EFFECT OF MACHINERY ON LABOUR. 37

whether agricultural or manufacturing, a certain quantity of work which had required the labour of ten hands had suddenly come, by the use of a machine, to be performed by two, and that consequently eight men were thrown out of work. Could these eight men by any possibility view the machine that took the bread out of their mouths otherwise than as a curse? They had worked, and were willing to work, to gain an honest livelihood by the sweat of their brow; but here they were supplanted, ousted, and turned adrift into poverty and despair by this substitution of wood and iron for human hands and human industry. What could they see as the end of it?-ultimate advantage to working men? Certainly not. Nothing but (through no fault of theirs) destitute homes and starving children.

The rioters who, in 1779, destroyed Arkwright's mill were men whom the rapid introduction of machinery into the manufacture of cotton goods at that stirring period had thrown out of work. To these men the labour-saving processes adopted had brought misery and starvation. Take it from their point of view, what more could they see than this: that the means of earning their daily bread was taken from them, and that the cause of this was the use of machinery? Is it wonderful that they should have waged war against the machines to which they traced their sufferings? That their views were erroneous, and that the introduction of machinery has proved an immense benefit to the working class, is now all but universally admitted. But even now, is the process of reasoning that ex

plains in what way that benefit accrues to the working class obvious to everybody? We doubt it very much; and if our doubt be well founded, who shall blame the working man of a century ago for not seeing that which, even in the present day, is to many not obvious?

Of course, on the principles laid down in this work, the explanation is easy. Machinery largely increases the production of wealth; all that increased wealth is distributed and used; the greater the accumulation of capital, the greater the demand for labour, and the better its remuneration. But abstract considerations of this nature could not possibly enter the minds of the suffering men, and they were left to brood over their wrongs, and to seek redress in their own rough and lawless manner.

Moreover, it must be noted that, signal and permanent as are the benefits which labour-sellers derive from the wealth-producing power of machinery, it must necessarily, in the first instance, inflict some injury on a certain number of them for a short time. Some interval must elapse before those who are thrown out of work by the adoption of a new machine can dispose of their labour elsewhere, and the interim is necessarily a period of inconvenience, if not of suffering. True that the same amount is paid away in wages as before-indeed more; but the wages are no longer paid to the same labourers, or for the same kind of labour. The amount of wealth now produced by the labour of the ten men whom we suppose to have been engaged in a certain manufacture, and of whom eight were displaced by the adoption of a new machine,`

DISPLACEMENT OF LABOUR.

39

is considerably greater than it was before the change was made. For now, two produce as much as the ten did before, and all that the other eight produce, who now labour at other pursuits, is so much in addition. This increased wealth gives proportionately more for distribution among the producers of it.

The only drawback from the universal benefit accruing from this enlarged amount of wealth created, is the temporary displacement of a certain number of workers. who have to transfer their labour to other employers-perhaps to other occupations. But, ultimately, they, along with the rest of their class, largely profit by the increased demand for labour arising out of increased capital. A similar displacement, most frequently of capital as well as of labour, follows, or rather accompanies, every stage of scientific improvement or of social progress. In olden times, as in modern times, every step forward leaves some few persons behind, temporarily entangled in the old arrangements which have been departed from. Thousands of honest scribes, who, four centuries ago, gained a livelihood by copying and illuminating manuscripts, were rudely displaced by the invention of printing, and had to seek other fields for their labours. When, less than a century ago, wigs were discarded for natural hair, thousands of wigmakers, thrown out of work, had to devote themselves to other pursuits, and, meanwhile, suffered dire distress. So it was with the displacement of stage-coaches by railways, &c. &c.

Indeed, there will occur to the reader innu

merable instances, constantly arising, of similar displacements of capital and labour occasioned by acknowledged improvements, accompanied by the same loss or inconvenience to a certain portion of the community. But whereas the advantages of such improvements are permanent and universal, while the evil thereof is only temporary and partial, our duty is to submit to and sympathise with the latter, but by no means to falter in our adoption of the former. To do so would be a grievous mistake, and yet it is one frequently committed. Protective import duties are only another form of the principle which would compel the population to wear wigs in order to save a few barbers from the inconvenience of shifting their labour into other channels.

All labour-saving processes tend to the same end that is, to the production of a given quantity of wealth by means of the smallest possible expenditure of capital and labour. The application of the capital thus liberated, and of the labour thus saved, to other industries gives rise to a proportionate addition to the sum total of the world's wealth. There is in the aggregate no less labour employed, although less is needed for the production of a particular article, because the wage-fund is augmented thereby, not diminished, and the whole of it goes to the payment of wages-that is, to the employment of labour.

Some have argued that, since machinery supersedes and displaces a certain quantity of human labour, then, if the use of it were multiplied in all departments of industrial produc

ENOUGH FOR ALL IS THE DESIDERATUM. 41

tion, and if its application were, by scientific processes, to become universal, and thus (extreme hypothesis!) human wants were supplied without the agency of human labour, a large proportion of the working population would be redundant, and the pressure of competition among them would be so severe as to reduce wages to the lowest limit compatible with bare existence. The fallacy of this deduction is obvious. The very terms of the supposition-viz., that "human wants were supplied"-argue ample sufficiency for all, which is incompatible with the inferred destitution of the majority. The supposed universal application of machinery to the production of wealth implies the creation of at least as much wealth as was before produced by human labour, and therefore human wants would be supplied in at least the same abundance. The correct inference is that there would be sufficient supply for all, without subjecting, as now, the majority of mankind to the necessity of devoting a great portion of their existence to mere physical labour. Such a result would surely be beneficial, not injurious.

In order to make out that the result of the supposition would be detrimental to mankind, another assumption must be superadded, viz., that the wealth ample to supply human wants, thus created by machinery, would only be partially used for that purpose, and that the balance left, after supplying the wants of the minority, would, instead of being distributed among the majority, be either wilfully destroyed, or remain to rot undistributed! The first supposition is paradoxical enough, but the