Importance of capital to the profitable employment of labour--Contrast between the prodigal and the prudent man: the Dukes of Buckingham and Bridgewater--Making good for trade--Unprofitable consumption--War against capital in the middle ages--Evils of corporate privileges--Condition of the people under Henry VIII. 60
Rights of labour--Effects of slavery on production--Condition of the Anglo Saxons--Progress of freedom in England--Laws regulating labour--Wages and prices--Poor-law--Law of settlement 71
Possessions of the different classes in England--Condition of Colchester in 1301--Tools, stock-in-trade, furniture, &c.--Supply of food--Comparative duration of human life--Want of facilities for commerce--Plenty and civilization not productive of effeminacy--Colchester in the present day 82
Certainty the stimulus to industry--Effects of insecurity--Instances of unprofitable labour--Former notions of commerce--National and class prejudices, and their remedy 96
Employment of machinery in manufactures and agriculture--Erroneous notions formerly prevalent on this subject--Its advantages to the labourer--Spade-husbandry--The principle of machinery--Machines and tools--Change in the condition of England consequent on the introduction of machinery--Modern New Zealanders and ancient Greeks-- Hand-mills and water-mills 106
Present and former condition of the country--Progress of cultivation--Evil influence of feudalism--State of agriculture in the sixteenth century--Modern improvements--Prices of wheat--Increased breadth of land under cultivation--Average consumption of wheat--Implements of agriculture now in use--Number of agriculturists in Great Britain 124
Production of a knife--Manufacture of iron--Raising coal--The hot-blast--Iron bridges--Rolling bar-iron--Making steel--Sheffield manufactures--Mining in Great Britain--Numbers engaged in mines and metal manufactures 139
Conveyance and extended use of coal--Consumption at various periods--Condition of the roads in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries--Advantages of good roads--Want of roads in Australia--Turnpike-roads--Canals--Railway of 1680--Railway statistics 157
Houses--The Pyramids--Mechanical power--Carpenters' tools--American machinery for building--Bricks--Slate-- Household fittings and furniture--Paper-hangings--Carpets-- Glass--Pottery--Improvements effected through the reduction or repeal of duties on domestic requirements 174