466 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



for pins, and goat-skins for glass bottles, and wooden bowls 

 instead of china, and, in some instances, do far worse by foster 

 ing the vindictive prejudices of the vulgar against those inven 

 tions of art and genius which relieve the severity, facilitate the 

 exertion, and immensely increase the productive power of labor, 

 I hold them as without excuse, and could wish them no worse 

 lot than to be exiled for a season to some parts of Ireland, where 

 these prejudices ag-iinst improved machinery are as fierce as 

 theirs can be, and where they may find millions living in a state 

 of destitution as complete and absolute as seems compatible with 

 the continuance of life. 



3. GENERAL. EFFECTS ON LABOR. I confess, however, there 

 is one view of this subject which I must not pass over, and 

 which I cannot take with equal complacency. The effects of 

 improved machinery should be to alleviate and to shorten 

 human toil, and, in multiplying production, to extend more 

 widely the supply of food, and the common comforts of life. 

 The laboring man should, on every principle, be the first to 

 share in these benefits ; but far too often he is the last. Food 

 is greatly multiplied both in quantity and variety ; but, in a 

 country where labor is superabundant, the wages of labor 

 become proportionately reduced, and the power to purchase 

 restricted. There can be no doubt that, in respect to clothing 

 and furniture, the condition of the laboring population is greatly 

 improved above what it formerly was. An American clock, for 

 example, made in Connecticut, that home of industry and the 

 useful arts, an article both useful and ornamental, and in which 

 the &quot; gude &quot; housewife is sure to take an honest pride, may be 

 purchased in London for a pound. A century ago, this would 

 have been an article of furniture which a nobleman might covet. 



But it is too true that improved machinery scarcely dimin 

 ishes in many cases it increases the demand for human and 

 brute labor. Two men only are required to thresh grain with a 

 flail ; from five to eight, besides the horses, or the attendants 

 upon the steam-engine, are employed at the threshing-machine, 

 Much more is threshed, and, in consequence of these increased 

 facilities, much more is grown, and therefore requires to be 

 threshed. &quot; But for the invention of the steam-engine, a large 

 proportion of the coal mines now profitably worked could not 



