397 



MACHINERY. 



MACHINERY. 



The flint and fish-bone of the savage, the tool of the workman, and 

 the steam-engine of the manufacturer, have but one common object 

 to save the labour of man and to render it more productive : but that 

 is the most perfect invention which attains this object the most 

 effectually. Can any one doubt the advantage of abundant production ? 

 It needs but a few words to point out its benefit. Whether it be for 

 evil or for good, we are not satisfied with the enjoyment of the common 

 necessaries of life ; we all desire comforts, luxuries, and ornament ; and 

 in proportion as we desire them do we become civilised. There are 

 many who sneer at civilisation, and unhappily it has its vices, its 

 follies, and its absurdities; but it seems the law of our nature to 

 advance to that state, and with the increase of artificial wants our 

 intellects become more active and enlightened, refinement of manners 

 succeeds to barbarism, and all those moral qualities for which man is 

 distinguished, become developed. We may conceive some Utopia in 

 which all the noble parts of man's nature are cultivated, while his 

 wants remain simple and easily satisfied, but the world we live in pre- 

 sents another picture. We might wish it were otherwise ; but it is in 

 rain to deny that refinement is the accompaniment and, in some degree, 

 the consequence of riches, ami brutality the condition of those people 

 who have not been elevated by the increase of wealth. It follows 

 therefore, that to multiply the objects of comfort and enjoyment which 

 human industry can produce, is to improve the condition of mankind, 

 to raise them in the scale of moral and intellectual being, and to 

 minister to their enjoyment of life. It is quite consistent to deprecate 

 the vices and follies which are ever associated with our craving for new 

 possessions, while we observe the benefits resulting from the desire to 

 progress in improvement. Throughout the world good and evil are found 

 side by side ; but the good, as we would fam believe, preponderates. 



When once it is admitted that men are to be decently housed and 

 clothed, and are to surround themselves with such comforts as they 

 can obtain, it is clear that the more easily they can obtain them, and 

 the more generally such possessions are enjoyed, the more completely 

 are the objects of civilised life secured. If all men could obtain them 

 easily, there would be no poverty, and infinitely less vice. Machinery, 

 by diminishing the amount of labour required for the production of 

 commodities, lowers their price and renders them more universally 

 accessible to all classes of society. Working-men no longer toil for the 

 rich alone, but they participate in the results of their own industry. 

 If they desire such luxuries, " purple and fine linen " are not beyond 

 their reach ; and their dwellings are more commodious and often more 

 elegant than were the houses of the rich three centuries ago. If this 

 increased facility of acquiring the comforts of life had been accom- 

 panied by greater prudence and frugality, we believe that the beneficial 

 results of machinery would have been conspicuously shown by the 

 improved condition of all the working-classes of this country. Cheap 

 production is more beneficial to the poor than to the rich. The rich 

 man is certain of gratifying most of his wants, but the poor man is con- 

 stantly obliged to forego one enjoyment in order to obtain another. If 

 his shoes or his coat be worn out, his dinners must be stinted perhaps 

 until he can pay for a fresh supply ; and thus, unless his wages be 

 reduced in consequence of the cheapness of such articles, it is beyond 

 all question that cheapness is an extraordinary benefit to him, the 

 money which he saves in the purchase of one cheap article is laid out 

 upon another, and without privation or sutlering he satisfies the wants 

 which custom has made imperative. In short he is no longer poor. 



These facts are undeniable; but it is alleged that machinery not 

 only makes articles abundant and cheap, but multiplies them beyond 

 the wants of the world, and by causing gluts brings ruin and misery 

 upon the working classes. For reasons explained elsewhere [DEMAND 

 AND SUPPLY] a universal glut of all commodities is impossible : the 

 more men produce, the more they have to otter in exchange, and their 

 wants are only limited by their means of purchasing. But particular 

 commodities are frequently produced in excess, and a glut of the 

 market ensues. In causing such gluts machinery is a powerful agent, 

 but only in the same manner as all labour would be, if applied in 

 excess. The results would be precisely the same if too many men 

 were employed in any department of industry ; they would produce 

 more than there was a demand for, and their goods would fall in value 

 or be unsaleable, Commodities produced by machinery are subject to 

 the same laws as govern all other commodities. If the supply of them 

 exceed the demand, they are depreciated in value ; but the power of 

 producing with facility does not necessarily occasion an excess of pro- 

 duction : it must be applied with caution, and its use be properly 

 learned by experience. Suppose that the soil of any isolated country 

 were extraordinarily fertile and the population very small ; but that 

 without considering these 'circumstances the people were to cultivate 

 the whole of their land and bestow upon it all their skill and labour. 

 An excess of food would be the result more than could be eaten 

 within the year ; much would be wasted or sold without profit, and 

 much laid up in store for another season. The husbandmen would be 

 disappointed at the unfortunate results of their industry, but would 

 they complain of the fertility of the soil ? It would not be the soil 

 that had caused the glut, but their own misapplied exertions ; and so 

 it is with machinery, which like a fertile soil gives forth abundance : 

 its capabilities are known and its advantages ought to be appreciated ; 

 but if its productiveness be brought into excessive activity, it causes 

 the evils of a glut. 



The influence of machinery upon the production and consumption of 

 commodities need not be followed any further. It increases the com- 

 mon stock of wealth in the world and is capable of multiplying inde- 

 finitely the sources of human enjoyment. But these benefits will be 

 neutralised if, while it cheapens production, it has a tendency to 

 diminish the means of employment for the people, and lower the wages 

 of labour ; and this leads us to the second part of our inquiry. 



The invention of a machine which should immediately do the 

 work of many men employed in a particular trade would certainly, 

 in the first instance, diminish employment in that trade. Several 

 men would be turned off to seek employment in other trades, and 

 much individual suffering would be occasioned. There have been 

 frequent instances of such a result, and so far as the immediate 

 interests of the particular sufferers are concerned, it is an evil which 

 cannot be too much lamented. In their case machinery is like a 

 rival bidding against their labour, and is as injurious to them as if 

 a fresh set of workmen had supplanted them in the service of their 

 employer. But great as this evil is (and we would not underrate it) 

 it is of comparatively rare occurrence and of short duration. If the 

 invention of the machine caused no more production than the labour 

 of the workmen had previously accomplished, the labour of a certain 

 number of men would be permanently displaced : but as an equal 

 quantity of goods is produced at a less cost of laboiir, their price is 

 reduced, and their consumption consequently encouraged. An in- 

 creased supply is thus called for, and more workmen are again required 

 in the trade. In this manner the demand for increased production 

 corrects the tendency which machinery would otherwise have to dis- 

 place labour permanently. Even the temporary displacement which 

 frequently occurs is less extensive than might be supposed. Machines 

 are rarely invented which at once dispense with many workmen. They 

 are at first imperfect, and of limited power : they make the labour of 

 the workmen more efficient : but do not become substitutes for labour. 

 Thus, even if the demand for commodities were not increased, the dis- 

 placement of labour would be very limited and deferred to a distant 

 period : but as an increased demand almost invariably follows every 

 successive improvement in machinery, it will be found, practically, that 

 more operatives are employed in every branch of manufacture, after 

 the introduction of improved machinery than before. 



Of this fact we shall offer some examples presently ; but here it may 

 be necessary to allude to the case of the hand-loom weavers, which is 

 constantly adduced in proof of the supposed evils of machinery. Their 

 unhappy condition can scarcely be overstated, nor can it be denied that 

 it has been caused by machinery t but it must be recollected that while 

 they have vainly contended against machinery like pigmies against a 

 giant hundreds of thousands of other classes, unaccustomed to the 

 labour of operatives, have gained a profitable employment by working 

 with it, in the same trade as themselves. No one can suppose that the 

 labour of the hands could compete with the power of steam, and the 

 real cause of their distress is, that instead of adapting the form of their 

 industry to the altered circumstances of their trade, they have con- 

 tinued to work, like an Indian caste, with the same rude implements 

 which their fathers used before them. Their case is the same as that 

 of a miller who should persist in grinding corn by hand, while his 

 neighbours were building mills upon a rapid stream which ran bes.de 

 his garden. His own ignorance or obstinacy, and not the water-wheel, 

 would be the cause of the failure of his trade. 



If the case of the hand-loom weavers be adduced as an example of 

 the permanent displacement of labour by machinery, and if it be con- 

 tended that it is the natural result of machinery to diminish employ- 

 ment in other trades in the same manner, we must necessarily infer 

 that wherever machinery has been largely introduced into any trade, 

 the number of persons supported by it must have been diminished. 

 We should infer that the agricultural population of this country must 

 have been rapidly increasing, while the population engaged in those 

 branches of manufacture in which steam-power is used must have been 

 falling off or increasing less rapidly. The correctness of such an 

 inference may be estimated from the following facts : 



In no trades has machinery been so extensively introduced as in the 

 manufacture of cotton, wool, and silk, and nowhere has the population 

 increased so rapidly as in the principal seats of these manufactures. 

 The census returns of 1801, 1841, and 1851, show the following 

 remarkable Increase of population in some of the chief manufacturing 

 boroughs, in which the borough boundary is taken: Manchester, from 

 90,399 to 240,367, and, with Salford in 1851, to 401,231 ; Liverpool, 

 'whose prosperity depends mainly on the cotton trade) from 79,722, to 

 282,656, and 375,955; Stockport, from 19,250 in 1811, to 50,154 and 

 53,835 ; Leeds, from 53,162 to 151,063, and 172,270 ; Bradford (York- 

 shire) from 6393 to 66,508 and 103,778 ; Bolton, from 17,416 to 50,163 

 and 61U71; Huddersfield, from 7268 to 24,931 and 30,880; and 

 Macclesfield, from 8743 to 32,523 and 39,048. In Scotland the same 

 results have followed from the use of machinery. The population of 

 Glasgow increased from 77,058 to 261,004 and 329,097 ; Dundee, from 

 27,396, to 64,629 and 78,931 ; and Greenock from 17,458 to 36,936 and 

 the parliamentary borough only) 36,689. 



Thus far of the manufactures of cotton, wool, and silk. The seats of 

 the iron and hardware trades exhibit similar results. In the same 

 aeriods Birmingham increased from 73,670 to 181,116 and 232,841 ; 

 Sheffield, from 31,814 to 109,597 and 135,310; Wolverhampton, from 



