THE SEWING-MACHINE IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 48^ 



the industries in which it was most successful, namely : 1. The less- 

 ened price of the commodities to the consumer, their superior quality, 

 and the circumstance that they were articles required by all, but es- 

 pecially by the middle and humbler classes, at once created an en- 

 largement of demand so rapid and strong that it fully kept pace with 

 the more efficient and swifter means of production ; 2. The augmented 

 gross produce arising from the decided success of the invention in 

 rendering labor more efficient, in saving time, and improving quality, 

 and reducing the outlay and risks of capital, was divided between the 

 employers and work-people wholly by the operation of natural causes. 

 There was no interference of the Legislature on one side or the other; 

 and practically there was no interference of trades-unions to enforce 

 a minimum rate of wages, or to impose restraints on the skill, indus- 

 try, and deserts, of the individual male and female laborers. Every- 

 where there were inferior, middling, and superior laborers, earning 

 corresponding wages ; and everywhere the skillful and handiest labor- 

 ers passed naturally into the class of employers and capitalists. It 

 was a free and wholesome cooperation of capital and labor to supply 

 the best and cheapest articles to the cash demand of a vigorous con- 

 sumption ; and the profits arising from the trade were divided be- 

 tween wages and capital wholly in proportion to the special skill and 

 industry of the individual employers and employed; with the result, 

 as we have seen, of raising wages from 50 to 100 per cent., and adding 

 immeasurably to the comfort, health, and independence of the laborers, 

 but especially of the female portion of them. 



But such a result is neither more nor less than distribution of the 

 proceeds of production of the most exact and equitable kind. On a 

 large scale the increased quantity of wealth arising from the inven- 

 tion of the sewing-machine has been divided precisely as on grounds 

 of equity it is most fit and beneficial that it should be divided ; and 

 this equitable and wholesome division has taken place as a necessary 

 consequence of the most efficient methods of production being left at 

 perfect liberty, as regards both workmen and masters, to arrive at the 

 cheapest means of commanding and stimulating consumption. If at 

 an early or later stage of the establishment of the sewing-machine it 

 had been possible for the male to exclude the female workers ; or, for 

 the two combined to prevent the use of the machine in the houses of 

 male or female workers ; or, for any trades-union to enforce a mini- 

 mum wage, or to impose restraints on individual skill and invention 

 devoted to increase the gross profits that is to say, the fund alone 

 available for division between labor and capital it is easy to see that 

 the whole march of the improvement would have been retarded and 

 thwarted. It is clear, also, that the two circumstances which have 

 very materially assisted the success of the machine, as regards both 

 producers and consumers, have been : 1. The small cast of the ma- 

 chine itself, which admitted its effective use in the homes of the work- 



