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On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures by Charles Babbage
page 12 of 394 (03%)
advantages. The luxurious natives of the East,(1*) and the ruder
inhabitants of the African desert are alike indebted to our
looms. The produce of our factories has preceded even our most
enterprising travellers.(2*) The cotton of India is conveyed by
British ships round half our planet, to be woven by British skill
in the factories of Lancashire: it is again set in motion by
British capital; and, transported to the very plains whereon it
grew, is repurchased by the lords of the soil which gave it
birth, at a cheaper price than that at which their coarser
machinery enables them to manufacture it themselves.(3*)

3. The large proportion of the population of this country,
who are engaged in manufactures, appears from the following table
deduced from a statement in an Essay on the Distribution of
Wealth, by the Rev. R. Jones:

For every hundred persons employed in agriculture, there are:

Agriculturists Non-agriculturists

In Bengal 100 25
In Italy 100 31
In France 100 50
In England 100 200


The fact that the proportion of non-agricultural to
agricultural persons is continually increasing, appears both from
the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons upon
Manufacturers' Employment, July, 1830, and from the still later
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