MACHINERY. 29 



ultimately depend, and, so far from decreasing 

 the value of human labour, the discovery and 

 application of mechanical contrivances to the 

 j^arious departments of our manufactures has, 

 in reality, created a new and perpetually-in- 

 creasing demand for it. 



In proportion as machinery is improved in 

 simplicity, and becomes more uniform in its 

 action or motion, a lower class of labour is 

 required for its management ; and as women 

 and children are thus enabled to produce those 

 fabrics, which it formerly required all the inge- 

 nuity, skill, and labour of the very best workmen 

 to furnish, the latter are set at liberty from the 

 mere drudgery of manufacturing employment, 

 and are at leisure to engage in those more diffi- 

 cult and delicate operations, which the perpetual 

 multiplication of machinery renders necessary. 



Such appears the direct tendency of the intro- 

 duction of machinery ; it places men in a condi- 

 tion very different from that state of things, in 

 which the wealthy few could and did purchase 

 the lives and liberties and rights of the many. 



Instead of being thus absorbed, capital is more 

 justly and properly applied, and is the means of 

 extensive benefits not to a particular class of 

 society, but to the whole community. 



