AMERICAN PREFACE. 
Xlll 
commerce so largely dependent upon tliese, are daily assuming 
greater relative importance in the economy of the world. Surely, 
then, each country should strive to secure the largest possible 
share of those industries which are growing most rapidly in rela 
tive importance, since her aggregate population and wealth will 
be thereby mcreased, and consequently her political influcnce in 
the councils of the world. Said Adam Smith long ago, “ The 
most opulent nations generally excel all their neighbors in agri- 
culture as well as in manufactures ; but they are eminently more 
distinguished bj r their superiority in the latter than in the former.” 
Thrifty manufactures give thrifty agricultm’e, at all times and 
everywhere. 
MANUFACTURES OF MOST WORTH. 
This point settled, — the great relative increase of the manu- 
facturing population, —let us next consider the dass of manufac 
tures which are the most desirable ; that is, the dass which will give, 
1, the largest returns for the time and labor bestowed upon them, 
and, 2, the best population. To designate them in a body, they 
are the manufactures which call for the most skill and taste on 
the part of the workman, and also are usually the ones whose value 
is the least dependent on the cost of the raw material. This is 
true the world over. Especially is it well, in the present Connec 
tion, to rememberthat there is hardly any lirnit to the market value 
taste can confer upon an object through beauty of form or of dec- 
oration, however inexpensive the material of which the object is 
made. Hence art-manufactures are in the highest degree desirable. 
Manufactures involving skill and taste are more desirable tlian 
rüde ones, because, in the first place, they command a higher priee 
in the market, if we regard only the time and labor bestowed upon 
them. Brawn against brain in any field of labor neverdid success- 
fully sustain itself. What can be done Ty a machine, or by an 
animal, that is, by mere brüte strength, we never esteem as we do 
work that can be done only by the mind. While, therefore, the 
rüde laborer earns Ins dollar, the dexterous laborer earns two, and 
the skilled laborer three. Yet it costs just as much to Support in 
health and comfort the rüde laborer as it does the oue who is skil- 
ful and artistic.