor, you concentrate capital, and that while division increases the power of labor, concentration increases that of capital. But here it may be remarked, that this is a point beyond which neither the division of labor nor the concentration of capital can be profitably carried. When each operation in the manufacture of an article has been rendered as simple and as completely a unit as human ingenuity can devise, the principle of division can be carried no further; and when the concentration of capital has become so great that interested personal supervision cannot be brought to bear with sufficient intensity upon each and every department of the business, to insure efficiency and fidelity on the part of employees, that moment the power of concentration is neutralized, or perhaps worse than lost. It is an important fact to be considered in this connection, that there is one branch of human industry, and that by far the largest, into whichso far as can now be seen-neither the division of labor nor the concentration of capital can ever be extensively carried. We refer to agriculture. That labor cannot be so greatly divided in agriculture, is obvious from the fact that it is performed, not in a single room or place, but mostly abroad and over a considerable territory, and also that the business consists of a successive series of operations to be performed at different seasons of the year. No man can plow, plant, mow, or thresh continuously. These may all be done by the same man, and must be, if he is constantly employed in farming operations, but it must be by alternate change from one to another. Nor, again, can there be, so far as is now known, so extensive use of machinery, or water or steam power, as in manufactures. Nor can there advantageously be so great a concentration of capital. From the very nature of the case, in countries where all trades are free, and no monopoly or special advantage allowed to any, where land is abundant and accessible, it will always doubtless be true that agriculture will be in the hands of the million, as cultivators and owners of the soil, and that "He that by the plow would thrive, 6. Shortens apprenticeship. When a workinan at any trade was required to understand and perform every part of it, a seven years' apprenticeship was deemed necessary; but if, by division of labor, he be required to perform only one-seventh of the operation, it is clear that he need spend but one-seventh as much time in learning his trade. And such is the fact, practically. The saving thus effected is an item of no small account, when we are considering the advantages of division of labor. To illustrate this we will take the case of the hatter. Under the primitive system, one person only was employed in making a hat; under the present system, we will suppose that seven are employed-the result will be as follows: Seven men serve each an apprenticeship of 7 years in learning to make one entire hat.. Under the modern system, 7 men serve each one year in learning to make one-seventh part of a hat. Saving of time in apprenticeship 7x7 49 years 7x17 years 42 years Now, in both cases we have seven good hatters; the last seven men will make as many hats and as well as the first, and the forty-two years of time is saved. It will not, however, be certainly true that each man would, of necessity, serve just one year. One of the operations might be so simple that sufficient knowledge and skill might be gained in a month as well as in a year, while another might require twenty-four months; but in the aggregate, the whole time required by the seven persons would be rather less than more than we have estimated. To get a more impressive view of the importance of this fact in political economy, let us take, for example, the State of Massachusetts and its principal branch of manuracture, viz., that of boots and shoes:-By the State census of 1855, it is ascertained that 74,326 persons were in the boot and shoe business. We will suppose that two-thirds of this number were skilled workmen, or those who must have expended five years, at least, in order to learn how to make an entire boot or shoe. This is a reasonable estimate. It would then stand thus:-50,000 multiplied by 5 equal 250,000 years of apprenticeship in learning the whole trade, if each had qualified himself in every part as necessary, where no division of labor takes place. As now actually practiced, not more than one year is required to learn the trade, and the result is 50,000 multiplied by 1 equal 50,000 years' time occupied in apprenticeship. If we deduct this latter sum from the first, we have 250,000 less 50,000 equal 200,000 years of time saved in the mechanical education of one generation of boot and shoe makers in the single State of Massachusetts; and as a generation of workmen in that branch of business is known not to exceed 22 years, (from the age of 21,) it follows that this saving of 200,000 years of labor is repeated every 22 years. If the value of each young laborer be placed at $100, it will be 200,000 multiplied by 100 equal $20,000,000. This, taken as whole, is doubtless much within the amount actually saved by the operation of the principle under consideration, as applied to Massachusetts and one branch of its industry. How great then must be the aggregate, if we include the whole manufactures of the United States! Art. II.-AMERICANS AND AMERICAN TRADE AT CONSTANTINOPLE. PREVIOUS to 1830 it had been, for several years, a desideratum with the government of the United States to establish treaty relations with the Sublime Porte. It supposed that a treaty of friendship and navigation would throw open the Black Sea to American trade, and that this would immediately increase and extend itself there. It is more than probable that it entertained a very vague idea of the nature of the commerce of that sea, of the products of its ports, and of the demands existing in them for objects of the produce or manufacture of the United States. At that time the trade of Great Britain with the ports of the Black Sea was very inconsiderable; yet the anxiety shown by the government of the United States to be enabled to take a part in it, evidently excited its attention and its jealousy. From the nature of the government of the United States, secrecy can scarcely be expected, if indeed ever desirable, and this was not carried out with much success in the measures adopted by it to present its plans of negotiating a treaty with the Sultan of Constantinople. The correspondence of the earlier agents sent from Washington show that their operations were well known, watched, and opposed by the British Embassy. Notwithstanding all this, the Commissioners sent from the United States succeeded in passing the present treaty with the Ottoman Porte in May, 1830. It was believed that a commerce would soon grow up between the United States and Odessa, in Russia, and consequently a consulate was at once established there. From this circumstance, it would seem that nothing was expected from the Sea of Azof or any of the Turkish ports on the southern shores of the Black Sea. An increase of commercial relations with Russia were then more in contemplation than with any part of the Turkish empire. It is not improbable that the Russian government was desirous that such a trade should grow up between Odessa and the United States, for the correspondence alluded to shows that the Russian Embassy at Constantinople aided in opposing the unfriendly influence of the British ambassador, and in securing the ratification of the treaty of May, 1830, by the Sultan's ministers. The immense commerce of Asia Minor and Messopotamia would warrant the appointment of a consul at Trebizond and a vice-consul at Sinope or Samsoun-better at the latter place. Both should be salaried, the former with $2,000 and the latter $1,000 per annum. If possible, both should be intelligent men, conversant with trade, and acquainted with the commercial houses of New York and Boston. During the years 1830, 1831, and 1832, several American ships visited Constantinople, and some went to Odessa for cargoes. One conveyed to the United States a quantity of barley as a part or the whole of her cargo. Hides and wool were also shipped at Odessa for New York and Boston. Soon after this, the trade again diminished, and never rose to beyond three or four American ships per annum, at Constantinople. Indeed, two vessels may be mentioned as the average of the trade carried on with this city. It became a by-word there, that "rum and missionaries" formed the principal objects of the American commerce. The chief obstacle to an increase of this trade was the absence of commodities out of which to form return cargoes. American vessels could import to Constantinople a part of the "colonials" required for consumption there, in the country markets, through the ports on the southern coast of the Black Sea, and for Georgia and Persia; but Turkey produced nothing desired in such quantities in the United States as to enable these vessels to make up full cargoes on their homeward voyage. Wool, boxwood, and drugs had to constitute the principal part of their cargoes, and even these were shipped at Smyrna in the place of Constantinople, where, at the proper season, fruits-such as figs and raisins, with some almonds and walnuts were procured for importation to the United States. When the treaty of 1830 was inade, one American firm, Churchill, Bunker & Co., existed in Constantinople. Mr. Bunker was from New York, and his associate was an Englishman. It was dissolved in 1832, and s nce then, up to the present date, no other American (native) firm has been established in Constantinople. Within the last five or six years some natives of the Ottoman capital have visited the United States, and made themselves acquainted with the trade to be carried on between the two countries. A few foreign houses established at Constantinople have also opened some inconsiderable trade with New York and Philadelphia in drugs, oil of roses, geranium, and jasmin. Rum, brandy, sugar, clocks, stones, scales, India-rubber goods, paints, and a few other unimportant articles of American ingenuity, have been imported into Constantinople. The chief returns have been the wools, &c., already mentioned. It may be stated that since 1830 the commerce of Great Britain has, in the meantime, gone on increasing, both with Constantinople and the ports of the northern and southern coasts of the Black Sea. Almost the entire part of the cotton manufactures consumed in Constantinople, in Asia Minor, and in Persia, are imported from England, mostly in English vessels. Each Turkish port of the Black Sea has been provided with an English consul or a vice-consul, salaried, and allowed to trade. Whilst numerous British vessels brought out cargoes to Constantinople, a great number came in ballast, and proceeded direct to Taganrock, Odessa, and the Danube, for cargoes of grain. Thus, either through a wise assistance from the British government, or as a natural result of commercial enterprise, the apprehensions entertained by the British government of American rivalry, have not only been disappointed, but the trade of its merchants has increased from eight or ten ships per annum to some 500 or 600 in number. The war which has just terminated, occasioned a sudden and unexpected increase not only in the number of American vessels, but also of American commerce at Constantinople. During the past year some 90 American ships visited the Bosphorus, whose tonnage amounted to about 60,000 tons. During the first quarter of the present year about 70 more vessels have visited Constantinople. Many of these vessels have been em ployed as transports for the British, French, Sardinian, and Turkish armies. Several of the finest clippers of the American mercantile marine have thus been employed and are still in the employ of the allies. In the beauty of their hulls, the tallness of their masts, the neatness of their rigging, and the general excellence of their external appearance and keeping, they certainly surpassed all others in the Bosphorus, of any nation or flag. In the commencement of the war, the British government chartered a large number of its East and West Indiamen, all qualified to hold and convey immense cargoes, when towed by steamers; but when the latter were not available, they proved too heavy and dull of movement for military purposes. The French, on the other hand, commenced the war with an incredible number of petty brigs, seldom over 200 tons burden, slow of motion, and so incapacious as to contain but few men and fewer stores. Since then all of these have been discarded for the swift-sailing American clippers. The following table will serve to show the nature as well as the amount of the American commerce with Constantinople in 1855: There might be an addition of some $100,000 to the American imports, and from $20,000 to $30,000 in the Turkish exports; for though the items have been collected as correctly as possible, it is believed that some of the smaller commercial houses of Constantinople have had relations with the United States, not included in the above list. Since the commencement of the present year (1856) several entire cargoes of American flour have been imported into Constantinople; large quantities of rum have accompanied them, and these two articles of commerce are now almost as cheap there as in New York and Boston. Among the objects of American industry imported into Constantinople during the past year, were two cargoes of Windham Lake ice. These, unfortunately, arrived too late in the season to prove valuable speculations. Had they reached the Bosphorus by the commencement of June, there is no doubt but that they would have given handsome profits. Indeed, it is quite certain that both would have then been purchased for the British troops and hospitals. Two other cargoes of American ice also reached |