428 REMOVAL OF PROTECTION, ITS EFFECT 



wages for some works actually stopped and hands 

 became plentiful 5 and the men themselves, when called 

 together and satisfied as to how matters stood, consented 

 to work for lower wages, without any grievous murmurs 

 against their master. Then it was discovered by trial 

 that a subsidiary article used in the manufacture could 

 be dispensed with altogether, by which a saving of 

 1500 a-year was effected. This was a small item, but 

 little wastes were discovered by which other small 

 savings were arrived at. Then, as the result of another 

 trial, the important discovery was made that, by a cer 

 tain trifling alteration in certain furnaces in a direction 

 in which it was formerly supposed that nothing remained 

 to be done, the main or slowest process by which all the 

 others were retarded, or kept back, could be shortened 

 one half in time or duration, and thus all at once my 

 friend acquired the capability of producing twice the 

 amount of finished goods in the same time with the 

 same fixed capital, and very little beyond the same 

 number of hands. In the price of the manufactured 

 article, the cost of labour entered formerly to the amount 

 of 70 per cent. By these alterations this part of the 

 price was reduced by 30 per cent ; and this, with the 

 other savings, lowered the cost of manufacture below 

 the now reduced price obtained in the markets, so much 

 as actually to leave a fair profit upon the articles. 

 Meanwhile, the accumulations of the foreign manufac 

 turers had been sold off, the remittances were probably 

 found to be less than were calculated upon, and the 

 imports diminished. The prices have, therefore, now 

 begun to rise, and though they will probably never again 

 approach to what they were in protection times, yet the 

 cheapening of the article has so increased the consump 

 tion, that good times, which no fiscal legislation can 

 again influence, are now looked for in this important 

 branch of trade. 



