MACHINES FAVOUR POPULATION. 419 



those engravers, whose ruin was so piteously announced 

 to us ; never were they either more numerous or more 

 occupied. 



I am going to bring forward some irrefragable facts. 

 They will render it impossible, I think, to maintain that 

 among the inhabitants of this earth, such, at least, as Na 

 ture has created, the use of machines can bring on the 

 result of a diminution of the number of workmen em 

 ployed in each sort of industry. Other customs, other 

 habits, other passions, might, perhaps, have led to an en 

 tirely different result ; but I leave such a text to those 

 who may be tempted to write treatises on political econ 

 omy for the use of the inhabitants of the Moon, or of 

 Jupiter, or of Saturn. 



Placed in a much more confined theatre, I ask myself 

 whether, after having sapped the very foundations of the 

 system maintained by the adversaries of machines, it can 

 be still requisite to cast a glance at some criticisms of de 

 tail. Need we remark, for example, that the poor s rate, 

 that bleeding wound in the British nation, that wound 

 which some people pretend to trace to the abuse of ma 

 chines, dates from the reign of Elizabeth, from a period 

 anterior by two centuries to the labours of Arkwright 

 and of Watt ? 



You will at least acknowledge, they say to us, that the 

 fire-machines, the mule-jennies, that the machines used 

 for carding, for printing, &c., objects of your predilection, 

 have not prevented pauperism from increasing and prop 

 agating itself. This fresh avowal will cost me but little. 

 Did any one recommend machines as a universal panacea ? 

 Was it ever maintained that they would have the un 

 heard-of property of discarding error and passion from 

 political assemblies ? that they would direct the counsel- 



