THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK. 3 



The STipersedure of men by women and young persons in 

 textile manufactories, which (as previously noticed) has oc- 

 curred to such an extent in New England that certain factory 

 towns have come to be popularly designated as " she-towns," at 

 first thought seems deplorable. But, on the other hand, it is 

 certain that such supersedure has been mainly the result of such 

 a diminution of the severity of toil through the improvements 

 in machinery, or such a greater division of labor consequent 

 upon new methods of production, as have opened up new op- 

 portunities for employment to women, by making it possible for 

 them to do easily work which, under old systems, required the 

 greater strength and endurance of men ; children, for example, 

 being able to spin yarn on a "ring-frame," which men alone 

 were able to do on a "spinning-mule." And, however such 

 changes may be regarded from the standpoint of the male oper- 

 atives, the greater opportunity afforded for continuous work at 

 higher wages than could be readily obtained in other occupa- 

 tions, is probably not regarded by the women in the light of a 

 misfortune. Experience also shows that the larger the scale 

 on which capitalistic production and distribution is carried on, 

 "the less it can countenance the petty devices for swindling 

 and pilfering," and the neglect and disregard of the health, 

 safety, and comfort of operatives, which so frequently char- 

 acterize industrial enterprises on a small scale ; or, in other 

 words, the maintenance of a high standard of industrial and 

 commercial morality is coming to be recognized by the mana- 

 gers of all great enterprises as a means of saving time and 

 avoiding trouble, and therefore as an undoubted and impor- 

 tant element of profit. And it is to these facts — the natural and 

 necessary growth of what has been termed the " capitalistic sys- 

 tem" — that a recent English writer on the condition of the 

 working-classes, largely attributes the suppression of the truck 

 (store) system, the enactment of laws limiting the hours of 

 labor, the acquiescence in the existence and power of trade- 

 unions, and the increasing attention to sanitary regulations ; re- 

 forms that have reformed away the worst features of the con- 

 dition of labor as it existed thirty or forty years ago in Great 

 Britain.* The larger the concern, the greater usually the steadi- 

 ness of employment, and the more influential the public opinion 

 of the employed. 



Dr. Werner Siemens, the celebrated German scientist and in- 

 ventor, in a recent address at Berlin on " Science and the Labor 

 Question," claimed that the necessity for extensive factories and 

 workshops — involving large capital and an almost " slavish " 

 discipline for labor — ^to secure the maximum cheapness in pro- 



* "The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844," by Frederick Engles. 



