The influence of machinery upon the production and consumption of commodi ties need not be followed any further. It increases the common stock of wealth in the world and is capable of multiplying indefinitely the sources of human enjoy ment. But these benefits will be neu tralized if, while it cheapens production, it has a tendency to diminish the means of employment for the people and the wages of labour ;—and this leads us to the second part of our inquiry.
The invention of a machine which should immediately do the work of many men employed in a particular trade would certainly, in the first instance, diminish employment in that trade. Several men would be turned off to seek employment in other trades, and much individual suf fering would be occasioned. There have been frequent instances of such a result, and so far as the immediate interests of the particular sufferers are concerned, it is an evil which cannot be too much lamented. In their case machinery is like a rival bidding against their la bour, and is as injurious to them as if a fresh set of workmen had supplanted them in the service of their employer. But great as this 'evil is (and we would not underrate it) it is of comparatively rare occurrence and of short dura tion. If the invention of the machine caused no more production than the la bour of the workmen had previously ac complished, the labour of a certain num ber of men would be permanently dis placed : but as an equal quantity of goods is produced at a less cost of labour, their price is reduced and their consumption consequently encouraged. An increased supply is thus called for and more work men are again required in the trade. In this manner the demand for increased pro duction corrects the tendency which ma chinery would otherwise have to displace labour permanently. Even the tempo rary displacement which frequently oc curs is less extensive than might be sup posed. Machines are rarely invented which at once dispense with many work men. They are at first imperfect, and of limited power : they make the labour of the workmen more efficient ; but do not become substitutes for labour. Thus, even if the demand for commodities were not increased, the displacement of labour would be very limited and deferred to a distant period: but as an increased de mand almost invariably follows every successive improvement in machinery, it will be found, practically, that more operatives are employed in every branch of manufacture, after the introduction ,f improved machinery than before.
Of this fact we shall offer some ex amples presently : but here it may be necessary to allude to the case of the hand-loom weavers, which is constantly adduced in proof of the supposed evils of machinery. Their unhappy condition can scarcely be overstated, nor can it be denied that it has been caused by ma chinery : but it must be recollected that while they have vainly contended against machinery—like pigmies against a giant —hundreds of thousands of other classes, unaccustomed to the labour of operatives, have gained a profitable employment by working with it, in the same trade as themselves. No one can suppose that the
labour of the hands could compete with the power of steam, and the real cause of their distress is, that instead of adapting the form of their industry to the altered circumstances of their trade, they have continued to work, like an Indian caste, with the same rude implements which their fathers used before them. Their case is the same as that of a miller who should persist in grinding corn by hand, while his neighbours were building mills upon a rapid stream which ran beside his garden. His own ignorance or obstinacy, and not the stream, would be the cause of the failure of his trade.
If the case of the hand-loom weavers be adduced as an example of the perma nent displacement of labour by ma chinery, and if it be contended that it is the natural result of machinery to di minish employment in other trades, in the same manner, we must necessarily infer that wherever machinery has been largely introduced into any trade, the number of persons supported by it must have been diminished. We should infer that the agricultural population of this country must have been rapidly increas ing, while the population engaged in those branches of manufacture in which steam-power is used must have been falling off or increasing less rapidly. The correctness of such an inference may be estimated from the following facts :— In no trades has machinery been so extensively introduced as in the manufac ture of cotton, wool, and silk, and no where has the population increased so rapidly as in the principal seats of these manufactures. Between 1801 and 1841, Manchester increased in population from 90,399 to 296,183, or 227.5 per cent. : Liverpool (whose prosperity has been caused by the cotton trade) increased, in the same period, from 79,722 to 264,298, or 231'5 per cent.: Leeds, from 53,162 to 151,874, or 185.6 per cent,: Bradford (York), from 6393 to 34,560, or 440•5 per cent.: Bolton, from 17,416 to 49,763, or 185.7 per cent. : Huddersfield, from 7268 to 25,068, or 244.3 per cent.: Macclesfield from 8743 to 24,137, or 176 per cent.: and Dukiufield from 1737 to 22,394, or 1189 per cent. In Scotland the same re sults have followed from the use of ma chinery. Between 1801 and 1841 Glas gow increased from 77,385 to 274,533, or 254 per cent. : Paisley, from 31,179 to 60,487, or 94 per cent.: and Greenock, from 17,458 to 36,936, or 111.5 per cent.