In this and other ways the general employment of labour is directly extended by machinery. At the samo time the application of machinery to existing branches of industry creates new trades and dis tributes capital Into other enterprises which afford employment for new descriptions of labour. A hundred examples of this fact might be cited ; of which railways and steam navigation are amongst. the most remarkable; but such examples will be superfluous if it can be shown that it is the necessary result of the use of machinery to apply capital to new enterprises. It has been said that machinery cheapens production by reducing the amount of labour expended upon it : it follows that a lees amount of capital with the aid of machinery will produce as much as a larger capital without such aid. A portion of capital Is thus disengaged, either for increased production in the rime trade, or for application to new speculations. In some way it must be employed, or it will yield no profit, and in some form or other It must be ultimately expended in labour. As long as a person can extend the accustomed operations of his own trade with a profit, be is dispose] to do so; but as soon as he finds them less profitable than other investments, he changes the direction of his capital, and seeks new modes of increasing his profits.
There is no truth more certain than that the employment of labour iw small or great Recording to the proportion which capital bears to the number of labourers. lapItal is the fund which supports labour, and which must employ it or be unproductive; and thus, if in any country capital be increasing more rapidly than the population, employment will be abundant and wages high; if less rapidly, employment will be scarce and wages low. In the one capitalists will be bidding high for labour; in the other, labourers will be bidding against each other for employment. Accumulation of capital is therefore highly con ducive to the interests of the labouring population generally, and the use of machinery is especially favourable to accumulation, as may be shown by a simple example. Suppose a man to have a capital of 10,0001., which ho is expending annually upon labour in a particular trade, and that his profits are 10 per cent, or 10001. a-year. Each year his whole capital is expended, and his means of accumulation are thus restricted to a portion of his annual profits only. But let him invent a machine to facilitate his business, and his position is im mediately clanged. If this machine should cost 50001., and the other 5000/. be still expended in labour, ho may be said to have saved one half of his entire capital in a single year ; for instead of spending the whole of it as before, in labour, he is possessed of a durable property which, at (a small annual cost, will last for ten or probably twenty years. Nor can it be said that this saving is effected at the expense of labour ; for the owner of the machine is placed in a new position in respect to his profits, which prevents him from securing to himself the difference between the amount paid now and that previously paid for labour. To gain a profit of 10 per cent it had been necessary for him, before the invention of the machine, to realise 11,0001. annually, being his whole capital and the profits upon it : but now, in order to obtain the same profit, it is sufficient if he realise 6500/. only : namely, 500/. profit upon his fixed capital of 5000l.; 500/. for repairs,
and wear and tear, calculated at 10 per cent. ; and 5500/. to replace the sum spent upon labour, with a profit of 10 per cent He would realise tho whole 11,000/. as before, if he were able; but he is re strained by competition, which levels the profits of trade. For some time he will most probably obtain more than 10 per cent profit, and so long as he is able to do this, his means of accumulating fresh capital in addition to his machine will be increased, which capital will be expended upon additional labour. But when his profits bad been reduced to their former level by competition, society has gained in the prico of his goods 4500/. a-year, being the differ ence between 11,000/. formerly realised by him, and 65001. his present return. But is this amount thus gained by society lost to the labourer I Unquestionably not. As a consumer, he participates in the advantage of low prices, while the amount Raved by the commu nity in the purchase of one commodity must be expended upon others which can only be produced by labour. It cannot be too often repeated, that all capital is ultimately expended upon labour ; and whether it be accumulated by individuals in large sums, or distributed in small por tions throughout the community, directly or indirectly it passes through the hands of those who labour. If a manufacturer accu mulates by means of higher profits, be employs more labour ; if the community save by low prices, they employ more labour in other forms. So long as the capital is in existence, it is certain to have an influence upon the general market for labour.
We are now speaking not of the interests of particular workmen to whose temporary sufferings caused by the use of machinery we have already adverted, but of the general and permanent interests of the working population of a country. As regards these, the statistics of British industry amply confirm all reasoning from principles, and prove beyond a doubt that machinery has had a beneficial influence upon the employment and wages of labour. Any one who will reflect upon the facts which have been noticed above, as disclosed by the Census [CENSUS], can scarcely fail to arrive at the conclusion that without machinery England could not have supported her present population, or could only have supported them in poverty and wretchedness. Nor must the degradation of a part of the manufacturing popula tion be thoughtlessly attributed to machinery, instead of to moral and social causes, which are independent of it. Into these causes it would be out of place, at present, to inquire ; but enough has been said to show, 1st, that machinery by increasing production multiplies the sources of enjoyment, and places them within the reach of a greater number of persona; and 2ndly, that by giving increased employment to labour it enables more persons to enjoy those com forts which it has itself created. These are the clerrients of social prosperity, and if evils have sprung up with it, like tares with wheat, it is not machinery which has caused them. 'Wherever the influence of machinery has been felt, wealth has advanced with rapid strides ; and though in too many cases religion, virtue, and enlightenment may have lagged behind, the tardiness of their progress is to be ascribed, not to machinery, but to the faulty institutions of men.