254.  One of the first advantages which suggests itself as likely to arise from a correct analysis of the expense of the several processes of any manufacture, is the indication which it would furnish of the course in which improvement should be directed.  If a method could be contrived of diminishing by one fourth the time required for fixing on the heads of pins, the expense of making them would be reduced about thirteen per cent; whilst a reduction of one half the time employed in spinning the coil of wire out of which the heads are cut, would scarcely make any sensible difference in the cost of manufacturing of the whole article.  It is therefore obvious, that the attention would be much more advantageously directed to shortening the former than the latter process.

255.  The expense of manufacturing, in a country where machinery is of the rudest kind, and manual labour is very cheap, is curiously exhibited in the price of cotton cloth in the island of Java.  The cotton, in the seed, is sold by the picul, which is a weight of about 133 lbs.  Not above one fourth or one fifth of this weight, however, is cotton:  the natives, by means of rude wooden rollers, can only separate about 1 1/4 lb. of cotton from the seed by one day’s labour.  A picul of cleansed cotton, therefore, is worth between four and five times the cost of the impure article; and the prices of the same substance, in its different stages of manufacture, are—­for one picul: 

 Dollars Cotton in the seed 2 to 3
 Clean cotton 10 to 11
 Cotton thread 24
 Cotton thread dyed blue 35
 Good ordinary cotton cloth 50

Thus it appears that the expense of spinning in Java is 117 per cent on the value of the raw material; the expense of dying thread blue is 45 per cent on its value; and that of weaving cotton thread into cloth 117 per cent on its value.  The expense of spinning cotton into a fine thread is, in England, about 33 per cent. (1*)

256.  As an example of the cost of the different processes of a manufacture, perhaps an analytical statement of the expense of the volume now in the reader’s hands may not be uninteresting; more especially as it will afford an insight into the nature and extent of the taxes upon literature.  It is found economical to print it upon paper of a very large size, so that although thirty-two pages, instead of sixteen, are really contained in each sheet, this work is still called octavo.

L s. d.

To printer, for composing (per sheet of 32 pages) L3 1s. 10 1/2 sheets 32 0 6 [This relates to the ordinary size of the type used in the volume.]

To printer for composing small type, as in extracts and 2 0 3 contents, extra per sheet, 3s. 10d.

To printer, for composing table work, extra per sheet, 2 17 9
5s. 6d. 
Average charge for corrections, per sheet, L3 2s. 10d. 33 0 0
Press work, 3000 being printed off, per sheet, L3 10s. 36 15 0
Paper for 3000, at L1 11s. 6d. per ream, weighing 28 lbs:  the
duty on paper at 3d. per lb. amounts to 7s. per ream, so that the 63 reams which are required for the work will cost: