660 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 278. 



the people most advantaged by improvements 

 made by the inventor, and shows, ultimately, 

 that what he calls the ' Economic Paradox ' 

 finds place in all machine-reinforced industries. 

 This principle is : the costs being given in detail, 

 it will be found that, with stated costs, there is a 

 certain production which will give the largest 

 dividends. There is a 'golden mean,' as the 

 writer has been accustomed to call it, when de- 

 veloping a similar principle in the production 

 of power from the heat-engines, departing from 

 which, in any direction, efficiency will be sac- 

 rificed and the returns on the investment re- 

 duced. This is probably true of any one ele- 

 ment of production, varying alone. This eco- 

 nomic law is well illustrated in the preceding 

 case by the reversal of the ' law of supply and 

 demand,' as usually stated without qualification, 

 by the progress of invention and organization ; 

 giving increased employment by giving one man 

 the power to do the work of many, by raising 

 wages while increasing production and giving 

 enlarged profits while reducing prices ; extend- 

 ing markets faster than increased production 

 by labor-assisting machinery can supply them 

 and alfording employment to increasing num- 

 bers of workmen ; elevating them from the 

 lower to the higher strata, while giving work 

 of any stated amount, in product, to a fraction 

 of the number of men formerly required.* The 

 cost of plows, for example, as given by Mr. 

 Wright in his report, has fallen from $54 to 

 $8 and less, each ; while the time demanded 

 for production per unit, is reduced from 1180 

 hours to less than 40. Meantime wages have 

 doubled and quadrupled, and, even at the 

 higher price, labor is eight times as effective as 

 formerly. The user of the plow reduces cost 

 of labor, per acre of ground cultivated, from 

 $3.55 to $0.66 reinforcing his own strength by 

 the machine in nearly every operation, from 

 seedtime to harvest. 



The agriculturist, with the aid of machinery, 

 supplies butter of a perfectly uniform and bet- 

 ter quality, as an average, by the use of ma- 

 chinery, reducing costs, per 500 pounds, from 



* This principle was illustrated admirably in the 

 case of copper-production, where rising wages and 

 falling prices have continued for now many years. 

 See Science, Dee. 4, 1896, page 817.— E. H. T. 



$10.66 to $1.78. The number of butter- makers 

 has been enormously increased in this period, 

 while the product is made in one-tenth the time 

 and at one-sixth the cost of that of our grand- 

 fathers. 



Four hundred carriage-axles once cost, for 

 labor, $56.97, and now cost $8.20. Many more 

 men are employed in the industry and the 

 work is done ten times as fast and at one- 

 seventh the cost for work. Similarly, 1000 

 watch-movements once cost $80,822, and now 

 cost less than $1800 ; while the number of 

 operations has been quadrupled and the time 

 reduced to one-thirtieth. Five hundred yards 

 of cloth, once costing $135, hand-made, now 

 cost $6.81 ; 100 pairs of boots then cost $408, 

 and now $35, hand-made and machine-made, 

 respectively ; time required is reduced, on the 

 cloth, to one-half of one per cent, of its former 

 value and, in the case of the boots, to ten per- 

 cent. On 20,000 nails, $20 were once expended 

 and now but 29 cents ; while the time was then 

 150 times as great and the cost about 100 times 

 as large as to-day. These are examples of the 

 drift of the inquiry and its outcome. 



It is thus evident that the use of labor-assist- 

 ing machinery — less appropriately called 'labor- 

 saving' — has permitted an enormous increase 

 in the number of people employed in manufac- 

 turing, and, while increasing the number of 

 operations in the making of each article, has 

 reduced the time required to a fraction, often a 

 minute fraction, of that formerly demanded, 

 and has decreased the costs of product enor- 

 mously. Meanwhile, it is known that the 

 wages paid for labor in these directions have 

 greatly increased and, with reduction of costs, 

 their purchasing power has been, at the same 

 time, immensely enlarged. Similar observa- 

 tions in France, reported by M. Levasseur, 

 give precisely the same general results. 



" Abondance, puissance, economie : voila done 

 trois effets de I 'emploi des machines qui sonts evi- 

 dents," concludes M. Levasseur. 



Mr. Wright's own summary of his work 

 in this field adds the following deductions : 

 "Machinery has established, or brought into 

 activity, new principles in statute law ; it has 

 wrought many changes in common-law doctrine. 

 It has increased opportunities to enjoy art and 



