THE ECONOMIC DISTURBANCES SINCE 1S73. 445 



clothed Chinese, or 3,000 partially clothed East Indians. In 1840 an 

 operative in the cotton-mills of Rhode Island, working thirteen to 

 fourteen hours a day, turned off 9,600 yards of standard sheeting in a 

 year ; in 1886 an operative in the same mill made about 30,000 yards, 

 working ten hours a day. In 1840 the wages were $176 a year ; in 

 1886 the wages were $285 a year. 



The United States census returns for 1880, report a very large in- 

 crease in the amount of coal and copper produced during the ten pre- 

 vious years in this country, with a very large comparative diminution 

 in the number of hands employed in these two great mining indus- 

 tries ; in anthracite coal the increase in the number of hands employed 

 having been 33*2 per cent, as compared with an increase of product of 

 82-7 ; while in the case of copper the ratios were 15*8 and 70*8, respect- 

 ively. For such results, the use of cheaper and more powerful blast- 

 ing agents (dynamite), and of the steam-drill, furnish an explanation. 

 And, in the way of further illustration, it may be stated that a car-load 

 of coal, in the principal mining districts of the United States, can now 

 (1887) be mined, hoisted, screened, cleaned, and loaded in one half the 

 time that it required ten years previously. 



The report of the United States Commissioner of Labor for 1886 

 furnishes the following additional illustrations : 



" In the manufacture of agricultural implements, specific evidence 

 is submitted, showing that six hundred men now do the work that, 

 fifteen or twenty years ago, would have required 2,145 men, a dis- 

 placement of 1,545. 



" The manufacture of boots and shoes offers some very wonderful 

 facts in this connection. In one large and long-established manufac- 

 tory, the proprietors testify that it would require five hundred persons 

 working by hand processes to make as many women's boots and shoes 

 as a hundred persons now make with the aid of machinery ; a displace- 

 ment of eighty per cent." 



"Another firm, engaged in the manufacture of children's shoes, 

 states that the introduction of new machinery within the past thirty 

 years has displaced about six times the amount of hand-labor required, 

 and that the cost of the product has been reduced one half." 



" On another grade of goods, the facts collected by the agents of 

 the Bureau show that one man can now do the work which twenty 

 years ago required ten men." 



" In the manufacture of flour there has been a displacement of 

 nearly three fourths of the manual labor necessary to produce the 

 same product. In the manufacture of furniture, from one half to 

 three fourths only of the old number of persons is now required. In 

 the manufacture of wall-paper, the best evidence puts the displacement 

 in the proportion of one hundred to one. In the manufacture of met- 

 als and metallic goods, long established firms testify that machinery 

 has decreased manual labor 33^ per cent." 



