4o8 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



CORRESPOIS'DENOE. 



INDUSTEIAL ADJUSTMENTS. 

 Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



I BELIEVE it will be the verdict of the 

 readers of Hon. David A. Wells's papers 

 recently concluded in the " Monthly " that 

 they have given the most luminous sketch of 

 the complex courses of modern industrial life 

 that has yet appeared. Probably no writer 

 has fortified his ideas by such a broad ac- 

 quaintance with the living facts of industry ; 

 none has reached his conclusions by so wide 

 an induction. And the absence of partisan- 

 ship in ideas, the " philosophic calm " at- 

 tained by so few even among philosophers, 

 have been shown by Mr. Wells in a remark- 

 able degree. 



Instead of vague and incoherent talk 

 about stock- watering, the Standard Oil Com- 

 pany, Jay Gould, speculation, and other all- 

 sufficient " causes," we have had clear state- 

 ments of the actual facts observed in the 

 various departments of trade. Mr. Wells 

 has shown us how one change in business 

 led to others, and how these others disturbed 

 still others ; how nearly every walk of life 

 has been greatly changed by the introduction 

 of new processes, dependent, primarily, upon 

 the application of steam and electricity to 

 industry. From this review we see how little 

 individuals have controlled the course of 

 events, and how inevitable has been the 

 revolution through which we have passed ; 

 and how Legislatures and States have been 

 little more potent than individuals. In fine 

 (if I may venture to state comprehensively 

 the net result of Mr. Wells's papers), we have 

 been shown that — 



The industrial disturbances lately felt 

 throughout civilization have consisted in the 

 economic waste, the displacement of occupa- 

 tions, capital, skill, and social habit, due to 

 the rapid and unceasing change in the meth- 

 ods of production and distribution; which 

 change was itself due principally to the 

 great mechanical inventions ; that, among 

 business classes, panics have been the result 

 of the continual overthrow of established 

 forms of business by new forms, and the un- 

 equal and disorderly rush of capital into 

 these new forms, alternating oversupply 

 with scarcity ; and that among the laboring- 

 classes there have been a corresponding dis- 

 placement, insecurity, and suffering. 



That part of Mr. Wells's essay which 

 deals with the remarkable increase of social 

 discontent attributed to our time seems to 

 me the least satisfactory part of his per- 

 formance. The result of his observations 

 on this point seems to be that there is no 

 valid reason for this discontent, and that the 

 " laboring " and all other classes are better 



off than ever before. He indeed shows that 

 much suffering has arisen from the " dis- 

 placement of labor through more economical 

 methods of production and distribution " ; as 

 where the hand-loom weavers were thrown 

 out of employment by the introduction of 

 the power-loom. But he also shows that 

 these displacements have been only tempo- 

 rary, that the demand for labor soon becomes 

 all the greater because of the new methods, 

 which must lead us to infer the insufficiency 

 of the cause assigned to account for the phe- 

 nomenon, especially as sudden displacements 

 have taken place only in a small proportion 

 of industries. Two other causes are as- 

 signed : changes in the nature of employ- 

 ments, which tend to degrade the operatives 

 of factories, and a general increase of intelli- 

 gence. But no very serious effort seems to 

 be made to support these hypothetical causes. 

 Indeed, they may perhaps be said to exclude 

 each other. Man is certainly a very unfor- 

 tunate creature if he grows unhappy both 

 when circumstances lower his "grade " and 

 lessen his intelligence, and also when his 

 intelligence is increased. For such a state 

 of things there would seem to be small hope 

 of remedy, since we can scarcely hope to 

 maintain a dead level. The reader is left 

 somewhat in the dark on the matter. 



Content and discontent are doubtless 

 largely dependent upon the quantity and 

 quality of the food we have, the money we 

 lay by, and the houses we live in ; upon all 

 of which Mr. Wells throws so much light. 

 But it is superfluous to argue that happiness 

 is dependent on conditions much more com- 

 plex than these. The greater part — I think 

 by far the greater part — of the unhappinesa 

 in the world comes from other things than 

 insufficient food, clothing, and shelter. " All 

 happiness in life," says Goethe, " is founded 

 upon the regular return of external things." 

 This remark of the great philosopher and 

 poet, for which the equivalent could doubt- 

 less be found in Spencer's writings, seems 

 to me to furnish the key to the problem. 

 Our race has been accustomed for number- 

 less generations to harder work and infinitely 

 greater risk and privation than it endures at 

 present ; but it also had a character inured, 

 through hundreds of years to its occupations 

 and had habits and desires approximately 

 conforming to its necessities. But the vio- 

 lent transition through which we have lately 

 passed has probably changed to a very large 

 extent the occupations of ninety-five per cent 

 of the population within a single generation. 

 The old, happy-go-lucky, sit-around-and-whit- 

 tle-a-stick generation has been ruthlessly ex- 

 terminated. Even the good old philosophy 



