1826.] Machine r If -dislresses. 563 



man and the earth he lives upon, they regard neitlier man, nor his 

 wants, nor his powers ; nor the globe, nor its size, nor its capacities. 

 Cannot they see that they may themselves, with the same facility, be 

 brought to a similar absurdity ? Go on extending your machinery, till 

 manual labour is absolutely superseded ; and then tell us what is to 

 become of" the unemployed hands, or rather of the unsupplied mouths ? 



No doubt, machinery, by extending human power, adds greatly to the 

 conveniences and luxuries of life ; but there is a point, where it takes as 

 much as it gives, and that is its natural limit. One step beyond this 

 limit is misery ; when it takes employment from those, who — to ea^— » 

 must labour, or renders their condition one jot worse than it was before. 

 If you employ a hundred labourers, and invent a piece of machinery 

 that will work up the same produce with the aid of fifty, and enable you 

 to sell that produce at half the price of hand-labour, you are in the same 

 state, and the purchaser gains an advantage of two to one ; but fifty of 

 your labourers are for the present utterly ruined. But then, if by tliis 

 reduction in the price of your goods, you bring them within the reach of 

 a new class of purchasers, and the demand be doubled, and you, in 

 consequence, double the number of your machines, and re-employ your 

 discharged fifty labourers, all is then right again : that is, your profits 

 remain the same, your labourers are all employed, and at the former rate ; 

 and the conmiunity get the article at half the former price. Here, then, 

 the advantage of jnachinery is manifest ; and this advantage to the 

 community it is which constitutes the ground of the approbation of 

 machinery generally. But who but an economist can fail to see tliat 

 this process has its limits, and that the instant you step beyond those 

 limits, and in proportion as you advance beyond them, you deteriorate 

 the condition of the labourer ? These limits are clearl}' definable. If 

 by the introduction of machinery you can so multiply the demand, as to 

 employ the same number of hands, and at a living rate of wages, yoa 

 are conerring a b enefit on the community — we are not ascribing any 

 merit to you — you are pursuing your own advantage ; but the effect, 

 produced by your machinery adds to the general accommodation, and 

 so is beneficial. But if that machinery, on the contrary, throw j'our 

 labourers out of employ, and permanently keep them out of employ, or 

 depreciate their wages, or in any way deteriorate their circumstances; 

 then we maintain it is mischievous, and mischievous in proportion to 

 the numbers so displaced, and the circumstances so deteriorated — be the 

 advantage to the manufacturer or the community what it will. Now it 

 is notorious beyond the possibility of contradiction, that the condition of 

 the labourer — of thousands and tens of thousands — is no longer what 

 it was, and for a very considerable period has grown Morse and worse, 

 and that, too, in a very intelligible proportion to the growth of machinery. 

 And shall a system, then, producing such disastrous residts, be extolled 

 and magnified, and lauded to the skies ? Shall we, as a nation, exult in 

 the amount of our exports, the extent of our commerce, the enormous 

 masses of wealth accumulated in the hands of the few, when we know 

 that all these shows of prosperity are at the expence of the suffering 

 labourer ? Wondrous, no doubt, are the effects brought about by the 

 dexterous application of labour ; but to whose advantage ? To the whole 

 community, say you. What, are the labourers themselves no part of that 

 community ? The manufacturer gains — thousands perhaps ; the com- 

 munity, as purchasers, a few shillings, and a little finery ; while the 



