In this way it is that, in very many of the recently settled parts of North America, every operation that the wool undergoes, from the taking off the fleece to the cutting and making up the cloth, is performed in the farmer's house and by his own family.A similar state of things caused a similar practice to prevail in England a century ago, and, at present, keeps up many of those manufactures which are properly termed domestic, in many other parts of Europe.In Canada it is not uncommon for the farmer to have, not only the whole processes that wool undergoes till it come to be worn, carried on by the members of his own family, but also to get a great variety of other things made by them, which he could not procure otherwise unless by sending to an inconvenient distance.
The mending of shoes, very generally, the making of them, not unfrequently, and sometimes even the manufacturing the leather, are in recent and remote settlements thus performed.The latter process, I may add, from various circumstances, but chiefly from the use of the bark of a sort of pine peculiar to the country, and in general very common, and which, unlike that of the oak, is very thick and easily collected, is much less expensive in Canada than in Britain.
I knew two brothers whose farms or estates lay in one of the interior districts of that country, in the midst of its forests, and consequently at a considerable distance, perhaps twenty or thirty miles, from artificers of any description.Having each of them large families and productive farms, they had occasion for the services of various artificers, and had the means of paying them.Nevertheless, they very rarely employed them; almost every article they required was made by some one of the two families.As they were prudent and sagacious men, of which they produced the best evidence in the general success of their undertakings, and the prosperity of the settlement of which they were at the head, I think it likely, that in this also they had turned their means to the best account.In fact, as they who are familiar with the details of beginning settlements in North America, will admit, by this plan they in a great measure obviated the two chief drawbacks on the prosperity of new and remote settlements, the excessive dearness of every article not produced there, from the great expense attending the transport of the raw produce and retransport of the manufactured goods, and the serious inconvenience arising from the difficulty, in such situations, of supplying, when necessary, unforeseen hut pressing wants.
Among other things which they got made on their own farms, were boots, shoes, and leather.That they might get this done, they were at the pains and expense of sending one of the young men to some distance, to make himself sufficiently master of those trades for their purpose.They thought, however, that the cost they were thus put to was repaid, thrice over, by the saving of time and expense which it effected for them, in enabling them to make, out of leather which cost them very little, numerous articles that they must otherwise have been constantly sending for to a great distance by roads that were almost impracticable a great part of the season.I do not know whether in this their conduct was judicious or otherwise, but, it is very certain, that however apparently prudent the measure may have been, and however great the saving effected by it might have been, it was completely contrary to our author's doctrines, and might easily be shown by them to have been necessarily and inevitably injurious.
We may suppose that, just at the time when these two legislators of this little community had come to the determination of taking means to dispense with the services of the distant tanner and shoemaker, they were addressed on this subject by a philosopher of this school.His reasons would doubtless have been in the following strain."You are assuredly wrong in the plan you are going to adopt, for it proceeds upon very erroneous and illiberal principles, as I can easily show you.You are in want, you say, of some pairs of shoes, surely then it is best for you to purchase them where you can get them cheapest.But, by the plan you are taking of going to a great expense to have them made at home, they will certainly cost you more when made there, than if bought at the place where you have hitherto purchased shoes.And, if that place can supply you with this commodity cheaper than you yourself can make it, better buy it there with some part of the produce of your own industry.The general industry of your settlement must always be in proportion to the capital which employs it, and will not be diminished by being left to be employed in a way in which you have some advantage.By forcing it to produce an object which it can buy cheaper than it can make, it certainly is not employed to the greatest advantage.
