PERILS, — SOCIALISM. 147 



But since the introduction of machinery, a considerable 

 capital is necessary to make a beginning. It is found 

 that other things being equal, the small factory can 

 not compete with the large one, hence fortunes are 

 massed and factories become immense. A mechanic, 

 by some happy invention or through remarkable abili- 

 ties, may yet become a capitalist and an employer, but 

 the condition of the average operative to-day is separated 

 from that of his employer by an almost impassable 

 gulf. 



The immense production which has followed the 

 advent of machinery has greatly raised the standard of 

 living in all classes of society. There has not been a cor- 

 responding rise in wages, though they are much higher 

 now than they were a hundred or fifty years ago. This 

 discrepancy between wants and wages results in condi- 

 tions which tend to form among operatives an heredi- 

 tary class. In Mr.ssachusetts, where statistics of labor 

 are the most elaborate published, the average working 

 man is unable to support the average working man's 

 family. In 1883 the average expenses of working men's 

 lamilies, in that state, were $754.42, while the earnings 

 of workmen who were heads of families averaged $558.- 

 68.1 This means that the average working man had to 

 call on his wife and children to assist in earning their 

 support. We accordingly find that, in the manufactures 

 and mechanical industries of the state, in 1883, there 

 were engaged 28,714 children under sixteen years of age. 

 Of the average working man's family 32.44 per cent, of 

 the support fell upon the children and mother. I am 

 not aware that the condition of the working man is at 

 all exceptional in Massachusetts. ' ' In their last report, 

 the Illinois Commissioners of Labor Statistics say that 

 their tables of wages and cost of living are repre- 

 sentative onl}^ of intelligent working men, who make 

 the most of their advantages, and do not reach ' the con- 

 fines of that world of helpless ignorance and destitution 



1 Fifteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Statistics, p. 4G4. 



