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T is manifest, from the remarks which have been made in the previous chapter, that labour is indispensable to the production of wealth. As we proceed to describe the purposes to which labour is directed, it will be found, as observed by J. S. Mill, that labour creates utilities fixed and embodied in material objects. Nature supplies the materials, but labour fashions these materials, arranges them, places them in those situations in which they are required, and in fact renders them in every respect suited to satisfy the wants of life.

The greater number of commodities, before they become serviceable for man, pass through many complicated processes, each of which necessitates much complex labour. Trace the cotton seed, first sown in the swamps of Georgia, then supplying material to the looms of Manchester. Watch the woven cloth transported to the far East, there destined to clothe the inhabitants of some remote valley of Scinde. Attempt such an examination, and we at once become almost overwhelmed with the endless series of labourers who have ministered to the production of so simple a commodity as a piece of cotton cloth. There are those who cultivate the cotton plant in Georgia, and prepare it for exportation. The cotton has to be brought to the port. Shipwrights must have constructed the ships which carry the cotton from America to England; sailors must navigate these ships; dock labourers are required to unload the cotton; the railway on which the cotton is carried from Liverpool to Manchester has been constructed by the industry of numerous classes of labourers; and the cotton, before it is woven into cloth,