cost any given production. The two great and engrossing objects of man, under all circumstances, seem to be, love and laziness. The latter is the origin of all machinery, from a hand-saw to a steam engine. There is a short way of dealing with the objectors to machinery, by asking them at what point they would stop? Annihilate the steam engine to day, and resort to hand spinning; break up your ploughs to-morrow, to betake yourselves to the spade; burn your errand carts the next day, to relieve the public porters. This is the natural order, if the principle be once adopted. We defy any one to assign any definite or intelligible limit. We may best view its operation in small and newly formed societies, and nothing appears clearer, that it is by machinery, and machinery only, that societies can possibly emerge from absolute barbarism, and cultivate any degree of refinement, civilization, or the arts. Here is a society of one hundred men; fifty employed in raising food, and fifty in the construction of habitations and other purposes necessary to sustain life upon any terms. One of the laborers invents the plough, and trains a bullock to the yoke, and twenty-five men are immediately, what is called, thrown out of work. The same supply of food is still raised for all, yet twenty-five men have to seek employment. The first thing is an improvement in clothing-cotton and woollen cloths supply the place of skins and hides. An unhappy wight stumbles on the power loom, and again throws other twelve weavers out the same food, the same clothes, as before being procured, and ready for the use of all. These twelve betake themselves to trades before unheard of; one carves chairs, another turns parson or poet, and finds employment for several to copy and sell his works. By-and-by the printing press is discovered; the copyists are thrown on the world, who again invent and practice some art or other, for the convenience or embellishment of life. Now what is the condition of the supposed society of one hundred men at last, when compared with its original condition? The same necessaries, that is, food and raiment of some kind, they perhaps had at first; but what was their barbarism, what were their lives? How has this change been produced but by machinery? Carry this out to any conceivable extent, and the advantage is still apparent. We challenge any anti-machinist, or Luddite of any kind, to point out at what degree of improved machinery, this supposed small colony ought to have stopped. Ought it to have been at the plough, at the loom, or at the printing press? Assign any limit, and you stop the progressive improvement, comfort, and happiness of that society of men. How can any one pronounce that a community is as refined, and the people as civilized, as they possibly can be? By what means is any progress to be made, but by the enlargement of certain numbers of men from works of mere necessity, to cultivate the arts which administer to, and are in fact, the very essence of refinement? Suppose every man in England could invent a machine, effectually to perform all the labor by which each now procures a living, where would be the mischief? We could all have what we now enjoy, the same mince pies, clothes, operas, and Inspectors, and yet possess our own time, which we might apply to some useful purpose, or write poetry, or walk out with Leigh Hunt to smell to dandelions on Hampstead Heath. Yes, says one, this sounds all very well in theory; it may do very well for your colony, your Robinson Crusoe and man Friday; but look at it in relation to the present state of England; look at depriving the poor of work, to fill the pockets of the rich machinist by inordinate profits; consider the gluts in the markets, which are occasioned by nothing but machinery, and a consequent over-production. These objections lead to all that we have briefly to say-machinery does not, in the first place, necessarily deprive the laborer of work, nor even of the same kind of work as before. Here is an article which every body would like to use or wear. Its price is such, that only one half of the nation can purchase it; a machine is made which saves half of the labor; the price is reduced to half, and all the nation now enjoy its use. There must be, in the first place, labor to make the machines: but putting this out of the question, the same number of laborers must be actually employed in the manufacture as before. One man, it is true, does the work of two, but then there is twice the previous consumption. This we know to be truth, ten times the number of men being now employed in the manufactures which use improved machinery, than before the machines were invented. The consumption, in fact, has, by reduction of price, been in a greater ratio than the quickness of production. Look at cotton twist and stockings; ask any practical man what number of people could possibly be employed upon the old system of manufacture, supposing the necessary and proportionate increase of price? It must be seen clearly, that an increase of consumption must follow a reduction of price, and that there is nothing which we eat, or wear, or use, but what tens of thousands would gladly use also, if their means were equal to the cost. Every man would wear a superfine coat if he could afford it: ten thousand of our fellow men are pining after silk stockings and kid gloves; the soul's delight of at least a million of our fair country-women would be a satin slip and lace tucker for their Christmas parties. But their last dress-makers will forbid them to think of it, and they languish with envy, and sigh in secret. Reduce the prices of these articles, and depend upon increasing the number of consumers. We find the next resort of your really dull and staunch anti-machinist is, that inventors of machines having secured a patent, do not make a reduction in price correspondent to the first cost, but make unusually large profits, and thus injury arises. In all savings of labor by machines, one of two things must happen; either a reduction of price to the consumer, or enormous profits to the producer. As a national affair, it is not of the consequence of a pin's head which of these events takes place. Suppose the consumer has the advantage, he saves 107. by a reduction in the price of stockings; he either consumes a greater quantity of the same kind in consequence of their cheapness, or expends his money in silk hose and velvet, which before he could not afford. In every case, whatever the saving may be, it is sure to be expended in labor in some shape or other. The same thing happens to the inventor. If he makes 1000l. by his machine, he either employs it in extending his trade, or he builds himself a house, or rides in a coach. Spent it will be, and turn and twist it as we may, it will find its way into the pocket of the laborer, of one working class of men or another. We must never forget the fact, that savings, by whomsoever made, are only saved in one way, to be expended in some kind or manner of pleasure and indulgence. It is not in the nature of man to have money and not spend it; on the contrary, it is much more genteel, and consistent with polite custom," to spend when we have it not. These, then, are two great points in the question. First, that a greater number of men have been, in fact, employed in the same manufactures where machinery has been introduced; and, secondly, that all savings made either by the producer or consumer by its introduction, must go either to encourage that branch of art, or some other; in either case, to cause a demand for labor. The point, however, which has, in some measure, fixed the economists, has been that of over-production-of glutting the markets with produce, and thus causing a ruinous and destructive fall of prices. We would say, with all humility, that this appears no difficulty whatever to our view of the question, because precisely the same effects might, and in fact do, happen in cases where no machines whatever are employed. If, for example, all stockings were to be woven by hand, every one will allow, that only a limited number of individuals could afford to purchase at the cost of hand labor. A certain profit is obtained by the manufacturer, which urges him to go on producing, to employ a greater number of hands in his manufacture. In a very short time he causes a glut; and to force a sale, he sells at ruinously low prices. The proper remedy for this is to manufacture less, or not to sell without a sure profit. In the present day, however, stockings are woven by machinery. Where does the case differ? The real consumption of that article is actually so much increased by the reduction in price, that makers are no more likely to overstock the market at those prices, than to overstock it at the greater prices of hand productions. If the manufacturer, whether by hand or machinery, cannot obtain a profit for his capital, he leaves off, and the evil is remedied. Our readers will see that the only temptation to produce, in either case, is profit; if that fail, the natural result is, less is manufactured, and the mischief is not greater in the case of machinery, than in articles of hand labor. We have had many sure proofs of this view in the present crisis of our commercial affairs. Is it only in arts and manufactures, where machines have so much multiplied, that distress has existed? How is it with our silk-weavers, carpenters, masons, engravers, and a thousand others, where no machine for the abridgment of labor has been introduced for the last century? The evils, from whatever causes arising, have not been greater among the machinists than among others, and for a very simple reason, because the number of consumers bore the same proportion to the capabilities of production of each. If the consumers of hand labor were ten, and machinery could produce ten times as much of any article, at one tenth of the price, the number of consumers would be increased to a hundred. We only wish to add a word or two, with regard to the existing distress among a very meritorious and most valuable class of mechanical laborers, our journeymen printers. We fear that many of these, like the folks of Elim Chapel, look upon the use of machinery, in their trade, as one great cause of their present want of employment. It is in no degree the fact. Destroy every Steam Printing-house to-morrow, and not one man more would be permanently employed. The only effect would be to raise the price of printing and books, and consequently to limit the number of purchasers so greatly as to bring the most lasting kind of distress upon the trade. Men who buy books, spend as much in books as they can afford; and, if the prices of printing were to be increased, nothing can be a greater mistake than to suppose that a greater sum of money would be drawn from the pockets of book-purchasers. We regret, most sincerely, to know the great number of excellent artisans, in this trade, who now want employment, and trust that any measures which are taking for their present relief may prove successful; at the same time we cannot for a moment admit, that any peculiar causes operate on this trade to make machinery an evil, which we have every reason to believe is so beneficial to every other. CŒUR DE LION'S SONG, ON ESCAPING FROM CAPTIVITY. Merrily, merrily, urge the boat, The morning rays appear; The lark's shrill songs in the breezes float, The gale blows fresh, the dew-drops bright Like diamonds sparkle in the light, And all around looks blithe and gay, To cheer us on our watery way. VOL. II. 2 B Merrily, merrily, speed our flight, Tho' the charms which round us rise to sight, No travellers we to roam, or rest Swiftly my bark cleave through the wave, On thee depends a throne or grave, Speed on, speed on, the foeman's chain Once more doth Freedom light mine eye,— Merrily, merrily, raise the song, The notes my harp hath heard so long, I change a prison for a throne, The Austrian chain for kingly zone,- The insults of a hireling slave, For shouts of welcome free and brave. Barons of England, do you still Revere your monarch's name? Regent of Austria, thou shalt mourn, NADAN. |