308 M. Arago on Machinery considered in Belation 

 the labouring classes among our neighbours are wholly de- 

 prived of forethought and resources. A publication of very 

 recent date has shewn that, in England alone (Scotland and 

 Ireland being omitted), the capital belonging to operatives 

 in the Savings- Banks now amounts to about sixteen millions 

 Sterling ! And the results observed in the principal towns 

 are not less instructive. 



There is one principle which has remained uncontroverted, 

 amidst the animated controversies to which the science of 

 political economy has given birth, viz. that population in- 

 creases with general prosperity, and rapidly diminishes in 

 times of wretchedness.* Now, let us place facts in juxtapo- 

 sition with the principle. Whilst the mean population, during 

 the last thirty years, has augmented in the ratio of 50 per 

 cent., Nottingham and Birmingham, two of the most manu- 

 facturing towns, exhibit increments of 75 and 00 per cent. 

 Finally, Manchester and Glasgow, which occupy the first rank 

 in the British Empire for the number, size, and importance 

 of the machines they employ, in the same period of thirty 

 years, have seen their population augment 150 and 160 per 

 cent. ; an amount three or four times greater than in the 

 agricultural counties, and in those towns which are not manu- 

 facturing. These ^gures speak for themselves, and there is 

 no sophistry, or false philanthropy or eloquence, that can re- 

 sist them. 



One chief objection brought against machinery I cannot 

 disregard. At the moment that new improvements are intro- 

 duced, and when by their means manual operations are very 

 extensively superseded, certain classes of workmen suffer 

 from the change; — their honourable and laborious indus- 

 try is annihilated at a blow ; and those who, according to 

 the previous method, were the most expert and deserving, 

 being deficient of the qualifications which the new plan re- 

 quires, are thrown out of employment, and can but rarely 

 find other means of subsistence. These reflections ai-e just, 

 and I may add, that the melancholy consequences to which 

 they refer, must frequently occur, for the mere caprices of 



* To this general rule Ireland is an exception ; the cause of this, how- 

 ever, is well known. 



