HOW LABOUR ACQUIRES VALUE AND MAN BECOMES FREE.


The proximity of the market enables the farmer not only to enrich his
land and to obtain from it far more than he could otherwise do, but it
also produces a demand for many things that would otherwise be wasted.
In the West, men set no value upon straw, and in almost every part of
this country the waste arising out of the absence of a market for any
commodities but those which can be carried to a distance, must strike
every traveller. Close to the town or city, almost every thing has
some value. So too with labour, the value of which, like that of land,
tends to increase with every increase in the facility of exchanging
its products.

The solitary settler has to occupy the spots that, with his rude
machinery, he _can_ cultivate. Having neither horse nor cart, he
carries home his crop upon his shoulders, as is now done in many parts
of India. He carries a hide to the place of exchange, distant,
perhaps, fifty miles, to obtain for it leather, or shoes. Population
increases, and roads are made. The fertile soils are cultivated. The
store and the mill come nearer to him, and he obtains shoes and flour
with the use of less machinery of exchange. He has more leisure for
the improvement of his land, and the returns to labour increase. More
people now obtain food from the same surface, and new places of
exchange appear. The wool is, on the spot, converted into cloth, and
he exchanges directly with the clothier. The saw-mill is at hand, and
he exchanges with the sawyer. The tanner gives him leather for his
hides, and the papermaker gives him paper for his rags. With each of
these changes he has more and more of both time and manure to devote