THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK. 581 



It has previously been pointed out that the great and signal result 

 of the recent extraordinary material progress, has been to increase the 

 abundance and reduce the price of most useful and desii'able commodi- 

 ties. But this statement applies to capital, as a commodity, in com- 

 mon with other commodities ; and here comes in another very signifi- 

 cant and, from a humanitarian point of view, a most important result, 

 or perhaps rather a " law " (pointed out years ago by Bastiat, and in 

 proof of which evidence will be presently submitted), that, " in pro- 

 portion to the increase of capital, the relative share of the total prod- 

 uct falling to the capitalist is diminished, while, on the contrary, the 

 laborer's share is relatively increased. At the same time all progress, 

 from scarcity to abundance, tends to increase also the absolute share of 

 product to both capitalist and laborer, inasmuch as there is more to 

 divide." 



Again, it is a singular anomaly, that while an increasing cost of labor 

 has been the greatest stimulant to the invention and introduction of 

 labor-saving machinery, labor employed in connection with such ma- 

 chinery generally commands a better price than it was able to do 

 when similar results were effected by more imperfect and less econom- 

 ical methods. Perhaps the most remarkable illustration of this is to 

 be found in the experience of the American manufacture of flint- 

 glass, in which a reduction, since 1870, of from 70 to 80 per cent 

 in the market price of such articles of glass table-ware as goblets, 

 tumblers, wine-glasses, bowls, lamps, and the like, consequent upon 

 the adoption of methods greatly economizing labor and improving 

 quality, has been accompanied by an increase of fi'om 70 to 100 

 per cent in wages, with a considerable reduction in the hours of 

 labor.* M. Poulin, a leading French manufacturer at Rheims, has 

 recently stated that the results of investigations in France show 

 that during this century the progress of wages and machinery has 

 been similar — the wages in French wool-manufactories, which were 

 1^ franc per day in 1816, being (in 1883) 5 francs ; while the cost 

 of weaving a meter of merino cloth, which was then 16 francs, is now 

 If. 45c. " In Nottingham," says Mr. Edwin Chadwick, the distin- 

 guished English economist,f " the introduction of more complex and 

 more costly machinery for the manufacture of lace, while economiz- 

 ing labor, augmented wages to the extent of over 100 per cent. I 

 asked a manufacturer of lace whether the large machine could not be 

 worked at the common lower wages by any of the workers of the old 

 machine. ' Yes, it might,' was the answer, * but the capital invested 

 in the new machinery is very large, and if from drunkenness or mis- 

 conduct anything happened to the machine, the consequences would 

 be very serious.' Instead of taking a man out of the streets, as might 



* " Report on the Statistics of Wages," by Joseph D. Weeks, " Tenth Census of the 

 United States," vol. xx. 



f " Emplojcrs' Liability for Accidents to Work-people," by Edwin Chadwick. 



