COMPOUND FREE LABOUR. 523 



first building containing many machines thus simultaneous 

 ly driven, was the well-known silk-throwing mill at Derby, 

 erected early in the last century by Sir Thomas Lombe. 

 The example he set was followed in cotton-spinning by 

 Arkwright, Crompton, and Hargreaves. Their mills were 

 of necessity erected on the banks of rivers yielding the requi 

 site fall of water a requirement which dispersed the 

 manufacture to scattered places, often in remote valleys. 

 And here we are introduced to another of those great 

 changes in industrial organization which have been initiated 

 by scientific discovery and resulting mechanical appliances. 

 For the revolution which gave to the Factory System its 

 modern character, arose from the substitution of steam- 

 power for water-power. One result was that, being no 

 longer dependent on supply of water, the variations in which 

 led to variations in activity of production, processes of manu 

 facture were made continuous. Another result was that 

 wide distribution of factories was no longer necessitated by 

 wide distribution of water-power. Factories and the people 

 working in them became clustered in large masses to which 

 there was no limit; and there followed increased facilities 

 both for bringing raw materials and taking away manu 

 factured products. So that beyond the integration of many 

 machines in one mill there came the integration of many 

 mills in one town. 



820. But now, from considering this evolution as a 

 mechanical progress and as a progress in industrial organiza 

 tion, let us go on to consider it in relation to the lives of 

 workers. Here its effects, in some respects beneficial, are in 

 many respects detrimental. Though in his capacity of con 

 sumer the factory-hand, in common with the community, 

 profits by the cheapening of goods of all kinds, including his 

 own kind, yet in his capacity of producer he loses heavily 

 perhaps more heavily than he gains. 



More and more of his powers, bodily and mental, are 



