XIV PREFACE. 



population does not multiply according to the aug- 

 mented means of support, but according to the 

 additional use of machinery, and consequently at 

 a different ratio from that of the increase of food. 

 Montesquieu said long ago, les machines dont Vobjet 

 est d'abrdger Vart ne sont pas toujours utiles. More- 

 over, the people who are employed in a manufac- 

 tory are considered by their employers merely as 

 a part of the machine, and are treated in the same 

 way, being used only so long as they are fresh and 

 in vigour, and left to rot when their services are 

 no longer profitable to their master. Such people, 

 also, are for the most part under no head, have 

 no man to whose heart they can appeal, have 

 no master on whose sympathy they can draw. The 

 great mills are usually the property of shareholders 

 or companies, who necessarily delegate the manage- 

 ment to a clerk, whose duty it is to make the con- 

 cern most productive to his employers, without the 

 smallest reference to consequences amongst the 

 workmen. A great part of the sufferings of the 

 slaves in the West Indies are owing to similar 

 causes. The estates were seldom under the ma- 

 nagement of the real owners ; the greater part 

 were under the direction of trustees, mortgagees, 

 and creditors of various kinds, who necessarily ap- 

 pointed an overseer, whom they continually urged 

 to remit more money : he had no means of fulfilling 



