The reader may remark that in the general observations made in this chapter on the distribution of wealth we have only considered agricultural produce. This has been done because similar although somewhat more complicated laws regulate the distribution of the wealth which is created by manufacturing industry. Manufacturing industry.All the materials upon which manufacturing industry is employed are products obtained from the land. Thus, wool is an article of agricultural produce. When wool is woven into cloth, it is rendered much more valuable. How, then, is this wealth distributed which is added to the wool by manufacturing it into cloth? Wool, and such other raw materials of manufacturing industry, are purchased by the manufacturer, and become a portion of his capital, and the wealth produced by manufacturing industry is finally distributed between capital and labour; in fact, there are two distributions. The raw produce, or, more correctly, the money with which the manufacturer purchases this raw produce, is distributed in a similar manner to other agricultural produce; after this raw material has been manufactured, another distribution takes place between the labour and the capital which have been employed in the production of the manufactured commodities.
Remuneration due to labour when indirectly productive.When it is stated that wealth is distributed in the form of rent, wages and profits, it must not be supposed that the labour which has directly contributed to the production of the wealth is alone remunerated. Before agricultural produce is brought to the market, the industry of many other labourers has been called in besides those who are actually working on the farm, all of whom will receive a certain share of the produce in the form of wages. A farmer may employ bargemen to take his wheat by canal to a particular market, but these bargemen must be paid wages, just in the same way as labourers who are employed on the farm. Again a farmer may join with others to pay labourers for keeping the roads in a proper state of repair; from him, also, are levied rates which maintain a police establishment, considered necessary to make property secure. We shall hereafter inquire on whom these burdens fall.
