EFFECTS OF THE WAR ON LABOR. 157 



and remained idle, whilst with all there has been the 

 utmost uncertainty in all their employments. 



Although at the close of the war almost every per- 

 son had some small means at command, it could not 

 long continue as their only support, and at best was 

 altogether insufficient to establish new businesses, 

 when the opportunities were found to do so. There- 

 fore all such enterprises were almost wholly depend- 

 ent upon credit for their start and development, and 

 all came in direct competition with like industries and 

 employments that were already, and had long been, 

 abundantly supplying the people's normal demands, 

 and had the immediate effect of lessening the employ- 

 ment of many, by dividing between two or more the 

 work or business previously done by one, and wholly 

 displacing others. The result was an era of the wild- 

 est speculation and credit, with the inflation of many 

 a bubble, based on the prosperity and gains of the 

 past four years. 



The producers and manufacturers of the products 

 which enter into the normal consumption of the peo- 

 ple continually multiplied their products by improve- 

 ments in their machinery, which has been more than 

 doubled in its productive capacity within the last 

 eighteen years, and now requires less than one half 

 the amount of manual labor that was required in 

 1865 to produce an equal amount of subsistence ; in 

 this way reducing by at least one half the amount of 

 muscular employment at that time required. This 

 great development in mechanical power is briefly 

 shown in the chapters on Machinery in Agriculture 

 and Machinery in Textiles and other Manufactures. 



