928 REPORT—1890. 
change among the various textile trades was discussed, especially with regard to the 
‘initial friction’ and the question whether interchange is becoming easier. 
He gave a similar analysis of a merchant’s business. Business power is rare, 
but to a very large extent unspecialised with regard to a particular business. 
So in many trades which have been taken over by machinery, less mere manual 
dexterity but more judgment and responsibility are wanted. These are rare 
qualities but not specialised. Hence their possessor is ‘ mobile.’ 
General result. Modern changes tend to divide up a process of manufacture 
into a number of detail processes of which oue man performs only one, but the 
various members of the group of workers producing a particular article become 
less and less specialised with regard to that article, and their range of mobility, 
which is narrowed as regards power of interchange among themselves, is widened 
as regards power of interchange with workers engaged in corresponding processes 
of other trades. Machinery often tends to facilitate this interchange by transforming 
different manufactures into different groupings of nearly identical detail process. 
Hence while dividing up employments on the one hand machinery reintegrates 
them on fresh lines. Thus the boundaries of trades and industries are shifting and 
industries regrouping themselves. Effect on apprenticeship and trade customs. 
The paper touched slightly on the simultaneous tendency to shorten the time 
necessary to learn a particular detail process, and so to increase the ease (though 
not always the practical opportunity) of interchange among different processes of 
the same trade. 
The paper with additions and appendices has been published as a monograph 
by the Toynbee Trustees (London: Frowde & Co. 1s. 6d.). 
3. Report of the Committee on the Teaching of Science in Elementary 
Schools——See Reports, p. 489. 
4, Report of the Committee on the Standard of Value. 
See Reports, p. 485. 
5. Report of the Committee on the Statistics of the Use of the Precious 
Metals.—See Reports, p. 498. 
6. On the Ideal Aim of the Economist. 
By Mrs. Vicror1a C. Woopuutt Martin. 
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10. 
The following Papers were read :— 
1. On the Drawbacks of Modern Economic Progress. By EH. L. K. Gonnzr, 
2. On some Typical Economic Fallacies made by Social Reformers. 
By L. L. Pricz, M.A. 
The paper was devoted to the examination of three characteristic errors of 
social reformers. Bagehot, in his ‘ Physics and Politics,’ had ascribed the success 
of Englishmen to the possession of the quality of ‘animated moderation ;’ and at 
the present time, while there was no doubt that the question of social reform was 
in a state of animation, it might be doubted whether it was characterised by 
a 
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