LABOUR, MACHINERY, AND STEAM. 311 



always calculated upon is, to do away with the necessity for its employ- 

 ment. This point has in some instances been nearly attained, and, in 

 others, things are fast progressing towards it. It has been calculated, 

 that there is at this moment a labour-power of steam at work in Great 

 Britain equal to that of from ninety to a hundred millions of human 

 beings. Still, from the enormous demand, both home and foreign, 

 for our wrought commodities, and the cheapness consequent upon 

 facile production, wages have preserved their equilibrium much 

 more nicely than could have been anticipated. A table from Mr. 

 Babbage will explain how this has been effected. A machine 

 called a " stretcher," in cotton manufacture, and worked by one 

 man, produced as follows : 



Year. Ibs. of cotton spun. wages per score. rate of earnings per week. 



1810 400 Is. 3jd. I/. 6s. Wd. 



1811 600 10 150 

 1813 850 09 1 11 10| 

 1823 1000 7J 1 11 3 

 1825 1000 07 170 

 1827 1000 06 1 10 

 1832 1200 06 1 10 



This table is quite sufficient to show the influence of machinery. 

 In this particular instance wages have risen, but at the expense of 

 increased labour; the same man, aided by mechanism and steam, 

 doing the work of three men in 18 LO : and the manufacturer has thus 

 a mill three times as large as he had at the same period, with no 

 increase in the number of his hands ; or, if his mill has remained sta- 

 tionary as to size, he has only one-third the labourers he then had, 

 though the productive capabilities are at least quadrupled. 



This is the point of view in which mechanism and industry should 

 be always looked at increased production and diminution of labour 

 required : we are not unconscious of the benefits which have resulted 

 from the application of steam-power ; we are not about to whine 

 over the ruined prospects of the labourer, nor write a Jeremiad of 

 useless lamentations. It is the result of one of those transitions in 

 the state of society to which all states are doomed in the march of 

 civilization ; but this should not make us blind to the consequences, 

 nor induce us to look heedlessly upon the sufferers. 



