340 PROSPECTS OF INDUSTRY 



production of wealth is the ultimatum of the manifestos so liberally 

 bestowed upon us by certain schools of political economy^ one can- 

 not wonder at the rapture with which they view the progress of 

 mechanism, backed by the gigantic and exhaustless power of steam. 

 One radical error which pervades the opinions and the writings 

 of many well-meaning people, is, that the agricultural and manufac- 

 turing classes are viewed as two distinct bodies, having few interests 

 in common, and being in a very great degree independent of each 

 other. This is one of those absurdities which makes us question the 

 sincerity of parties using it. Their interests are one and the same. 

 They are equally parts of one great social community ; and whatever 

 causes injure or depress either of them, both suffer both immediately 

 and remotely. 



Machinery enables the manufacturer to quadruple his wrought 

 commodities, and to keep in advance of the market, without 

 increasing the number of his human labourers : thus, in the town 

 of Manchester alone, the thirty thousand hands employed in the 

 cotton-mills, aided as they are by machinery, represent the labour of 

 five millions and a half of human beings. This productive power, so 

 greatly in advance of population, is a most startling truth, more 

 especially when it is borne in mind, that these mechanical agencies 

 are yet in their infancy, both as to age and as to extent and ap- 

 plicability. 



It is in vain to urge that the facility thus given to production 

 must benefit society ; inasmuch as the articles produced are ren- 

 dered infinitely cheaper, and that things, which were once luxuries, 

 become comforts available to all classes. This is true enough as 

 as far as it goes ; but it entirely overlooks the fate of the labouring 

 producer. If the market value of a manufactured article fall, the 

 wage paid to the labourer must, sooner or later, go down with it, 

 inasmuch as wage is a part of its cost price. Thus, although the 

 wage paid to manufacturing labourers is not to be judged of by the 

 reduction which manufactured articles have undergone, still these 

 wages have, in the majority of cases, fallen considerably, and they 

 must continue to fall. 



The object of mechanical contrivance is to cheapen production or 

 to improve the matter produced; and, as human labour is the most 

 troublesome and expensive agent in this production, one grand point 



