The flint and fish-bone of the savage, the tool of the workman, and the steam-engine of the manufacturer, have but one common object— to save the labour of man and to render it more productive : but that is the most perfect invention which attains this object the most effectually. Can any one doubt the advantage of abundant production ? It needs but a few words to point out its benefit. Whether it be for evil or for good, we are not satisfied with the enjoyment of the common necessaries of life; we all desire comforts, luxuries, and ornament ; and in proportion as we desire them do we become civilised. There are many who sneer at civilisation, and unhappily it has its vices, its follies, and its absurdities ; but it seems the law of our nature to advance to that state, and with the increase of artificial wants our intellects become more active and enlightened, refinement of manners succeeds to barbarism, and all those moral qualities for which man is distinguished, become developed. We may conceive some Utopia in which all the noble parts of man's nature are cultivated, while his wants remain simple and easily satisfied, but the world we live in pre sents another picture. We might wish it were otherwise ; but it is in vain to deny that refinement is the accompaniment and, in some degree, the consequence of riches, and brutality the condition of those people who have not been elevated by the increase of wealth. It follows therefore, that to multiply the objects of comfort and enjoyment which human industry can produce, is to improve the condition of mankind, to raise them in the scale of moral and intellectual being, and to minister to their enjoyment of life. It is quite consistent to deprecate the vices and follies which are ever associated with our craving for new possessions, while we observe the benefits resulting from the desire to progress in improvement. Throughout the world good and evil are found side by side ; but the good, as we would fain believe, preponderates. When once it is admitted that men are to be decently homed and clothed, and are to surround themselves with such comforts as they can obtain, it is clear that the more easily they can obtain them, and the more generally such possessions are, enjoyed, the more completely are the objects of civilised life secured. If all men could obtain them easily, there would be no poverty, and infinitely less vice. Machinery, by diminishing the amount of labour required for the production of commodities, lowers their price and renders them more universally accessible to all classes of society. Working-men no longer toll for the rich alone, but they participate in the results of their own industry. If they desire such luxuries, "purple and fine linen" are not beyond their reach ; and their dwellings are more commodious and often more elegant than were the houses of the rich three centuries ago. if this increased facility of acquiring the comforts of life had been accom panied by greater prudence and frugality, we believe that the beneficial results of machinery would have been conspicuously shown by the improved condition of all the working-classes of this country. Cheap production is more beneficial to the poor than to the rich. The rich man is certain of gratifying most of his wants, but the poor man is con stantly obliged to forego one enjoyment in order to obtain another. If his shoes or his coat be worn out, his dinners must be stinted perhaps until he can pay for a fresh supply; and thus, unless his wages be reduced in consequence of the cheapness of such articles, it is beyond all question that cheapness is an extraordinary benefit to him, the money which he saves In the purchase of one cheap article is laid out upon another, and without privation or suffering he satisfies the wants which custom has made imperative. In short he is no longer poor. These facts are undeniable; but it is alleged that machinery not only makes articles abundant and cheap, but multiplies them beyond the wants of the world, and by causing gluts brings ruin and misery upon the working classes. For reasons explained elsewhere (DEstesrn AND SUPPLY) a universal glut of all commodities is impossible : the more men produce, the more they have to oiler in exchange, and their wants are only limited by their means of purchasing. But particular commodities are frequently produced in excess, and a glut of the market ensues. In causing such gluts machinery is a powerful agent, but only in the same manner as all labour would be, if applied in excess. The results would be precisely the same if too many men were employed in any department of industry ; they would produce more than there was a demand for, and their goods would fall in value or be unsaleable. Commodities produced by machinery are subject to the same laws as govern all other commodities. If the supply of them exceed the demand, they are depreciated In value ; but the power of producing with facility dues not necessarily occasion an excess of pro duction : it must be applied with caution, and its use be properly learned by experience. Suppose that the soil of any isolated country wee extraordinarily fertile and the population very small ; but that without considering these' circumstances the people were to cultivate the whole of their land and bestow upon it all their skill and labour.
An excess of food would be the result—more than could be eaten within the year ; much would be wasted or sold without profit, and much laid up in store for another season. The husbandinen would be disappointed at the unfortunate results of their industry, but would they complain of the fertility of the soil ? It would not be the soil that had caused the glut, but their own misapplied exertions; and so it is with machinery, which like a fertile soil gives forth abundance : its capabilities are known and its advantages ought to be appreciated; but if its productiveness be brought into excessive activity, it causes the evils of a glut.
The influence of machinery upon the production and consumption of commodities need not be followed any further. It increases the com mon stock of wealth in the world and is capable of multiplying inde finitely the sources of human enjoyment. But these benefits will be neutralised if, while it cheapens production, it has a tendency to diminish the means of employment for the people, and lower 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 suffering 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 labour, 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 duration. H the invention of the machine caused no more production than the labour of the workmen had previously accomplished, the labour of a certain number of men would be permanently displaced : 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 in creased supply is thus called for, and more workmen are again required in the trade. In this manner the demand for increased production corrects the tendency which machinery would otherwise have to dis place labour permanently. Even the temporary displacement which frequently occurs is less extensive than might be supposed. Machiues are rarely invented which at once dispense with many workmen. 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 oommoditics were not increased, the dis placement of labour would be very limited and deferred to a distant period : but as an increased demand 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 of improved machinery than before.
Of this fact we shall offer some examples 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 machinery : 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 con tinued 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 besde his garden. His own ignorance or obstinacy, and not the water-wheel, 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 permanent displacement of labour by machinery, and if it be con tended that it is the natural result of machinery to diminish employ ment 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 increasing, 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 manufacture of cotton, wool, and silk, and nowhere has the population increased so rapidly as in the principal seats of these manufactures.