MACHINERY, POLITICAL ECONOMY OF (ante). The various questions that have from time to time arisen concerning the relation of machine labor to human labor have been entertained generally on a basis of pure speculation, owing to the absence of statistics whereupon to base positive reasoning. Of course, in the consideration of such a subject, the advocates of the largest use of machinery have the advantage. The bless ings of the application of power to the reduction of human labor are prominent and undeniable. The multiplication of manufactures through the use of so powerful a force is a fact which cannot be gainsaid. The reduction of the possibilities of art to an auto matic basis, thus relieving the individual mind from tension and the individual morality from responsibility, offers attractions. In the face of the absence of statistical evidence to the contrary, the absolute and positive deductions to be made from observation alone are all in favor of the most widespread employment of steam-power and machinery. It has, therefore, been comparatively easy for the advocates of the largest possible expression of mechanical force in manufacture, to formulate statements as argument, strongly sustaining their view of the question, and against which no well-founded objec tion could be made. Such statements have gradually assumed the character of the following, propositions: lst, that so-called "labor-saving" machinery enables the laborer to save his muscle and improve his mind; 2d, that it lowers the price of luxuries, and makes them measurably attainable by the laboring classes; 3d, that while displacing certain kinds of labor, it creates a necessity for certain other kinds, thus bring,ing about merely a change of relation and not of existence; 4th, it enables the prosecuting of vast enterprises, involving only the concentration of capital; 5th, it increases the capacity for foreign trade; Gth, it favors the laborer by procuring for him higher wages with greater purchasing power than were possessed by his forefathers. In support of these propo sitions, those who make them offer evidence which is patent to all as a 'natter of universal observation. As simple statements, taken by theinselves, they arc undeniable. Their acceptance involves, also, by a process of inexorable logic, the acceptance of the largest possible increase of mechanical power and machinery as beneficent agents in the con stant improvement of the condition of the race.
But exactly here arises the action of a principle which has been fairly enunciated by Bagehot, in Ins Physks and Polities, to the effect that the tendency of reaction in natural law, which becomes potent when this is carried to an extreme, is, first, to bring about an equilibrium of conditions—which is dangerous; and, next, to produce a preponderance in the exercise of force in. one direction or another—which is hurtful. The simplest form of expression of this principle is found in the conditions of life and activity as applied to every class of existence, in the threefold movement of growth, maturity, and decay. Its more complicated expression is the result of an abnormal and artificial activity; and this, it has beemclaimei, is incidental to the over-use of machinery: and the recognition .of this principle, it is claimed, establishes the possibility of such an over-use, and fur nishes the first logical argument against the propositions advanced by the advocates of the largest possible employment of machinery. The application of the laws of mechanics to the construction of machinery dates back in positive history to about the 3d c. u.c. There are also hints at the existence of mechanism of various kinds at a much earlier period among oriental nations. It is worth remarking that the discoveries and inven tions prior to the middle of the last century were all in the direction of aiding niankind in their labors, and that it was not until the first application of machinery to manufac tures—in the period between 1690 and 1750—that this condition was changed, and that .of saving labor contemplated. It is, however, a fact, that in 1618 a patent (number 6) was granted iu England to David Ramsey and Thomas Wildgosse, which included in its specifications engines for plowing without horses or oxen, and for raising water to great heights; and a plan for making boats run "as swifte in calmes and more sail in stormes then boats full sayled in Greate Wynes." But of this and other inventions of the 16th and 17th centuries, there was no recorded result of " labor-saving." Half a cen tury- ago, Thomas Carlyle discerned a condition whose continued existence has since given occasion for much discussion of the political economy of machinery. Then he
wrote: " Cotton cloth is already twopence a yard lower, and yet bare backs were never more numerous among us. Let inventive men cease to spend their existence incessantly ,contriving how cotton can be made cheaper; and try to invent, a little, how cotton at its present cheapness could be somewhat justlier divided among us." Following him, Thomas Love Peacock, an English author of distinction, wrote as follows: " Ports resounding with life, in other words, with noise and drunkenness, the mingled din of .avarice, intemperance, and prostitution! Profound researches, scientific inventions, to what end? To teach the art of living on a little? To disseminate liberty, independence, health? No! to multiply factitious desire, to stimulate depraved appetites, to invent linnatural wants, to heap up incense on the shrine of luxury, and accumulate expedients of selfish and ruinous profusion. Complicated machinery: behold its blessings! Twenty years ago, at the door of every cottage, sat the good woman with her spinning-wheel. The children, if not more profitably employed than in gathering health and sticks, at least laid in a stock of health and strength to sustain the labor of maturer years. Where is the spinuing-wheel now, and every simple and insulated occupation of the indus trious cottage? Wherever this boasted machinery is established, the children of the poor are death-doomed froin their cradles." Next Emerson sounded a warning note: " A sleep creeps over the great functions of man. Enthusiasm goes out. In its stead, a low prudence seeks to hold society stanch, but its arms are too short; cordage and machinery never supply the place of life." And then John Ruskin, whose whole lifetime has been devoted to the exposure of error, the annihilation of sham, and the rooting-up of that which was untruthful, wrote in this wise: "If you find in the city you live in, that everything which human hands .and arms are able, and human mind willing to do—of pulling, pushing, carrying, mak ing, or cleaning—is done by machinery, you will come to understand what I have never yet been able to beat, with any quantity of verbal hammering, into my readers' heads, that :as long as living breath-engines and their living souls and muscles stand idle in the .streets, to dig coal out of pits to drive dead steam engines is an absurdity, waste, and wickedness." It is thus obvious that to certain minds, and these of the deepest and clearest, the liceepted and apparently obvious position of machinery in its relation to human labor .has appeared to be at least doubtful. And this conclusion is not confined to the minds .of statesmen and political economists. The instinct of the laboring-class scented a dan gerous enemy from the period of the first application of power to machinery. The his .tory of manufacturing in Great Britain, France, and Germany, from the date of the first intervention of this force, is pointed by constantly recurring periods of antagonism between the laborer and the machine. Between the political economist and the hand -worker there is a wide distance, which was bridged over in this instance by authors in ,every department of literature, and orators upon every subject. Adam Smith published his Inquiry into the _Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations in 1766, at which date .the use of machinery with the application of water-power was prevalent in England. In the work above-named, he says: " The liberal reward of labor, as it is the natural ,e1Tect, so it is the natural symptom of increasing national wealth. The scanty mainte mance of the laboring poor, on the other hand, is the natural symptom that things are at a stand, and their standing condition that they are going fast backward." This being the fact, the relative condition of wages in connection with the employ ment and non-employment of machinery becomes an important factor in the question; so also does the relation of the product of machine-labor to capital; and no less the char acter of the product of machine-lahor,'as to whether it be of a better quality than that which can be produced by hand-labor. And the further question arises, whether the acknowledged increase of power to export manufactured articles, the result of the extended use of maninery, be economically beneficial to a country. All these points :are to be eonsidered—with others—in the endeavor to reach a just conclusion as to the main question. It is interesting to note that each of them has been considered--sepa rately—by men eminent iu different departnieuts of learning. By combining conclusions formed under such circumstances,.it is priletictible to gain an expression of opinion which cannot fail to be of value.