On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures

2006-09-11T02:37:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER 35.

2006-09-11T02:27:00.001-07:00

On the Future Prospects of Manufactures, as Connected with
Science

453. In reviewing the various processes offered as
illustrations of those general principles which it has been the
main object of the present volume to support and establish, it is
impossible not to perceive that the arts and manufactures of the
country are intimately connected with the progress of the severer
sciences; and that, as we advance in the career of improvement,
every step requires, for its success, that this connection should
be rendered more intimate.

The applied sciences derive their facts from experiment; but
the reasonings, on which their chief utility depends, are the
province of what is called abstract science. It has been shown,
that the division of labour is no less applicable to mental
productions than to those in which material bodies are concerned;
and it follows, that the efforts for the improvement of its
manufactures which any country can make with the greatest
probability of success, must arise from the combined exertions of
all those most skilled in the theory, as well as in the practice
of the arts; each labouring in that department for which his
natural capacity and acquired habits have rendered him most fit.

454. The profit arising from the successful application to
practice of theoretical principles, will, in most cases, amply
reward, in a pecuniary sense, those by whom they are first
employed; yet even here, what has been stated with respect to
patents, will prove that there is room for considerable amendment
in our legislative enactments: but the discovery of the great
principles of nature demands a mind almost exclusively devoted to
such investigations; and these, in the present state of science,
frequently require costly apparatus, and exact an expense of time
quite incompatible with professional avocations. It becomes,
therefore, a fit subject for consideration, whether it would not
be politic in the State to compensate for some of those
privations, to which the cultivators of the higher departments of
science are exposed; and the best mode of effecting this
compensation, is a question which interests both the philosopher
and the statesman. Such considerations appear to have had their
just influence in other countries, where the pursuit of science
is regarded as a profession, and where those who are successful
in its cultivation are not shut out from almost every object of
honourable ambition to which their fellow countrymen may aspire.
Having, however, already expressed some opinion upon these
subjects in another publication,(1*) I shall here content myself
with referring to that work.

455. There was, indeed, in our own country, one single
position to which science, when concurring with independent
fortune, might aspire, as conferring rank and station, an office
deriving, in the estimation of the public, more than half its
value from the commanding knowledge of its possessor; and it is
extraordinary, that even that solitary dignity--that barony by
tenure in the world of British science--the chair of the Royal
Society, should have been coveted for adventitious rank. It is
more extraordinary, that a Prince, distinguished by the liberal
views he has invariably taken of public affairs--and eminent for
his patronage of every institution calculated to alleviate those
miseries from which, by his rank, he is himself exempted--who is
stated by his friends to be the warm admirer of knowledge, and
most anxious for its advancement, should have been so imperfectly
informed by those friends, as to have wrested from the head of
science, the only civic wreath which could adorn its brow.(2*)

In the meanwhile the President may learn, through the only
medium by which his elevated station admits approach, that those
evils which were anticipated from his election, have not proved
to be imaginary, and that the advantages by some expected to
result from it, have not yet become apparent. It may be right
also to state, that whilst many of the inconveniences, which have
been experienced by the President of the Royal Society, have
resulted from the conduct of his own supporters, those who were
compelled to differ from him, have subsequently offered no
vexatious opposition: they wait in patience, convinced that the
force of truth must ultimately work its certain, though silent
course; not doubting that when His Royal Highness is correctly
informed, he will himself be amongst the first to be influenced
by its power.

456. But younger institutions have arisen to supply the
deficiencies of the old; and very recently a new combination,
differing entirely from the older societies, promises to give
additional steadiness to the future march of science. The British
Association for the Advancement of Science, which held its first
meeting at York(3*) in the year 1831, would have acted as a
powerful ally, even if the Royal Society were all that it might
be: but in the present state of that body such an association is
almost necessary for the purposes of science. The periodical
assemblage of persons, pursuing the same or different branches of
knowledge, always produces an excitement which is favourable to
the development of new ideas; whilst the long period of repose
which succeeds, is advantageous for the prosecution of the
reasonings or the experiments then suggested; and the recurrence
of the meeting in the succeeding year, will stimulate the
activity of the enquirer, by the hope of being then enabled to
produce the successful result of his labours. Another advantage
is, that such meetings bring together a much larger number of
persons actively engaged in science, or placed in positions in
which they can contribute to it, than can ever be found at the
ordinary meetings of other institutions, even in the most
populous capitals; and combined effort towards any particular
object can thus be more easily arranged.

457. But perhaps the greatest benefit which will accrue from
these assemblies, is the intercourse which they cannot fail to
promote between the different classes of society. The man of
science will derive practical information from the great
manufacturers the chemist will be indebted to the same source for
substances which exist in such minute quantity, as only to become
visible in most extensive operations--and persons of wealth and
property, resident in each neighbourhood visited by these
migratory assemblies, will derive greater advantages than either
of those classes, from the real instruction they may procure
respecting the produce and manufactures of their country, and the
enlightened gratification which is ever attendant on the
acquisition of knowledge.(4*)

458. Thus it may be hoped that public opinion shall be
brought to bear upon the world of science; and that by this
intercourse light will be thrown upon the characters of men, and
the pretender and the charlatan be driven into merited obscurity.
Without the action of public opinion, any administration, however
anxious to countenance the pursuits of science, and however ready
toreward, by wealth or honours, those whom they might think most
eminent, would run the risk of acting like the blind man recently
couched, who, having no mode of estimating degrees of distance,
mistook the nearest and most insignificant for the largest
objects in nature: it becomes, therefore, doubly important, that
the man of science should mix with the world.

459. It is highly probable that in the next generation, the
race of scientific men in England will spring from a class of
persons altogether different from that which has hitherto
scantily supplied them. Requiring, for the success of their
pursuits, previous education, leisure, and fortune, few are so
likely to unite these essentials as the sons of our wealthy
manufacturers, who, having been enriched by their own exertions,
in a field connected with science, will be ambitious of having
their children distinguished in its ranks. It must, however, be
admitted, that this desire in the parents would acquire great
additional intensity, if worldly honours occasionally followed
successful efforts; and that the country would thus gain for
science, talents which are frequently rendered useless by the
unsuitable situations in which they are placed.

460. The discoverers of iodine and bromine, two substances
hitherto undecompounded, were both amongst the class of
manufacturers, one being a maker of saltpetre at Paris, the other
a manufacturing chemist at Marseilles; and the inventor of
balloons filled with rarefied air, was a paper manufacturer near
Lyons. The descendants of Mongolfier, the first aerial traveller,
still carry onthe establishment of their progenitor, and combine
great scientific knowledge with skill in various departments of
the arts, to which the different branches of the family have
applied themselves.

461. Chemical science may, in many instances, be of great
importance to the manufacturer, as well as to the merchant. The
quantity of Peruvian bark which is imported into Europe is very
considerable; but chemistry has recently proved that a large
portion of the bark itself is useless. The alkali Quinia which
has been extracted from it, possesses all the properties for
which the bark is valuable, and only forty ounces of this
substance, when in combination with sulphuric acid, can be
extracted from a hundred pounds of the bark. In this instance
then, with every ton of useful matter, thirty-nine tons of
rubbish are transported across the Atlantic.

The greatest part of the sulphate of quinia now used in this
country is imported from France, where the low price of the
alcohol, by which it is extracted from the bark, renders the
process cheap; but it cannot be doubted, that when more settled
forms of government shall have given security to capital, and
when advancing civilization shall have spread itself over the
states of Southern America, the alkaline medicine will be
extracted from the woody matter by which its efficacy is
impaired, and that it will be exported in its most condensed
form.

462. The aid of chemistry, in extracting and in concentrating
substances used for human food, is of great use in distant
voyages, where the space occupied by the stores must be
economized with the greatest care. Thus the essential oils supply
the voyager with flavour; the concentrated and crystallized
vegetable acids preserve his health; and alcohol, when
sufficiently diluted, supplies the spirit necessary for his daily
consumption.

463. When we reflect on the very small number of species of
plants, compared with the multitude that are known to exist,
which have hitherto been cultivated, and rendered useful to man;
and when we apply the same observation to the animal world, and
even to the mineral kingdom, the field that natural science opens
to our view seems to be indeed unlimited. These productions of
nature, varied and innumerable as they are, may each, in some
future day, become the basis of extensive manufactures, and give
life, employment, and wealth, to millions of human beings. But
the crude treasures perpetually exposed before our eyes, contain
within them other and more valuable principles. All these,
likewise, in their numberless combinations, which ages of labour
and research can never exhaust, may be destined to furnish, in
perpetual succession, new sources of our wealth and of our
happiness. Science and knowledge are subject, in their extension
and increase, to laws quite opposite to those which regulate the
material world. Unlike the forces of molecular attraction, which
cease at sensible distances; or that of gravity, which decreases
rapidly with the increasing distance from the point of its
origin; the further we advance from the origin of our knowledge,
the larger it becomes, and the greater power it bestows upon its
cultivators, to add new fields to its dominions. Yet, does this
continually and rapidly increasing power, instead of giving us
any reason to anticipate the exhaustion of so fertile a field,
place us at each advance, on some higher eminence, from which the
mind contemplates the past, and feels irresistibly convinced,
that the whole, already gained, bears a constantly diminishing
ratio to that which is contained within the still more rapidly
expanding horizon of our knowledge.

464. But, if the knowledge of the chemical and physical
properties of the bodies which surround us, as well as our
imperfect acquaintance with the less tangible elements, light,
electricity, and heat, which mysteriously modify or change their
combinations, concur to convince us of the same fact; we must
remember that another and a higher science, itself still more
boundless, is also advancing with a giant's stride, and having
grasped the mightier masses of the universe, and reduced their
wanderings to laws, has given to us in its own condensed
language, expressions, which are to the past as history, to the
future as prophecy. It is the same science which is now preparing
its fetters for the minutest atoms that nature has created:
already it has nearly chained the ethereal fluid, and bound in
one harmonious system all the intricate and splendid phenomena of
light. It is the science of calculation--which becomes
continually more necessary at each step of our progress, and
which must ultimately govern the whole of the applications of
science to the arts of life.

465. But perhaps a doubt may arise in the mind, whilst
contemplating the continually increasing field of human
knowledge, that the weak arm of man may want the physical force
required to render that knowledge available. The experience of
the past, has stamped with the indelible character of truth, the
maxim, that knowledge is power. It not merely gives to its
votaries control over the mental faculties of their species, but
is itself the generator of physical force. The discovery of the
expansive power of steam, its condensation, and the doctrine of
latent heat, has already added to the population of this small
island, millions of hands. But the source of this power is not
without limit, and the coal-mines of the world may ultimately be
exhausted. Without adverting to the theory, that new deposits of
that mineral are not accumulating under the sea, at the estuaries
of some of our larger rivers; without anticipating the
application of other fluids requiring a less supply of caloric
than water--we may remark that the sea itself offers a perennial
source of power hitherto almost unapplied. The tides, twice in
each day, raise a vast mass of water, which might be made
available for driving machinery. But supposing heat still to
remain necessary, when the exhausted state of our coal fields
renders it expensive: long before that period arrives, other
methods will probably have been invented for producing it. In
some districts, there are springs of hot water, which have flowed
for centuries unchanged in temperature. In many parts of the
island of Ischia, by deepening the sources of the hot springs
only a few feet, the water boils; and there can be little doubt
that, by boring a short distance, steam of high pressure would
issue from the orifice.(5*)

In Iceland, the sources of heat are still more plentiful; and
their proximity to large masses of ice, seems almost to point out
the future destiny of that island. The ice of its glaciers may
enable its inhabitants to liquefy the gases with the least
expenditure of mechanical force; and the heat of its volcanoes
may supply the power necessary for their condensation. Thus, in a
future age, power may become the staple commodity of the
Icelanders, and of the inhabitants of other volcanic
districts;(6*) and possibly the very process by which they will
procure this article of exchange for the luxuries of happier
climates may, in some measure, tame the tremendous element which
occasionally devastates their provinces.

466. Perhaps to the sober eye of inductive philosophy, these
anticipations of the future may appear too faintly connected with
the history of the past. When time shall have revealed the future
progress of our race, those laws which are now obscurely
indicated, will then become distinctly apparent; and it may
possibly be found that the dominion of mind over the material
world advances with an everaccelerating force.

Even now, the imprisoned winds which the earliest poet made
the Grecian warrior bear for the protection of his fragile bark;
or those which, in more modern times, the Lapland wizards sold to
the deluded sailors--these, the unreal creations of fancy or of
fraud, called at the command of science, from their shadowy
existence, obey a holier spell: and the unruly masters of the
poet and the seer become the obedient slaves of civilized man.

Nor have the wild imaginings of the satirist been quite
unrivalled by the realities of after years: as if in mockery of
the College of Laputa, light almost solar has been extracted from
the refuse of fish; fire has been sifted by the lamp of Davy, and
machinery has been taught arithmetic instead of poetry.

467. In whatever light we examine the triumphs and
achievements of our species over the creation submitted to its
power, we explore new sources of wonder. But if science has
called into real existence the visions of the poet--if the
accumulating knowledge of ages has blunted the sharpest and
distanced the loftiest of the shafts of the satirist, the
philosopher has conferred on the moralist an obligation of
surpassing weight. In unveiling to him the living miracles which
teem in rich exuberance around the minutest atom, as well as
throughout the largest masses of ever-active matter, he has
placed before him resistless evidence of immeasurable design.
Surrounded by every form of animate and inanimate existence, the
sun of science has yet penetrated but through the outer fold of
nature's majestic robe; but if the philosopher were required to
separate, from amongst those countless evidences of creative
power, one being, the masterpiece of its skill; and from that
being to select one gift, the choicest of all the attributes of
life; turning within his own breast, and conscious of those
powers which have subjugated to his race the external world, and
of those higher powers by which he has subjugated to himself that
creative faculty which aids his faltering conceptions of a deity,
the humble worshipper at the altar of truth would pronounce that
being, man; that endowment, human reason.

But however large the interval that separates the lowest from
the highest of those sentient beings which inhabit our planet,
all the results of observation, enlightened by all the reasonings
of the philosopher, combine to render it probable that, in the
vast extent of creation, the proudest attribute of our race is
but, perchance, the lowest step in the gradation of intellectual
existence. For, since every portion of our own material globe,
and every animated being it supports, afford, on more
scrutinizing enquiry, more perfect evidence of design, it would
indeed be most unphilosophical to believe that those sister
spheres, obedient to the same law, and glowing with light and
heat radiant from the same central source--and that the members
of those kindred systems, almost lost in the remoteness of space,
and perceptible only from the countless multitude of their
congregated globes should each be no more than a floating chaos
of unformed matter; or, being all the work of the same Almighty
Architect, that no living eye should be gladdened by their forms
of beauty, that no intellectual being should expand its faculties
in decyphering their laws.

NOTES:

1. Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, and on some
of its Causes. 8vo. 1830. Fellowes.

2. The Duke of Sussex was proposed as President of the Royal
Society in opposition to the wish of the Council in opposition to
the public declaration of a body of Fellows, comprising the
largest portion of those by whose labours the character of
English science had been maintained The aristocracy of rank and
of power, aided by such allies as it can always command, set
itself in array against the prouder aristocracy of science. Out
of about seven hundred members, only two hundred and thirty
balloted; and the Duke of Sussex had a majority of eight. Under
such circumstances, it was indeed extraordinary, that His Royal
Highness should have condescended to accept the fruits of that
doubtful and inauspicious victory.

The circumstances preceding and attending this singular
contest have been most ably detailed in a pamphlet entitled A
Statement of the Circumstances connected with the late Election
for the, Presidency of the Royal Society, 1831, printed by R.
Taylor, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. The whole tone of the tract
is strikingly contrasted with that of the productions of some of
those persons by whom it was His Royal Highness's misfortune to
be supported.

3. The second meeting took place at Oxford in June, 1932, and
surpassed even the sanguine anticipations of its friends. The
third annual meeting will take place at Cambridge in June 1833.

4 The advantages likely to arise from such an association, have
been so clearly stated in the address delivered by the Rev. Mr
Vernon Harcourt, at its first meeting, that I would strongly
recommend its perusal by all those who feel interested in the
success of English science. Vide First Report of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science, York. 1832.

5 In 1828, the author of these pages visited Ischia, with a
committee of the Royal Academy of Naples, deputed to examine the
temperature and chrmical constitution of the springs in that
island. During the few first days, several springs which had been
represented in the instructions as under the boiling temperature,
were found, on deepening the excavations, to rise to the boiling
point.

6 See section 351.

CHAPTER 34.

2006-09-11T02:27:00.000-07:00

On the Exportation of Machinery

437. A few years only have elapsed, since our workmen were
not merely prohibited by Act of Parliament from transporting
themselves to countries in which their industry would produce for
them higher wages, but were forbidden to export the greater part
of the machinery which they were employed to manufacture at home.
The reason assigned for this prohibition was, the apprehension
that foreigners might av ail themselves of our improved
machinery, and thus compete with our manufacturers. It was, in
fact, a sacrifice of the interests of one class of persons, the
makers of machinery, for the imagined benefit of another class,
those who use it. Now, independently of the impolicy of
interfering, without necessity, between these two classes, it may
be observed, that the first class, or the makers of machinery,
are, as a body, far more intelligent than those who only use it;
and though, at present, they are not nearly so numerous, yet,
when the removal of the prohibition which cramps their ingenuity
shall have had time to operate, there appears good reason to
believe, that their number will be greatly increased, and may, in
time, even surpass that of those who use machinery.

438. The advocates of these prohibitions in England seem to
rely greatly upon the possibility of preventing the knowledge of
new contrivances from being conveyed to other countries; and they
take much too limited a view of the possible, and even probable,
improvements in mechanics.

439. For the purpose of examining this question, let us
consider the case of two manufacturers of the same article, one
situated in a country in which labour is very cheap, the
machinery bad, and the modes of transport slow and expensive; the
other engaged in manufacturing in a country in which the price of
labour is very high, the machinery excellent, and the means of
transport expeditious and economical. Let them both send their
produce to the same market, and let each receive such a price as
shall give to him the profit ordinarily produced by capital in
his own country. It is almost certain that in such circumstances
the first improvement in machinery will occur in the country
which is most advanced in civilization; because, even admitting
that the ingenuity to contrive were the same in the two
countries, the means of execution are very different. The effect
of improved machinery in the rich country will be perceived in
the common market, by a small fall in the price of the
manufactured article. This will be the first intimation to the
manufacturer of the poor country, who will endeavour to meet the
diminution in the selling price of his article by increased
industry and economy in his factory, but he will soon find that
this remedy is temporary, and that the market-price continues to
fall. He will thus be induced to examine the rival fabric, in
order to detect, from its structure, any improved mode of making
it. If, as would most usually happen, he should be unsuccessful
in this attempt, he must endeavour to contrive improvements in
his own machinery, or to acquire information respecting those
which have been made in the factories of the richer country.
Perhaps after an ineffectual attempt to obtain by letters the
information he requires, he sets out to visit in person the
factories of his competitors. To a foreigner and rival
manufacturer such establishments are not easily accessible, and
the more recent the improvements, the less likely he will be to
gain access to them. His next step, therefore, will be to obtain
the knowledge he is in search of from the workmen employed in
using or making the machines. Without drawings, or an examination
of the machines themselves, this process will be slow and
tedious; and he will be liable, after all, to be deceived by
artful and designing workmen, and be exposed to many chances of
failure. But suppose he returns to his own country with perfect
drawings and instructions, he must then begin to construct his
improved machines: and these he cannot execute either so cheaply
or so well as his rivals in the richer countries. But after the
lapse of some time, we shall suppose the machines thus
laboriously improved, to be at last completed, and in working
order.

440. Let us now consider what will have occurred to the
manufacturer in the rich country. He will, in the first instance,
have realized a profit by supplying the home market, at the usual
price, with an article which it costs him less to produce; he
will then reduce the price both in the home and foreign market,
in order to produce a more extended sale. It is in this stage
that the manufacturer in the poor country first feels the effect
of the competition; and if we suppose only two or three years to
elapse between the first application of the new improvement in
the rich country, and the commencement of its employment in the
poor country, yet will the manufacturer who contrived the
improvement (even supposing that during the whole of this time he
has made only one step) have realized so large a portion of the
outlay which it required, that he can afford to make a much
greater reduction in the price of his produce, and thus to render
the gains of his rivals quite inferior to his own.

441. It is contended that by admitting the exportation of
machinery, foreign manufacturers will be supplied with machines
equal to our own. The first answer which presents itself to this
argument is supplied by almost the whole of the present volume;
That in order to succeed in a manufacture, it is necessary not
merely to possess good machinery, but that the domestic economy
of the factory should be most carefully regulated.

The truth, as well as the importance of this principle, is so
well established in the Report of a Committee of the House of
Commons 'On the Export of Tools and Machinery', that I shall
avail myself of the opinions and evidence there stated, before I
offer any observations of my own:

Supposing, indeed, that the same machinery which is used in
England could be obtained on the Continent, it is the opinion of
some of the most intelligent of the witnesses that a want of
arrangement in foreign manufactories, of division of labour in
their work, of skill and perseverance in their workmen, and of
enterprise in the masters, together with the comparatively low
estimation in which the master manufacturers are held on the
Continent, and with the comparative want of capital, and of many
other advantageous circumstances detailed in the evidence, would
prevent foreigners from interfering in any great degree by
competition with our principal manufacturers; on which subject
the Committee submit the following evidence as worthy the
attention of the House:

I would ask whether, upon the whole, you consider any danger
likely to arise to our manufactures from competition, even if the
French were supplied with machinery equally good and cheap as our
own? They will always be behind us until their general habits
approximate to ours; and they must be behind us for many reasons
that I have before given.

Why must they be behind us? One other reason is, that a
cotton manufacturer who left Manchester seven years ago, would be
driven out of the market by the men who are now living in it,
provided his knowledge had not kept pace with those who have been
during that time constantly profiting by the progressive
improvements that have taken place in that period: this
progressive knowledge and experience is our great power and
advantage.

It should also be observed, that the constant, nay, almost
daily, improvements which take place in our machinery itself, as
well as in the mode of its application, require that all those
means and advantages alluded to above should be in constant
operation: and that, in the opinion of several of the witnesses,
although Europe were possessed of every tool now used in the
United Kingdom, along with the assistance of English artisans,
which she may have in any number, yet, from the natural and
acquired advantages possessed by this country, the manufacturers
of the United Kingdom would for ages continue to retain the
superiority they now enjoy. It is indeed the opinion of many,
that if the exportation of machinery were permitted, the
exportation would often consist of those tools and machines,
which, although already superseded by new inventions, still
continue to be employed, from want of opportunity to get rid of
them: to the detriment, in many instances, of the trade and
manufactures of the country: and it is matter worthy of
consideration, and fully borne out by the evidence, that by such
increased foreign demand for machinery, the ingenuity and skill
of our workmen would have greater scope; and that, important as
the improvements in machinery have lately been, they might, under
such circumstances, be fairly expected to increase to a degree
beyond all precedent.

The many important facilities for the construction of
machines and the manufacturing of commodities which we possess,
are enjoyed by no other country; nor is it likely that any
country can enjoy them to an equal extent for an indefinite
period. It is admitted by everyone, that our skill is unrivalled;
the industry and power of our people unequalled; their
ingenuity, as displayed in the continuol improvement in
machinery, and production of commodities, without parallel; and
apparently, without limit. The freedom which, under our
government, every man has, to use his capital, his labour, and
his talents, in the manner most conducive to his interests, is an
inestimable advantage; canals are cut, and railroads constructed,
by the voluntary association of persons whose local knowledge
enables them to place them in the most desirable situations; and
these great advantages cannot exist under less free governments.
These circumstances, when taken together, give such a decided
superiority to our people, that no injurious rivalry, either in
the construction of machinery or the manufacture of commodities,
can reasonably be anticipated.

442. But, even if it were desirable to prevent the
exportation of a certain class of machinery, it is abdundantly
evident, that, whilst the exportation of other classes is
allowed, it is impossible to prevent the forbidden one from being
smuggled out; and that, in point of fact, the additional risk has
been well calculated by the smuggler.

443. It would appear, also, from various circumstances, that
the immediate exportation of improved machinery is not quite so
certain as has been assumed; and that the powerful principle of
self-interest will urge the makers of it, rather to push the sale
in a different direction. When a great maker of machinery has
contrived a new machine for any particular process, or has made
some great improvement upon those in common use, to whom will he
naturally apply for the purpose of selling his new machines?
Undoubtedly, in by far the majority of cases, to his nearest and
best customers, those to whom he has immediate and personal
access, and whose capability to fulfil any contract is best known
to him. With these, he will communicate and offer to take their
orders for the new machine; nor will he think of writing to
foreign customers, so long as he finds the home demand sufficient
to employ the whole force of his establishment. Thus, therefore,
the machine-maker is himself interested in giving the first
advantage of any new improvement to his own countrymen.

444. In point of fact, the machine-makers in London greatly
prefer home orders, and do usually charge an additional price to
their foreign customers. Even the measure of this preference may
be found in the evidence before the Committee on the Export of
Machinery. It is differently estimated by various engineers; but
appears to vary from five up to twenty-five per cent on the
amount of the order. The reasons are: 1. If the machinery be
complicated, one of the best workmen, well accustomed to the mode
of work in the factory, must be sent out to put it up; and there
is always a considerable chance of his having offers that will
induce him to remain abroad. 2. If the work be of a more simple
kind, and can be put up without the help of an English workman,
yet for the credit of the house which supplies it, and to prevent
the accidents likely to occur from the want of sufficient
instruction in those who use it, the parts are frequently made
stronger, and examined more attentively, than they would be for
an English purchaser. Any defect or accident also would be
attended with more expense to repair, if it occurred abroad, than
in England.

445. The class of workmen who make machinery, possess much
more skill, and are paid much more highly than that class who
merely use it; and, if a free exportation were allowed, the more
valuable class would, undoubtedly, be greatly increased; for,
notwithstanding the high rate of wages, there is no country in
whichit can at this moment be made, either so well or so cheaply
as in England. We might, therefore, supply the whole world with
machinery, at an evident advantage, both to ourselves and our
customers. In Manchester, and the surrounding district, many
thousand men are wholly occupied in making the machinery, which
gives employment to many hundred thousands who use it; but the
period is not very remote, when the whole number of those who
used machines, was not greater than the number of those who at
present manufacture them. Hence, then, if England should ever
become a great exporter of machinery, she would necessarily
contain a large class of workmen, to whom skill would be
indispensable, and, consequently, to whom high wages would be
paid; and although her manufacturers might probably be
comparatively fewer in number, yet they would undoubtedly have
the advantage of being the first to derive profit from
improvement. Under such circumstances, any diminution in the
demand for machinery, would, in the first instance, be felt by a
class much better able to meet it, than that which now suffers
upon every check in the consumption of manufactured goods; and
the resulting misery would therefore assume a mitigated
character.

446. It has been feared, that when other countries have
purchased our machines, they will cease to demand new ones: but
the statement which has been given of the usual progress in the
improvement of the machinery employed in any manufacture, and of
the average time which elapses before it is superseded by such
improvements, is a complete reply to this objection. If our
customers abroad did not adopt the new machinery contrived by us
as soon as they could procure it, then our manufacturers would
extend their establishments, and undersell their rivals in their
own markets.

447. It may also be urged, that in each kind of machinery a
maximum of perfection may be imagined, beyond which it is
impossible to advance; and certainly the last advances are
usually the smallest when compared with those which precede them:
but it should be observed, that these advances are generally made
when the number of machines in employment is already large; and
when, consequently, their effects on the power of producing are
very considerable. But though it should be admitted that any one
species of machinery may, after a long period, arrive at a degree
of perfection which would render further improvement nearly
hopeless, yet it is impossible to suppose that this can be the
case with respect to all kinds of mechanism. In fact the limit of
improvement is rarely approached, except in extensive branches of
national manufactures; and the number of such branches is, even
at present, very small.

448. Another argument in favour of the exportation of
machinery, is, that it would facilitate the transfer of capital
to any more advantageous mode of employment which might present
itself. If the exportation of machinery were permitted, there
would doubtless arise a new and increased demand; and, supposing
any particular branch of our manufactures to cease to produce the
average rate of profit, the loss to the capitalist would be much
less, if a market were open for the sale of his machinery to
customers more favourably circumstanced for its employment. If,
on the other hand, new improvements in machinery should be
imagined, the manufacturer would be more readily enabled to carry
them into effect, by having the foreign market opened where he
could sell his old machines. The fact, that England can,
notwithstanding her taxation and her high rate of wages, actually
undersell other nations, seems to be well established: and it
appears to depend on the superior goodness and cheapness of those
raw materials of machinery the metals--on the excellence of the
tools--and on the admirable arrangements of the domestic economy
of our factories.

449. The different degrees of facility with which capital can
be transferred from one mode of employment to another, has an
important effect on the rate of profits in different trades and
in different countries. Supposing all the other causes which
influence the rate of profit at any period, to act equally on
capital employed in different occupations, yet the real rates of
profit would soon alter, on account of the different degrees of
loss incurred by removing the capital from one mode of investment
to another, or of any variation in the action of those causes.

450. This principle will appear more clearly by taking an
example. Let two capitalists have embarked L10,000 each, in two
trades: A in supplying a district with water, by means of a
steam-engine and iron pipes; B in manufacturing bobbin net. The
capital of A will be expended in building a house and erecting a
steam-engine, which costs, we shall suppose, L3000; and in laying
down iron pipes to supply his customers, costing L7000. The
greatest part of this latter expense is payment for labour, and
if the pipes were to be taken up, the damage arising from that
operation would render them of little value, except as old metal;
whilst the expense of their removal would be considerable. Let
us, therefore, suppose, that if A were obliged to give up his
trade, he could realize only L4000 by the sale of his stock. Let
us suppose again that B, by the sale of his bobbin net factory
and machinery, could realize L8000 and let the usual profit on
the capital employed by each party be the same, say 20 per cent:
then we have

Capital invested; Money which would arise from sale of machinery;
Annual rate of profit per cent; Income

L L L L
Water works 10,000 4000 20 2000
Bobbin net Factory 10,000 8000 20 2000

Now, if, from competition, or any other cause, the rate of
profit arising from water-works should fall to 20 per cent, that
circumstance would not cause a transfer of capital from the
water-works to bobbin net making; because the reduced income from
the water-works, L1000 per annum, would still be greater than
that produced by investing L4000, (the whole sum arising from the
sale of the materials of the water-works), in a bobbin net
factory, which sum, at 20 per cent, would yield only L800 per
annum. In fact, the rate of profit, arising from the water-works,
must fall to less than 8 per cent before the proprietor could
increase his income by removing his capital into the bobbin net
trade.

451. In any enquiry into the probability of the injury
arising to our manufacturers from the competition of foreign
countries, particular regard should be had to the facilities of
transport, and to the existence in our own country of a mass of
capital in roads, canals, machinery, etc., the greater portion of
which may fairly be considered as having repaid the expense of
its outlay, and also to the cheap rate at which the abundance of
our fuel enables us to produce iron, the basis of almost all
machinery. It has been justly remarked by M. de Villefosse, in
the memoir before alluded to, that Ce que l'on nomme en France,
la question du prix des fers, est, a proprement parler, la
question du prix des bois, et la question, des moyens de
communications interieures par les routes, fleuves, rivieres et
canaux.

The price of iron in various countries in Europe has been
stated in section 215 of the present volume; and it appears, that
in England it is produced at the least expense, and in France at
the greatest. The length of the roads which cover England and
Wales may be estimated roughly at twenty thousand miles of
turnpike, and one hundred thousand miles of road not turnpike.
The internal water communication of England and France, as far as
I have been able to collect information on the subject, may be
stated as follows:

In France

Miles in length

Navigable rivers 4668
Navigable canals 915.5
Navigable canals in progress of execution (1824) 1388

6971.5 (1*)

But, if we reduce these numbers in the proportion of 3.7 to 1,
which is the relative area of France as compared with England and
Wales, then we shall have the following comparison:

Portion of France equal in size to England and Wales

England(2*)
Miles Miles

Navigable rivers 1275.5 1261.6
Tidal navigation(3*) 545.9
Canals, direct 2023.5
Canals, branch 150.6

2174.1 2174.1 247.4
Canals commenced --- 375.1

Total 3995.5 1884.1

Population in 1831 13,894,500 8,608,500

This comparison, between the internal communications of the
two countries, is not offered as complete; nor is it a fair view,
to contrast the wealthiest portion of one country with the whole
of the other: but it is inserted with the hope of inducing those
who possess more extensive information on the subject, to supply
the facts on which a better comparison may be instituted. The
information to be added, would consist of the number of miles in
each country, of seacoast, of public roads, of railroads, of
railroads on which locomotive engines are used.

452. One point of view, in which rapid modes of conveyance
increase the power of a country, deserves attention. On the
Manchester Railroad, for example, above half a million of persons
travel annually; and supposing each person to save only one hour
in the time of transit, between Manchester and Liverpool, a
saving of five hundred thousand hours, or of fifty thousand
working days, of ten hours each, is effected. Now this is
equivalent to an addition to the actual power of the country of
one hundred and sixty-seven men, without increasing the quantity
of food consumed; and it should also be remarked, that the time
of the class of men thus supplied, is far more valuable than that
of mere labourers.

NOTES:

1. This table is extracted and reduced from one of Ravinet,
Dictionnaire Hydrographique. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris. 1824.

2. I am indebted to F. Page. Esq. of Speen, for that portion of
this table which relates to the internal navigation of England.
Those only who have themselves collected statistical details can
be aware of the expense of time and labour, of which the few
lines it contains are the result.

3. The tidal navigation includes: the Thames, from the mouth of
the Medway; the Severn, from the Holmes: the Trent, from Trent
Falls in the Humber; the Mersey from Runcorn Gap.

CHAPTER 33.

2006-09-11T02:26:00.000-07:00

On the Effect of Taxes and of Legal Restrictions upon
Manufactures

414. As soon as a tax is put upon any article, the ingenuity
of those who make, and of those who use it, is directed to the
means of evading as large a part of the tax as they can; and this
may often be accomplished in ways which are perfectly fair and
legal. An excise duty exists at present of 3d.(1*) per pound upon
all writing paper. The effect of this impost is, that much of the
paper which is employed, is made extremely thin, in order that
the weight of a given number of sheets may be as small as
possible. Soon after the first imposition of the tax upon
windows, which depended upon their number, and not upon their
size, new-built houses began to have fewer windows and those of
larger dimensions than before. Staircases were lighted by
extremely long windows, illuminating three or four flights of
stairs. When the tax was increased, and the size of windows
charged as single was limited, then still greater care was taken
to have as few windows as possible, and internal lights became
frequent. These internal lights in their turn became the subject
of taxation; but it was easy to evade the discovery of them, and
in the last Act of Parliament reducing the assessed taxes, they
ceased to be chargeable. From the changes thus successively
introduced in the number the forms, and the positions of the
windows, a tolerable conjecture might, in some instances, be
formed of the age of a house.

415. A tax on windows is exposed to objection on the double
ground of its excluding air and light, and it is on both accounts
injurious to health. The importance of light to the enjoyment of
health is not perhaps sufficiently appreciated: in the cold and
more variable climates, it is of still greater importance than in
warmer countries.

416. The effects of regulations of excise upon our home
manufactures are often productive of great inconvenience; and
check, materially, the natural progress of improvement. It is
frequently necessary, for the purposes of revenue, to oblige
manufacturers to take out a license, and to compel them to work
according to certain rules, and to make certain stated quantities
at each operation. When these quantities are large, as in general
they are, they deter manufacturers from making experiments, and
thus impede improvements both in the mode of conducting the
processes and in the introduction of new materials. Difficulties
of this nature have occurred in experimenting upon glass for
optical purposes; but in this case, permission has been obtained
by fit persons to make experiments, without the interference of
the excise. It ought, however, to be remembered, that such
permission, if frequently or indiscriminately granted, might be
abused: the greatest protection against such an abuse will be
found, in bringing the force of public opinion to bear upon
scientific men and thus enabling the proper authorities, although
themselves but moderately conversant with science, to judge of
the propriety of the permission, from the public character of the
applicant.

417. From the evidence given, in 1808, before the Committee
of the House of Commons, On Distillation from Sugar and Molasses,
it appeared that, by a different mode of working from that
prescribed by the Excise, the spirits from a given weight of
corn, which then produced eighteen gallons, might easily have
been increased to twenty gallons. Nothing more is required for
this purpose, than to make what is called the wash weaker, the
consequence of which is, that fermentation goes on to a greater
extent. It was stated, however, that such a deviation would
render the collection of the duty liable to great difficulties;
and that it would not benefit the distiller much, since his price
was enhanced to the customer by any increase of expense in the
fabrication. Here then is a case in which a quantity, amounting
to one-ninth of the total produce, is actually lost to the
country. A similar effect arises in the coal trade, from the
effect of a duty, for, according to the evidence before the
House of Commons, it appears that a considerable quantity of the
very best coal is actually wasted. The extent of this waste is
very various in different mines; but in some cases it amounts to
one-third.

418. The effects of duties upon the import of foreign
manufactures are equally curious. A singular instance occurred in
the United States, where bar-iron was, on its introduction.
liable to a duty of 140 per cent ad valorem, whilst hardware was
charged at 25 per cent only. In consequence of this tax, large
quantities of malleable iron rails for railroads were imported
into America under the denomination of hardware; the difference
of 115 per cent in duty more than counter balancing the expense
of fashioning the iron into rails prior to its importation.

419. Duties, drawbacks, and bounties, when considerable in
amount, are all liable to objections of a very serious nature,
from the frauds to which they give rise. It has been stated
before Committees of the House of Commons, that calicoes made up
in the form, and with the appearance of linen, have frequently
been exported for the purpose of obtaining the bounty, for
calico made up in this way sells only at 1s. 4d. per yard,
whereas linen of equal fineness is worth from 2s. 8d. to 2s. 10d.
per yard. It appeared from the evidence, that one house in six
months sold five hundred such pieces of calico.

In almost all cases heavy duties, or prohibitions, are
ineffective as well as injurious; for unless the articles
excluded are of very large dimensions, there constantly arises a
price at which they will be clandestinely imported by the
smuggler. The extent, therefore, to which smuggling can be
carried, should always be considered in the imposition of new
duties, or in the alteration of old ones. Unfortunately it has
been pushed so far, and is so systematically conducted between
this country and France, that the price per cent at which most
contraband articles can be procured is perfectly well known. From
the evidence of Mr Galloway, it appears that, from 30 to 40 per
cent was the rate of insurance on exporting prohibited machinery
from England, and that the larger the quantity the less was the
percentage demanded. From evidence given in the Report of the
Watch and Clock-makers' Committee, in 1817, it appears that
persons were constantly in the habit of receiving in France
watches, lace, silks, and other articles of value easily
portable, and delivering them in England at ten per cent on their
estimated worth, in which sum the cost of transport and the risk
of smuggling were included.

420. The process employed in manufacturing often depends upon
the mode in which a tax is levied on the materials, or on the
article produced. W atch glasses are made in England by workmen
who purchase from the glass house globes of five or six inches in
diameter, out of which, by means of a piece of red-hot tobacco
pipe, guided round a pattern watch glass placed on the globe,
they crack five others: these are afterwards ground and smoothed
on the edges. In the Tyrol the rough watch glasses are supplied
at once from the glass house; the workman, applying a thick ring
of cold glass to each globe as soon as it is blown, causes a
piece, of the size of a watch glass, to be cracked out. The
remaining portion of the globe is immediately broken, and returns
to the melting pot. This process could not be adopted in England
with the same economy, because the whole of the glass taken out
of the pot is subject to the excise duty.

421. The objections thus stated as incidental to particular
modes of taxation are not raised with a view to the removal of
those particular taxes; their fitness or unfitness must be
decided by a much wider enquiry, into which it is not the object
of this volume to enter. Taxes are essential for the security
both of liberty and property, and the evils which have been
mentioned may be the least amongst those which might have been
chosen. It is, however, important that the various effects of
every tax should be studied, and that those should be adopted
which, upon the whole, are found to give the least check to the
productive industry of the country.

422. In enquiring into the effect produced, or to be
apprehended from any particular mode of taxation, it is necessary
to examine a little into the interests of the parties who approve
of the plan in question, as well as of those who object to it.
Instances have occurred where the persons paying a tax into the
hands of government have themselves been adverse to any
reduction. This happened in the case of one class of
calico-printers, whose interest really was injured by a removal
of the tax on the printing: they received from the manufacturers,
payment for the duty, about two months before they were
themselves called on to pay it to government; and the consequence
was, that a considerable capital always remained in their hands.
The evidence which states this circumstance is well calculated to
promote a reasonable circumspection in such enquiries.

Question. Do you happen to know anything of an opposition
from calicoprinters to the repeal of the tax on printed calicoes?

Answer. I have certainly heard of such an opposition, and am
not surprised at it. There are very few individuals who are, in
fact, interested in the nonrepeal of the tax; there are two
classes of calico-printers; one, who print their own cloth, send
their goods into the market, and sell them on their own account;
they frequently advance the duty to government, and pay it in
cash before their goods are sold, but generally before the goods
are paid for, being most commonly sold on a credit of six months:
they are of course interested on that account, as well as on
others that have been stated, in the repeal of the tax. The other
class of calico-printers print the cloth of other people; they
print for hire, and on re-delivery of the cloth when printed,
they receive the amount of the duty, which they are not called
upon to pay to government sooner, on an average, than nine weeks
from the stamping of the goods. Where the business is carried on
upon a large scale, the arrears of duty due to government often
amount to eight, or even ten thousand pounds, and furnish a
capital with which these gentlemen carry on their business; it is
not, therefore, to be wondered at that they should be opposed to
the prayer of our petition.

423. The policy of giving bounties upon home productions, and
of enforcing restrictions against those which can be produced
more cheaply in other countries, is of a very questionable
nature: and, except for the purpose of introducing a new
manufacture, in a country where there is not much commercial or
manufacturing spirit, is scarcely to be defended. All incidental
modes of taxing one class of the community, the consumers, to an
unknown extent, for the sake of supporting another class, the
manufacturers, who would otherwise abandon that mode of employing
their capital, are highly objectionable. One part of the price of
any article produced under such circumstances, consists of the
expenditure, together with the ordinary profits of capital: the
other part of its price may be looked upon as charity, given to
induce the manufacturer to continue an unprofitable use of his
capital, in order to give employment to his workmen. If the sum
of what the consumers are thus forced to pay, merely on account
of these artificial restrictions, where generally known, its
amount would astonish even those who advocate them; and it would
be evident to both parties, that the employment of capital in
those branches of trade ought to be abandoned.

424. The restriction of articles produced in a manufactory to
certain sizes, is attended with some good effect in an economical
view, arising chiefly from the smaller number of different tools
required in making them, as well as from less frequent change in
the adjustment of those tools. A similar source of economy is
employed in the Navy: by having ships divided into a certain
number of classes, each of which comprises vessels of the same
dimensions, the rigging made for one vessel will fit any other of
its class; a circumstance which renders the supply of distant
stations more easy.

425. The effects of the removal of a monopoly are often very
important, and they were perhaps never more remarkable than in
the bobbin net trade, in the years 1824 and 1825. These effects
were, however, considerably enhanced by the general rage for
speculation which was so prevalent during that singular period.
One of the patents of Mr Heathcote for a bobbin net machine had
just then expired, whilst another, for an improvement in a
particular part of such machines, called a turn again, had yet a
few years to run. Many licenses had been granted to use the
former patent, which were charged at the rate of about five
pounds per annum for each quarter of a yard in width, so that
what is termed a six-quarter frame (which makes bobbin net a yard
and a half wide) paid thirty pounds a year. The second patent was
ultimately abandoned in August, 1823, infringements of it having
taken place.

It was not surprising that, on the removal of the monopoly
arising from this patent, a multitude of persons became desirous
of embarking in a trade which had hitherto yielded a very large
profit. The bobbin net machine occupies little space; and is,
from that circumstance, well adapted for a domestic manufacture.
The machines which already existed, were principally in the hands
of the manufacturers; but, a kind of mania for obtaining them
seized on persons of all descriptions, who could raise a small
capital; and, under its influence, butchers, bakers, small
farmers, publicans, gentlemen's servants, and, in some cases,
even clergymen, became anxious to possess bobbin net machines.

Some few machines were rented; but, in most of these cases,
the workman purchased the machine he employed, by instalments of
from L3 to L6 weekly, for a six quarter machine; and many
individuals, unacquainted with the mode of using the machines so
purchased, paid others of more experience for instructing them in
their use; L50 or L60 being sometimes given for this instruction.
The success of the first speculators induced others to follow the
example; and the machine-makers were almost overwhelmed with
orders for lace frames. Such was the desire to procure them, that
many persons deposited a large part, or the whole, of the price,
in the hands of the frame-makers, in order to insure their having
the earliest supply. This, as might naturally be expected, raised
the price of wages amongst the workmen employed in
machine-making; and the effect was felt at a considerable
distance from Nottingham, which was the centre of this mania.
Smiths not used to flat filing, coming from distant parts, earned
from 30s. to 42s. per week. Finishing smiths, accustomed to the
work, gained from L3 to L4 per week..The forging smith, if
accustomed to his work, gained from L5 to L6 per week, and some
few earned L10 per week. In making what are technically called
insides, those who were best paid, were generally clock- and
watchmakers, from all the districts round, who received from L3
to L4 per week. The setters-up--persons who put the parts of the
machine together--charged L20 for their assistance; and, a six
quarter machine, could be put together in a fortnight or three
weeks.

426. Good workmen, being thus induced to desert less
profitable branches of their business, in order to supply this
extraordinary demand, the masters, in other trades, soon found
their men leaving them, without being aware of the immediate
reason: some of the more intelligent, however, ascertained the
cause. They went from Birmingham to Nottingham, in order to
examine into the circumstances which had seduced almost all the
journeymen clockmakers from their own workshops; and it was soon
apparent, that the men who had been working as clockmakers in
Birmingham, at the rate of 25s. a week, could earn L2 by working
at lace frame-making in Nottingham.

On examining the nature of this profitable work, the master
clockmakers perceived that one part of the bobbin net machines,
that which held the bobbins, could easily be made in their own
workshops. They therefore contracted with the machine-makers, who
had already more work ordered than they could execute, to supply
the bobbin carriers, at a price which enabled them, on their
return home, to give such increased wages as were sufficient to
retain their own workmen, as well as yield themselves a good
profit. Thus an additional facility was afforded for the
construction of these bobbin net machines: and the conclusion was
not difficult to be foreseen. The immense supply of bobbin net
thus poured into the market, speedily reduced its price; this
reduction in price, rendered the machines by which the net was
made, less valuable; some few of the earliest producers, for a
short time, carried on a profitable trade; but multitudes were
disappointed, and many ruined. The low price at which the fabric
sold, together with its lightness and beauty, combined to extend
the sale; and ultimately, new improvements in the machines,
rendered the older ones still less valuable.

427. The bobbin net trade is, at present, both extensive and
increasing; and, as it may, probably, claim a larger portion of
public attention at some future time, it will be interesting to
describe briefly its actual state.

A lace frame on the most improved principle, at the present
day, manufacturing a piece of net two yards wide, when worked
night and day, will produce six hundred and twenty racks per
week. A rack is two hundred and forty holes; and as in the
machine to which we refer, three racks are equal in length to one
yard, it will produce 21,493 square yards of bobbin net annually.
Three men keep this machine constantly working; and, they were
paid (by piece-work) about 25s. each per week, in 1830. Two boys,
working only in the day-time, can prepare the bobbins for this
machine, and are paid from 2s. to 4s. per week, according to
their skill. Forty-six square yards of this net weigh two pounds
three ounces; so that each square yard weighs a little more than
three-quarters of an ounce.

428. For a condensed and general view of the present state of
this trade, we shall avail ourselves of a statement by Mr William
Felkin, of Nottingham, dated September, 1831, and entitled Facts
and Calculations illustrative of the Present State of the Bobbin
Net Trade. It appears to have been collected with care, and
contains, in a single sheet of paper, a body of facts of the
greatest importance. *

429. The total capital employed in the factories, for
preparing the cotton, in those for weaving the bobbin net, and in
various processes to which it is subject, is estimated at above
L2,000,000, and the number of persons who receive wages, at above
two hundred thousand.

Comparison of the value of the raw material imported, with the
value of the goods manufactured therefrom

Amount of Sea Island cotton annually used 1,600,000 lbs., value
L120,000; this is manufactured into yarn, weighing 1,000,000
lbs., value L500,000.

There is also used 25,000 lbs. of raw silk, which costs
L30,000, and is doubled into 10,000 lbs. thrown, worth L40,000.

Raw Material; Manufacture; Square yards produced; Value per sq.
yd.(s. d.); Total value (L)

Cotton 1,600,000; lbs; Power Net; 6,750,000; 1 3; 421,875
Hand ditto; 15,750,000; 1 9; 1,378,125
Fancy ditto; 150,000; 3 6; 26,250
Silk, 25,000 lbs; Silk Goods; 750,000; 1 9; 65,625

23,400,000; 1,891,875

* I cannot omit the opportunity of expressing my hope that this
example will be followed in other trades. We should thus obtain a
body ofinformation equally important to the workman, the
capitalist, the philosopher, and the statesman.

The brown nets which are sold in the Nottingham market are
in part disposed of by the agents of twelve or fifteen of the
larger makers, i.e. to the amount of about L250,000 a year. The
principal part of the remainder, i.e. about L1,050,000 a year, is
sold by about two hundred agents, who take the goods from one
warehouse to another for sale.

Of this production, about half is exported in the
unembroidered state. The exports of bobbin net are in great part
to Hamburgh, for sale at home and at Leipzic and Frankfort fairs.
Antwerp, and the rest of Belgium; to France, by contraband; to
Italy, and North and South America. Though a very suitable
article, yet the quantity sent eastward of the Cape of Good Hope,
has hitherto been too trifling for notice. Three-eighths of the
whole production are sold unembroidered at home. The remaining
one-eighth is embroidered in this country, and increases the
ultimate value as under, viz.

Embroidery Increases value Ultimate worth
L L
On power net 131,840 553,715
On hand net 1,205,860 2,583.985
On fancy net 78,750 105,000
On silk net 109,375 175,000

Total embroidery, wages and profits 1,525,825
Ultimate total value 3,417,700

From this it appears, that in the operations of this trade,
which had no existence twenty years ago, L120,000 original cost
of cotton becomes, when manufactured, of the ultimate value of
L3,242,700 sterling.

As to weekly wages paid, I hazard the following as the
judgement of those conversant with the respective branches, viz.

In fine spinning and doubling, adults 25s.; children 7s.:
work twelve hours per day.

In bobbin net making; men working machines, 18s.;
apprentices, youths of fifteen or more, 10s.; by power, fifteen
hours; by hand, eight to twelve hours, according to width.

In mending; children 4s.; women 8s.; work nine to fourteen
hours ad libitum.

In winding, threading, etc., children and young women, 5s.:
irregular work, according to the progress of machines.

In embroidery; children seven years old and upwards, 1s. to
3s.; work ten to twelve hours; women, if regularly at work, 5s.
to 7s. 6d.; twelve to fourteen hours.

As an example of the effect of the wages of lace embroidery,
etc., it may be observed, it is often the case that a stocking
weaver in a country village will earn only 7s. a week, and his
wife and children 7s. to 14s. more at the embroidery frame.

430. The principal part of the hand-machines employed in the
bobbin net manufacture are worked in shops, forming part of, or
attached to, private houses. The subjoined list will show the
kinds of machinery employed, and classes of persons to whom it
belongs.

Bobbin net machinery now at work in the Kingdom

Hand levers 6 quarter 500 Hand circulars 6 quarter 100
7 quarter 200 7 quarter 300
8 quarter 300 8 quarter 400
10 quarter 300 9 quarter 100
12 quarter 30 10 quarter 300
16 quarter 20 12 quarter 100
20 quarter 1 Hand transverse, pusher,
Hand rotary 10 quarter 50 straight bolt, etc. averaging 5
quarters 750
12 quarter 50
2050 1451

Total hand machines 3501

Power 6 quarter 100
7 quarter 40
8 quarter 350
10 quarter 270
12 quarter 220
16 quarter 20
Total power machines 1000

Total number of machines 4501

700 persons own 1 machine, 700 machines.
226 2 452
181 3 543
96 4 384
40 5 200
21 6 126
17 7 119
19 8 152
17 9 153
12 10 120
8 11 88
6 12 72
5 13 65
5 14 70
4 16 64
25 own respectively 18,
19, 20, 21,
23, 24, 25,
26, 27, 28,
29, 30, 32,
33, 35, 36,
37, 50, 60,
68, 70, 75,
95, 105, 206
1192

Number of owners of machines--1382 Holding together 4500
machines.

The hand workmen consist of the above-named owners 1000
And of journeymen and apprentices 4000
5000

These machines are distributed as follows
Nottingham 1240
New Radford 140
Old Radford and Bloomsgrove 240
Ison Green 160
Beeston and Chilwell 130
New and Old Snenton 180
Derby and its vicinity 185
Loughborough and its vicinity 385
Leicester 95
Mansfield 85
Tiverton 220
Barnstable l80
Chard 190
Isle of Wight 80
In sundry other places 990

4500

Of the above owners, one thousand work in their own machines,
and enter into the class of journeymen as well as that of masters
in operating on the rate of wages. If they reduce the price of
their goods in the market, they reduce their own wages first;
and, of course, eventually the rate of wages throughout the
trade. It is a very lamentable fact, that one-half, or more, of
the one thousand one hundred persons specified in the list as
owning one, two, and three machines, have been compelled to
mortgage their machines for more than their worth in the market,
and are in many cases totally insolvent. Their machines are
principally narrow and making short pieces, while the absurd
system of bleaching at so much a piece goods of all lengths and
widths, and dressing at so much all widths, has caused the new
machines to be all wide, and capable of producing long pieces; of
course to the serious disadvantage, if not utter ruin, of the
small owner of narrow machines.

It has been observed above, that wages have been reduced, say
25 per cent in the last two years, or from 24s. to 18s. a week.
Machines have increased in the same time one-eighth in number, or
from four thousand to four thousand five hundred, and one-sixth
in capacity of production. It is deserving the serious notice of
all proprietors of existing machines, that machines are now
introducing into the trade of such power of production as must
still more than ever depreciate (in the absence of an immensely
increased demand) the value of their property.

431. From this abstract, we may form some judgement of the
importance of the bobbin net trade. But the extent to which it
bids fair to be carried in future, when the eastern markets shall
be more open to our industry, may be conjectured from the fact
which Mr Felkin subsequently states that 'We can export a durable
and elegant article in cotton bobbin net, at 4d. per square yard,
proper for certain useful and ornamental purposes, as curtains,
etc.; and another article used for many purposes in female dress
at 6d. the square yard.'

432. Of patents. In order to encourage the invention, the
improvement, or the importation of machines, and of discoveries
relating to manufactures, it has been the practice in many
countries, to grant to the inventors or first introducers, an
exclusive privilege for a term of years. Such monopolies are
termed patents; and they are granted, on the payment of certain
fees, for different periods, from five to twenty years.

The following table, compiled from the Report of the
Committee of the House of Commons on Patents, 1829, shows the
expense and duration of patents in various countries:

Countries; Expense (L s. d.); Term of years; Number granted in
six years, ending in 1826.(Rep. p. 243.)

England; 120 0 0; 14; 914
Ireland; 125 0 0; 14;
Scotland; 100 0 0; 14;
America; 6 15 0; 14;
France; 12 0 0; 5;
32 0 0; 10;
60 0 0; 15; 1091
Netherlands; L6 to L30; 5, 10. 15
Austria; 42 10 0; 15; 1099
Spain(3*) Inventor; 20 9 4; 15;
Improver; 12 5 7; 10;
Importer; 10 4 8; 6;

433. It is clearly of importance to preserve to each inventor
the sole use of his invention, until he shall have been amply
repaid for the risk and expense to which he has been exposed, as
well as for the talent he has exerted in completing it. But, the
degrees of merit are so various, and the difficulties of
legislating upon the subject so great, that it has been found
almost impossible to frame a law which shall not, practically, be
open to the most serious objections.

The difficulty of defending an English patent in any judicial
trial, is very great; and the number of instances on record in
which the defence has succeeded, are comparatively few. This
circumstance has induced some manufacturers, no longer to regard
a patent as a privilege by which a monopoly price may be secured:
but they sell the patent article at such a price, as will merely
produce the ordinary profits of capital; and thus secure to
themselves the fabrication of it, because no competitors can
derive a profit from invading a patent so exercised.

434. The law of copyright, is, in some measure, allied to
that of patents; and it is curious to observe, that those species
of property which require the highest talent, and the greatest
cultivation--which are, more than any other, the pure creations
of mind--should have been the latest to be recognized by the
State. Fortunately, the means of deciding on an infringement of
property in regard to a literary production, are not verv
difficult; but the present laws are, in some cases, productive of
considerable hardship, as well as of impediment to the
advancement of knowledge.

435. Whilst discussing the general expediency of limitations
and restrictions, it may be desirable to point out one which
seems to promise advantage, though by no means free from grave
objections. The question of permitting by law, the existence of
partnerships in which the responsibility of one or more of the
partners is limited in amount, is peculiarly important in a
manufacturing, as well as a commercial point of view. In the
former light, it appears calculated to aid that division of
labour, which we have already proved to be as advantageous in
mental as it is in bodily operations; and it might possibly give
rise to a more advantageous distribution of talent, and its
combinations, than at present exists. There are in this country,
many persons possessed of moderate capital, who do not
themselves enjoy the power of invention in the mechanical and
chemical arts, but who are tolerable judges of such inventions,
and excellent judges of human character. Such persons might, with
great success, employ themselves in finding out inventive
workmen, whose want of capital prevents them from realizing their
projects. If they could enter into a limited partnership with
persons so circumstanced, they might restrain within proper
bounds the imagination of the inventor, and by supplying capital
to judicious schemes, render a service to the country, and secure
a profit for themselves.

436. Amongst the restrictions intended for the general
benefit of our manufacturers, there existed a few years ago one
by which workmen were forbidden to go out of the country. A law
so completely at variance with everv principle of liberty, ought
never to have been enacted. It was not, however, until experience
had convinced the legislature of its inefficiency, that it was
repealed. * When, after the last war, the renewed intercourse
between England and the Continent became extensive, it was soon
found that it was impossible to discover the various disguises
which the workmen could assume; and the effect of the law was
rather, by the fear of punishment, to deter those who had left
the country from returning, than to check their disposition to
migrate.

436. (4*) The principle, that government Ought to interfere
as little as possible between workmen and their employers, is so
well established, that it is important to guard against its
misapplication. It is not inconsistent with this principle to
insist on the workmen being paid in money--for this is merely to
protect them from being deceived; and still less is it a
deviation from it to limit the number of hours during which
children shall work in factories, or the age at which they shall
commence that species of labour--for they are not free agents,
nor are they capable of judging, if they were; and both policy
and humanity concur in demanding for them some legislative
protection. In both cases it is as right and politic to protect
the weaker party from fraud or force, as it would be impolitic
and unjust to interfere with the amount of the wages of either.

NOTES:

1. Twenty eight shillings per cwt for the finer, twenty one
shillings per cwt for the coarser papers.

2. I cannot omit the opportunity of expressing my hope that this
example will be followed in other trades. We should thus obtain a
body of information equally important to the workman, the
capitalist, the philosopher, and the stateman.

3. The expense of a patent in Spain is stated in the report to be
respecitivly 2000, 1200 and 1000 reals. If these are reals of
vellon, in which accounts are usually kept at Madrid, the above
sums are correct; but if they are reals of plate, the above sums
ought to be nearly doubled.

4. In the year 1824 the law against workmen going abroad, as well
as the laws preventing them from combining, were repealed, after
the fullest enquiry by a Committee of the House of Commons. In
1825 an attempt to re-enact some of the most objectionable was
made, but it failed.

CHAPTER 32.

2006-09-11T02:25:00.000-07:00

On the Effect of Machinery in Reducing the Demand for Labour

404. One of the objections most frequently urged against
machinery is, that it has a tendency to supersede much of the
hand labour which was previously employed; and in fact unless a
machine diminished the labour necessary to make an article, it
could never come into use. But if it have that effect, its owner,
in order to extend the sale of his produce, will be obliged to
undersell his competitors; this will induce them also to
introduce the new machine, and the effect of this competition
will soon cause the article to fall, until the profits on
capital, under the new system, shall be reduced to the same rate
as under the old. Although, therefore, the use of machinery has
at first a tendency to throw labour out of employment, yet the
increased demand consequent upon the reduced price, almost
immediately absorbs a considerable portion of that labour, and
perhaps, in some cases, the whole of what would otherwise have
been displaced.

That the effect of a new machine is to diminish the labour
required for the production of the same quantity of manufactured
commodities may beclearlyperceived, byimaginingasociety,
inwhichoccupation are not divided, each man himself manufacturing
all the articles he consumes. Supposing each individual to labour
during ten hours daily, one of which is devoted to making shoes,
it is evident that if any tool or machine be introduced, by the
use ofwhich his shoes can be made in halfthe usual time, then
each member ofthe community will enjoy the same comforts as
before by only nine and one-half hours' labour.

405. If, therefore, we wish to prove that the total quantity
oflabourisnot diminished by the introduction of machines, we must
have recourse to some other principle of our nature. But the same
motive which urges a man to activity will become additionally
powerful, when he finds his comforts procured with diminished
labour; and in such circumstances, it is probable, that many
would employ the time thus redeemed in contriving new tools for
other branches of their occupations. He who has habitually worked
ten hours a day, will employ the half hour saved by the new
machine in gratifying some other want; and as each new machine
adds to these gratifications, new luxuries will open to his view,
which continued enjoyment will as surely render necessary to his
happiness.

406. In countries where occupations are divided, and where
the division of labour is practised, the ultimate consequence of
improvements in machinery is almost invariably to cause a greater
demand for labour. Frequently the new labour requires, at its
commencement, a higher degree of skill than the old; and,
unfortunately, the class of persons driven out of the old
employment are not always qualified for the new one; so that a
certain interval must elapse before the whole of their labour is
wanted. This, for a time, produces considerable suffering amongst
the working classes; and it is of great importance for their
happiness that they should be aware of these effects, and be
enabled to foresee them at an early period, in order to diminish,
as much as possible, the injury resulting from them.

407. One very important enquiry which this subject presents
is the question whether it is more for the interest of the
working classes, that improved machinery should be so perfect as
to defy the competition of hand labour; and that they should thus
be at once driven out of the trade by it; or be gradually forced
to quit it by the slow and successive advances of the machine?
The suffering which arises from a quick transition is undoubtedly
more intense; but it is also much less permanent than that which
results from the slower process: and if the competition is
perceived to be perfectly hopeless, the workman will at once set
himself to learn a new department of his art. On the other hand,
although new machinery causes an increased demand for skill in
those who make and repair it, and in those who first superintend
its use; yet there are other cases in which it enables children
and inferior workmen to execute work that previously required
greater skill. In such circumstances, even though the increased
demand for the article, produced by its diminished price, should
speedily give occupation to all who were before employed, yet the
very diminution of the skill required, would open a wider field
of competition amongst the working classes themselves.

That machines do not, even at their first introduction,
invariably throw human labour out of employment, must be
admitted; and it has been maintained, by persons very competent
to form an opinion on the subject, that they never produce that
effect. The solution of this question depends on facts, which,
unfortunately, have not yet been collected: and the circumstance
of our not possessing the data necessary for the full examination
of so important a subject, supplies an additional reason for
impressing, upon the minds of all who are interested in such
enquiries, the importance of procuring accurate registries, at
various times, of the number of persons employed in particular
branches of manufacture, of the number of machines used by them.
and of the wages they receive.

408. In relation to the enquiry just mentioned, I shall offer
some remarks upon the facts within my knowledge; and only regret
that those which I can support by numerical statement are so few.
When the crushing mill, used in Cornwall and other mining
countries, superseded the labour of a great number of young
women, who worked very hard in breaking ores with flat hammers,
no distress followed. The reason of this appears to have been,
that the proprietors of the mines, having one portion of their
capital released by the superior cheapness of the process
executed by the mills, found it their interest to apply more
labour to other operations. The women, disengaged from mere
drudgery, were thus profitably employed in dressing the ores, a
work which required skill and judgement in the selection.

409. The increased production arising from alterations in the
machinery, or from improved modes of using it, appears from the
following table. A machine called in the cotton manufacture a
'stretcher', worked by one man, produced as follows:

Year; Pounds of cotton spun; Roving wages per score; Rate of
earning per week
s. d. s. d.

1810 400 1 31/2 25 10(1*)
1811 600 0 10 25 0
1813 850 0 9 31 101/2
1823 1000 0 71/2 31 3

The same man working at another stretcher, the roving a little
finer, produced,

1823 900 0 71/2 28 11/2
1825 1000 0 7 27 6
1827 1200 0 6 30 0
1832 1200 0 6 30 0

In this instance, production has gradually increased until, at
the end of twenty-two years, three times as much work is done as
at the commencement, although the manual labour employed remains
the same. The weekly earnings of the workmen have not fluctuated
very much, and appear, on the whole, to have advanced: but it
would be imprudent to push too far reasonings founded upon a
single instance.

410. The produce of 480 spindles of 'mule yarn spinning', at
different periods, was as follows:

Year; Hanks about 40 to the pound; Wages per thousand (s. d.)

1806; 6668; 9 2
1823; 8000; 6 3
1832; 10,000; 3 8

411. The subjoined view of the state of weaving by hand- and
by power-looms, at Stockport, in the years 1822 and 1832, is
taken from an enumeration of the machines contained in 65
factories, and was collected for the purpose of being given in
evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons.

In 1822 In 1832
Hand-loom weavers 2800 800 2000 decrease
Persons using power-looms 657 3059 2402 increase
Persons to dress the warp 98 388 290 increase
Total persons employed 3555 4247 692 increase
Power-looms 1970 9177 8207 increase

During this period, the number of hand-looms in employment has
diminished to less than one-third, whilst that of power-looms has
increased to more than five times its former amount. The total
number of workmen has increased about one-third; but the amount
of manufactured goods (supposing each power-loom to do only the
work of three hand-looms) is three and a half times as large as
it was before.

412. In considering this increase of employment, it must be
admitted, that the two thousand persons thrown out of work are
not exactly of the same class as those called into employment by
the power-looms. A hand-weaver must possess bodily strength,
which is not essential for a person attending a power-loom;
consequently, women and young persons of both sexes, from fifteen
to seventeen years of age, find employment in power-loom
factories. This, however, would be a very limited view of the
employment arising from the introduction of power-looms: the
skill called into action in building the new factories, in
constructing the new machinery, in making the steam-engines to
drive it, and in devising improvements in the structure of the
looms, as well as in regulating the economy of the establishment,
is of a much higher order than that which it had assisted in
superseding; and if we possessed any means of measuring this, it
would probably be found larger in amount. Nor, in this view of
the subject, must we omit the fact, that although hand-looms
would have increased in number if those moved by steam had not
been invented, yet it is the cheapness of the article
manufactured by power-looms which has caused this great extension
of their employment, and that by diminishing the price of one
article of commerce, we always call into additional activity the
energy of those who produce others. It appears that the number of
hand-looms in use in England and Scotland in 1830, was about
240,000; nearly the same number existed in the year 1820: whereas
the number of power-looms which, in 1830, was 55,000, had, in
1820, been 14,000. When it is considered that each of these
powerlooms did as much work as three worked by hand, the
increased producing power was equal to that of 123,000
hand-looms. During the whole of this period the wages and
employment of hand-loom weavers have been very precarious.

413. Increased intelligence amongst the working classes, may
enable them to foresee some of those improvements which are
likely for a time to affect the value of their labour; and the
assistance of savings banks and friendly societies, (the
advantages of which can never be too frequently, or too strongly,
pressed upon their attention), may be of some avail in remedying
the evil: but it may be useful also to suggest to them, that a
diversity of employments amongst the members of one family will
tend, in some measure, to mitigate the privations which arise
from fluctuation in the value of labour.

NOTES:

1. In 1810, the workman's wages were guaranteed not to be less
than 26s.

CHAPTER 31

2006-09-11T02:24:00.000-07:00

On Combinations of Masters against the public

376. A species of combination occasionally takes place
amongst manufacturers against persons having patents: and these
combinations are always injurious to the public, as well as
unjust to the inventors. Some years since, a gentleman invented a
machine, by which modellings and carvings were cut in mahogany,
and other fine woods. The machine resembled, in some measure, the
drilling apparatus employed in ornamental lathes; it produced
beautiful work at a very moderate expense: but the cabinetmakers
met together, and combined against it, and the patent has
consequently never been worked. A similar fate awaited a machine
for cutting veneers by means of a species of knife. In this
instance, the wood could be cut thinner than by the circular saw,
and no waste was incurred; but 'the trade' set themselves against
it, and after a heavy expense, it was given up.

The excuse alleged for this kind of combination, was the fear
entertained by the cabinetmakers that when the public became
acquainted with the article, the patentee would raise the price.

Similar examples of combination seem not to be unfrequent, as
appears by the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on
Patents for Inventions, June, 1829. See the evidence of Mr
Holdsworth.

377. There occurs another kind of combination against the
public, with which it is difficult to deal. It usually ends in a
monopoly, and the public are then left to the discretion of the
monopolists not to charge them above the growling point--that
is, not to make them pay so much as to induce them actually to
combine against the imposition. This occurs when two companies
supply water or gas to consumers by means of pipes laid down
under the pavement in the street of cities: it may possibly occur
also in docks, canals, railroads, etc., and in other cases where
the capital required is very large, and the competition very
limited. If water or gas companies combine, the public
immediately loses all the advantage of competition, and it has
generally happened, that at the end of a period during which they
have undersold each other, the several companies have agreed to
divide the whole district supplied, into two or more parts, each
company then removing its pipes from all the streets except those
in its own portion. This removal causes great injury to the
pavement, and when the pressure of increased rates induces a new
company to start, the same inconvenience is again produced.
Perhaps one remedy against evils of this kind might be, when a
charter is granted to such companies, to restrict, to a certain
amount, the rate of profit on the shares, and to direct that any
profits beyond, shall accumulate for the repayment of the
original capital. This has been done in several late Acts of
Parliament establishing companies. The maximum rate of profit
allowed ought to be liberal, to compensate for the risk; the
public ought to have auditors on their part, and the accounts
should be annually published, for the purpose of preventing the
limitations from being exceeded. It must however be admitted,
that this would be an interference with capital, which, if
allowed, should, in the present state of our knowledge, be.
examined with great circumspection in each individual case, until
some general principle is established on well-admitted grounds.

378. An instrument called a gas-meter, which ascertains the
quantity of gas used by each consumer, has been introduced, and
furnishes a satisfactory mode of determining the payments to be
made by individuals to the gas companies. A contrivance somewhat
similar in its nature, might be used for the sale of water; but
in that case some public inconvenience might be apprehended, from
the diminished quantity which would then run to waste: the
streams of water running through the sewers in London, are
largely supplied from this source; and if this supply were
diminished, the drainage of the metropolis might be injuriously
affected.

379. In the north of England a powerful combination has long
existed among the coal-owners, by which the public has suffered
in the payment of increased price. The late examination of
evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons, has
explained its mode of operation, and the Committee have
recommended, that for the present the sale of coal should be left
to the competition of other districts.

380. A combination, of another kind, exists at this moment to
a great extent, and operates upon the price of the very pages
which are now communicating information respecting it. A subject
so interesting to every reader, and still more so to every
manufacturer ofthe article which the reader consumes, deserves an
attentive examination.

We have shown in Chapter XXI, p. 144, the component parts of
the expense of each copy of the present work; and we have seen
that the total amount of the cost of its production, exclusive of
any payment to the author for his labour, is 2s. 3d.(1*)

Another fact, with which the reader is more practically
familiar, is that he has paid, or is to pay, to his bookseller,
six shillings for the volume. Let us now examine into the
distribution of these six shillings, and then, having the facts
ofthe case before us, we shall be better able to judgeofthe
meritsofthe combinationjust mentioned, andtoexplainits effects.

Distribution of the profits on a six shilling book

Buys at; Sells at; Profit on capital expended
s. d.; s. d.

No. I--The publisher who accounts to the author for every copy
received; 3 10; 4 2; 10 per cent
No. II--The bookseller who retails to the public; 4 2; 6 0; 44
Or, 4 6; 6 0; 33 1/3

No. I, the publisher, is a bookseller; he is, in fact, the
author's agent. His duties are, to receive and take charge of the
stock, for which he supplies warehouse room; to advise the author
about the times and methods of advertising; and to insert the
advertisements. As he publishes other books, he will advertise
lists of those sold by himself; and thus, by combining many in
one advertisement, diminish the expense to each of his
principals. He pays the author only for the books actually sold;
consequently, he makes no outlav of capital, except that which he
pays for advertisements: but he is answerable for any bad debts
he may contract in disposing of them. His charge is usually ten
per cent on the returns.

No. II is the bookseller who retails the work to the public.
On the publication of a new book, the publisher sends round to
the trade, to receive 'subscriptions' from them for any number of
copies not less than two These copies are usually charged to the
'subscribers', on an average, at about four or five per cent less
than the wholesale price of the book: in the present case the
subscription price is 4s. 2d. for each copy. After the day of
publication, the price charged by the publisher to the
booksellers is 4s. 6d. With some works it is the custom to
deliver twentyfive copies to those who order twenty-four, thus
allowing a reduction of about four per cent. Such was the case
with the present volume. Different publishers offer different
terms to the subscribers; and it is usual, after intervals of
about six months, for the publisher again to open a subscription
list, so that if the work be one for which there is a steady
sale, the trade avail themselves of these opportunities
ofpurchasing, at the reduced rate, enough to supply their
probable demand.(2*)

381. The volume thus purchased of the publisher at 4s. 2d. or
4s. 6d. is retailed by the bookseller to the public at 6s. In the
first case he makes a profit of forty-four, in the second of
thirty-three per cent. Even the smaller of these two rates of
profit on the capital employed, appears to be much too large. It
may sometimes happen, that when a book is enquired for, the
retail dealer sends across the street to the wholesale agent, and
receives, for this trifling service, one fourth part of the money
paid by the purchaser; and perhaps the retail dealer takes also
six months' credit for the price which the volume actually cost
him.

382. In section 256, the price of each process in
manufacturing the present volume was stated: we shall now give an
analysis of the whole expense of conveying it into the hands of
the public.

The retail price 6s. on 3052 produces 915 12 0

1. Total expense of printing and paper 207 5 8 7/11
2. Taxes on paper and advertisements 40 0 11
3. Commission to publisher as agent between author and printer 18
14 4 4/11 4 Commission to publisher as agent for sale of the book
63 11 8
5. Profit--the difference between subscription price and trade
price, 4d. per vol. 50 17 4
6. Profit the difference between trade price and retail price,
1s. 6d. per vol. 228 18 0
362 1 4
7. Remains for authorship 306 4 0

Total 915 12 0

This account appears to disagree with that in page 146. but
it will be observed that the three first articles amount to L266
1s., the sum there stated. The apparent difference arises from a
circumstance which was not noticed in the first edition of this
work. The bill amounting to L205 18s., as there given, and as
reprinted in the present volume, included an additional charge of
ten per cent upon the real charges of the printer and
paper-maker.

383. It is usual for the publisher, when he is employed as
agent between the author and printer, to charge a commission of
ten per cent on all payments he makes. If the author is informed
of this custom previously to his commencing the work, as was the
case in the present instance, he can have no just cause of
complaint; for it is optional whether he himself employs the
printer, or communicates with him through the intervention of his
publisher.

The services rendered for this payment are, the making
arrangements with the printer, the wood-cutter, and the engraver,
if required. There is a convenience in having some intermediate
person between the author and printer, in case the former should
consider any of the charges made by the latter as too high. When
the author himself is quite unacquainted with the details of the
art of printing, he may object to charges which, on a better
acquaintance with the subject, he might be convinced were very
moderate; and in such cases he ought to depend on the judgement
of his publisher, who is generally conversant with the art. This
is particularly the case in the charge for alterations and
corrections, some of which, although apparently trivial, occupy
the compositors much time in making. It should also be observed
that the publisher, in this case, becomes responsible for the
payments to those persons.

384. It is not necessary that the author should avail himself
of this intervention, although it is the interest of the
publisher that he should; and booksellers usually maintain that
the author cannot procure his paper or printing at a cheaper rate
if he go at once to the producers. This appears from the evidence
given before the Committee of the House of Commons in the
Copyright Acts, 8 May, 1818.

Mr O. Rees, bookseller, of the house of Longman and Co.,
Paternoster Row, examined:

Q. Suppose a gentleman to publish a work on his own account,
and to incur all the various expenses; could he get the paper at
30s. a ream?

A. I presume not; I presume a stationer would not sell the
paper at the same price to an indifferent gentleman as to the
trade.

Q. The Committee asked you if a private gentleman was to
publish a work on his own account, if he would not pay more for
the paper than persons in the trade; the Committee wish to be
informed whether a printer does not charge a gentleman a higher
rate than to a publisher.

A. I conceive they generally charge a profit on the paper.

Q. Do not the printers charge a higher price also for
printing, than they do to the trade?

A. I always understood that they do.

385. There appears to be little reason for this distinction
in charging for printing a larger price to the author than to the
publisher, provided the former is able to give equal security for
the payment. With respect to the additional charge on paper, if
the author employs either publisher or printer to purchase it,
they ought to receive a moderate remuneration for the risk, since
they become responsible for the payment; but there is no reason
why, if the author deals at once with the paper-maker, he should
not purchase on the same terms as the printer; and if he choose,
by paying ready money, not to avail himself of the long credit
allowed in those trades, he ought to procure his paper
considerably cheaper.

386. It is time, however, that such conventional combinations
between different trades should be done away with. In a country
so eminently depending for its wealth on its manufacturing
industry, it is of importance that there should exist no abrupt
distinction of classes, and that the highest of the aristocracy
should feel proud of being connected, either personally or
through their relatives, with those pursuits on which their
country's greatness depends. The wealthier manufacturers and
merchants already mix with those classes, and the larger and even
the middling tradesmen are frequently found associating with the
gentry of the land. It is good that this ambition should be
cultivated, not by any rivalry in expense, but by a rivalry in
knowledge and in liberal feelings; and few things would more
contribute to so desirable an effect, than the abolition of all
such contracted views as those to which we have alluded. The
advantage to the other classes, would be an increased
acquaintance with the productive arts of the country an increased
attention to the importance of acquiring habits of punctuality
and of business and, above all, a general feeling that it is
honourable, in any rank of life, to increase our own and our
country's riches, by employing our talents in the production or
in the distribution of wealth.

387. Another circumstance omitted to be noticed in the first
edition relates to what is technically called the overplus, which
may be now explained. When 500 copies of a work are to be
printed, each sheet of it requires one ream of paper. Now a ream,
as used by printers, consists of 21 1/2 quires, or 516 sheets.
This excess of sixteen sheets is necessary in order to allow for
'revises'--for preparing and adjusting the press for the due
performance of its work, and to supply the place of any sheets
which may be accidentally dirtied or destroyed in the processes
of printing, or injured by the binder in putting into boards. It
is found, however, that three per cent is more than the
proportion destroyed, and that damage is less frequent in
proportion to the skill and care of the workmen.

From the evidence of several highly respectable booksellers
and printers, before the Committee of the House of Commons on the
Copyright Act, May, 1818, it appears that the average number of
surplus copies, above 500, is between two and three; that on
smaller impressions it is less, whilst on larger editions it is
greater; that, in some instances, the complete number of 500 is
not made up, in which case the printer is obliged to pay for
completing it; and that in no instance have the whole sixteen
extra copies been completed. On the volume in the reader's hands,
the edition of which consisted of 3000, the surplus amounted to
fifty-two--a circumstance arising from the improvements in
printing and the increased care of the pressmen. Now this
overplus ought to be accounted for to the author--and I believe
it usually is so by all respectable publishers.

388. In order to prevent the printer from privately taking
off a larger number of impressions than he delivers to the author
or publisher, various expedients have been adopted. In some works
a particular watermark has been used in paper made purposely for
the book: thus the words 'Mecanique Celeste' appear in the
watermark of the two first volumes of the great work of Laplace.
In other cases, where the work is illustrated by engravings, such
a fraud would be useless without the concurrence of the
copperplate printer. In France it is usual to print a notice on
the back of the title page, that no copies are genuine without
the subjoined signature of the author: and attached to this
notice is the author's name, either written, or printed by hand
from a wooden block. But notwithstanding this precaution, I have
recently purchased a volume, printed at Paris, in which the
notice exists, but no signature is attached. In London there is
not much danger of such frauds, because the printers are men of
capital, to whom the profit on such a transaction would be
trifling, and the risk of the detection of a fact, which must of
necessity be known to many of their workmen, would be so great as
to render the attempt at it folly.

389. Perhaps the best advice to an author, if he publishes on
his own account, and is a reasonable person, possessed of common
sense, would be to go at once to a respectable printer and make
his arrangements with him.

390. If the author do not wish to print his work at his own
risk, then he should make an agreement with a publisher for an
edition of a limited number; but he should by no means sell the
copyright. If the work contains woodcuts or engravings, it would
be judicious to make it part of the contract that they shall
become the author's property, with the view to their use in a
subsequent edition of the works, if they should be required. An
agreement is frequently made by which the publisher advances the
money and incurs all the risk on condition of his sharing the
profits with the author. The profits alluded to are, for the
present work, the last item of section 382, or L306 4s.

391. Having now explained all the arrangements in printing
the present volume, let us return to section 382, and examine the
distribution of the L915 paid by the public. Of this sum L207 was
the cost of the book, L40 was taxes, L3S2 was the charges of the
bookseller in conveying it to the consumer, and L306 remained for
authorship.

The largest portion, or L362 goes into the pockets of the
booksellers; and as they do not advance capital, and incur very
little risk, this certainly appears to be an unreasonable
allowance. The most extravagant part of the charge is the
thirty-three per cent which is allowed as profit on retailing the
book.

It is stated, however, that all retail booksellers allow to
their customers a discount of ten per cent upon orders above
20s., and that consequently the nominal profit of forty-four or
thirty-three per cent is very much reduced. If this is the case,
it may fairly be enquired, why the price of L2 for example, is
printed upon the back of a book, when every bookseller is ready
to sell it at L1 16s., and why those who are unacquainted with
that circumstance should be made to pay more than others who are
better informed?

392. Several reasons have been alleged as justifying this
high rate of profit.

First, it has been alleged that the purchasers of books take
long credit. This, probably, is often the case, and admitting it,
no reasonable person can object to a proportionate increase of
price. But it is no less clear, that persons who do pay ready
money, should not be charged the same price as those who defer
their payments to a remote period.

Secondly, it has been urged that large profits are necessary
to pay for the great expenses of bookselling establishments; that
rents are high and taxes heavy; and that it would be impossible
for the great booksellers to compete with the smaller ones,
unless the retail profits were great. In reply to this it may be
observed that the booksellers are subject to no peculiar pressure
which does not attach to all other retail trades. It may also be
remarked that large establishments always have advantages over
smaller ones, in the economy arising from the division of labour;
and it is scarcely to be presumed that booksellers are the only
class who, in large concerns, neglect to avail themselves of
them.

Thirdly, it has been pretended that this high rate of profit
is necessary to cover the risk of the bookseller's having some
copies left on his shelves; but he is not obliged to buy of the
publisher a single copy more than he has orders for: and if he do
purchase more, at the subscription price, he proves, by the very
fact, that he himself does not estimate that risk at more than
from four to eight per cent.

393. It has been truly observed, on the other hand, that many
copies of books are spoiled by persons who enter the shops of
booksellers without intending to make any purchase. But, not to
mention that such persons finding on the tables various new
publications, are frequently induced, by that opportunity of
inspecting them, to become purchasers: this damage does not apply
to all booksellers nor to all books; of course it is not
necessary to keep in the shop books of small probable demand or
great price. In the present case, the retail profit on three
copies only, namely, 4s. 6d., would pay the whole cost of the one
copy soiled in the shop; and even that copy might afterwards
produce, at an auction, half or a third of its cost price. The
argument, therefore, from disappointments in the sale of books,
and that arising from heavy stock, are totally groundless in the
question between publisher and author. It shold be remarked also,
that the publisher is generally a retail, as well as a wholesale,
bookseller; and that, besides his profit upon every copy which he
sells in his capacity of agent, he is allowed to charge the
author as if every copy had been subscribed for at 4s. 2d., and
of course he receives the same profit as the rest of the
wholesale traders for the books retailed in his own shop.

394. In the country, there is more reason for a considerable
allowance between the retail dealer and the public; because the
profit of the country bookseller is diminished by the expense of
the carriage of the books from London. He must also pay a
commission, usually five per cent, to his London agent, on all
those books which his correspondent does not himself publish. If
to this be added a discount of five per cent, allowed for ready
money to every customer, and of ten per cent to book clubs, the
profit of the bookseller in a small country town is by no means
too large.

Some of the writers, who have published criticisms on the
observations made in the first edition of this work, have
admitted that the apparent rate of profit to the booksellers is
too large. But they have, on the other hand, urged that too
favourable a case is taken in supposing the whole 3000 copies
sold. If the reader will turn back to section 382, he will find
that the expense of the three first items remains the same,
whatever be the number of copies sold; and on looking over the
remaining items he will perceive that the bookseller, who incurs
very little risk and no outlay, derives exactly the same profit
per cent on the copies sold, whatever their numbers may be. This,
however, is not the case with the unfortunate author, on whom
nearly the whole of the loss falls undivided. The same writers
have also maintained, that the profit is fixed at the rate
mentioned, in order to enable the bookseller to sustain losses,
unavoidably incurred in the purchase and retail of other books.
This is the weakest of all arguments. It would be equally just
that a merchant should charge an extravagant commission for an
undertaking unaccompanied with any risk, in order to repay
himself for the losses which his own want of skill might lead to
in his other mercantile transactions.

395. That the profit in retailing books is really too large,
is proved by several circumstances: First, that the same nominal
rate of profit has existed in the bookselling trade for a long
series of years, notwithstanding the great fluctuations in the
rate of profit on capital invested in every other business.
Secondly, that, until very lately, a multitude of booksellers, in
all parts of London, were content with a much smaller profit, and
were willing to sell for ready money, or at short credit, to
persons of undoubted character, at a profit of only ten per cent,
and in some instances even at a still smaller percentage, instead
of that of twenty-five per cent on the published prices. Thirdly,
that they are unable to maintain this rate of profit except by a
combination, the object of which is to put down all competition.

396. Some time ago a small number of the large London
booksellers entered into such a combination. One of their objects
was to prevent any bookseller from selling books for less than
ten per cent under the published prices; and in order to enforce
this principle, they refuse to sell books, except at the
publishing price, to any bookseller who declines signing an
agreement to that effect. By degrees, many were prevailed upon to
join this combination; and the effect of the exclusion it
inflicted, left the small capitalist no option between signing or
having his business destroyed. Ultimately, nearly the whole
trade, comprising about two thousand four hundred persons, have
been compelled to sign the agreement.

As might be naturally expected from a compact so injurious to
many of the parties to it, disputes have arisen; several
booksellers have been placed under the ban of the combination,
who allege that they have not violated its rules, and who accuse
the opposite party of using spies, etc., to entrap them.(3*)

397. The origin of this combination has been explained by Mr
Pickering, of Chancery Lane, himself a publisher, in a printed
statement, entitled, 'Booksellers' Monopoly' and the following
list of booksellers, who form the committee for conducting this
combination, is copied from that printed at the head of each of
the cases published by Mr Pickering:

Allen, J., 7, Leadenhall Street.
Arch, J., 61, Cornhill.
Baldwin, R., 47, Paternoster Row.
Booth, J.
Duncan, J., 37, Paternoster Row.
Hatchard, J., Piccadilly.
Marshall, R., Stationers' Court.
Murray, J., Albemarle Street.
Rees, O., 39, Paternoster Row.
Richardson, J. M., 23, Cornhill.
Rivington, J., St. Paul's Churchyard.
Wilson, E., Royal Exchange.

398. In whatever manner the profits are divided between the
publisher and the retail bookseller, the fact remains, that the
reader pays for the volume in his hands 6s., and that the author
will receive only 3s. 10d.; out of which latter sum, the expense
of printing the volume must be paid: so that in passing through
two hands this book has produced a profit of forty-four per cent.
This excessive rate of profit has drawn into the book trade a
larger share of capital than was really advantageous; and the
competition between the different portions of that capital has
naturally led to the system of underselling, to which the
committee above mentioned are endeavouring to put a stop.(4*)

399. There are two parties who chiefly suffer from this
combination, the public and authors. The first party can seldom be
induced to take an active part against any grievance; and in fact
little is required from it, except a cordial support of the
authors, in any attempt to destroy a combination so injurious to
the interests of both.

Many an industrious bookseller would be glad to sell for 5s.
the volume which the reader holds in his hand, and for which he
has paid 6s.; and, in doing so for ready money, the tradesman who
paid 4s. 6d. for the book, would realize, without the least risk,
a profit of eleven per cent on the money he had advanced. It is
one of the objects of the combination we are discussing, to
prevent the small capitalist from employing his capital at that
rate of profit which he thinks most advantageous to himself; and
such a proceeding is decidedly injurious to the public.

400. Having derived little pecuniary advantage from my own
literary productions; and being aware, that from the very nature
of their subjects, they can scarcely be expected to reimburse the
expense of preparing them, I may be permitted to offer an opinion
upon the subject, which I believe to be as little influenced by
any expectation of advantage from the future, as it is by any
disappointment at the past.

Before, however, we proceed to sketch the plan of a campaign
against Paternoster Row, it will be fit to inform the reader of
the nature of the enemies' forces, and of his means of attack and
defence. Several of the great publishers find it convenient to be
the proprietors of reviews, magazines, journals, and even of
newspapers. The editors are paid, in some instances very
handsomely, for their superintendence; and it is scarcely to be
expected that they should always mete out the severest justice on
works by the sale of which their employers are enriched. The
great and popular works of the day are, of course, reviewed with
some care, and with deference to public opinion. Without this,
the journals would not sell; and it is convenient to be able to
quote such articles as instances of impartiality. Under shelter
of this, a host of ephemeral productions are written into a
transitory popularity; and by the aid of this process, the
shelves of the booksellers, as well as the pockets of the public,
are disencumbered. To such an extent are these means employed,
that some of the periodical publications of the day ought to be
regarded merely as advertising machines. That the reader may be
in some measure on his guard against such modes of influencing
his judgement, he should examine whether the work reviewed is
published by the bookseller who is the proprietor of the review;
a fact which can sometimes be ascertained from the title of the
book as given at the head of the article. But this is by no means
a certain criterion, because partnerships in various publications
exist between houses in the book trade, which are not generally
known to the public; so that, in fact, until reviews are
established in which booksellers have no interest, they can never
be safely trusted.

401. In order to put down the combination of booksellers, no
plan appears so likely to succeed as a counter-association of
authors. If any considerable portion of the literary world were
to unite and form such an association; and if its affairs were
directed by an active committee, much might be accomplished. The
objects of such an union should be, to employ some person well
skilled in the printing, and in the bookselling trade; and to
establish him in some central situation as their agent. Each
member of the association to be at liberty to place any, or all
of his works in the hands of this agent for sale; to allow any
advertisements, or list of books published by members of the
association, to be stitched up at the end of each of his own
productions; the expense of preparing them being defrayed by the
proprietors of the books advertised.

The duties of the agent would be to retail to the public, for
ready money, copies of books published by members of the
association. To sell to the trade, at prices agreed upon, any
copies they may require. To cause to be inserted in the journals,
or at the end of works published by members, any advertisements
which the committee or authors may direct. To prepare a general
catalogue of the works of members. To be the agent for any member
of the association respecting the printing of any work.

Such a union would naturally present other advantages; and as
each author would retain the liberty of putting any price he
might think fit on his productions, the public would have the
advantage of reduction in price produced by competition between
authors on the same subject, as well as of that arising from a
cheaper mode of publishing the volumes sold to them.

402. Possibly, one of the consequences resulting from such an
association, would be the establishment of a good and an
impartial review, a work the want of which has been felt for
several years. The two long-established and celebrated reviews,
the unbending champions of the most opposite political opinions.
are, from widely differing causes, exhibiting unequivocal signs
of decrepitude and decay. The quarterly advocate of despotic
principles is fast receding from the advancing intelligence of
the age; the new strength and new position which that
intelligence has acquired, demands for its expression, new
organs, equally the representatives of its intellectual power,
and of its moral energies: whilst, on the other hand, the sceptre
of the northern critics has passed, from the vigorous grasp of
those who established its dominion, into feebler hands.

403. It may be stated as a difficulty in realizing this
suggestion, that those most competent to supply periodical
criticism, are already engaged. But it is to be observed, that
there are many who now supply literary criticisms to journals,
the political principles of which they disapprove; and that if
once a respectable and well-supported review(5*) were
established, capable of competing, in payment to its
contributors, with the wealthiest of its rivals, it would very
soon be supplied with the best materials the country can produce.
(6*) It may also be apprehended that such a combination of
authors would be favourable to each other. There are two
temptations to which an editor of a review is commonly exposed:
the first is, a tendency to consult too much, in the works he
criticizes, the interest of the proprietor of his review; the
second, a similar inclination to consult the interests of his
friends. The plan which has been proposed removes one of these
temptations, but it would be very difficult, if not impossible,
to destroy the other.

NOTES:

1. The whole of the subsequent details relate to the first
edition of this work.

2. These details vary with different books and different
publishers; those given in the text are believed to substantially
correct, and are applicable to works like the present.

3. It is now understood that the use of spies has been given up;
and it is also known that the system of underselling is again
privately resorted to by many, so that the injury arising from
this arbitrary system, pursued by the great booksellers, affects
only, or most severely, those whose adherence to an extorted
promise most deserves respect. Note to the second edition.

4 The monopoly cases. Nos. 1. 2. and 3. of those published by Mr
Pickering, should be consulted upon this point; and, as the
public will be better able to form a judgement by hearing the
other side of the question, it is to be hoped the Chairman of the
Committee (Mr Richardson) will publish those regulations
respecting the trade, a copy of which. Mr Pickering states, is
refused by the Committee even to those who sign them.

5. At the moment when this opinion as to the necessity for a new
review was passing through the press. I was informed that the
elements of such an undertaking were already organized.

6. I have been suggested to me, that the doctrines maintained in
this chapter may subject the present volume to the opposition of
that combination which it has opposed. I do not entertain that
opinion; and for this reason, that the booksellers are too shrewd
a class to supply such an admirable passport to publicity as
their opposition would prove to be if generally suspected. But
should my readers take a different view of the question, they can
easily assist in remedying the evil, by each mentioning the
existence of this little volume to two of his friends.

{I was wrong in this conjecture; all booksellers are not so
shrewd as I had imagined, for some did refuse to sell this
volume; consequently others sold a larger number of copies.

In the preface to the second edition, at the commencement of
this volume, the reader will find some further observation on the
effect of the booksellers' combination.}

CHAPTER 30.

2006-09-11T02:23:00.000-07:00

On Combinations Amongst Masters or Workmen against Each Other

353. There exist amongst the workmen of almost all classes,
certain rules or laws which govern their actions towards each
other, and towards their employers. But, besides these general
principles, there are frequently others peculiar to each factory,
which have derived their origin, in many instances, from the
mutual convenience of the parties engaged in them. Such rules are
little known except to those actually pursuing the several
trades; and, as it is of importance that their advantages and
disadvantages should be canvassed, we shall offer a few remarks
upon some of them.

354. The principles by which such laws should be tried are,

First. That they conduce to the general benefit of all the
persons employed.

Secondly. That they prevent fraud.

Thirdly. That they interfere as little as possible with the
free agency of each individual.

355. It is usual in many workshops, that, on the first
entrance of a new journeyman, he shall pay a small fine to the
rest of the men. It is clearly unjust to insist upon this
payment; and when it is spent in drinking, which is,
unfortunately, too often the case, it is injurious. The reason
assigned for the demand is, that the newcomer will require some
instruction in the habits of the shop, and in the places of the
different tools, and will thus waste the time of some of his
companions until he is instructed. If this fine were added to a
fund, managed by the workmen themselves, and either divided at
given periods, or reserved for their relief in sickness, it would
be less objectionable, since its tendency would be to check the
too frequent change of men from one shop to another. But it
ought, at all events, not to be compulsory, and the advantages to
be derived from the fund to which the workman is invited to
subscribe, ought to be his sole inducement to contribute.

356. In many workshops, the workmen, although employed on
totally different parts of the objects manufactured, are yet
dependent, in some measure, upon each other. Thus a single smith
may be able to forge, in one day, work enough to keep four or
five turners employed during the next. If, from idleness or
intemperance, the smith neglects his work, and does not furnish
the usual supply, the turners (supposing them to be paid by the
piece), will have their time partly unoccupied, and their gains
consequently diminished. It is reasonable, in such circumstances,
that a fine should be levied on the delinquent; but it is
desirable that the master should have concurred with his workmen
in establishing such a rule, and that it should be shown to each
individual previously to his engagement; and it is very desirable
that such fine should not be spent in drinking.

357. In some establishments, it is customary for the master
to give a small gratuity whenever any workman has exercised a
remarkable degree of skill, or has economized the material
employed. Thus, in splitting horn into layers for lanterns, one
horn usually furnishes from five to eight layers; but if a
workman split the horn into ten layers or more, he receives a
pint of ale from the master. These premiums should not be too
high, lest the material should be wasted in unsuccessful
attempts: but such regulations, when judiciously made, are
beneficial, as they tend to produce skill amongst the workmen,
profit to the masters, and diminished cost to the consumers.

358. In some few factories, in which the men are paid by the
piece, it is usual, when any portion of work, delivered in by a
workman, is rejected by the master on account of its being badly
executed, to fine the delinquent. Such a practice tends to remedy
one of the evils attendant upon that mode of payment, and greatly
assists the master, since his own judgement is thus supported by
competent and unprejudiced judges.

359. Societies exist amongst some of the larger bodies of
workmen, and others have been formed by the masters engaged in
the same branches of trade. These associations have different
objects in view; but it is very desirable that their effects
should be well understood by the individuals who compose them;
and that the advantages arising from them, which are certainly
great, should be separated as much as possible from the evils
which they have, unfortunately, too frequently introduced.
Associations of workmen and of masters may, with advantage, agree
upon rules to be observed by both parties, in estimating the
proportionate value of different kinds of work executed in their
trade, in order that time may be saved, and disputes be
prevented. They may also be most usefully employed in acquiring
accurate information as to the number of persons working in the
various departments of any manufacture, their rate of wages, the
number of machines in use, and other statistical details.
Information of this nature is highly valuable, both for the
guidance of the parties who are themselves most interested, and
to enable them, upon any application to government for
assistance, or with a view to legislative enactments, to supply
those details, without which the propriety of any proposed
measure cannot be duly estimated. Such details may be collected
by men actually engaged in any branch of trade, at a much smaller
expense of time, than by persons less acquainted with, and less
interested in it.

360. One of the most legitimate and most important objects of
such associations as we have just mentioned, is to agree upon
ready and certain modes of measuring the quantity of work done by
the workmen. For a long time a difficulty upon this point existed
in the lace trade, which was justly complained of by the men as a
serious grievance; but the introduction of the rack, which counts
the number of holes in the length of the piece, has entirely put
an end to the most fertile cause of disputes. This invention was
adverted to by the Committee of 1812, and a hope was expressed,
in their report, that the same contrivance would be applied to
stocking-frames. It would, indeed, be of great mutual advantage
to the industrious workman, and to the master manufacturer in
every trade, if the machines employed in it could register the
quantity of work which they perform, in the same manner as a
steam-engine does the number of strokes it makes. The
introduction of such contrivances gives a greater stimulus to
honest industry than can readily be imagined, and removes one of
the sources of disagreement between parties, whose real interests
must always suffer by any estrangement between them.

361. The effects arising from combinations amongst the
workmen, are almost always injurious to the parties themselves.
There are numerous instances, in which the public suffer by
increased price at the moment, but are ultimately gainers from
the permanent reduction which results; whilst, on the other hand,
the improvements which are often made in machinery in consequence
of 'a strike' amongst the workmen, most frequently do injury, of
greater or less duration, to that particular class which gave
rise to them. As the injury to the men and to their families is
almost always more serious than that which affects their
employers, it is of the utmost importance to the comfort and
happiness of the former class, that they should themselves
entertain sound views upon this question. For this purpose a few
illustrations of the principle which is here maintained, will
probably have greater weight than any reasoning of a more general
nature, though drawn from admitted principles of political
economy. Such instances will, moreover, present the advantage of
appealing to facts known to many individuals of those classes for
whose benefit these reflections are intended.

362. There is a process in the manufacture of gun barrels for
making what, in the language of the trade, are called skelps. The
skelp is a piece or bar of iron, about three feet long, and four
inches wide, but thicker and broader at one end than at the
other; and the barrel of a musket is formed by forging out such
pieces to the proper dimensions, and then folding or bending them
into a cylindrical form, until the edges overlap, so that they
can be welded together.

About twenty years ago, the workmen, employed at a very
extensive factory in forging these skelps out of bar-iron,
'struck' for an advance of wages; and as their demands were very
exorbitant, they were not immediately complied with. In the
meantime, the superintendent of the establishment directed his
attention to the subject; and it occurred to him, that if the
circumference of the rollers, between which the bar-iron was
rolled, were to be made equal to the length of a skelp, or of a
musket barrel, and if also the groove in which the iron was
compressed, instead of being of the same width and depth
throughout, were cut gradually deeper and wider from a point on
the rollers, until it returned to the same point, then the
bar-iron passing between such rollers, instead of being uniform
in width and thickness, would have the form of a skelp. On making
the trial, it was found to succeed perfectly; a great reduction
of human labour was effected by the process, and the workmen who
had acquired peculiar skill in performing it ceased to derive any
advantage from their dexterity.

363. It is somewhat singular that another and a still more
remarkable instance of the effect of combination amongst workmen,
should have occurred but a few years since in the very same
trade. The process of welding the skelps, so as to convert them
into gun barrels, required much skill, and after the termination
of the war, the demand for muskets having greatly diminished, the
number of persons employed in making them was very much reduced.
This circumstance rendered combination more easy; and upon one
occasion, when a contract had been entered into for a
considerable supply to be delivered on a fixed day, the men all
struck for such an advance of wages as would have caused the
completion of the contract to be attended with a very heavy loss.

In this difficulty, the contractors resorted to a mode of
welding the gun barrel, for which a patent had been taken out by
one of themselves some years before this event. The plan had not
then succeeded so well as to come into general use, in
consequence of the cheapness of the usual mode of welding by hand
labour, combined with some other difficulties with which the
patentee had to contend. But the stimulus produced by the
combination of the workmen, induced him to make new trials, and
he was enabled to introduce such a facility in welding gun
barrels by rollers, and such perfection in the work itself, that,
in all probability, very few will in future be welded by hand
labour.

This new process consisted in folding a bar of iron, about a
foot long, into the form of a cylinder, with the edges a little
overlapping. It was then placed in a furnace, and being taken out
when raised to a welding heat, a triblet, or cylinder of iron,
was placed in it, and the whole was passed quickly through a pair
of rollers. The effect of this was, that the welding was
performed at a single heating, and the remainder of the
elongation necessary for extending the skelps to the length of
the musket barrel, was performed in a similar manner, but at a
lower temperature. The workmen who had combined were, of course,
no longer wanted, and instead of benefiting themselves by their
combination, they were reduced permanently, by this improvement
in the art, to a considerably lower rate of wages: for as the
process of welding gun barrels by hand required peculiar skill
and considerable experience, they had hitherto been in the habit
of earning much higher wages than other workmen of their class.
On the other hand, the new method of welding was far less
injurious to the texture of the iron, which was now exposed only
once, instead of three or four times, to the welding heat, so
that the public derived advantage from the superiority, as well
as from the economy of the process. Another process has
subsequently been invented, applicable to the manufacture of a
lighter kind of iron tubes, which can thus be made at a price
which renders their employment very general. They are now to be
found in the shops of all our larger ironmongers, of various
lengths and diameters, with screws cut at each end; and are in
constant use for the conveyance of gas for lighting, or of water
for warming, our houses. 364. Similar examples must have
presented themselves to all those who are familiar with the
details of our manufactories, but these are sufficient to
illustrate one of the results of combinations. It would not,
however, be fair to push the conclusion deduced from these
instances to its extreme limit. Although it is very apparent,
that in the two cases which have been stated, the effects of
combination were permanently injurious to the workman, by almost
immediately placing him in a lower class (with respect to his
wages) than he occupied before; yet they do not prove that all
such combinations have this effect. It is quite evident that they
have all this tendency, it is also certain that considerable
stimulus must be applied to induce a man to contrive a new and
expensive process; and that in both these cases, unless the fear
of pecuniary loss had acted powerfully, the improvement would not
have been made. If, therefore, the workmen had in either case
combined for only a small advance of wages, they would, in all
probability, have been successful, and the public would have been
deprived, for many years, of the inventions to which these
combinations gave rise. It must, however, be observed, that the
same skill which enabled the men to obtain, after long practice,
higher wages than the rest of their class, would prevent many of
them from being permanently thrown back into the class of
ordinary workmen. Their diminished wages will continue only until
they have acquired, by practice, a facility of execution in some
other of the more difficult operations: but a diminution of
wages, even for a year or two, is still a very serious
inconvenience to any person who lives by his daily exertion. The
consequence of combination has then, in these instances, been, to
the workmen who combined--reduction of wages; to the public -
reduction of price; and to the manufacturer increased sale of his
commodity, resulting from that reduction.

365. It is, however, important to consider the effects of
combination in another and less obvious point of view. The fear
of combination amongst the men whom he employs, will have a
tendency to induce the manufacturer to conceal from his workmen
the extent of the orders he may at any time have received; and,
consequently, they will always be less acquainted with the extent
of the demand for their labour than they otherwise might be. This
is injurious to their interests; for instead of foreseeing, by
the gradual falling-off in the orders, the approach of a time
when they must be unemployed, and preparing accordingly, they are
liable to much more sudden changes than those to which they would
otherwise be exposed.

In the evidence given by Mr Galloway, the engineer, he
remarks, that,

"When employers are competent to show their men that their
business is steady and certain, and when men find that they are
likely to have permanent employment, they have always better
habits, and more settled notions, which will make them better
men, and better workmen, and will produce great benefits to all
who are interested in their employment."

366. As the manufacturer, when he makes a contract, has no
security that a combination may not arise amongst the workmen,
which may render that contract a loss instead of a benefit;
besides taking precautions to prevent them from becoming
acquainted with it, he must also add to the price at which he
could otherwise sell the article, some small increase to cover
the risk of such an occurrence. If an establishment consist of
several branches which can only be carried on jointly, as, for
instance, of iron mines, blast furnaces, and a colliery, in which
there are distinct classes of workmen, it becomes necessary to
keep on hand a larger stock of materials than would be required,
if it were certain that no combinations would arise.

Suppose, for instance, the colliers were to 'strike' for an
advance of wages--unless there was a stock of coal above ground,
the furnaces must be stopped, and the miners also would be thrown
out of employ. Now the cost of keeping a stock of iron ore, or of
coals above ground, is just the same as that of keeping in a
drawer, unemployed, its value in money, (except, indeed, that the
coal suffers a small deterioration by exposure to the elements).
The interest of this sum must, therefore, be considered as the
price of an insurance against the risk of combination amongst the
workmen; and it must, so far as it goes, increase the price of
the manufactured article, and, consequently, limit the demand
which would otherwise exist for it. But every circumstance which
tends to limit the demand, is injurious to the workmen; because
the wider the demand, the less it is exposed to fluctuation.

The effect to which we have alluded, is by no means a
theoretical conclusion; the proprietors of one establishment in
the iron trade, within the author's knowledge, think it expedient
always to keep above ground a supply of coal for six months,
which is, in that instance, equal in value to about L10,000. When
we reflect that the quantity of capital throughout the country
thus kept unemployed merely from the fear of combinations amongst
the workmen, might, under other circumstances, be used for
keeping a larger number at work, the importance of introducing a
system in which there should exist no inducement to combine
becomes additionally evident.

367. That combinations are, while they last, productive of
serious inconveniences to the workmen themselves, is admitted by
all parties; and it is equally true, that, in most cases, a
successful result does not leave them in so good a condition as
they were in before 'the strike'. The little capital they
possessed, which ought to have been hoarded with care for days of
illness or distress, is exhausted; and frequently, in order to
gratify a pride, at the existence of which we cannot but rejoice,
even whilst we regret its misdirected energy, they will undergo
the severest privations rather than return to work at their
former wages. With many of the workmen, unfortunately, during
such periods, bad habits are formed which it is very difficult to
eradicate; and, in all those engaged in such transactions, the
kinder feelings of the heart are chilled, and passions are called
into action which are permanently injurious to the happiness of
the individual, and destructive of those sentiments of confidence
which it is equally the interest of the master manufacturer and
of his workman to maintain. If any of the trade refuse to join in
the strike, the majority too frequently forget, in the excitement
of their feelings, the dictates of justice, and endeavour to
exert a species of tyranny, which can never be permitted to exist
in a free country. In conceding therefore to the working classes,
that they have a right, if they consider it expedient, to combine
for the purpose of procuring higher wages (provided always, that
they have completed all their existing contracts), it ought ever
to be kept before their attention, that the same freedom which
they claim for themselves they are bound to allow to others, who
may have different views of the advantages of combination. Every
effort which reason and kindness can dictate, should be made, not
merely to remove their grievances, but to satisfy their own
reason and feelings, and to show them the consequences which will
probably result from their conduct: but the strong arm of the
law, backed, as in such cases it will always be, by public
opinion, should be instantly and unhesitatingly applied, to
prevent them from violating the liberty of a portion of their
own, or of any other class of society.

368. Amongst the evils which ultimately fall heavy on the
working classes themselves, when, through mistaken views, they
attempt to interfere with their employers in the mode of carrying
on their business, may be mentioned the removal of factories to
other situations, where the proprietors may be free from the
improper control of their men. The removal of a considerable
number of lace frames to the western counties, which took place,
in consequence of the combinations in Nottinghamshire, has
already been mentioned. Other instances have occurred, where
still greater injury has been produced by the removal of a
portion of the skill and capital of the country to a foreign
land. Such was the case at Glasgow, as stated in the fifth
Parliamentary Report respecting Artizans and Machinery. One of
the partners in an extensive cotton factory, disgusted by the
unprincipled conduct of the workmen, removed to the state of New
Y ork, where he re-established his machinery, and thus afforded,
to rivals already formidable to our trade, at once a pattern of
our best machinery, and an example of the most economical methods
of employing it.

369. When the nature of the work is such that it is not
possible to remove it, as happens with regard to mines, the
proprietors are more exposed to injury from combinations amongst
the workmen: but as the owners are generally possessed of a
larger capital, they generally succeed, if the reduction of wages
which they propose is really founded on the necessity of the
case.

An extensive combination lately existed amongst the colliers
in the north of England, which unfortunately led, in several
instances, to acts of violence. The proprietors of the coalmines
were consequently obliged to procure the aid of miners from other
parts of England who were willing to work at the wages they could
afford to give; and the aid of the civil, and in some cases of
the military, power, was requisite for their protection. This
course was persisted in during several months, and the question
being, which party could support itself longest on the diminished
gains, as it might have readily been foreseen, the proprietors
ultimately succeeded.

370. One of the remedies employed by the masters against the
occurrence of combinations, is to make engagements with their men
for long periods and to arrange them in such a manner, that these
contracts shall not all terminate together. This has been done in
some cases at Sheffield, and in other places. It is attended with
the inconvenience to the masters that, during periods when the
demand for their produce is reduced, they are still obliged to
employ the same number of workmen. This circumstance, however,
frequently obliges the proprietors to direct their attention to
improvements in their works: and in one such instance, within the
author's knowledge, a large reservoir was deepened, thus
affording a more constant supply to the water-wheel, whilst, at
the same time, the mud from the bottom gave permanent fertility
to a piece of land previously almost barren. In this case, not
merely was the supply of produce checked, when a glut existed.
but the labour was, in fact, applied more profitably than it
would have been in the usual course.

371. A mode of paying the wages of workmen in articles which
they consume, has been introduced into some of our manufacturing
districts, which has been called the truck system. As in many
instances this has nearly the effect of a combination of the
masters against the men, it is a fit subject for discussion in
the present chapter: but it should be carefully distinguished
from another system of a very different tendency, which will be
first described.

372. The principal necessaries for the support of a workman
and his family are few in number, and are usually purchased by
him in small quantities weekly. Upon such quantities, sold by the
retail dealer, a large profit is generally made; and if the
article is one whose quality, like that of tea, is not readily
estimated, then a great additional gain is made by the retail
dealer selling an inferior article.

Where the number of workmen living on the same spot is large,
it may be thought desirable that they should unite together and
have an agent, to purchase by wholesale those articles which are
most in demand, as tea, suger, bacon, etc., and to retail them at
prices, which will just repay the wholesale cost, together with
the expense of the agent who conducts their sale. If this be
managed wholly by a committee of workmen, aided perhaps by advice
from the master, and if the agent is paid in such a manner as to
have himself an interest in procuring good and reasonable
articles, it may be a benefit to the workmen: and if the plan
succeed in reducing the cost of articles of necessity to the men,
it is clearly the interest of the master to encourage it. The
master may indeed be enabled to afford them facilities in making
their wholesale purchases; but he ought never to have the least
interest in, or any connection with, the profit made by the
articles sold. The men, on the other hand, who subscribe to set
up the shop, ought not, in the slightest degree, to be compelled
to make their purchases there: the goodness and cheapness of the
article ought to be their sole inducements.

It may perhaps be objected, that this plan is only employing
a portion of the capital belonging to the workmen in a retail
trade; and that, without it, competition amongst small
shopkeepers will reduce the articles to nearly the same price.
This objection would be valid if the objects of consumption
required no verification; but combining what has been already
stated on that subject(1*) with the present argument, the plan
seems liable to no serious objections.

373. The truck system is entirely different in its effects.
The master manufacturer keeps a retail shop for articles required
by his men, and either pays their wages in goods, or compels them
by express agreement, or less directly, by unfair means, to
expend the whole or a certain part of their wages at his shop. If
the manufacturer kept this shop merely for the purpose of
securing good articles, at fair prices, to his workmen, and if he
offered no inducement to them to purchase at his shop, except the
superior cheapness of his articles, it would certainly be
advantageous to the men. But, unfortunately, this is not always
the case; and the temptation to the master, in times of
depression, to reduce in effect the wages which he pays (by
increasing the price of articles at his shop), without altering
the nominal rate of payment, is frequently too great to be
withstood. If the object be solely to procure for his workmen
better articles, it will be more effectually accomplished by the
master confining himself to supplying a small capital, at a
moderate rate of interest; leaving the details to be conducted by
a committee of workmen, in conjunction with his own agent, and
the books of the shop to be audited periodically by the men
themselves.

374. Wherever the workmen are paid in goods, or are compelled
to purchase at the master's shop, much injustice is done to them,
and great misery results from it. Whatever may have been the
intentions of the master in such cases, the real effect is, to
deceive the workman as to the amount he receives in exchange for
his labour. Now, the principles on which the happiness of that
class of society depends, are difficult enough to be understood,
even by those who are blessed with far better opportunities of
investigating them: and the importance of their being well
acquainted with those principles which relate to themselves, is
of more vital consequence to workmen, than to many other classes.
It is therefore highly desirable to assist them in comprehending
the position in which they are placed, by rendering all the
relations in which they stand to each other, and to their
employers, as simple as possible. Workmen should be paid entirely
in money; their work should be measured by some unbiassed, some
unerring piece of mechanism; the time during which they are
employed should be defined, and punctually adhered to. The
payments they make to their benefit societies should be fixed on
such just principles, as not to require extraordinary
contributions. In short, the object of all who wish to promote
their happiness should be, to give them, in the simplest form,
the means of knowing beforehand, the sum they are likely to
acquire by their labour, and the money they will be obliged to
expend for their support: thus putting before them, in the
clearest light, the certain result of persevering industry.

375. The cruelty which is inflicted on the workman by the
payment of his wages in goods, is often very severe. The little
purchases necessary for the comfort of his wife and children,
perhaps the medicines he occasionally requires for them in
illness, must all be made through the medium of barter; and he is
obliged to waste his time in arranging an exchange, in which the
goods which he has been compelled to accept for his labour are
invariably taken at a lower price than that at which his master
charged them to him. The father of a family perhaps, writhing
under the agonies of the toothache, is obliged to make his hasty
bargain with the village surgeon, before he will remove the cause
of his pain; or the disconsolate mother is compelled to sacrifice
her depreciated goods in exchange for the last receptacle of her
departed offspring. The subjoined evidence from the Report of the
Committee of the House of Commons on Framework Knitters'
Petitions, shows that these are not exaggerated statements.

It has been so common in our town to pay goods instead of
money, that a number of my neighbours have been obliged to pay
articles for articles, to pay sugar for drugs out of the
druggist's shop; and others have been obliged to pay sugar for
drapery goods, and such things, and exchange in that way numbers
of times. I was credibly informed, that one person paid half a
pound of tenpenny sugar and a penny to have a tooth drawn; and
there is a credible neighbour of mine told me, that he had heard
that the sexton had been paid for digging a grave with sugar and
tea: and before I came off, knowing I had to give evidence upon
these things, I asked this friend to enquire ofthe sexton,
whether this was a fact: the sexton hesitated for a little time,
on account of bringing into discredit the person who paid these
goods: however, he said at last, 'I have received these articles
repeatedly--I know these things have been paid to a great extent
in this way.'

NOTES:

1. See Chapter XV, p. 87

CHAPTER 29.

2006-09-11T02:22:00.001-07:00

On the Duration of Machinery

340. The time during which a machine will continue to perform
its work effectually, will depend chiefly upon the perfection
with which it was originally constructed upon the care taken to
keep it in proper repair, particularly to correct every shake or
looseness in the axes--and upon the smallness of the mass and of
the velocity of its moving parts. Everything approaching to a
blow, all sudden change of direction, is injurious. Engines for
producing power, such as windmills, water-mills, and
steam-engines, usually last a long time.(1*)

341. Many of the improvements which have taken place in
steamengines, have arisen from an improved construction of the
boiler or the fireplace. The following table of the work done by
steam-engines in Cornwall, whilst it proves the importance of
constantly measuring the effects of machinery, shows also the
gradual advance which has been made in the art of constructing
and managing those engines.

A table of the duty performed by steam-engines in Cornwall,
shewing the average of the whole for each year, and also the
average duty of the best engine in each monthly report

Years; Approximate number of engines reported; Average duty of
the whole; Average duty of the best engines

1813; 24; 19,456,000; 26,400,000
1814; 29; 20.534,232; 32,000,000
1815; 35; 20.526,160; 28,700,000
1816; 32; 22,907,110; 32,400,000
1817; 31; 26,502,259; 41,600,000
1818; 32; 25,433,783; 39,300,000
1819; 37; 26,252,620; 40,000,000
1820; 37; 28,736,398; 41,300,000
1821; 39; 28,223,382; 42,800,000
1822; 45; 28,887,216; 42,500.000
1823; 45; 28,156,162; 42,122,000
1824; 45; 28,326,140; 43,500,000
1825; 50; 32,000,741; 45,400,000
1826; 48; 30,486,630; 45,200,000
1827; 47; 32,100,000; 59,700,000
1828; 54; 37,100,000; 76,763,000
1829; 52; 41,220,000; 76,234,307
1830; 55; 43,350,000; 75,885,519
1831; 55(2*); 44,700,000; 74,911,365
1832; 60; 44,400,000; 79,294,114
1833; 58; 46,000,000; 83,306,092

342. The advantage arising from registering the duty done by
steamengines in Cornwall has been so great that the proprietors
of one of the largest mines, on which there are several engines,
find it good economy to employ a man to measure the duty they
perform every day. This daily report is fixed up at a particular
hour, and the enginemen are always in waiting, anxious to know
the state of their engines. As the general reports are made
monthly, if accident should cause a partial stoppage in the flue
of any of the boilers, it might without this daily check continue
two or three weeks before it could be discovered by a falling off
of the duty of the engine. In several of the mines a certain
amount of duty is assigned to each engine; and if it does more,
the proprietors give a premium to the engineers according to its
amount. This is called million money, and is a great stimulus to
economy in working the engine.

343. Machinery for producing any commodity in great demand,
seldom actually wears out; new improvements, by which the same
operations can be executed either more quickly or better,
generally superseding it long before that period arrives: indeed,
to make such an improved machine profitable, it is usually
reckoned that in five years it ought to have paid itself, and in
ten to be superseded by a better.

'A cotton manufacturer,' says one of the witnesses before a
Committee of the House of Commons, 'who left Manchester seven
years ago, would be driven out of the market by the men who are
now living in it, provided his knowledge had not kept pace with
those who have been, during that time, constantly profiting by
the progressive improvements that have taken place in that
period.'

344. The effect of improvements in machinery, seems
incidentally to increase production, through a cause which may be
thus explained. A manufacturer making the usual profit upon his
capital, invested in looms or other machines in perfect
condition, the market price of making each of which is a hundred
pounds, invents some improvement. But this is of such a nature,
that it cannot be adapted to his present engines. He finds upon
calculation, that at the rate at which he can dispose of his
manufactured produce, each new engine would repay the cost of its
making, together with the ordinary profit of capital, in three
years: he also concludes from his experience of the trade, that
the improvement he is about to make, will not be generally
adopted by other manufacturers before that time. On these
considerations, it is clearly his interest to sell his present
engines, even at half-price, and construct new ones on the
improved principle. But the purchaser who gives only fifty pounds
for the old engines, has not so large a fixed capital invested in
his factory, as the person from whom he purchased them; and as he
produces the same quantity of the manufactured article, his
profits will be larger. Hence, the price of the commodity will
fall, not only in consequence of the cheaper production by the
new machines, but also by the more profitable working of the old,
thus purchased at a reduced price. This change, however, can be
only transient; for a time will arrive when the old machinery,
although in good repair, must become worthless. The improvement
which took place not long ago in frames for making patent-net was
so great, that a machine, in good repair, which had cost L1200,
sold a few years after for L60. During the great speculations in
that trade, the improvements succeeded each other so rapidly,
that machines which had never been finished were abandoned in the
hands of their makers, because new improvements had superseded
their utility.

345. The durability of watches, when well made, is very
remarkable. One was produced, in going order, before a committee
of the House of Commons to enquire into the watch trade, which
was made in the year 1660; and there are many of ancient date, in
the possession of the Clockmaker's Company, which are still
actually kept going. The number of watches manufactured for home
consumption was, in the year 1798, about 50,000 annually. If this
supply was for Great Britain only, it was consumed by about ten
and a half millions of persons.

346. Machines are, in some trades, let out to hire, and a
certain sum is paid for their use; in the manner of rent. This is
the case amongst the framework knitters: and Mr Henson, in
speaking of the rate of payment for the use of their frames,
states, that the proprietor receives such a rent that, besides
paying the full interest for his capital, he clears the value of
his frame in nine years. When the rapidity with which
improvements succeed each other is considered, this rent does not
appear exorbitant. Some of these frames have been worked for
thirteen years with little or no repair. But circumstances
occasionally arise which throw them out of employment, either
temporarily or permanently. Some years since, an article was
introduced called cut-up work, by which the price of
stocking-frames was greatly deteriorated. From the evidence of Mr
J. Rawson, it appears that, in consequence of this change in the
nature of the work, each frame could do the work of two, and many
stocking frames were thrown out of employment, and their value
reduced full threefourths.(3*)

This information is of great importance, if the numbers here
given are nearly correct, and if no other causes intervened to
diminish the price of frames; for it shews the numerical
connection between the increased production of those machines and
their diminished value.

347. The great importance of simplifying all transactions
between masters and workmen, and of dispassionately discussing
with the latter the influence of any proposed regulations
connected with their trade, is well examplified by a mistake into
which both parties unintentionally fell, and which was productive
of very great misery in the lace trade. Its history is so well
told by William Allen, a framework knitter, who was a party to
it, that an extract from his evidence, as given before the
Framework Knitters' Committee of 1812, will best explain it.

"I beg to say a few words respecting the frame rent; the rent
paid for lace frames, until the year 1805, was 1s. 6d. a frame
per week; there then was not any very great inducement for
persons to buy frames and let them out by the hire, who did not
belong to the trade; at that time an attempt was made, by one or
two houses, to reduce the prices paid to the workmen, in
consequence of a dispute between these two houses and another
great house: some little difference being paid in the price
amongst the respective houses, I was one chosen by the workmen to
try if we could not remedy the impending evil: we consulted the
respective parties, and found them inflexible; these two houses
that were about to reduce the prices, said that they would either
immediately reduce the price of making net, or they would
increase the frame rent: the difference to the workmen was
considerable, between the one and the other; they would suffer
less, in the immediate operation of the thing, by having the rent
advanced, than the price of making net reduced. They chose at
that time, as they thought, the lesser evil, but it has turned
out to be otherwise; for, immediately as the rent was raised upon
the percentage laid out in frames, it induced almost every
person, who had got a little money, to lay it out in the purchase
of frames; these frames were placed in the hands of men who could
get work for them at the warehouses; they were generally
constrained to pay an enormous rent, and then they were
compelled, most likely, to buy of the persons that let them the
frames, their butcher's meat, their grocery, or their clothing:
the encumbrance of these frames became entailed upon them: if any
deadness took place in the work they must take it at a very
reduced price, for fear of the consequences that would fall upon
them from the person who bought the frame: thus the evil has been
daily increasing, till, in conjunction with the other evils crept
into the trade, they have almost crushed it to atoms."

348. The evil of not assigning fairly to each tool, or each
article produced, its proportionate value, or even of not having
a perfectly distinct, simple, and definite agreement between a
master and his workmen, is very considerable. Workmen find it
difficult in such cases to know the probable produce of their
labour; and both parties are often led to adopt arrangements,
which, had they been well examined, would have been rejected as
equally at variance in the results with the true interests of
both.

349. At Birmingham, stamps and dies, and presses for a great
variety of articles, are let out: they are generally made by men
possessing small capital, and are rented by workmen. Power also
is rented at the same place. Steam-engines are erected in large
buildings containing a variety of rooms, in which each person may
hire one, two, or any other amount of horsepower, as his
occupation may require. If any mode could be discovered of
transmitting power, without much loss from friction, to
considerable distances, and at the same time of registering the
quantity made use of at any particular point, a considerable
change would probably take place in many departments of the
present system of manufacturing. A few central engines to produce
power, might then be erected in our great towns, and each
workman, hiring a quantity of power sufficient for his purpose,
might have it conveyed into his own house; and thus a transition
might in some instances be effected, if it should be found more
profitable, back again from the system of great factories to that
of domestic manufacture.

350. The transmission of water through a series of pipes,
might be employed for the distribution of power, but the friction
would consume a considerable portion. Another method has been
employed in some instances, and is practised at the Mint. It
consists in exhausting the air from a large vessel by means of a
steam-engine. This vessel is connected by pipes, with a small
piston which drives each coining press; and, on opening a valve,
the pressure of the external air forces in the piston. This air
is then admitted to the general reservoir, and pumped out by the
engine. The condensation of air might be employed for the same
purpose; but there are some unexplained facts relating to elastic
fluids, which require further observations and experiment before
they can be used for the conveyance of power to any considerable
distance. It has been found, for instance, in attempting to blow
a furnace by means of a powerful water-wheel driving air through
a cast-iron pipe of above a mile in length, that scarcely any
sensible effect was produced at the opposite extremity. In one
instance, some accidental obstruction being suspected, a cat put
in at one end found its way out without injury at the other, thus
proving that the phenomenon did not depend on interruption within
the pipe.

351. The most portable form in which power can be condensed
is, perhaps, by the liquefaction of the gases. It is known that,
under considerable pressure, several of these become liquid at
ordinary temperatures; carbonic acid, for example, is reduced to
a liquid state by a pressure of sixty atmospheres. One of the
advantages attending the use of these fluids, would be that the
pressure exerted by them would remain constant until the last
drop of liquid had assumed the form of gas. If either of the
elements of common air should be found to be capable of reduction
to a liquid state before it unites into a corrosive fluid with
the other ingredient, then we shall possess a ready means of
conveying power in any quantity and to any distance. Hydrogen
probably will require the strongest compressing force to render
it liquid, and may, therefore, possibly be applied where still
greater condensation of power is wanted. In all these cases the
condensed gases may be looked upon as springs of enormous force,
which have been wound up by the exertion of power, and which will
deliver the whole of it back again when required. These springs
of nature differ in some respects from the steel springs formed
by our art; for in the compression of the natural springs a vast
quantity of latent heat is forced out, and in their return to the
state of gas an equal quantity is absorbed. May not this very
property be employed with advantage in their application?

Part of the mechanical difficulty to be overcome in
constructing apparatus connected with liquefied gases, will
consist in the structure of the valves and packing necessary to
retain the fluids under the great pressure to which they must be
submitted. The effect of heat on these gases has not yet been
sufficiently tried, to lead us to any very precise notions of the
additional power which its application to them will supply.

The elasticity of air is sometimes employed as a spring,
instead of steel: in one of the large printing-machines in London
the momentum of a considerable mass of matter is destroyed by
making it condense the air included in a cylinder, by means of a
piston against which it impinges.

352. The effect of competition in cheapening articles of
manufacture sometimes operates in rendering them less durable.
When such articles are conveyed to a distance for consumption, if
they are broken, it often happens, from the price of labour being
higher where they are used than where they were made, that it is
more expensive to mend the old article, than to purchase a new.
Such is usually the case, in great cities, with some of the
commoner locks, with hinges, and with a variety of articles of
hardware.

NOTES:

1. The amount of obstructions arising from the casual fixing of
trees in the bottom of the river, may be estimated from the
proportion of steamboats destroyed by running upon them, The
subjoined statement is taken from the American Almanack for 1832:

'Between the years 1811 and 1831, three hundred and
forty-eight steamboats were built on the Mississippi and its
tributary streams During that period a hundred and fifty were
lost or worn out,
'Of this hundred and fifty:
worn out 63
lost by snags 36
burnt 14
lost by collision 3
by accidents
not ascertained 34
Thirty-six, or nearly one fourth, being destroyed by accidental
obstructions.

Snag is the name given in America to trees which stand nearly
upright in the stream, with their roots fixed at the bottom.

It is usual to divide off at the bow of the steamboats a
watertight chamber, in order that when a hole is made in it by
running against the snags, the water may not enter the rest of
the vessel and sink it instantly.

2. This passage is not printed in italics in the original, but it
has been thus marked in the above extract, from its importance,
and from the conviction that the most extended discussion will
afford additional evidence of its truth.

3. Report from the Committee of the House of Commons on the
Framework Knitter's Petition, April, 1819.

CHAPTER 28.

2006-09-11T02:22:00.000-07:00

Proper Circumstances for the Application of Machinery

329. The first object of machinery, the chief cause of its
extensive utility, is the perfection and the cheap production of
the articles which it is intended to make. Whenever it is
required to produce a great multitude of things, all of exactly
the same kind, the proper time has arrived for the construction
of tools or machines by which they may be manufactured. If only a
few pairs of cotton stockings should be required, it would be an
absurd waste of time, and of capital, to construct a
stocking-frame to weave them, when, for a few pence, four steel
wires can be procured by which they may be knit. If, on the other
hand, many thousand pairs were wanted, the time employed, and the
expense incurred in constructing a stocking-frame, would be more
than repaid by the saving of time in making that large number of
stockings. The same principle is applicable to the copying of
letters: if three or four copies only are required, the pen and
the human hand furnish the cheapest means of obtaining them; if
hundreds are called for, lithography may be brought to our
assistance; but if hundreds of thousands are wanted, the
machinery of a printing establishment supplies the most
economical method of accomplishing the object.

330. There are, however, many cases in which machines or
tools must be made, in which economical production is not the
most important object. Whenever it is required to produce a few
articles parts of machinery, for instance, which must be executed
with the most rigid accuracy or be perfectly alike--it is nearly
impossible to fulfil this condition, even with the aid of the
most skilful hands: and it becomes necessary to make tools
expressly for the purpose, although those tools should, as
frequently happens, cost more in constructing than the things
they are destined to make.

331. Another instance of the just application of machinery,
even at an increased expense, arises where the shortness of time
in which the article is produced, has an important influence on
its value. In the publication of our daily newspapers, it
frequently happens that the debates in the Houses of Parliament
are carried on to three and four o'clock in the morning, that is.
to within a very few hours of the time for the publication of the
paper. The speeches must be taken down by reporters, conveyed by
them to the establishment of the newspaper, perhaps at the
distance of one or two miles, transcribed by them in the office,
set up by the compositor, the press corrected, and the paper be
printed off and distributed, before the public can read them.
Some of these journals have a circulation of from five to ten
thousand daily. Supposing four thousand to be wanted, and that
they could be printed only at the rate of five hundred per hour
upon one side of the paper, (which was the greatest number two
journeymen and a boy could take off by the old hand presses),
sixteen hours would be required for printing the complete
edition; and the news conveyed to the purchasers of the latest
portion of the impression, would be out of date before they could
receive it. To obviate this difficulty, it was often necessary to
set up the paper in duplicate, and sometimes, when late, in
triplicate: but the improvements in the printing machines have
been so great, that four thousand copies are now printed on one
side in an hour.

332. The establishment of 'The Times' newspaper is an
example, on a large scale, of a manufactory in which the division
of labour, both mental and bodily, is admirably illustrated, and
in which also the effect of domestic economy is well exemplified.
It is scarcely imagined by the thousands who read that paper in
various quarters of the globe, what a scene of organized activity
the factory presents during the whole night, or what a quantity
of talent and mechanical skill is put in action for their
amusement and information. (1*) Nearly a hundred persons are
employed in this establishment; and, during the session of
Parliament, at least twelve reporters are constantly attending
the Houses of Commons and Lords; each in his turn retiring, after
about an hour's work, to translate into ordinary writing, the
speech he has just heard and noted in shorthand. In the meantime
fifty compositors are constantly at work, some of whom have
already set up the beginning, whilst others are committing to
type the yet undried manuscript of the continuation of a speech,
whose middle portion is travelling to the office in the pocket of
the hasty reporter, and whose eloquent conclusion is, perhaps, at
that very moment, making the walls of St Stephen's vibrate with
the applause of its hearers. These congregated types, as fast as
they are composed, are passed in portions to other hands; till at
last the scattered fragments of the debate, forming, when united
with the ordinary matter, eight-and-forty columns, reappear in
regular order on the platform of the printing-press. The hand of
man is now too slow for the demands of his curiosity, but the
power of steam comes to his assistance. Ink is rapidly supplied
to the moving types, by the most perfect mechanism; four
attendants incessantly introduce the edges of large sheets of
white paper to the junction of two great rollers, which seem to
devour them with unsated appetite; other rollers convey them to
the type already inked, and having brought them into rapid and
successive contact, redeliver them to four other assistants,
completely printed by the almost momentary touch. Thus, in one
hour, four thousand sheets of paper are printed on one side; and
an impression of twelve thousand copies, from above three hundred
thousand moveable pieces of metal, is produced for the public in
six hours.

333. The effect of machinery in printing other periodical
publications, and of due economy in distributing them, is so
important for the interests of knowledge, that it is worth
examining by what means it is possible to produce them at the
small price at which they are sold. 'Chambers' Journal', which is
published at Edinburgh, and sold at three halfpence a number,
will furnish an example. Soon after its commencement in 1832, the
sale in Scotland reached 30,000, and in order to supply the
demand in London it was reprinted; but on account of the expense
of 'composition' it was found that this plan would not produce
any profit, and the London edition was about to be given up, when
it occurred to the proprietor to stereotype it at Edinburgh, and
cast two copies of the plates. This is now done about three weeks
before the day of publication--one set of plates being sent up
to London by the mail, an impression is printed off by steam: the
London agent has then time to send packages by the cheapest
conveyances to several of the large towns, and other copies go
through the booksellers' parcels to all the smaller towns. Thus a
great saving is effected in the outlay of capital, and 20,000
copies are conveyed from London, as a centre, to all parts of
England, whilst there is no difficulty in completing imperfect
sets, nor any waste from printing more than the public demand.

334. The conveyance of letters is another case, in which the
importance of saving time would allow of great expense in any new
machinery for its accomplishment. There is a natural limit to the
speed of horses, which even the greatest improvements in the
breed, aided by an increased perfection in our roads, can never
surpass; and from which, perhaps, we are at present not very
remote. When we reflect upon the great expense of time and money
which the last refinements of a theory or an art usually require,
it is not unreasonable to suppose that the period has arrived in
which the substitution of machinery for such purposes ought to be
tried.

335. The post bag despatched every evening by the mail to one
of our largest cities, Bristol, usually weighs less than a
hundred pounds. Now, the first reflection which naturally
presents itself is, that, in order to transport these letters a
hundred and twenty miles, a coach and apparatus, weighing above
thirty hundredweight, are put in motion, and also conveyed over
the same space. (2*)

It is obvious that, amongst the conditions of machinery for
accomplishing such an object, it would be desirable to reduce the
weight of matter to be conveyed along with the letters: it would
also be desirable to reduce the velocity of the animal power
employed; because the faster a horse is driven, the less weight
he can draw. Amongst the variety of contrivances which might be
imagined for this purpose, we will mention one, which, although
by no means free from objections, fulfils some of the prescribed
conditions; and it is not a purely theoretical speculation, since
some few experiments have been made upon it, though on an
extremely limited scale.

336. Let us imagine a series of high pillars erected at
frequent intervals, perhaps every hundred feet, and as nearly as
possible in a straight line between two post towns. An iron or
steel wire must be stretched over proper supports, fixed on each
of these pillars, and terminating at the end of every three or
five miles, as may be found expedient, in a very strong support,
by which it may be stretched. At each of these latter points a
man ought to reside in a small stationhouse. A narrow cylindrical
tin case, to contain the letters, might be suspended by two
wheels rolling upon this wire; the cases being so constructed as
to enable the wheels to pass unimpeded by the fixed supports of
the wire. An endless wire of much smaller size must pass over two
drums, one at each end of the station. This wire should be
supported on rollers, fixed to the supports of the great wire,
and at a short distance below it. There would thus be two
branches of the smaller wire always accompanying the larger one;
and the attendant at either station, by turning the drum, might
cause them to move with great velocity in opposite directions. In
order to convey the cylinder which contains the letters, it would
only be necessary to attach it by a string, or by a catch, to
either of the branches of the endless wire. Thus it would be
conveyed speedily to the next station, where it would be removed
by the attendant to the commencement of the next wire, and so
forwarded. It is unnecessary to enter into the details which
this, or any similar plan, would require. The difficulties are
obvious; but if: these could be overcome, it would present many
advantages besides velocity; for if an attendant resided at each
station, the additional expense of having two or three deliveries
of letters every day, and even of sending expresses at any
moment, would be comparatively trifling; nor is it impossible
that the stretched wire might itself be available for a species
of telegraphic communication yet more rapid.

Perhaps if the steeples of churches, properly selected, were
made use of, connecting them by a few intermediate stations with
some great central building, as, for instance, with the top of St
Paul's; and if a similar apparatus were placed on the top of each
steeple, with a man to work it during the day, it might be
possible to diminish the expense of the two-penny post, and make
deliveries every half hour over the greater part of the
metropolis.

337. The power of steam, however, bids fair almost to rival
the velocity of these contrivances; and the fitness of its
application to the purposes of conveyance, particularly where
great rapidity is required, begins now to be generally admitted.
The following extract from the Report of the Committee of the
House of Commons on steamcarriages, explains clearly its various
advantages:

Perhaps one of the principal advantages resulting from the use of
steam, will be, that it may be employed as cheaply at a quick as
at a slow rate; 'this is one of the advantages over horse labour.
which becomes more and more expensive as the speed is increased.
There is every reason to expect, that in the end the rate of
travelling by steam will be much quicker than the utmost speed of
travelling by horses; in short, the safety to travellers will
become the limit to speed.' In horse-draught the opposite result
takes place; 'in all cases horses lose power of draught in a much
greater proportion than they gain speed, and hence the work they
do becomes more expensive as they go quicker.'

Without increase of cost, then, we shall obtain a power which
will insure a rapidity of internal communication far beyond the
utmost speed of horses in draught; and although the performance
of these carriages may not have hitherto attained this point,
when once it has been established, that at equal speed we can use
steam more cheaply in draught than horses, we may fairly
anticipate that every day's increased experience in the
management of the engines, will induce greater skill, greater
confidence, and greater speed.

The cheapness of the conveyance will probably be, for some
time, a secondary consideration. If, at present, it can be used
as cheaply as horse power, the competition with the former modes
of conveyance will first take place as to speed. When once the
superiority of steam-carriages shall have been fully established,
competition will induce economy in the cost of working them. The
evidence, however, of Mr Macneill, shewing the greater
efficiency, with diminished expenditure of fuel, by locomotive
engines on railwavs, convinces the committee, that experience
will soon teach a better construction of the engines, and a less
costly mode of generating the requisite supply of steam.

Nor are the advantages of steam-power confined to the greater
velocitv attained, or to its greater cheapness than
horse-draught. In the latter, danger is increased, in as large a
proportion as expense, by greater speed. In steam-power, on the
contrary, 'there is no danger of being run away with, and that of
being overturned is greatly diminished. It is difficult to
control four such horses as can draw a heavy carriage ten miles
per hour, in case they are frightened, or choose to run away; and
for quick travelling they must be kept in that state of courage,
that they are always inclined for running away, particularly down
hills, and at sharp turns of the road. In steam, however, there
is little corresponding danger, being perfectly controllable, and
capable of exerting its power in reverse in going down hills.,
Every witness examined has given the fullest and most
satisfactory evidence of the perfect control which the conductor
has over the movement of the carriage. With the slightest
exertion it can be stopped or turned, under circumstances where
horses would be totally unmanageable.

338. Another instance may be mentioned in which the object to
be obtained is so important, that although it might be rarely
wanted, yet machinery for that purpose would justify considerable
expense. A vessel to contain men, and to be navigated at some
distance below the surface of the sea, would, in many
circumstances, be almost invaluable. Such a vessel, evidently,
could not be propelled by any engine requiring the aid of fire.
If, however, by condensing air into a liquid, and carrying it in
that state, a propelling power could be procured sufficient for
moving the vessel through a considerable space, the expense would
scarcely render its occasional employment impossible.(3*)

339. Slide of Alpnach. Amongst the forests which flank many
of the lofty mountains of Switzerland, some of the finest timber
is found in positions almost inaccessible. The expense of roads,
even if it were possible to make them in such situations, would
prevent the inhabitants from deriving any advantages from these
almost inexhaustible supplies. Placed by nature at a considerable
elevation above the spot at which they can be made use of, they
are precisely in fit circumstances for the application of
machinery to their removal; and the inhabitants avail themselves
of the force of gravity to relieve them from some portion of this
labour. The inclined planes which they have established in
various forests, by which the timber has been sent down to the
water courses, have excited the admiration of every traveller;
and in addition to the merit of simplicity, the construction
these slides requires scarcely anything beyond the material which
grows upon the spot.

Of all these specimens of carpentry, the Slide of Alpnach was
the most considerable, from its great length, and from the almost
inaccessible position from which it descended. The following
account of it is taken from Gilbert's Annalen, 1819, which is
translated in the second volume of Brewster's Journal:

For many centuries, the rugged flanks and the deep gorges of
Mount Pilatus were covered with impenetrable forests; which were
permitted to grow and to perish, without being of the least
utility to man, till a foreigner, who had been conducted into
their wild recesses in the pursuit of the chamois, directed the
attention of several Swiss gentlemen to the extent and
superiority of the timber. The most skilful individuals, however,
considered it quite impracticable to avail themselves of such
inaccessible stores. It was not till the end of 1816, that M.
Rupp, and three Swiss gentlemen, entertaining more sanguine
hopes, purchased a certain extent of the forests, and began the
construction of the slide, which was completed in the spring of
1818.

The Slide of Alpnach is formed entirely of about 25,000 large
pine trees, deprived of their bark, and united together in a very
ingenious manner, without the aid of iron. It occupied about 160
workmen during eighteen months, and cost nearly 100,000 francs,
or L4,250. It is about three leagues, or 44,000 English feet
long, and terminates in the Lake of Lucerne. It has the form of a
trough, about six feet broad, and from three to six feet deep.
Its bottom is formed of three trees, the middle one of which has
a groove cut out in the direction of its length, for receiving
small rills of water, which are conducted into it from various
places, for the purpose of diminishing the friction. The whole of
the slide is sustained by about 2,000 supports; and in many
places it is attached, in a very ingenious manner, to the rugged
precipices of granite.

The direction of the slide is sometimes straight, and
sometimes zig-zag, with an inclination of from 10 degrees to 18
degrees. It is often carried along the sides of hills and the
flanks of precipitous rocks, and sometimes passes over their
summits. Occasionally it goes under ground, and at other times it
is conducted over the deep gorges by scaffoldings 120 feet in
height.

The boldness which characterizes this work, the sagacity and
skill displayed in all its arrangements, have excited the wonder
of every person who has seen it. Before any step could be taken
in its erection, it was necessary to cut several thousand trees
to obtain a passage through the impenetrable thickets. All these
difficulties, however, were surmounted, and the engineer had at
last the satisfaction of seeing the trees descend from the
mountain with the rapidity of lightning. The larger pines, which
were about a hundred feet long, and ten inches thick at their
smaller extremity, ran through the space of three leagues, or
nearly nine miles, in two minutes and a half, and during their
descent, they appeared to be only a few feet in length.

The arrangements for this part of the operation were
extremely simple. From the lower end of the slide to the upper
end, where the trees were introduced, workmen were posted at
regular distances, and as soon as everything was ready, the
workman at the lower end of the slide cried out to the one above
him, 'Lachez' (let go). The cry was repeated from one to another.
and reached the top of the slide in three minutes. The workmen at
the top of the slide then cried out to the one below him, 'Il
vient' (it comes), and the tree was instantly launched down the
slide, preceded by the cry which was repeated from post to post.
As soon as the tree had reached thebottom, and plunged into the
lake, the cry of lachez was repeated as before, and a new tree
was launched in a similar manner. By these means a tree descended
every five or six minutes, provided no accident happened to the
slide, which sometimes took place, but which was instantly
repaired when it did.

In order to shew the enormous force which the trees acquired
from the great velocity of their descent, M. Rupp made
arrangements for causing some of the trees to spring from the
slide. They penetrated by their thickest extremities no less than
from eighteen to twenty-four feet into the earth; and one of the
trees having by accident struck against another, it instantly
cleft it through its whole length, as if it had been struck by
lightning.

After the trees had descended the slide, they were collected
into rafts upon the lake, and conducted to Lucerne. From thence
they descended the Reuss, then the Aar to near Brugg, afterwards
to Waldshut by the Rhine, then to Basle, and even to the sea when
it was necessary.

It is to be regretted that this magnificent structure no
longer exists, and that scarcely a trace of it is to be seen upon
the flanks of Mount Pilatus. Political circumstances having taken
away the principal source of demand for the timber, and no other
market having been found, the operation of cutting and
transporting the trees necessarily ceased.(4*)

Professor Playfair, who visited this singular work, states,
that six minutes was the usual time occupied in the descent of a
tree; but that in wet weather, it reached the lake in three
minutes.

NOTES:

1. The author of these pages, with one of his friends, was
recently induced to visit this most interesting establishment,
after midnight, during the progress of a very important debate.
The place was illuminated with gas, and was light as the day:
there was neither noise nor bustle; and the visitors were
received with such calm and polite attention, that they did not,
until afterwards, become sensible of the inconvenience which such
intruders, at a moment of the greatest pressure, must occasion,
nor reflect tha the tranquility which they admired, was the
result of intense and regulated occupation. But the effect of
such checks in the current of business will appear on
recollecting that, as four thousand newspapers are printed off on
one side within the hour, every minute is attended with a loss of
sixty-six impressions. The quarter of an hour, therefore, which
the stranger may think it not unreasonable to claim for the
gratification of his curiosity (and to him this time is but a
moment), may cause a failure in the delivery of a thousand
copies, and disappoint a proportionate number of expectant
readers, in some of our distant towns, to which the morning
papers are dispatched by the earliest and most rapid conveyances
of each day.

This note is inserted with the further and more general
purpose of calling the attention of those, especially foreigners,
who are desirous of inspecting our larger manufactories, to the
chief cause of the difficulty which frequently attends their
introduction. When the establishment is very extensive, and its
departments skilfully arranged, the exclusion of visitors arises,
not from any illiberal jealousy, nor, generally, from any desire
of concealment, which would, in most cases, be absurd, but from
the substantial inconvenience and loss of time, throughout an
entire series of well-combined operations, which must be
occasioned even by short and causual interruptions.

2. It is true that the transport of letters is not the only
object which this apparatus answers; but the transport of
passengers, which is a secondary object, does in fact put a limit
to the velocity of that of the letters, which is the primary one.

3. A proposal for such a vessel, and description of its
construction, by the author of this volume, may be found in the
Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, Art. Diving Bell.

4. The mines of Bolanos in Mexico are supplied with timber from
the adjacent mountains by a slide similar to that of Alpnach. It
was constructed by M. Floresi, a gentleman well acquainted with
Switzerland.

CHAPTER 27.

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On Contriving Machinery

318. The power of inventing mechanical contrivances, and of
combining machinery, does not appear, if we may judge from the
frequency of its occurrence, to be a difficult or a rare gift. Of
the vast multitude of inventions which have been produced almost
daily for a series of years, a large part has failed from the
imperfect nature of the first trials; whilst a still larger
portion, which had escaped the mechanical difficulties, failed
only because the economy of their operations was not sufficiently
attended to.

The commissioners appointed to examine into the methods
proposed for preventing the forgery of bank-notes, state in their
report, that out of one hundred and seventy-eight projects
communicated to the bank and to the commissioners, there were
only twelve of superior skill, and nine which it was necessary
more particularly to examine.

319. It is however a curious circumstance, that although the
power of combining machinery is so common, yet the more beautiful
combinations are exceedingly rare. Those which command our
admiration equally by the perfection of their effects and the
simplicity of their means, are found only amongst the happiest
productions of genius.

To produce movements even of a complicated kind is not
difficult. There exist a great multitude of known contrivances
for all the more usual purposes, and if the exertion of moderate
power is the end of the mechanism to be contrived, it is possible
to construct the whole machine upon paper, and to judge of the
proper strength to be given to each part as well as to the
framework which supports it, and also of its ultimate effect,
long before a single part of it has been executed. In fact, all
the contrivance, and all the improvements, ought first to be
represented in the drawings.

320. On the other hand, there are effects dependent upon
physical or chemical properties for the determination of which no
drawings will be of any use. These are the legitimate objects of
direct trial. For example; if the ultimate result of an engine is
to be that it shall impress letters on a copperplate by means of
steel punches forced into it, all the mechanism by which the
punches and the copper are to be moved at stated intervals, and
brought into contact, is within the province of drawing, and the
machinery may be arranged entirely upon paper. But a doubt may
reasonably spring up, whether the bur that will be raised round
the letter, which has been already punched upon the copper, may
not interfere with the proper action of the punch for the letter
which is to be punched next adjacent to it. It may also be feared
that the effect of punching the second letter, if it be
sufficiently near to the first, may distort the form of that
first figure. If neither of these evils should arise, still the
bur produced by the punching might be expected to interfere with
the goodness of the impression produced by the copperplate; and
the plate itself, after having all but its edge covered with
figures, might change its form, from the unequal condensation
which it must suffer in this process, so as to render it very
difficult to take impressions from it at all. It is impossible by
any drawings to solve difficulties such as these, experiment
alone can determine their effect. Such experiments having been
made, it is found that if the sides of the steel punch are nearly
at right angles to the face of the letter, the bur produced is
very inconsiderable; that at the depth which is sufficient for
copperplate printing, no distortion of the adjacent letters takes
place, although those letters are placed very close to each
other; that the small bur which arises may easily be scraped off;
and that the copperplate is not distorted by the condensation of
the metal in punching, but is perfectly fit to print from, after
it has undergone that process.

321. The next stage in the progress of an invention, after
the drawings are finished and the preliminary experiments have
been made, if any such should be requisite, is the execution of
the machine itself. It can never be too strongly impressed upon
the minds of those who are devising new machines, that to make
the most perfect drawings of every part tends essentially both to
the success of the trial, and to economy in arriving at the
result. The actual execution from working drawings is
comparatively an easy task; provided always that good tools are
employed, and that methods of working are adopted, in which the
perfection of the part constructed depends less on the personal
skill of the workman, than upon the certainty of the method
employed.

322. The causes of failure in this stage most frequently
derive their origin from errors in the preceding one; and it is
sufficient merely to indicate a few of their sources. They
frequently arise from having neglected to take into consideration
that metals are not perfectly rigid but elastic. A steel cylinder
of small diameter must not be regarded as an inflexible rod; but
in order to ensure its perfect action as an axis, it must be
supported at proper intervals.

Again, the strength and stiffness of the framing which
supports the mechanism must be carefully attended to. It should
always be recollected, that the addition of superfluous matter to
the immovable parts of a machine produces no additional momentum,
and therefore is not accompanied with the same evil that arises
when the moving parts are increased in weight. The stiffness of
the framing in a machine produces an important advantage. If the
bearings of the axis (those places at which they are supported)
are once placed in a straight line, they will remain so, if the
framing be immovable; whereas if the framework changes its form,
though ever so slightly, considerable friction is immediately
produced. This effect is so well understood in the districts
where spinning factories are numerous, that, in estimating the
expense of working a new factory, it is allowed that five per
cent on the power of the steam-engine will be saved if the
building is fireproof: for the greater strength and rigidity of a
fireproof building prevents the movement of the long shafts or
axes which drive the machinery, from being impeded by the
friction that would arise from the slightest deviation in any of
the bearings.

323. In conducting experiments upon machinery, it is quite a
mistake to suppose that any imperfect mechanical work is good
enough for such a purpose. If the experiment is worth making, it
ought to be tried with all the advantages of which the state of
mechanical art admits; for an imperfect trial may cause an idea
to be given up, which better workmanship might have proved to be
practicable. On the other hand, when once the efficiency of a
contrivance has been established, with good workmanship it will
be easy afterwards to ascertain the degree of perfection which
will suffice for its due action.

324. It is partly owing to the imperfection of the original
trials, and partly to the gradual improvements in the art of
making machinery, that many inventions which have been tried, and
given up in one state of art, have at another period been
eminently successful. The idea of printing by means of moveable
types had probably suggested itself to the imagination of many
persons conversant with impressions taken either from blocks or
seals. We find amongst the instruments discovered in the remains
of Pompeii and Herculaneum, stamps for words formed out of one
piece of metal, and including several letters. The idea of
separating these letters, and of recombining them into other
words, for the purpose of stamping a book, could scarcely have
failed to occur to many: but it would almost certainly have been
rejected by those best acquainted with the mechanical arts of
that time; for the workmen of those days must have instantly
perceived the impossibility of producing many thousand pieces of
wood or metal, fitting so perfectly and ranging so uniformly, as
the types or blocks of wood now used in the art of printing.

The principle of the press which bears the name of Bramah,
was known about a century and a half before the machine, to which
it gave rise, existed; but the imperfect state of mechanical art
in the time of the discoverer, would have effectually deterred
him, if the application of it had occurred to his mind, from
attempting to employ it in practice as an instrument for exerting
force.

These considerations prove the propriety of repeating, at the
termination of intervals during which the art of making machinery
has received any great improvement, the trails of methods which,
although founded upon just principles, had previously failed.

325. When the drawings of a machine have been properly made,
and the parts have been well executed, and even when the work it
produces possesses all the qualities which were anticipated,
still the invention may fail; that is, it may fail of being
brought into general practice. This will most frequently arise
from the circumstance of its producing its work at a greater
expense than that at which it can be made by other methods.

326. Whenever the new, or improved machine, is intended to
become the basis of a manufacture, it is essentially requisite
that the whole expense attending its operations should be fully
considered before its construction is undertaken. It is almost
always very difficult to make this estimate of the expense: the
more complicated the mechanism, the less easy is the task; and in
cases of great complexity and extent of machinery it is almost
impossible. It has been estimated roughly, that the first
individual of any newly invented machine, will cost about five
times as much as the construction of the second, an estimate
which is, perhaps, sufficiently near the truth. If the second
machine is to be precisely like the first, the same drawings, and
the same patterns will answer for it; but if, as usually happens,
some improvements have been suggested by the experience of the
first, these must be more or less altered. When, however, two or
three machines have been completed, and many more are wanted,
they can usually be produced at much less than one-fifth of the
expense of the original invention.

327. The arts of contriving, of drawing, and of executing, do
not usually reside in their greatest perfection in one
individual; and in this, as in other arts, the division of labour
must be applied. The best advice which can be offered to a
projector of any mechanical invention, is to employ a respectable
draughtsman; who, if he has had a large experience in his
profession, will assist in finding out whether the contrivance is
new, and can then make working drawings of it. The first step,
however, the ascertaining whether the contrivance has the merit
of novelty, is most important; for it is a maxim equally just in
all the arts, and in every science, that the man who aspires to
fortune or to fame by new discoveries, must be content to examine
with care the knowledge of his contemporaries, or to exhaust his
efforts in inventing again, what he will most probably find has
been better executed before.

328. This, nevertheless, is a subject upon which even
ingenious men are often singularly negligent. There is, perhaps,
no trade or profession existing in which there is so much
quackery, so much ignorance of the scientific principles, and of
the history of their own art, with respect to its resources and
extent, as are to be met with amongst mechanical projectors. The
self-constituted engineer, dazzled with the beauty of some,
perhaps, really original contrivance, assumes his new profession
with as little suspicion that previous instruction, that thought
and painful labour, are necessary to its successful exercise, as
does the statesman or the senator. Much of this false confidence
arises from the improper estimate which is entertained of the
difficulty of invention in mechanics. It is, therefore, of great
importance to the individuals and to the families of those who
are too often led away from more suitable pursuits, the dupes of
their own ingenuity and of the popular voice, to convince both
them and the public that the power of making new mechanical
combinations is a possession common to a multitude of minds, and
that the talents which it requires are by no means of the highest
order. It is still more important that they should be impressed
with the conviction that the great merit, and the great success
of those who have attained to eminence in such matters, was
almost entirely due to the unremitted perseverance with which
they concentrated upon their successful inventions the skill and
knowledge which years of study had matured.

CHAPTER 26.

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On a New System of Manufacturing

305. A most erroneous and unfortunate opinion prevails
amongst workmen in many manufacturing countries, that their own
interest and that of their employers are at variance. The
consequences are that valuable machinery is sometimes neglected,
and even privately injured--that new improvements, introduced by
the masters, do not receive a fair trial--and that the talents
and observations of the workmen are not directed to the
improvement of the processes in which they are employed. This
error is, perhaps, most prevalent where the establishment of
manufactories has been of recent origin, and where the number of
persons employed in them is not very large: thus, in some of the
Prussian provinces on the Rhine it prevails to a much greater
extent than in Lancashire. Perhaps its diminished prevalence in
our own manufacturing districts, arises partly from the superior
information spread amongst the workmen; and partly from the
frequent example of persons, who by good conduct and an attention
to the interests of their employers for a series of years, have
become foremen, or who have ultimately been admitted into
advantageous partnerships. Convinced as I am, from my own
observation, that the prosperity and success of the master
manufacturer is essential to the welfare of the workman, I am yet
compelled to admit that this connection is, in many cases, too
remote to be always understood by the latter, and whilst it is
perfectly true that workmen, as a class, derive advantage from
the prosperity of their employers, I do not think that each
individual partakes of that advantage exactly in proportion to
the extent to which he contributes towards it; nor do I perceive
that the resulting advantage is as immediate as it might become
under a different system.

306. It would be of great importance, if, in every large
establishment the mode of payment could be so arranged, that
every person employed should derive advantage from the success of
the whole; and that the profits of each individual should
advance, as the factory itself produced profit, without the
necessity of making any change in the wages. This is by no means
easy to effect, particularly amongst that class whose daily
labour procures for them their daily food. The system which has
long been pursued in working the Cornish mines, although not
exactly fulfilling these conditions, yet possesses advantages
which make it worthy of attention, as having nearly approached
towards them, and as tending to render fully effective the
faculties of all who are engaged in it. I am the more strongly
induced to place before the reader a short sketch of this system,
because its similarity to that which I shall afterwards recommend
for trial, will perhaps remove some objections to the latter, and
may also furnish some valuable hints for conducting any
experiment which might be undertaken.

307. In the mines of Cornwall, almost the whole of the
operations, both above and below ground, are contracted for. The
manner of making the contract is nearly as follows. At the end of
every two months, the work which it is proposed to carry on
during the next period is marked out. It is of three kinds. 1.
Tutwork, which consists in sinking shafts, driving levels, and
making excavations: this is paid for by the fathom in depth, or
in length, or by the cubic fathom. 2. Tribute, which is payment
for raising and dressing the ore, by means of a certain part of
its v alue when rendered merchantable. It is this mode of payment
which produces such admirable effects. The miners, who are to be
paid in proportion to the richness of the vein, and the quantity
of metal extracted from it, naturally become quicksighted in the
discovery of ore, and in estimating its value; and it is their
interest to avail themselves of every improvement that can bring
it more cheaply to market. 3. Dressing. The 'Tributors', who dig
and dress the ore, can seldom afford to dress the coarser parts
of what they raise, at their contract price; this portion,
therefore, is again let out to other persons, who agree to dress
it at an advanced price.

The lots of ore to be dressed, and the works to be carried
on, having been marked out some days before, and having been
examined by the men, a kind of auction is held by the captains of
the mine, in which each lot is put up, and bid for by different
gangs of men. The work is then offered, at a price usually below
that bid at the auction, to the lowest bidder, who rarely
declines it at the rate proposed. The tribute is a certain sum
out of every twenty shillings' worth of ore raised, and may vary
from threepence to fourteen or fifteen shillings. The rate of
earnings in tribute is very uncertain: if a vein, which was poor
when taken, becomes rich, the men earn money rapidly; and
instances have occurred in which each miner of a gang has gained
a hundred pounds in the two months. These extraordinary cases,
are, perhaps, of more advantage to the owners of the mine than
even to the men; for whilst the skill and industry of the workmen
are greatly stimulated, the owner himself always derives still
greater advantage from the improvement of the vein.(1*) This
system has been introduced, by Mr Taylor, into the lead mines of
Flintshire, into those at Skipton in Yorkshire, and into some of
the copper mines of Cumberland; and it is desirable that it
should become general, because no other mode of payment affords
to the workmen a measure of success so directly proportioned to
the industry, the integrity, and the talent, which they exert.

308. I shall now present the outline of a system which
appears to me to be pregnant with the most important results,
both to the class of workmen and to the country at large; and
which, if acted upon, would, in my opinion, permanently raise the
working classes, and greatly extend the manufacturing system.

The general principles on which the proposed system is
founded, are

1. That a considerable part of the wages received by each
person employed should depend on the profits made by the
establishment; and,

2. That every person connected with it should derive more
advantage from applying any improvement he might discover, to the
factory in which he is employed, than he could by any other
course.

309. It would be difficult to prevail on the large capitalist
to enter upon any system, which would change the division of the
profits arising from the employment of his capital in setting
skill and labour in action; any alteration, therefore, must be
expected rather from the small capitalist, or from the higher
class of workmen, who combine the two characters; and to these
latter classes, whose welfare will be first affected, the change
is most important. I shall therefore first point out the course
to be pursued in making the experiment; and then, taking a
particular branch of trade as an illustration, I shall examine
the merits and defects of the proposed system as applied to it.

310. Let us suppose, in some large manufacturing town, ten or
twelve of the most intelligent and skilful workmen to unite,
whose characters for sobriety and steadiness are good, and are
well known among their own class. Such persons will each possess
some small portion of capital; and let them join with one or two
others who have raised themselves into the class of small master
manufacturers, and, therefore possess rather a larger portion of
capital. Let these persons, after well considering the subject,
agree to establish a manufactory of fire-irons and fenders; and
let us suppose that each of the ten workmen can command forty
pounds, and each of the small capitalists possesses two hundred
pounds: thus they have a capital of L800 with which to commence
business; and, for the sake of simplifying, let us further
suppose the labour of each of these twelve persons to be worth
two pounds a week. One portion of their capital will be expended
in procuring the tools necessary for their trade, which we shall
take at L400, and this must be considered as their fixed capital.
The remaining L400 must be employed as circulating capital, in
purchasing the iron with which their articles are made, in paying
the rent of their workshops, and in supporting themselves and
their families until some portion of it is replaced by the sale
of the goods produced.

311. Now the first question to be settled is, what proportion
of the profit should be allowed for the use of capital, and what
for skill and labour? It does not seem possible to decide this
question by any abstract reasoning: if the capital supplied by
each partner is equal, all difficulty will be removed; if
otherwise, the proportion must be left to find its level, and
will be discovered by experience; and it is probable that it will
not fluctuate much. Let us suppose it to be agreed that the
capital of L800 shall receive the wages of one workman. At the
end of each week every workman is to receive one pound as wages,
and one pound is to be divided amongst the owners of the capital.
After a few weeks the returns will begin to come in; and they
will soon become nearly uniform. Accurate accounts should be kept
of every expense and of all the sales; and at the end of each
week the profit should be divided. A certain portion should be
laid aside as a reserved fund, another portion for repair of the
tools, and the remainder being divided into thirteen parts, one
of these parts would be divided amongst the capitalists and one
belong to each workman. Thus each man would, in ordinary
circumstances, make up his usual wages of two pounds weekly. If
the factory went on prosperously, the wages of the men would
increase; if the sales fell off they would be diminished. It is
important that every person employed in the establishment,
whatever might be the amount paid for his services, whether he
act as labourer or porter, as the clerk who keeps the accounts,
or as bookkeeper employed for a few hours once a week to
superintend them, should receive one half of what his service is
worth in fixed salary, the other part varying with the success of
the undertaking.

312. In such a factory, of course, division of labour would
be introduced: some of the workmen would be constantly employed
in forging the fire-irons, others in polishing them, others in
piercing and forming the fenders. It would be essential that the
time occupied in each process, and also its expense, should be
well ascertained; information which would soon be obtained very
precisely. Now, if a workman should find a mode of shortening any
of the processes, he would confer a benefit on the whole party,
even if they received but a small part of the resulting profit.
For the promotion of such discoveries, it would be desirable that
those who make them should either receive some reward, to be
determined after a sufficient trial by a committee assembling
periodically; or if they be of high importance, that the
discoverer should receive one-half, or twothirds, of the profit
resulting from them during the next year, or some other
determinate period, as might be found expedient. As the
advantages of such improvements would be clear gain to the
factory, it is obvious that such a share might be allowed to the
inventor, that it would be for his interest rather to give the
benefit of them to his partners, than to dispose of them in any
other way.

313. The result of such arrangements in a factory would be,

1. That every person engaged in it would have a direct
interest in its prosperity; since the effect of any success, or
falling off, would almost immediately produce a corresponding
change in his own weekly receipts.

2. Every person concerned in the factory would have an
immediate interest in preventing any waste or mismanagement in
all the departments.

3. The talents of all connected with it would be strongly
directed to its improvement in every department.

4. None but workmen of high character and qualifications
could obtain admission into such establishments; because when any
additional hands were required, it would be the common interest
of all to admit only the most respectable and skilful; and it
would be far less easy to impose upon a dozen workmen than upon
the single proprietor of a factory.

5. When any circumstance produced a glut in the market, more
skill would be directed to diminishing the cost of production;
and a portion of the time of the men might then be occupied in
repairing and improving their tools, for which a reserved fund
would pay, thus checking present, and at the same time
facilitating future production.

6. Another advantage, of no small importance, would be the
total removal of all real or imaginary causes for combinations.
The workmen and the capitalist would so shade into each other--
would so evidently have a common interest, and their difficulties
and distresses would be mutually so well understood that, instead
of combining to oppress one another, the only combination which
could exist would be a most powerful union between both parties
to overcome their common difficulties.

314. One of the difficulties attending such a system is, that
capitalists would at first fear to embark in it, imagining that
the workmen would receive too large a share of the profits: and
it is quite true that the workmen would have a larger share than
at present: but, at the same time, it is presumed the effect of
the whole system would be, that the total profits of the
establishment being much increased, the smaller proportion
allowed to capital under this system would yet be greater in
actual amount, than that which results to it from the larger
share in the system now existing.

315. It is possible that the present laws relating to
partnerships might interfere with factories so conducted. If this
interference could not be obviated by confining their purchases
under the proposed system to ready money, it would be desirable
to consider what changes in the law would be necessary to its
existence: and this furnishes another reason for entering into
the question of limited partnerships.

316. A difficulty would occur also in discharging workmen who
behaved ill, or who were not competent to their work; this would
arise from their having a certain interest in the reserved fund,
and, perhaps, from their possessing a certain portion of the
capital employed; but without entering into detail, it may be
observed, that such cases might be determined on by meetings of
the whole establishment; and that if the policy of the laws
favoured such establishments, it would scarcely be more difficult
to enforce just regulations, than it now is to enforce some which
are unjust, by means of combinations either amongst the masters
or the men.

317. Some approach to this system is already practised in
several trades: the mode of conducting the Cornish mines has
already been alluded to; the payment to the crew of whaling ships
is governed by this principle; the profits arising from fishing
with nets on the south coast of England are thus divided:
one-half the produce belongs to the owner of the boat and net;
the other half is divided in equal portions between the persons
using it, who are also bound to assist in repairing the net when
injured.

NOTES:

1. For a detailed account of the method of working the Cornish
mines, see a paper of Mr John Taylor's Transactions of the
Geological Society, vol. ii, p. 309.

CHAPTER 25.

2006-09-11T02:20:00.000-07:00

Enquiries Previous to Commencing any Manufactory

298. There are many enquiries which ought always to be made
previous to the commencement of the manufacture of any new
article. These chiefly relate to the expense of tools, machinery,
raw materials, and all the outgoings necessary for its
production; to the extent of demand which is likely to arise; to
the time in which the circulating capital will be replaced; and
to the quickness or slowness with which the new article will
supersede those already in use.

299. The expense of tools and of new machines will be more
difficult to ascertain, in proportion as they differ from those
already employed; but the variety in constant use in our various
manufactories, is such, that few inventions now occur in which
considerable resemblance may not be traced to others already
constructed. The cost of the raw material is usually less
difficult to determine; but cases occasionally arise in which it
becomes important to examine whether the supply, at the given
price, can be depended upon: for, in the case of a small
consumption, the additional demand arising from a factory may
produce a considerable temporary rise, though it may ultimately
reduce the price.

300. The quantity of any new article likely to be consumed is
a most important subject for the consideration of the projector
of a new manufacture. As these pages are not intended for the
instruction of the manufacturer, but rather for the purpose of
giving a general view of the subject, an illustration of the way
in which such questions are regarded by practical men, will,
perhaps, be most instructive. The following extract from the
evidence given before a Committee of the House of Commons, in the
Report on Artizans and Machinery, shews the extent to which
articles apparently the most insignificant, are consumed, and the
view which the manufacturer takes of them.

The person examined on this occasion was Mr Ostler, a
manufacturer of glass beads and other toys of the same substance,
from Birmingham. Several of the articles made by him were placed
upon the table, for the inspection of the Committee of the House
of Commons, which held its meetings in one of the
committee-rooms.

Question. Is there any thing else you have to state upon this
subject?
Answer. Gentlemen may consider the articles on the table as
extremely insignificant: but perhaps I may surprise them a
little, by mentioning the following fact. Eighteen years ago, on
my first journey to London, a respectable-looking man, in the
city, asked me if I could supply him with dolls' eyes; and I was
foolish enough to feel half offended; I thought it derogatory to
my new dignity as a manufacturer, to make dolls' eyes. He took me
into a room quite as wide, and perhaps twice the length of this,
and we had just room to walk between stacks, from the loor to the
ceiling, of parts of dolls. He said, 'These are only the legs and
arms; the trunks are below., But I saw enough to convince me,
that he wanted a great many eyes; and, as the article appeared
quite in my own line of business, I said I would take an order by
way of experiment; and he shewed me several specimens. I copied
the order. He ordered various quantities, and of various sizes
and qualities. On returning to the Tavistock Hotel, I found that
the order amounted to upwards of 500l. I went into the country,
and endeavoured to make them. I had some of the most ingenious
glass toymakers in the kingdom in my service; but when I shewed
it to them, they shook their heads, and said they had often seen
the article before, but could not make it. I engaged them by
presents to use their best exertions; but after trying and
wasting a great deal of time for three or four weeks, I was
obliged to relinquish the attempt. Soon afterwards I engaged in
another branch of business (chandelier furniture), and took no
more notice of it. About eighteen months ago I resumed the
trinket trade, and then determined to think of the dolls' eyes;
and about eight months since, I accidentally met with a poor
fellow who had impoverished himself by drinking, and who was
dying in a consumption, in a state of great want. I showed him
ten sovereigns: and he said he would instruct me in the process.
He was in such a state that he could not bear the effluvia of his
own lamp, but though I was very conversant with the manual part
of the business, and it related to things I was daily in the
habit of seeing, I felt I could do nothing from his description.
(I mention this to show how difficult it is to convey, by
description, the mode of working.) He took me into his garret,
where the poor fellow had economized to such a degree, that he
actually used the entrails and fat of poultry from Leadenhall
market to save oil (the price of the article having been lately
so much reduced by competition at home). In an instant, before I
had seen him make three, I felt competent to make a gross; and
the difference between his mode and that of my own workmen was so
trifling, that I felt the utmost astonishment.

Question. You can now make dolls' eyes?
Answer. I can. As it was eighteen years ago that I received the
order I have mentioned, and feeling doubtful of my own
recollection, though very strong, and suspecting that it could
[not] have been to the amount stated, I last night took the
present very reduced price of that article (less than half now of
what it was then), and calculating that every child in this
country not using a doll till two years old, and throwing it
aside at seven, and having a new one annually, I satisfied myself
that the eyes alone would produce a circulation of a great many
thousand pounds. I mention this merely to shew the importance of
trifles; and to assign one reason, amongst many, for my
conviction that nothing but personal communication can enable
our manufactures to be transplanted.

301. In many instances it is exceedingly difficult to
estimate beforehand the sale of an article, or the effects of a
machine; a case, however, occurred during a recent enquiry, which
although not quite appropriate as an illustration of probable
demand, is highly instructive as to the mode of conducting
investigations of this nature. A committee of the House of
Commons was appointed to enquire into the tolls proper to be
placed on steam-carriages; a question, apparently, of difficult
solution, and upon which widely different opinions had been
formed, if we may judge by the very different rate of tolls
imposed upon such carriages by different 'turnpike trusts'. The
principles on which the committee conducted the enquiry were,
that 'The only ground on which a fair claim to toll can be made
on any public road, is to raise a fund, which, with the strictest
economy, shall be just sufficient--first, to repay the expense
of its original formation; secondly, to maintain it in good and
sufficient repair.' They first endeavoured to ascertain, from
competent persons, the effect of the atmosphere alone in
deteriorating a well-constructed road. The next step was, to
determine the proportion in which the road was injured, by the
effect of the horses' feet compared with that of the wheels. Mr
Macneill, the superintendent, under Mr Telford, of the Holyhead
roads, was examined, and proposed to estimate the relative
injury, from the comparative quantities of iron worn off from the
shoes of the horses, and from the tire of the wheels. From the
data he possessed, respecting the consumption of iron for the
tire of the wheels, and for the shoes of the horses, of one of
the Birmingham day-coaches, he estimated the wear and tear of
roads, arising from the feet of the horses, to be three times as
great as that arising from the wheels. Supposing repairs
amounting to a hundred pounds to be required on a road travelled
over by a fast coach at the rate of ten miles an hour, and the
same amount of injury to occur on another road, used only by
waggons, moving at the rate of three miles an hour, Mr Macneill
divides the injuries in the following proportions:

Injuries arising from; Fast coach; Heavy waggon
Atmospheric changes 20 20
Wheels 20 35.5
Horses' feet drawing 60 44.5
Total injury 100 100

Supposing it, therefore, to be ascertained that the wheels of
steam carriages do no more injury to roads than other carriages
of equal weight travelling with the same velocity, the committee
now possessed the means of approximating to a just rate of toll
for steam carriages.(1*)

302. As connected with this subject, and as affording most
valuable information upon points in which, previous to
experiment, widely different opinions have been entertained; the
following extract is inserted from Mr Telford's Report on the
State of the Holyhead and Liverpool Roads. The instrument
employed for the comparison was invented by Mr Macneill; and the
road between London and Shrewsbury was selected for the place of
experiment.

The general results, when a waggon weighing 21 cwt was used
on different sorts of roads, are as follows:

lbs
1. On well-made pavement, the draught is 33

2. On a broken stone surface, or old flint road 65

3. On a gravel road 147

4. On a broken stone road, upon a rough pavement foundation 46

5. On a broken stone surface, upon a bottoming of concrete,
formed of Parker's cement and gravel 46

The following statement relates to the force required to draw a
coach weighing 18 cwt. exclusive of seven passengers, up roads of
various inclinations:

Inclination; Force required at six miles per hour; Force at
eight miles per hour; Force at ten miles per hour

lbs lbs lbs
1 in 20 268 296 318
1 in 26 213 219 225
1 in 30 165 196 200
1 in 40 160 166 172
1 in 600 111 120 128

303. In establishing a new manufactory, the time in which the
goods produced can be brought to market and the returns be
realized, should be thoroughly considered, as well as the time
the new article will take to supersede those already in use. If
it is destroyed in using, the new produce will be much more
easily introduced. Steel pens readily took the place of quills;
and a new form of pen would, if it possessed any advantage, as
easily supersede the present one. A new lock, however secure, and
however cheap, would not so readily make its way. If less
expensive than the old, it would be employed in new work: but old
locks would rarely be removed to make way for it; and even if
perfectly secure, its advance would be slow.

304. Another element in this question which should not be
altogether omitted, is the opposition which the new manufacture
may create by its real or apparent injury to other interests, and
the probable effect of that opposition. This is not always
foreseen; and when anticipated is often inaccurately estimated.
On the first establishment of steamboats from London to Margate,
the proprietors of the coaches running on that line of road
petitioned the House of Commons against them, as likely to lead
to the ruin of the coach proprietors. It was, however, found that
the fear was imaginary; and in a very few years, the number of
coaches on that road was considerably increased, apparently
through the very means which were thought to be adverse to it.
The fear, which is now entertained, that steampower and railroads
may drive out of employment a large proportion of the horses at
present in use, is probably not less unfounded. On some
particular lines such an effect might be produced; but in all
probability the number of horses employed in conveying goods and
passengers to the great lines of railroad, would exceed that
which is at present used.

NOTES:

1. One of the results of these enquiries is, that every coach
which travels from London to Birmingham distributes about eleven
pounds of wrought iron, along with the line of road between the
two places.

CHAPTER 24.

2006-09-11T02:19:00.001-07:00

On Over Manufacturing

284. One of the natural and almost inevitable consequences of
competition is the production of a supply much larger than the
demand requires. This result usually arises periodically; and it
is equally important, both to the masters and to the workmen, to
prevent its occurrence, or to foresee its arrival. In situations
where a great number of very small capitalists exist--where each
master works himself and is assisted by his own family, or by a
few journeymen--and where a variety of different articles is
produced, a curious system of compensation has arisen which in
some measure diminishes the extent to which fluctuations of wages
would otherwise reach. This is accomplished by a species of
middlemen or factors, persons possessing some capital, who,
whenever the price of any of the articles in which they deal is
greatly reduced, purchase it on their own account, in the hopes
of selling at a profit when the market is better. These persons,
in ordinary times, act as salesmen or agents, and make up
assortments of goods at the market price, for the use of the home
or foreign dealer. They possess large warehouses in which to make
up their orders, or keep in store articles purchased during
periods of depression; thus acting as a kind of flywheel in
equalizing the market price. 285. The effect of
over-manufacturing upon great establishments is different. When
an over supply has reduced prices, one of two events usually
occurs: the first is a diminished payment for labour; the other
is a diminution of the number of hours during which the labourers
work, together with a diminished rate of wages. In the former
case production continues to go on at its ordinary rate: in the
latter, the production itself being checked, the supply again
adjusts itself to the demand as soon as the stock on hand is
worked off, and prices then regain their former level. The latter
course appears, in the first instance, to be the best both for
masters and men; but there seems to be a difficulty in
accomplishing this, except where the trade is in few hands. In
fact, it is almost necessary, for its success, that there should
be a combination amongst the masters or amongst the men; or, what
is always far preferable to either, a mutual agreement for their
joint interests. Combination amongst the men is difficult, and is
always attended with the evils which arise from the ill-will
excited against any persons who, in the perfectly justifiable
exercise of their judgement, are disposed not to act with the
majority. The combination of the masters, on the other hand, is
unavailing, unless the whole body of them agree, for if any one
master can procure more labour for his money than the rest, he
will be able to undersell them.

286. If we look only at the interests of the consumer, the
case is different. When too large a supply has produced a great
reduction of price, it opens the consumption of the article to a
new class, and increases the consumption of those who previously
employed it: it is therefore against the interest of both these
parties that a return to the former price should occur. It is
also certain, that by the diminution of profit which the
manufacturer suffers from the diminished price, his ingenuity
will be additionally stimulated; that he will apply himself to
discover other and cheaper sources for the supply of his raw
material; that he will endeavour to contrive improved machinery
which shall manufacture it at a cheaper rate; or try to introduce
new arrangements into his factory, which shall render the economy
of it more perfect. In the event of his success, by any of these
courses or by their joint effects, a real and substantial good
will be produced. A larger portion of the public will receive
advantage from the use of the article, and they will procure it
at a lower price; and the manufacturer, though his profit on each
operation is reduced, will yet, by the more frequent returns on
the larger produce of his factory, find his real gain at the end
of the year, nearly the same as it was before; whilst the wages
of the workman will return to their level, and both the
manufacturer and the workman will find the demand less
fluctuating, from its being dependent on a larger number of
customers.

287. It would be highly interesting, if we could trace, even
approximately, through the history of any great manufacture, the
effects of gluts in producing improvements in machinery, or in
methods of working; and if we could shew what addition to the
annual quantity of goods previously manufactured, was produced by
each alteration. It would probably be found, that the increased
quantity manufactured by the same capital, when worked with the
new improvement, would produce nearly the same rate of profit as
other modes of investment.

Perhaps the manufacture of iron(1*) would furnish the best
illustration of this subject; because, by having the actual price
of pig and bar iron at the same place and at the same time, the
effect of a change in the value of currency, as well as several
other sources of irregularity, would be removed.

288. At the present moment, whilst the manufacturers of iron
are complaining of the ruinously low price of their produce, a
new mode of smelting iron is coming into use, which, if it
realizes the statement of the patentees, promises to reduce
greatly the cost of production.

The improvement consists in heating the air previously to
employing it for blowing the furnace. One of the results is, that
coal may be used instead of coke; and this, in its turn,
diminishes the quantity of limestone which is required for the
fusion of the iron stone.

The following statement by the proprietors of the patent is
extracted from Brewster's Journal, 1832, p. 349:

Comparative view of the quantity of materials required at the
Clyde iron works to smelt a ton of foundry pig-iron, and of the
quantity of foundry pig-iron smelted from each furnace weekly

Fuel in tons of 20 cwt each cwt 112 lbs; Iron-stone; Lime-stone
Cwt; Weekly produce in pig-iron Tons

1. With air not heated and coke; 7;3 1/4; 15; 45
2. With air heated and coke; 4 3/4; 3 1/4; 10; 60
3. With air heated and coals not coked; 2 1/4; 3 1/4; 7 1/2; 65

Notes. 1. To the coals stated in the second and third lines, must
be added 5 cwt of small coals, required to heat the air.

2. The expense of the apparatus for applying the heated air
will be from L200 to L300 per furnace.

3. No coals are now coked at the Clyde iron works; at all the
three furnaces the iron is smelted with coals.

4. The three furnaces are blown by a double-powered
steam-engine, with a steam cylinder 40 inches in diameter, and a
blowing cylinder 80 inches in diameter, which compresses the air
so as to carry 2 1/2 lbs per square inch. There are two tuyeres
to each furnace. The muzzles of the blowpipes are 3 inches in
diameter.

5. The air heated to upwards of 600 degrees of Fahrenheit.
It will melt lead at the distance of three inches from the
orifice through which it issues from the pipe.

289. The increased effect produced by thus heating the air is
by no means an obvious result; and an analysis of its action will
lead to some curious views respecting the future application of
machinery for blowing furnaces.

Every cubic foot of atmospheric air, driven into a furnace,
consists of two gases.(2*) about one-fifth being oxygen, and
four-fifths azote.

According to the present state of chemical knowledge, the
oxygen alone is effective in producing heat; and the operation of
blowing a furnace may be thus analysed.

1. The air is forced into the furnace in a condensed state,
and, immediately expanding, abstracts heat from the surrounding
bodies.

2. Being itself of moderate temperature, it would, even
without expansion, still require heat to raise it to the
temperature of the hot substances to which it is to be applied.

3. On coming into contact with the ignited substances in the
furnace, the oxygen unites with them, parting at the same moment
with a large portion of its latent heat, and forming compounds
which have less specific heat than their separate constituents.
Some of these pass up the chimney in a gaseous state, whilst
others remain in the form of melted slags, floating on the
surface of the iron, which is fused by the heat thus set at
liberty.

4. The effects of the azote are precisely similar to the
first and second of those above described; it seems to form no
combinations, and contributes nothing, in any stage, to augment
the heat.

The plan, therefore, of heating the air before driving it
into the furnace saves, obviously, the whole of that heat which
the fuel must have supplied in raising it from the temperature
of the external air up to that of 600 degrees Fahrenheit; thus
rendering the fire more intense, and the glassy slags more
fusible, and perhaps also more effectually decomposing the iron
ore. The same quantity of fuel, applied at once to the furnace,
would only prolong the duration of its heat, not augment its
intensity.

290. The circumstance of so large a portion of the air(3*)
driven into furnaces being not merely useless, but acting really
as a cooling, instead of a heating, cause, added to so great a
waste of mechanical power in condensing it, amounting, in fact,
to four-fifths of the whole, clearly shews the defects of the
present method, and the want of some better mode of exciting
combustion on a large scale. The following suggestions are thrown
out as likely to lead to valuable results, even though they
should prove ineffectual for their professed object.

291. The great difficulty appears to be to separate the
oxygen, which aids combustion, from the azote which impedes it.
If either of those gases becomes liquid at a lower pressure than
the other, and if those pressures are within the limits of our
present powers of compression, the object might be accomplished.

Let us assume, for example, that oxygen becomes liquid under
a pressure of 200 atmospheres, whilst azote requires a pressure
of 250. Then if atmospheric air be condensed to the two hundredth
part of its bulk, the oxygen will be found in a liquid state at
the bottom of the vessel in which the condensation is effected,
and the upper part of the vessel will contain only azote in the
state of gas. The oxygen, now liquefied, may be drawn off for the
supply of the furnace; but as it ought when used, to have a very
moderate degree of condensation, its expansive force may be
previously employed in working a small engine. The compressed
azote also in the upper part of the vessel, though useless for
combustion, may be employed as a source of power, and, by its
expansion, work another engine. By these means the mechanical
force exerted in the original compression would all be restored,
except that small part retained for forcing the pure oxygen into
the furnace, and the much larger part lost in the friction of the
apparatus.

292. The principal difficulty to be apprehended in these
operations is that of packing a working piston so as to bear the
pressure of 200 or 300 atmospheres: but this does not seem
insurmountable. It is possible also that the chemical combination
of the two gases which constitute common air may be effected by
such pressures: if this should be the case, it might offer a new
mode of manufacturing nitrous or nitric acids. The result of such
experiments might take another direction: if the condensation
were performed over liquids, it is possible that they might enter
into new chemical combinations. Thus, if air were highly
condensed in a vessel containing water, the latter might unite
with an additional dose of oxygen, (4*) which might afterwards
be easily disengaged for the use of the furnace.

293. A further cause of the uncertainty of the results of
such an experiment arises from the possibility that azote may
really contribute to the fusion of the mixed mass in the furnace,
though its mode of operating is at present unknown. An
examination of the nature of the gases issuing from the chimneys
of iron-foundries, might perhaps assist in clearing up this
point; and, in fact, if such enquiries were also instituted upon
the various products of all furnaces, we might expect the
elucidation of many points in the economy of the metallurgic art.

294. It is very possible also, that the action of oxygen in a
liquid state might be exceedingly corrosive, and that the
containing vessels must be lined with platinum or some other
substance of very difficult oxydation; and most probably new and
unexpected compounds would be formed at such pressures. In some
experiments made by Count Rumford in 1797, on the force of fired
gunpowder, he noticed a solid compound, which always appeared in
the gunbarrel when the ignited powder had no means of escaping;
and, in those cases, the gas which escaped on removing the
restraining pressure was usually inconsiderable.

295. If the liquefied gases are used, the form of the iron
furnace must probably be changed, and perhaps it may be necessary
to direct the flame from the ignited fuel upon the ore to be
fused, instead of mixing that ore with the fuel itself: by a
proper regulation of the blast, an oxygenating or a deoxygenating
flame might be procured; and from the intensity of the flame,
combined with its chemical agency, we might expect the most
refractory ore to be smelted, and that ultimately the metals at
present almost infusible, such as platinum, titanium, and others,
might be brought into common use, and thus effect a revolution in
the arts.

296. Supposing, on the occurrence of a glut, that new and
cheaper modes of producing are not discovered, and that the
production continues to exceed the demand, then it is apparent
that too much capital is employed in the trade; and after a time,
the diminished rate of profit will drive some of the
manufacturers to other occupations. What particular individuals
will leave it must depend on a variety of circumstances. Superior
industry and attention will enable some factories to make a
profit rather beyond the rest; superior capital in others will
enable them, without these advantages, to support competition
longer, even at a loss, with the hope of driving the smaller
capitalists out of the market, and then reimbursing themselves by
an advanced price. It is, however, better for all parties, that
this contest should not last long; and it is important, that no
artificial restraint should interfere to prevent it. An instance
of such restriction, and of its injurious effect, occurs at the
port of Newcastle, where a particular Act of Parliament requires
that every ship shall be loaded in its turn. The Committee of the
House of Commons, in their Report on the Coal Trade, state that,

'Under the regulations contained in this Act, if more ships
enter into the trade than can be profitablv employed in it, the
loss produced by detention in port, and waiting for a cargo.
which must consequently take place, instead of falling, as it
naturally would, upon particular ships, and forcing them from the
trade, is now divided evenly amongst them; and the loss thus
created is shared by the whole number.' Report, p. 6.

297. It is not pretended, in this short view, to trace out all
the effects or remedies of over-manufacturing; the subject is
difficult, and, unlike some of the questions already treated,
requires a combined view of the relative influence of many
concurring causes.

NOTES:

1. The average price per ton of pig iron, bar iron, and coal,
together with the price paid for labour at the works, for a long
series of years, would be very valuable, and I shall feel much
indebted to anyone who will favour me with it for any, even
short, period.

2. The accurate proportions are, by measure, oxygen 21, azote 79.

3. A similar reasoning may be applied to lamps. An Argand burner,
whether used for consuming oil or gas, admits almost an unlimited
quantity of air. It would deserve enquiry, whether a smaller
quantity might not produce greater light; and, possibly, a
different supply furnish more heat with the same expenditure of
fuel.

4. Deutoxide of hydrogen, the oxygenated water of Thenard.

CHAPTER 23.

2006-09-11T02:19:00.000-07:00

On the Position of Large Factories

277. It is found in every country, that the situation of
large manufacturing establishments is confined to particular
districts. In the earlier history of a manufacturing community,
before cheap modes of transport have been extensively introduced,
it will almost always be found that manufactories are placed near
those spots in which nature has produced the raw material:
especially in the case of articles of great weight, and in those
the value of which depends more upon the material than upon the
labour expended on it. Most of the metallic ores being
exceedingly heavy, and being mixed up with large quantities of
weighty and useless materials, must be smelted at no great
distance from the spot which affords them: fuel and power are the
requisites for reducing them; and any considerable fall of water
in the vicinity will naturally be resorted to for aid in the
coarser exertions of physical force; for pounding the ore, for
blowing the furnaces, or for hammering and rolling out the iron.
There are indeed peculiar circumstances which will modify this.
Iron, coal, and limestone, commonly occur in the same tracts; but
the union of the fuel in the same locality with the ore does not
exist with respect to other metals. The tracts generally the most
productive of metallic ores are, geologically speaking, different
from those affording coal: thus in Cornwall there are veins of
copper and of tin, but no beds of coal. The copper ore, which
requires a very large quantity of fuel for its reduction, is sent
by sea to the coalfields of Wales, and is smelted at Swansea;
whilst the vessels which convey it, take back coals to work the
steam-engines for draining the mines, and to smelt the tin, which
requires for that purpose a much smaller quantity of fuel than
copper.

278. Rivers passing through districts rich in coal and
metals, will form the first highroads for the conveyance of
weighty produce to stations in which other conveniences present
themselves for the further application of human skill. Canals
will succeed, or lend their aid to these; and the yet unexhausted
applications of steam and of gas, hold out a hope of attaining
almost the same advantages for countries to which nature seemed
for ever to have denied them. Manufactures, commerce, and
civilization, always follow the line of new and cheap
communications. Twenty years ago, the Mississippi poured the vast
volume of its waters in lavish profusion through thousands of
miles of countries, which scarcely supported a few wandering and
uncivilized tribes of Indians. The power of the stream seemed to
set at defiance the efforts of man to ascend its course; and, as
if to render the task still more hopeless, large trees, torn from
the surrounding forests, were planted like stakes in its bottom,
forming in some places barriers, in others the nucleus of banks;
and accumulating in the same spot, which but for accident would
have been free from both, the difficulties and dangers of shoals
and of rocks. Four months of incessant toil could scarcely convey
a small bark with its worn-out crew two thousand miles up this
stream. The same voyage is now performed in fifteen days by large
vessels impelled by steam, carrying hundreds of passengers
enjoying all the comforts and luxuries of civilized life. Instead
of the hut of the Indian, and the far more unfrequent log house
of the thinly scattered settlers--villages, towns, and cities,
have arisen on its banks; and the same engine which stems the
force of these powerful waters, will probably tear from their
bottom the obstructions which have hitherto impeded and rendered
dangerous their navigation.(1*)

279. The accumulation of many large manufacturing
establishments in the same district has a tendency to bring
together purchasers or their agents from great distances, and
thus to cause the institution of a public mart or exchange. This
contributes to diffuse information relative to the supply of raw
materials, and the state of demand for their produce, with which
it is necessary manufacturers should be well acquainted. The very
circumstance of collecting periodically, at one place, a large
number both of those who supply the market and of those who
require its produce, tends strongly to check the accidental
fluctuations to which a small market is always subject, as well
as to render the average of the prices much more uniform.

280. When capital has been invested in machinery, and in
buildings for its accommodation, and when the inhabitants of the
neighbourhood have acquired a knowledge of the modes of working
at the machines, reasons of considerable weight are required to
cause their removal. Such changes of position do however occur;
and they have been alluded to by the Committee on the Fluctuation
of Manufacturers' Employment, as one of the causes interfering
most materially with an uniform rate of wages: it is therefore of
particular importance to the workmen to be acquainted with the
real causes which have driven manufactures from their ancient
seats.

"The migration or change of place of any manufacture has
sometimes arisen from improvements of machinery not applicable to
the spot where such manufacture was carried on, as appears to
have been the case with the woollen manufacture, which has in
great measure migrated from Essex, Suffolk, and other southern
counties, to the northern districts, where coal for the use of
the steam-engine is much cheaper. But this change has, in some
instances, been caused or accelerated by the conduct of the
workmen, in refusing a reasonable reduction of wages, or opposing
the introduction of some kind of improved machinery or process;
so that, during the dispute, another spot has in great measure
supplied their place in the market. Any violence used by the
workmen against the property of their masters, and any
unreasonable combination on their part, is almost sure thus to be
injurious to themselves."

281. These removals become of serious consequence when the
factories have been long established, because a population
commensurate with their wants invariably grows up around them.
The combinations in Nottinghamshire, of persons under the name of
Luddites, drove a great number of lace frames from that district,
and caused establishments to be formed in Devonshire. We ought
also to observe, that the effect of driving any establishment
into a new district, where similar works have not previously
existed, is not merely to place it out of the reach of such
combinations; but, after a few years, the example of its success
will most probably induce other capitalists in the new district
to engage in the same manufacture: and thus, although one
establishment only should be driven away, the workmen, through
whose combination its removal is effected, will not merely suffer
by the loss of that portion of demand for their labour which the
factory caused; but the value of that labour will itself be
reduced by the competition of a new field of production.

282. Another circumstance which has its influence on this
question, is the nature of the machinery. Heavy machinery, such
as stamping-mills, steam-engines, etc., cannot readily be moved,
and must always be taken to pieces for that purpose; but when the
machinery of a factory consists of a multitude of separate
engines, each complete in itself, and all put in motion by one
source of power, such as that of steam, then the removal is much
less inconvenient. Thus, stocking frames, lace machines, and
looms, can be transported to more favourable positions, with but
a small separation of their parts.

283. It is of great importance that the more intelligent
amongst the class of workmen should examine into the correctness
of these views; because, without having their attention directed
to them, the whole class may, in some instances, be led by
designing persons to pursue a course, which, although plausible
in appearance, is in reality at variance with their own best
interests. I confess I am not without a hope that this volume may
fall into the hands of workmen, perhaps better qualified than
myself to reason upon a subject which requires only plain common
sense, and whose powers are sharpened by its importance to their
personal happiness. In asking their attention to the preceding
remarks, and to those which I shall offer respecting
combinations, I can claim only one advantage over them; namely,
that I never have had, and in all human probability never shall
have, the slightest pecuniary interest, to influence even
remotely, or by anticipation, the judgements I have formed on the
facts which have come before me.

NOTES:

1. The amount of obstructions arising from the casual fixing of
trees in the bottom of the river, may be estimated from the
proportion of steamboats destroyed by running upon them. The
subjoined statement is taken from the American Almanack for 1832.

Between the years 1811 and 1831, three hundred and
forty-eight steamboats were built on the Mississippi and its
tributary streams. During that period a hundred and fifty were
lost or worn out.

Of this hundred and fifty: worn out 63
lost by snags 36
burnt 14
lost by collision 3
by accidents not ascertained 34
Thirty six or nearly one fourth, being destroyed by accidental
obstruction.

Snag is the name given in America to trees which stand nearly
upright in the stream with their roots fixed at the bottom.

It is usual to divide off at the bow of the steamboats a
watertight chamber, in order that when a hole is made in it by
running against the snags, the water may not enterthe rest of the
vessel and sink it intantly.

CHAPTER 22.

2006-09-11T02:18:00.000-07:00

On the Causes and Consequences of Large Factories

263. On examining the analysis which has been given in
chapter XIX of the operations in the art of pin-making, it will
be observed, that ten individuals are employed in it, and also
that the time occupied in executing the several processes is very
different. In order, however, to render more simple the reasoning
which follows, it will be convenient to suppose that each of the
seven processes there described requires an equal quantity of
time. This being supposed, it is at once apparent, that, to
conduct an establishment for pin-making most profitably, the
number of persons employed must be a multiple of ten. For if a
person with small means has only sufficient capital to enable him
to employ half that number of persons, they cannot each of them
constantly adhere to the execution of the same process; and if a
manufacturer employs any number not a multiple of ten, a similar
result must ensue with respect to some portion of them. The same
reflection constantly presents itself on examining any
well-arranged factory. In that of Mr Mordan, the patentee of the
ever-pointed pencils, one room is devoted to some of the
processes by which steel pens are manufactured. Six fly-presses
are here constantly at work; in the first a sheet of thin steel
is brought by the workman under the die which at each blow cuts
out a flat piece of the metal, having the form intended for the
pen. Two other workmen are employed in placing these flat pieces
under two other presses, in which a steel chisel cuts the slit.
Three other workmen occupy other presses, in which the pieces so
prepared receive their semi-cylindrical form. The longer time
required for adjusting the small pieces in the two latter
operations renders them less rapid in execution than the first;
so that two workmen are fully occupied in slitting, and three in
bending the flat pieces, which one man can punch out of the sheet
of steel. If, therefore, it were necessary to enlarge this
factory, it is clear that twelve or eighteen presses would be
worked with more economy than any number not a multiple of six.

The same reasoning extends to every manufacture which is
conducted upon the principle of the division of labour, and we
arrive at this general conclusion: When the number of processes
into which it is most advantageous to divide it, and the number
of individuals to be employed in it, are ascertained, then all
factories which do not employ a direct multiple of this latter
number, will produce the article at a greater cost. This
principle ought always to be kept in view in great
establishments, although it is quite impossible, even with the
best division of the labour, to attend to it rigidly in practice.
The proportionate number of the persons who possess the greatest
skill, is of course to be first attended to. That exact ratio
which is more profitable for a factory employing a hundred
workmen, may not be quite the best where there are five hundred;
and the arrangements of both may probably admit of variations,
without materially increasing the cost of their produce. But it
is quite certain that no individual, nor in the case of
pin-making could any five individuals, ever hope to compete with
an extensive establishment. Hence arises one cause of the great
size of manufacturing establishments, which have increased with
the progress of civilization. Other circumstances, however,
contribute to the same end, and arise also from the same cause--
the division of labour.

264. The material out of which the manufactured article is
produced, must, in the several stages of its progress, be
conveyed from one operator to the next in succession: this can be
done at least expense when they are all working in the same
establishment. If the weight of the material is considerable,
this reason acts with additional force; but even where it is
light, the danger arising from frequent removal may render it
desirable to have all the processes carried on in the same
building. In the cutting and polishing of glass this is the case;
whilst in the art of needle-making several of the processes are
carried on in the cottages of the workmen. It is, however, clear
that the latter plan, which is attended with some advantages to
the family of the workmen, can be adopted only where there exists
a sure and quick method of knowing that the work has been well
done, and that the whole of the materials given out have been
really employed.

265. The inducement to contrive machines for any process of
manufacture increases with the demand for the article; and the
introduction of machinery, on the other hand, tends to increase
the quantity produced and to lead to the establishment of large
factories. An illustration of these principles may be found in
the history of the manufacture of patent net.

The first machines for weaving this article were very
expensive, costing from a thousand to twelve or thirteen hundred
pounds. The possessor of one of these, though it greatly
increased the quantity he could produce, was nevertheless unable,
when working eight hours a day, to compete with the old methods.
This arose from the large capital invested in the machinery; but
he quickly perceived that with the same expense of fixed capital,
and a small addition to his circulating capital, he could work
the machine during the whole twenty-four hours. The profits thus
realized soon induced other persons to direct their attention to
the improvement of those machines; and the price was greatly
reduced, at the same time that the rapidity of production of the
patent net was increased. But if machines be kept working through
the twenty-four hours, it is necessary that some person shall
attend to admit the workmen at the time they relieve each other;
and whether the porter or other servant so employed admit one
person or twenty, his rest will be equally disturbed. It will
also be necessary occasionally to adjust or repair the machine;
and this can be done much better by a workman accustomed to
machine-making, than by the person who uses it. Now, since the
good performance and the duration of machines depend to a very
great extent upon correcting every shake or imperfection in their
parts as soon as they appear, the prompt attention of a workman
resident on the spot will considerably reduce the expenditure
arising from the wear and tear of the machinery. But in the case
of single lace frame, or a single loom, this would be too
expensive a plan. Here then arises another circumstance which
tends to enlarge the extent of a factory. It ought to consist of
such a number of machines as shall occupy the whole time of one
workman in keeping them in order: if extended beyond that number,
the same principle of economy would point out the necessity of
doubling or tripling the number of machines, in order to employ
the whole time of two or three skilful workmen.

266. Where one portion of the workman's labour consists in
the exertion of mere physical force, as in weaving and in many
similar arts, it will soon occur to the manufacturer, that if
that part were executed by a steam-engine, the same man might, in
the case of weaving, attend to two or more looms at once; and,
since we already suppose that one or more operative engineers
have been employed, the number of his looms may be so arranged
that their time shall be fully occupied in keeping the
steam-engine and the looms in order. One of the first results
will be, that the looms can be driven by the engine nearly twice
as fast as before: and as each man, when relieved from bodily
labour, can attend to two looms, one workman can now make almost
as much cloth as four. This increase of producing power is,
however, greater than that which really took place at first; the
velocity of some of the parts of the loom being limited by the
strength of the thread, and the quickness with which it commences
its motion: but an improvement was soon made, by which the motion
commenced slowly, and gradually acquired greater velocity than it
was safe to give it at once; and the speed was thus increased
from 100 to about 120 strokes per minute.

267. Pursuing the same principles, the manufactory becomes
gradually so enlarged, that the expense of lighting during the
night amounts to a considerable sum; and as there are already
attached to the establishment persons who are up all night, and
can therefore constantly attend to it, and also engineers to make
and keep in repair any machinery, the addition of an apparatus
for making gas to light the factory leads to a new extension, at
the same time that it contributes, by diminishing the expense of
lighting, and the risk of accidents from fire, to reduce the cost
of manufacturing.

268. Long before a factory has reached this extent, it will
have been found necessary to establish an accountant's
department, with clerks to pay the workmen, and to see that they
arrive at their stated times; and this department must be in
communication with the agents who purchase the raw produce, and
with those who sell the manufactured article.

269. We have seen that the application of the division of
labour tends to produce cheaper articles; that it thus increases
the demand; and gradually, by the effect of competition, or by
the hope of increased gain, that it causes large capitals to be
embarked in extensive factories. Let us now examine the influence
of this accumulation of capital directed to one object. In the
first place, it enables the most important principle on which the
advantages of the division of labour depends to be carried almost
to its extreme limits: not merely is the precise amount of skill
purchased which is necessary for the execution of each process,
but throughout every stage--from that in which the raw material
is procured, to that by which the finished produce is conveyed
into the hands of the consumer--the same economy of skill
prevails. The quantity of work produced by a given number of
people is greatly augmented by such an extended arrangement; and
the result is necessarily a great reduction in the cost of the
article which is brought to market.

270. Amongst the causes which tend to the cheap production of
any article, and which are connected with the employment of
additional capital, may be mentioned, the care which is taken to
prevent the absolute waste of any part of the raw material. An
attention to this circumstance sometimes causes the union of two
trades in one factory, which otherwise might have been separated.

An enumeration of the arts to which the horns of cattle are
applicable, will furnish a striking example of this kind of
economy. The tanner who has purchased the raw hides, separates
the horns, and sells them to the makers of combs and lanterns.
The horn consists of two parts, an outward horny case, and an
inward conical substance, somewhat intermediate between indurated
hair and bone. The first process consists in separating these two
parts, by means of a blow against a block of wood. The horny
exterior is then cut into three portions with a frame-saw.

1. The lowest of these, next the root of the horn, after
undergoing several processes, by which it is flattened, is made
into combs.

2. The middle of the horn, after being flattened by heat, and
having its transparency improved by oil, is split into thin
layers, and forms a substitute for glass, in lanterns of the
commonest kind.

3. The tip of the horn is used by the makers of knife
handles, and of the tops of whips, and for other similar
purposes.

4. The interior, or core of the horn, is boiled down in
water. A large quantity of fat rises to the surface; this is put
aside, and sold to the makers of yellow soap.

5. The liquid itself is used as a kind of glue, and is
purchased by cloth dressers for stiffening.

6. The insoluble substance, which remains behind, is then
sent to the mill, and, being ground down, is sold to the farmers
for manure.

7. Besides these various purposes to which the different
parts of the horn are applied, the clippings, which arise in comb
making, are sold to the farmer for manure. In the first year
after they are spread over the soil they have comparatively
little effect, but during the next four or five their efficiency
is considerable. The shavings which form the refuse of the
lantern maker, are of a much thinner texture: some of them are
cut into various figures and painted, and used as toys; for being
hygrometric, they curl up when placed on the palm of a warm hand.
But the greater part of these shavings also are sold for manure,
and from their extremely thin and divided form, the full effect
is produced upon the first crop.

271. Another event which has arisen, in one trade at least,
from the employment of large capital, is, that a class of
middlemen, formerly interposed between the maker and the
merchant, now no longer exist. When calico was woven in the
cottages of the workmen, there existed a class of persons who
travelled about and purchased the pieces so made, in large
numbers, for the purpose of selling them to the exporting
merchant. But the middlemen were obliged to examine every piece,
in order to know that it was perfect, and of full measure. The
greater number of the workmen, it is true, might be depended
upon, but the fraud of a few would render this examination
indispensable: for any single cottager, though detected by one
purchaser, might still hope that the fact would not become known
to all the rest.

The value of character, though great in all circumstances of
life, can never be so fully experienced by persons possessed of
small capital, as by those employing much larger sums: whilst
these larger sums of money for which the merchant deals, render
his character for punctuality more studied and known by others.
Thus it happens that high character supplies the place of an
additional portion of capital; and the merchant, in dealing with
the great manufacturer, is saved from the expense of
verification, by knowing that the loss, or even the impeachment,
of the manufacturer's character, would be attended with greater
injury to himself than any profit upon a single transaction could
compensate.

272. The amount of well-grounded confidence, which exists in
the character of its merchants and manufacturers, is one of the
many advantages that an old manufacturing country always
possesses over its rivals. To such an extent is this confidence
in character carried in England, that, at one of our largest
towns, sales and purchases on a very extensive scale are made
daily in the course of business without any of the parties ever
exchanging a written document.

273. A breach of confidence of this kind, which might have
been attended with very serious embarrassment, occurred in the
recent expedition to the mouth of the Niger.

'We brought with us from England,' Mr Lander states, 'nearly
a hundred thousand needles of various sizes, and amongst them was
a great quantity of Whitechapel sharps warranted superfine, and
not to cut in the eye. Thus highly recommended, we imagined that
these needles must have been excellent indeed; but what was our
surprise, some time ago, when a number of them which we had
disposed of were returned to us, with a complaint that they were
all eyeless, thus redeeming with a vengeance the pledge of the
manufacturer, "that they would not cut in the eye". On
examination afterwards, we found the same fault with the
remainder of the "Whitechapel sharps", so that to save our credit
we have been obliged to throw them away.'(1*)

274. The influence of established character in producing
confidence operated in a very remarkable manner at the time of
the exclusion of British manufactures from the continent during
the last war. One of our largest establishments had been in the
habit of doing extensive business with a house in the centre of
Germany; but, on the closing of the continental ports against our
manufactures, heavy penalties were inflicted on all those who
contravened the Berlin and Milan decrees. The English
manufacturer continued, nevertheless, to receive orders, with
directions how to consign them, and appointments for the time and
mode of payment, in letters, the handwriting of which was known
to him, but which were never signed, except by the christian name
of one of the firm, and even in some instances they were without
any signature at all. These orders were executed; and in no
instance was there the least irregularity in the payments.

275. Another circumstance may be noticed, which to a small
extent is more advantageous to large than to small factories. In
the export of several articles of manufacture, a drawback is
allowed by government, of a portion of the duty paid on the
importation of the raw material. In such circumstances, certain
forms must be gone through in order to protect the revenue from
fraud; and a clerk, or one of the partners, must attend at the
custom-house. The agent of the large establishment occupies
nearly the same time in receiving a drawback of several
thousands, as the smaller exporter does of a few shillings. But
if the quantity exported is inconsiderable, the small
manufacturer frequently does not find the drawback will repay him
for the loss of time.

276. In many of the large establishments of our manufacturing
districts, substances are employed which are the produce of
remote countries, and which are, in several instances, almost
peculiar to a few situations. The discovery of any new locality,
where such articles exist in abundance, is a matter of great
importance to any establishment which consumes them in large
quantities; and it has been found, in some instances, that the
expense of sending persons to great distances, purposely to
discover and to collect such produce, has been amply repaid. Thus
it has happened, that the snowy mountains of Sweden and Norway,
as well as the warmer hills of Corsica, have been almost stripped
of one of their vegetable productions, by agents sent expressly
from one of our largest establishments for the dying of calicos.
Owing to the same command of capital, and to the scale upon which
the operations of large factories are carried on, their returns
admit of the expense of sending out agents to examine into the
wants and tastes of distant countries, as well as of trying
experiments, which, although profitable to them, would be ruinous
to smaller establishments possessing more limited resources.

These opinions have been so well expressed in the Report of
the Committee of the House of Commons on the Woollen Trade, in
1806, that we shall close this chapter with an extract, in which
the advantages of great factories are summed up.

Your committee have the satisfaction of seeing, that the
apprehensions entertained of factories are not only vicious in
principle, but they are practically erroneous: to such a degree.
that even the very opposite principles might be reasonably
entertained. Nor would it be difficult to prove, that the
factories, to a certain extent at least, and in the present day,
seem absolutely necessary to the wellbeing of the domestic
system: supplying those very particulars wherein the domestic
system must be acknowledged to be inherently defective: for it is
obvious, that the little master manufacturers cannot afford, like
the man who possesses considerable capital, to try the
experiments which are requisite, and incur the risks, and even
losses, which almost always occur, in inventing and perfecting
new articles of manufacture, or in carrying to a state of greater
perfection articles already established. He cannot learn, by
personal inspection, the wants and habits, the arts,
manufactures, and improvements of foreign countries; diligence,
economy, and prudence, are the requisites of his character, not
invention, taste, and enterprise: nor would he be warranted in
hazarding the loss of any part of his small capital. He walks in
a sure road as long as he treads in the beaten track; but he must
not deviate into the paths of speculation. The owner of a
factory, on the contrary, being commonly possessed of a large
capital, and having all his workmen employed under his own
immediate superintendence, may make experiments, hazard
speculation, invent shorter or better modes of performing old
processes, may introduce new articles, and improve and perfect
old ones, thus giving the range to his taste and fancy, and,
thereby alone enabling our manufacturers to stand the competition
with their commercial rivals in other countries. Meanwhile, as is
well worthy of remark (and experience abundantly warrants the
assertion), many of these new fabrics and inventions, when their
success is once established, become general amongst the whole
body of manufacturers: the domestic manufacturers themselves thus
benefiting, in the end, from those very factories which had been
at first the objects of their jealousy. The history of almost all
our other manufactures, in which great improvements have been
made of late years in some cases at an immense expense, and after
numbers of unsuccessful experiments, strikingly illustrates and
enforces the above remarks. It is besides an acknowledged fact,
that the owners of factories are often amongst the most extensive
purchasers at the halls, where they buy from the domestic
clothier the established articles of manufacture, or are able at
once to answer a great and sudden order; whilst, at home, and
under their own superintendence, they make their fancy goods, and
any articles of a newer, more costly, or more delicate quality,
to which they are enabled by the domestic system to apply a much
larger proportion of their capital. Thus, the two systems,
instead of rivalling, are mutual aids to each other: each
supplying the other's defects, and promoting the other's
prosperity.

Notes:

1. Lander's Journal of an Expedition to the Mouth of the Niger,
vol. ii., p. 42.

CHAPTER 21.

2006-09-11T02:17:00.001-07:00

On the Cost of Each Separate Process in a Manufacture

253. The great competition introduced by machinery, and the
application of the principle of the subdivision of labour, render
it necessary for each producer to be continually on the watch, to
discover improved methods by which the cost of the article he
manufactures may be reduced; and, with this view, it is of great
importance to know the precise expense of every process, as well
as of the wear and tear of machinery which is due to it. The same
information is desirable for those by whom the manufactured goods
are distributed and sold; because it enables them to give
reasonable answers or explanations to the objections of
enquirers, and also affords them a better chance of suggesting to
the manufacturer changes in the fashion of his goods, which may
be suitable either to the tastes or to the finances of his
customers. To the statesman such knowledge is still more
important; for without it he must trust entirely to others, and
can form no judgement worthy of confidence, of the effect any tax
may produce, or of the injury the manufacturer or the country may
suffer by its imposition.

254. One of the first advantages which suggests itself as
likely to arise from a correct analysis of the expense of the
several processes of any manufacture, is the indication which it
would furnish of the course in which improvement should be
directed. If a method could be contrived of diminishing by one
fourth the time required for fixing on the heads of pins, the
expense of making them would be reduced about thirteen per cent;
whilst a reduction of one half the time employed in spinning the
coil of wire out of which the heads are cut, would scarcely make
any sensible difference in the cost of manufacturing of the
whole article. It is therefore obvious, that the attention would
be much more advantageously directed to shortening the former
than the latter process.

255. The expense of manufacturing, in a country where
machinery is of the rudest kind, and manual labour is very cheap,
is curiously exhibited in the price of cotton cloth in the island
of Java. The cotton, in the seed, is sold by the picul, which is
a weight of about 133 lbs. Not above one fourth or one fifth of
this weight, however, is cotton: the natives, by means of rude
wooden rollers, can only separate about 1 1/4 lb. of cotton from
the seed by one day's labour. A picul of cleansed cotton,
therefore, is worth between four and five times the cost of the
impure article; and the prices of the same substance, in its
different stages of manufacture, are--for one picul:

Dollars Cotton in the seed 2 to 3
Clean cotton 10 to 11
Cotton thread 24
Cotton thread dyed blue 35
Good ordinary cotton cloth 50

Thus it appears that the expense of spinning in Java is 117
per cent on the value of the raw material; the expense of dying
thread blue is 45 per cent on its value; and that of weaving
cotton thread into cloth 117 per cent on its value. The expense
of spinning cotton into a fine thread is, in England, about 33
per cent. (1*)

256. As an example of the cost of the different processes of
a manufacture, perhaps an analytical statement of the expense of
the volume now in the reader's hands may not be uninteresting;
more especially as it will afford an insight into the nature and
extent of the taxes upon literature. It is found economical to
print it upon paper of a very large size, so that although
thirty-two pages, instead of sixteen, are really contained in
each sheet, this work is still called octavo.

L s. d.

To printer, for composing (per sheet of 32 pages) L3 1s. 10 1/2
sheets 32 0 6 [This relates to the ordinary size of the type used
in the volume.]

To printer for composing small type, as in extracts and 2 0 3
contents, extra per sheet, 3s. 10d.

To printer, for composing table work, extra per sheet, 2 17 9
5s. 6d.
Average charge for corrections, per sheet, L3 2s. 10d. 33 0 0
Press work, 3000 being printed off, per sheet, L3 10s. 36 15 0
Paper for 3000, at L1 11s. 6d. per ream, weighing 28 lbs: the
duty on paper at 3d. per lb. amounts to 7s. per ream, so that the
63 reams which are required for the work will cost:

Paper 77 3 6
Excise Duty 22 1 0
Total expense of paper 99 4 6

Total expense of printing and paper 205 18 0
Steel-plate for title-page 0 7 6
Engraving on ditto, Head of Bacon 2 2 0
Ditto letters 1 1 0
Total expense of title-page 3 10 6
Printing title-page, at 6s. per 100 9 0 0
Paper for ditto, at 1s. 9d. per 100 2 12 6
Expenses of advertising 40 0 0
Sundries. 5 0 0

Total expense in sheets 266 1 0

Cost of a single copy in sheets; 3052 being printed, including
the overplus 0 1 9
Extra boarding 0 0 6

Cost of each copy, boarded(2*) 0 2 3

257. This analysis requires some explanation. The printer
usually charges for composition by the sheet, supposing the type
to be all of one kind; and as this charge is regulated by the
size of the letter, on which the quantity in a sheet depends,
little dispute can arise after the price is agreed upon. If there
are but few extracts, or other parts of the work, which require
to be printed in smaller type; or if there are many notes, or
several passages in Greek, or in other languages, requiring a
different type, these are considered in the original contract,
and a small additional price per sheet allowed. If there is a
large portion of small type, it is better to have a specific
additional charge for it per sheet. If any work with irregular
lines and many figures, and what the printers call rules, occurs,
it is called table work, and is charged at an advanced price per
sheet. Examples of this are frequent in the present volume. If
the page consists entirely of figures, as in mathematical tables,
which require very careful correction, the charge for composition
is usually doubled. A few years ago I printed a table of
logarithms, on a large-sized page, which required great
additional labour and care from the readers,(3*) in rendering the
proofs correct, and for which, although new punches were not
required, several new types were prepared, and for which
stereotype plates were cast, costing about L2 per sheet. In this
case L11 per sheet were charged, although ordinary composition,
with the same sized letter, in demy octavo, could have been
executed at thirty-eight shillings per sheet: but as the expense
was ascertained before commencing the work, it gave rise to no
difficulties.

258. The charge for corrections and alterations is one which,
from the difficulty of measuring them, gives rise to the greatest
inconvenience, and is as disagreeable to the publisher (if he be
the agent between the author and the printer), and to the master
printer or his foreman, as it is to the author himself. If the
author study economy, he should make the whole of his corrections
in the manuscript, and should copy it out fairly: it will then be
printed correctly, and he will have little to pay for
corrections. But it is scarcely possible to judge of the effect
of any passage correctly, without having it set up in type; and
there are few subjects, upon which an author does not find he can
add some details or explanation, when he sees his views in print.
If, therefore, he wish to save his own labour in transcribing,
and to give the last polish to the language, he must be content
to accomplish these objects at an increased expense. If the
printer possess a sufficient stock of type, it will contribute
still more to the convenience of the author to have his whole
work put up in what are technically called slips,(4*) and then to
make all the corrections, and to have as few revises as he can.
The present work was set up in slips, but the corrections have
been unusually large, and the revises frequent.

259. The press work, or printing off, is charged at a price
agreed upon for each two hundred and fifty sheets; and any broken
number is still considered as two hundred and fifty. When a large
edition is required, the price for two hundred and fifty is
reduced; thus, in the present volume, two hundred and fifty
copies, if printed alone, would have been charged eleven
shillings per sheet, instead of 5s. 10d., the actual charge. The
principle of this mode of charging is good, as it obviates all
disputes; but it is to be regretted that the custom of charging
the same price for any small number as for two hundred and fifty,
is so pertinaciously adhered to, that the workmen will not agree
to any other terms when only twenty or thirty copies are
required, or even when only three or four are wanted for the sake
of some experiment. Perhaps if all numbers above fifty were
charged as two hundred and fifty, and all below as for half two
hundred and fifty, both parties would derive an advantage.

260. The effect of the excise duty is to render the paper
thin, in order that it may weigh little; but this is counteracted
by the desire of the author to make his book look as thick as
possible, in order that he may charge the public as much as he
decently can; and so on that ground alone the duty is of no
importance. There is, however, another effect of this duty, which
both the public and the author feel; for they pay, not merely the
duty which is charged, but also the profit on that duty, which
the paper-maker requires for the use of additional capital; and
also the profit to the publisher and bookseller on the increased
price of the volume.

261. The estimated charge for advertisements is, in the
present case, about the usual allowance for such a volume; and,
as it is considered that advertisements in newspapers are the
most effectual, where the smallest pays a duty of 3s. 6d., nearly
one half of the charge of advertising is a tax.

262. It appears then, that, to an expenditure of L224
necessary to produce the present volume, L42 are added in the
shape of a direct tax. Whether the profits arising from such a
mode of manufacturing will justify such a rate of taxation, can
only be estimated when the returns from the volume are
considered, a subject that will be discussed in a subsequent
chapter.(5*) It is at present sufficient to observe, that the tax
on advertisements is an impolitic tax when contrasted with that
upon paper, and on other materials employed. The object of all
advertisements is, by making known articles for sale, to procure
for them a better price, if the sale is to be by auction; or a
larger extent of sale if by retail dealers. Now the more any
article is known, the more quickly it is discovered whether it
contributes to the comfort or advantage of the public; and the
more quickly its consumption is assured if it be found valuable.
It would appear, then, that every tax on communicating
information respecting articles which are the subjects of
taxation in another shape, is one which must reduce the amount
that would have been raised, had no impediment been placed in the
way of making known to the public their qualities and their
price.

NOTES:

1. These facts are taken from Crawford's Indian Archipelago.

2. These charges refer to the edition prepared for the public,
and do not relate to the large paper copies in the hands of some
of the author's friends.

3. Readers are persons employed to correct the press at the
printing office.

4. Slips are long pieces of paper on which sufficient matter is
printed to form, when divided, from two to four pages of text.

5. Chapter 31.

CHAPTER 20.

2006-09-11T02:17:00.000-07:00

On the Division of Labour

241. We have already mentioned what may, perhaps, appear
paradoxical to some of our readers that the division of labour
can be applied with equal success to mental as to mechanical
operations, and that it ensures in both the same economy of time.
A short account of its practical application, in the most
extensive series of calculations ever executed, will offer an
interesting illustration of this fact, whilst at the same time it
will afford an occasion for shewing that the arrangements which
ought to regulate the interior economy of a manufactory, are
founded on principles of deeper root than may have been supposed,
and are capable of being usefully employed in preparing the road
to some of the sublimest investigations of the human mind.

242. In the midst of that excitement which accompanied the
Revolution of France and the succeeding wars, the ambition of the
nation, unexhausted by its fatal passion for military renown, was
at the same time directed to some of the nobler and more
permanent triumphs which mark the era of a people's greatness and
which receive the applause of posterity long after their
conquests have been wrested from them, or even when their
existence as a nation may be told only by the page of history.
Amongst their enterprises of science, the French Government was
desirous of producing a series of mathematical tables, to
facilitate the application of the decimal system which they had
so recently adopted. They directed, therefore, their
mathematicians to construct such tables, on the most extensive
scale. Their most distinguished philosophers, responding fully to
the call of their country, invented new methods for this
laborious task; and a work, completely answering the large
demands of the Government, was produced in a remarkably short
period of time. M. Prony, to whom the superintendence of this
great undertaking was confided, in speaking of its commencement,
observes: Je m'y livrai avec toute l'ardeur dont j'etois capable,
et je m'occupai d'abord du plan general de l'execution. Toutes
les conditions que j'avois a remplir necessitoient l'emploi d'un
grand nombre de calculateurs; et il me vint bientot a la pensee
d'appliquer a la connection de ces Tables la division du travail,
dont les Arts de Commerce tirent un parti si avantageux pour
reunir a la pernection de main-d'oeuvre l'economie de la depense
et du temps. The circumstance which gave rise to this singular
application of the principle of the division on labour is so
interesting, that no apology is necessary for introducing it from
a small pamphlet printed at Paris a few years since, when a
proposition was made by the English to the French Government,
that the two countries should print these tables at their joint
expense.

243. The origin of the idea is related in the following
extract:

C'est a un chapitre d'un ouvrage Anglais,(1*) justement
celebre, (I.) qu'est probablement due l'existence de l'ouvrage
dont le gouvernement Britannique veut faire jouir le monde
savant:

Voici l'anecdote: M. de Prony s'etait engage. avec les
comites de gouvernement. a composer pour la division centesimale
du cercle, des tables logarithmiques et trigonometriques, qui,
non seulement ne laissassent rien a desirer quant a l'exactitude,
mais qui formassent le monument de calcul 1e plus vaste et le
plus imposant qui eut jamais ete execute, ou meme concu. Les
logarithmes des nombres de 1 a 200.000 formaient a ce travail un
supplement necessaire et exige. Il fut aise a M. de Prony de
s'assurer que meme en s'associant trois ou quatre habiles
co-operateurs. la plus grande duree presumable de sa vie ne lui
sufirai pas pour remplir ses engagements. Il etait occupe de
cette facheuse pensee lorsque. se trouvant devant la boutique
d'un marchand de livres. il appercut la belle edition Anglaise de
Smith, donnee a Londres en 1776: il ouvrit le livre au hazard. et
tomba sur le premier chapitre, qui traite de la division du
travail, et ou la fabrication des epingles est citee pour
exemple. A peine avait-il parcouru les premieres pages, que, par
une espece d'inspiration. il concut l'expedient de mettre ses
logarithmes en manufacture comme les epingles. Il faisait en ce
moment, a l'ecole polytechnique, des lecons sur une partie
d'analyse liee a ce genre de travail, la methode des differences,
et ses applications a l'interpolation. Il alla passer quelques
jours a la campagne. et revint a Paris avec le plan de
fabrication. qui a ete suivi dans l'execution. Il rassembla deux
ateliers. qui faisai ent separement les memes calculs, et se
servaient de verification reciproque.(2*)

244. The ancient methods of computing tables were altogether
inapplicable to such a proceeding. M. Prony, therefore, wishing
to avail himself of all the talent of his country in devising new
methods, formed the first section of those who were to take part
in this enterprise out of five or six of the most eminent
mathematicians in France.

First section. The duty of this first section was to
investigate, amongst the various analytical expressions which
could be found for the same function, that which was most readily
adapted to simple numerical calculation by many individuals
employed at the same time. This section had little or nothing to
do with the actual numerical work. When its labours were
concluded, the formulae on the use of which it had decided, were
delivered to the second section.

Second section. This section consisted of seven or eight
persons of considerable acquaintance with mathematics: and their
duty was to convert into numbers the formulae put into their
hands by the first section an operation of great labour; and then
to deliver out these formulae to the members of the third
section, and receive from them the finished calculations. The
members of this second section had certain means of verifying the
calculations without the necessity of repeating, or even of
examining, the whole of the work done by the third section.

Third section. The members of this section, whose number
varied from sixty to eighty, received certain numbers from the
second section, and, using nothing more than simple addition and
subtraction, they returned to that section the tables in a
finished state. It is remarkable that nine-tenths of this class
had no knowledge of arithmetic beyond the two first rules which
they were thus called upon to exercise, and that these persons
were usually found more correct in their calculations, than those
who possessed a more extensive knowledge of the subject.

245. When it is stated that the tables thus computed occupy
seventeen large folio volumes, some idea may perhaps be formed of
the labour. From that part executed by the third class, which may
almost be termed mechanical, requiring the least knowledge and by
far the greatest exertions, the first class were entirely exempt.
Such labour can always be purchased at an easy rate. The duties
of the second class, although requiring considerable skill in
arithmetical operations, were yet in some measure relieved by the
higher interest naturally felt in those more difficult
operations. The exertions of the first class are not likely to
require, upon another occasion, so much skill and labour as they
did upon the first attempt to introduce such a method; but when
the completion of a calculating engine shall have produced a
substitute for the whole of the third section of computers, the
attention of analysts will naturally be directed to simplifying
its application, by a new discussion of the methods of converting
analytical formulae into numbers.

246. The proceeding of M. Prony, in this celebrated system of
calculation, much resembles that of a skilful person about to
construct a cotton or silk mill, or any similar establishment.
Having, by his own genius, or through the aid of his friends,
found that some improved machinery may be successfully applied to
his pursuit, he makes drawings of his plans of the machinery, and
may himself be considered as constituting the first section. He
next requires the assistance of operative engineers capable of
executing the machinery he has designed, some of whom should
understand the nature of the processes to be carried on; and
these constitute his second section. When a sufficient number of
machines have been made, a multitude of other persons, possessed
of a lower degree of skill, must be employed in using them; these
form the third section: but their work, and the just performance
of the machines, must be still superintended by the second class.

247. As the possibility of performing arithmetical
calculations by machinery may appear to non-mathematical readers
to be rather too large a postulate, and as it is connected with
the subject of the division of labour, I shall here endeavour, in
a few lines, to give some slight perception of the manner in
which this can be done--and thus to remove a small portion of
the veil which covers that apparent mystery.

248. That nearly all tables of numbers which follow any law,
however complicated, may be formed, to a greater or less extent,
solely by the proper arrangement of the successive addition and
subtraction of numbers befitting each table, is a general
principle which can be demonstrated to those only who are well
acquainted with mathematics; but the mind, even of the reader who
is but very slightly acquainted with that science, will readily
conceive that it is not impossible, by attending to the following
example.

The subjoined table is the beginning of one in very extensive
use, which has been printed and reprinted very frequently in many
countries, and is called a table of square numbers.

Terms of Table A Table B first Difference C second Difference

1 1
3
2 4 2
5
3 9 2
7
4 16 2
9
5 25 2
11
6 36 2
13
7 49

Any number in the table, column A, may be obtained, by
multiplying the number which expresses the distance of that term
from the commencement of the table by itself; thus, 25 is the
fifth term from the beginning of the table, and 5 multiplied by
itself, or by 5, is equal to 25. Let us now subtract each term of
this table from the next succeeding term, and place the results
in another column (B), which may be called first difference
column. If we again subtract each term of this first difference
from the succeeding term, we find the result is always the number
2, (column C); and that the same number will always recur in that
column, which may be called the second difference, will appear to
any person who takes the trouble to carry on the table a few
terms further. Now when once this is admitted, it is quite clear
that, provided the first term (1) of the table, the first term
(3) of the first differences, and the first term (2) of the
second or constant difference, are originally given, we can
continue the table of square numbers to any extent, merely by
addition: for the series of first differences may be formed by
repeatedly adding the constant difference (2) to (3) the first
number in column B, and we then have the series of numbers, 3, 5,
6, etc.: and again, by successively adding each of these to the
first number (1) of the table, we produce the square numbers.

249. Having thus, I hope, thrown some light upon the
theoretical part of the question, I shall endeavour to shew that
the mechanical execution of such an engine, as would produce this
series of numbers, is not so far removed from that of ordinary
machinery as might be conceived.(3*) Let the reader imagine three
clocks, placed on a table side by side, each having only one
hand, and each having a thousand divisions instead of twelve
hours marked on the face; and every time a string is pulled, let
them strike on a bell the numbers of the divisions to which their
hands point. Let him further suppose that two of the clocks, for
the sake of distinction called B and C, have some mechanism by
which the clock C advances the hand of the clock B one division,
for each stroke it makes upon its own bell: and let the clock B
by a similar contrivance advance the hand of the clock A one
division, for each stroke it makes on its own bell. With such an
arrangement, having set the hand of the clock A to the division
I, that of B to III, and that of C to II, let the reader imagine
the repeating parts of the clocks to be set in motion continually
in the following order: viz.--pull the string of clock A; pull
the string of clock B; pull the string of clock C.

The table on the following page will then express the series
of movements and their results.

If now only those divisions struck or pointed at by the clock
A be attended to and written down, it will be found that they
produce the series of the squares of the natural numbers. Such a
series could, of course, be carried by this mechanism only so far
as the numbers which can be expressed by three figures; but this
may be sufficient to give some idea of the construction--and
was, in fact, the point to which the first model of the
calculating engine, now in progress, extended.

250. We have seen, then, that the effect of the division of
labour, both in mechanical and in mental operations, is, that it
enables us to purchase and apply to each process precisely that
quantity of skill and knowledge which is required for it: we
avoid employing any part of the time of a man who can get eight
or ten shillings a day by his skill in tempering needles, in
turning a wheel, which can be done for sixpence a day; and we
equally avoid the loss arising from the employment of an
accomplished mathematician in performing the lowest processes of
arithmetic.

251. The division of labour cannot be successfully practised
unless there exists a great demand for its produce; and it
requires a large capital to be employed in those arts in which it
is used. In watchmaking it has been carried, perhaps, to the
greatest extent. It was stated in evidence before a committee of
the House of Commons, that there are a hundred and two distinct
branches of this art, to each of which a boy may be put
apprentice: and that he only learns his master's department, and
is unable, after his apprenticeship has expired, without
subsequent instruction, to work at any other branch. The
watch-finisher, whose business is to put together the scattered
parts, is the only one, out of the hundred and two persons, who
can work in any other department than his own.

252. In one of the most difficult arts, that of mining, great
improvements have resulted from the judicious distribution of the
duties; and under the arrangments which have gradually been
introduced, the whole system of the mine and its government is
now placed under the control of the following officers.

1. A manager, who has the general knowledge of all that is to
be done, and who may be assisted by one or more skilful persons.

2. Underground captains direct the proper mining operations,
and govern the working miners.

3. The purser and book-keeper manage the accounts.

4. The engineer erects the engines, and superintends the men
who work them.

5. A chief pitman has charge of the pumps and the apparatus
of the shafts.

6. A surface-captain, with assistants, receives the ores
raised, and directs the dressing department, the object of which
is to render them marketable.

7. The head carpenter superintends many constructions.

8. The foreman of the smiths regulates the ironwork and
tools.

9. A materials man selects, purchases, receives and delivers
all articles required.

10. The roper has charge of ropes and cordage of all sorts.

Notes:

1. An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of
Nations, by Adam Smith.

2. Note sur la publication, proposee par le gouvernement Anglais
des grandes tables logarithmiques et trigonometriques de M de
Prony De l'imprimerie de F. Didot, December 1, 1829, p. 7

3. Since the publication of the second edition of this work, one
portion of the engine which I have been constructing for some
years past has been put together. It calculates, in three
columns, a table with its first and second differences. Each
column can be expressed as far as five figures, so that these
fifteen figures constitute about one ninth part of the larger
engine. The ease and precision with which it works leave no room
to doubt its success in the more extended form. Besides tables of
squares, cubes, and portions of logarithmic tables, it possesses
the power of calculating certain series whose differences are not
constant; and it has already tabulated parts of series formed
from the following equations:

The third differential of ux = units figur of delta ux

The third differential of ux = nearest whole no. to (1/10,000
delta ux)

The subjoined is one amongst the series which it has calculated:

0 3,486 42,972
0 4,991 50,532
1 6,907 58,813
14 9,295 67,826
70 12,236 77,602
230 15,741 88,202
495 19,861 99,627
916 24,597 111,928
1,504 30,010 125,116
2,340 36,131 139,272

The general term of this is,

ux = (x(x-1)(x-2))/(1 X 2 X 3) + the whole number in x/10 +
10 Sigma^3 (units figure of (x(x-1)/2)

CHAPTER 19.

2006-09-11T02:16:00.000-07:00

On the Division of Labour

217. Perhaps the most important principle on which the
economy of a manufacture depends, is the division of labour
amongst the persons who perform the work. The first application
of this principle must have been made in a very early stage of
society, for it must soon have been apparent, that a larger
number of comforts and conveniences could be acquired by each
individual, if one man restricted his occupation to the art of
making bows, another to that of building houses, a third boats,
and so on. This division of labour into trades was not, however,
the result of an opinion that the general riches of the community
would be increased by such an arrangement; but it must have
arisen from the circumstance of each individual so employed
discovering that he himself could thus make a greater profit of
his labour than by pursuing more varied occupations. Society must
have made considerable advances before this principle could have
been carried into the workshop; for it is only in countries which
have attained a high degree of civilization, and in articles in
which there is a great competition amongst the producers, that
the most perfect system of the division of labour is to be
observed. The various principles on which the advantages of this
system depend, have been much the subject of discussion amongst
writers on political economy; but the relative importance of
their influence does not appear, in all cases, to have been
estimated with sufficient precision. It is my intention, in the
first instance, to state shortly those principles, and then to
point out what appears to me to have been omitted by those who
have previously treated the subject.

218. 1. Of the time required for learning. It will readily be
admitted, that the portion of time occupied in the acquisition of
any art will depend on the difficulty of its execution; and that
the greater the number of distinct processes, the longer will be
the time which the apprentice must employ in acquiring it. Five
or seven years have been adopted, in a great many trades, as the
time considered requisite for a lad to acquire a sufficient
knowledge of his art, and to enable him to repay by his labour,
during the latter portion of his time, the expense incurred by
his master at its commencement. If, however, instead of learning
all the different processes for making a needle, for instance,
his attention be confined to one operation, the portion of time
consumed unprofitably at the commencement of his apprenticeship
will be small, and all the rest of it will be beneficial to his
master: and, consequently, if there be any competition amongst
the masters, the apprentice will be able to make better terms,
and diminish the period of his servitude. Again, the facility of
acquiring skill in a single process, and the early period of life
at which it can be made a source of profit, will induce a greater
number of parents to bring up their children to it; and from this
circumstance also, the number of workmen being increased, the
wages will soon fall.

219. 2. Of waste of materials in learning. A certain quantity
of material will, in all cases, be consumed unprofitably, or
spoiled by every person who learns an art; and as he applies
himself to each new process, he will waste some of the raw
material, or of the partly manufactured commodity. But if each
man commit this waste in acquiring successively every process,
the quantity of waste will be much greater than if each person
confine his attention to one process; in this view of the
subject, therefore, the division of labour will diminish the
price of production.

220. 3. Another advantage resulting from the division of
labour is, the saving of that portion of time which is always
lost in changing from one occupation to another. When the human
hand, or the human head, has been for some time occupied in any
kind of work, it cannot instantly change its employment with full
effect. The muscles of the limbs employed have acquired a
flexibility during their exertion, and those not in action a
stiffness during rest, which renders every change slow and
unequal in the commencement. Long habit also produces in the
muscles exercised a capacity for enduring fatigue to a much
greater degree than they could support under other circumstances.
A similar result seems to take place in any change of mental
exertion; the attention bestowed on the new subject not being so
perfect at first as it becomes after some exercise.

221. 4. Change of tools. The employment of different tools in
the successive processes is another cause of the loss of time in
changing from one operation to another. If these tools are
simple, and the change is not frequent, the loss of time is not
considerable; but in many processes of the arts the tools are of
great delicacy, requiring accurate adjustment every time they are
used; and in many cases the time employed in adjusting bears a
large proportion to that employed in using the tool. The
sliding-rest, the dividing and the drilling-engine, are of this
kind; and hence, in manufactories of sufficient extent, it is
found to be good economy to keep one machine constantly employed
in one kind of work: one lathe, for example, having a screw
motion to its sliding-rest along the whole length of its bed, is
kept constantly making cylinders; another, having a motion for
equalizing the velocity of the work at the point at which it
passes the tool, is kept for facing surfaces; whilst a third is
constantly employed in cutting wheels.

222. 5. Skill acquired by frequent repetition of the same
processes. The constant repetition of the same process
necessarily produces in the workman a degree of excellence and
rapidity in his particular department, which is never possessed
by a person who is obliged to execute many different processes.
This rapidity is still further increased from the circumstance
that most of the operations in factories, where the division of
labour is carried to a considerable extent, are paid for as
piece-work. It is difficult to estimate in numbers the effect of
this cause upon production. In nail-making, Adam Smith has
stated, that it is almost three to one; for, he observes, that a
smith accustomed to make nails, but whose whole business has not
been that of a nailer, can make only from eight hundred to a
thousand per day; whilst a lad who had never exercised any other
trade, can make upwards of two thousand three hundred a day.

223. In different trades, the economy of production arising
from the last-mentioned cause will necessarily be different. The
case of nail-making is, perhaps, rather an extreme one. It must,
however, be observed, that, in one sense, this is not a permanent
source of advantage; for, though it acts at the commencement of
an establishment, yet every month adds to the skill of the
workmen; and at the end of three or four years they will not be
very far behind those who have never practised any other branch
of their art. Upon an occasion when a large issue of bank-notes
was required, a clerk at the Bank of England signed his name,
consisting of seven letters, including the initial of his
Christian name, five thousand three hundred times during eleven
working hours, besides arranging the notes he had signed in
parcels of fifty each.

224. 6. The division of labour suggests the contrivance of
tools and machinery to execute its processes. When each
processes, by which any article is produced, is the sole
occupation of one individual, his whole attention being devoted
to a very limited and simple operation, improvements in the form
of his tools, or in the mode of using them, are much more likely
to occur to his mind, than if it were distracted by a greater
variety of circumstances. Such an improvement in the tool is
generally the first step towards a machine. If a piece of metal
is to be cut in a lathe, for example, there is one particular
angle at which the cutting-tool must be held to insure the
cleanest cut; and it is quite natural that the idea of fixing the
tool at that angle should present itself to an intelligent
workman. The necessity of moving the tool slowly, and in a
direction parallel to itself, would suggest the use of a screw,
and thus arises the sliding-rest. It was probably the idea of
mounting a chisel in a frame, to prevent its cutting too deeply,
which gave rise to the common carpenter's plane. In cases where a
blow from a hammer is employed, experience teaches the proper
force required. The transition from the hammer held in the hand
to one mounted upon an axis, and lifted regularly to a certain
height by some mechanical contrivance, requires perhaps a greater
degree of invention than those just instanced; yet it is not
difficult to perceive, that, if the hammer always falls from the
same height, its effect must be always the same.

225. When each process has been reduced to the use of some
simple tool, the union of all these tools, actuated by one moving
power, constitutes a machine. In contriving tools and simplifying
processes, the operative workmen are, perhaps, most successful;
but it requires far other habits to combine into one machine
these scattered arts. A previous education as a workman in the
peculiar trade, is undoubtedly a valuable preliminary; but in
order to make such combinations with any reasonable expectation
of success, an extensive knowledge of machinery, and the power of
making mechanical drawings, are essentially requisite. These
accomplishments are now much more common than they were
formerly, and their absence was, perhaps, one of the causes of
the multitude of failures in the early history of many of our
manufactures.

226. Such are the principles usually assigned as the causes
of the advantage resulting from the division of labour. As in the
view I have taken of the question, the most important and
influential cause has been altogether unnoticed, I shall restate
those principles in the words of Adam Smith:

"The great increase in the quantity of work, which, in consequence
of the division of labour, the same number of people are capable
of performing, is owing to three different circumstances: first,
to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman;
secondly, to the saving of time, which is commonly lost in
passing from one species of work to another; and, lastly, to the
invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and
abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many."

Now, although all these are important causes, and each has
its influence on the result; yet it appears to me, that any
explanation of the cheapness of manufactured articles, as
consequent upon the division of labour, would be incomplete if
the following principle were omitted to be stated.

That the master manufacturer, by dividing the work to be
executed into different processes, each requiring different
degrees of skill or of force, can purchase exactly that precise
quantity of both which is necessary for each process; whereas, if
the whole work were executed by one workman, that person must
possess sufficient skill to perform the most difficult, and
sufficient strength to execute the most laborious, of the
operations into which the art is divided.(1*)

227. As the clear apprehension of this principle, upon which
a great part of the economy arising from the division of labour
depends, is of considerable importance, it may be desirable to
point out its precise and numerical application in some specific
manufacture. The art of making needles is, perhaps, that which I
should have selected for this illustration, as comprehending a
very large number of processes remarkably different in their
nature; but the less difficult art of pinmaking, has some claim
to attention, from its having been used by Adam Smith; and I am
confirmed in the choice of it, by the circumstance of our
possessing a very accurate and minute description of that art, as
practised in France above half a century ago.

228. Pin-making. In the manufacture of pins in England the
following processes are employed:

1. Wire-drawing. (a) The brass wire used for making pins is
purchased by the manufacturer in coils of about twenty-two inches
in diameter, each weighing about thirty-six pounds. (b) The coils
are wound off into smaller ones of about six inches in diameter,
and between one and two pounds' weight. (c) The diameter of this
wire is now reduced, by drawing it repeatedly through holes in
steel plates, until it becomes of the size required for the sort
of pins intended to be made. During this process the wire is
hardened, and to prevent its breaking, it must be annealed two or
three times, according to the diminution of diameter required.
(d) The coils are then soaked in sulphuric acid, largely diluted
with water, in order to clean them, and are then beaten on stone,
for the purpose of removing any oxidated coating which may adhere
to them. These operations are usually performed by men, who draw
and clean from thirty to thirty-six pounds of wire a day. They
are paid at the rate of five farthings per pound, and generally
earn about 3s. 6d. per day.

M. Perronnet made some experiments on the extension the wire
undergoes in passing through each hole: he took a piece of thick
Swedish brass wire, and found

Feet Inches
Its length to be before drawing 3 8
After passing the first hole 5 5
second hole 7 2
third hole 7 8

It was now annealed, and the length became

After passing the fourth hole 10 8
fifth hole 13 1
sixth hole 16 8
And finally, after passing through six other holes 144 0

The holes through which the wire was drawn were not, in this
experiment, of regularly decreasing diameter: it is extremely
difficult to make such holes, and still more to preserve them in
their original dimensions.

229. 2. Straightening the wire. The coil of wire now passes
into the hands of a woman, assisted by a boy or girl. A few
nails, or iron pins, not quite in a line, are fixed into one end
of a wooden table about twenty feet in length; the end of the
wire is passed alternately between these nails, and is then
pulled to the other end of the table. The object of this process
is to straighten the wire, which had acquired a considerable
curvature in the small coils in which it had been wound. The
length thus straightened is cut off, and the remainder of the
coil is drawn into similar lengths. About seven nails or pins are
employed in straightening the wire, and their adjustment is a
matter of some nicety. It seems, that by passing the wire between
the first three nails or pins, a bend is produced in an opposite
direction to that which the wire had in the coil; this bend, by
passing the next two nails, is reduced to another less curved in
the first direction, and so on till the curve of the wire may at
last be confounded with a straight line.

230. 3. Pointing. (a) A man next takes about three hundred of
these straightened pieces in a parcel, and putting them into a
gauge, cuts off from one end, by means of a pair of shears, moved
by his foot, a portion equal in length to rather more than six
pins. He continues this operation until the entire parcel is
reduced into similar pieces. (b) The next step is to sharpen the
ends: for this purpose the operator sits before a steel mill,
which is kept rapidly revolving: it consists of a cylinder about
six inches in diameter, and two and a half inches broad, faced
with steel, which is cut in the manner of a file. Another
cylinder is fixed on the same axis at a few inches distant; the
file on the edge of which is of a finer kind, and is used for
finishing off the points. The workman now takes up a parcel of
the wires between the finger and thumb of each hand, and presses
the ends obliquely on the mill, taking care with his fingers and
thumbs to make each wire slowly revolve upon its axis. Having
thus pointed all the pieces at one end, he reverses them, and
performs the same operation on the other. This process requires
considerable skill, but it is not unhealthy; whilst the similar
process in needlemaking is remarkably destructive of health. (c)
The pieces now pointed at both ends, are next placed in gauges,
and the pointed ends are cut off, by means of shears, to the
proper length of which the pins are to be made. The remaining
portions of the wire are now equal to about four pins in length,
and are again pointed at each end, and their lengths again cut
off. This process is repeated a third time, and the small portion
of wire left in the middle is thrown amongst the waste, to be
melted along with the dust arising from the sharpening. It is
usual for a man, his wife, and a child, to join in performing
these processes; and they are paid at the rate of five farthings
per pound. They can point from thirty-four to thirty-six and a
half pounds per day, and gain from 6s. 6d. to 7s., which may be
apportioned thus; 5s. 6d. the man. 1s. the woman, 6d. to the boy
or girl.

231. 4. Twisting and cutting the heads. The next process is
making the heads. For this purpose (a) a boy takes a piece of
wire, of the same diameter as the pin to be headed, which he
fixes on an axis that can be made to revolve rapidly by means of
a wheel and strap connected with it. This wire is called the
mould. He then takes a smaller wire, which having passed through
an eye in a small tool held in his left hand, he fixes close to
the bottom of the mould. The mould is now made to revolve rapidly
by means of the right hand, and the smaller wire coils round it
until it has covered the whole length of the mould. The boy now
cuts the end of the spiral connected with the foot of the mould,
and draws it off. (b) When a sufficient quantity of heading is
thus made, a man takes from thirteen to twenty of these spirals
in his left hand, between his thumb and three outer fingers:
these he places in such a manner that two turns of the spiral
shall be beyond the upper edge of a pair of shears, and with the
forefinger of the same hand he feels that only two turns do so
project. With his right hand he closes the shears; and the two
turns of the spiral being cut off, drop into a basin; the
position of the forefinger preventing the heads from flying about
when cut off. The workmen who cut the heads are usually paid at
the rate of 2 1/2d. to 3d. per pound for large heads, but a
higher price is given for the smaller heading. Out of this they
pay the boy who spins the spiral; he receives from 4d. to 6d. a
day. A good workman can cut from six to about thirty pounds of
heading per day, according to its size.

232. 5. Heading. The process of fixing the head on the body
of the pin is usually executed by women and children. Each
operator sits before a small steel stake, having a cavity, into
which one half of the intended head will fit; immediately above
is a steel die, having a corresponding cavity for the other half
of the head: this latter die can be raised by a pedal moved by
the foot. The weight of the hammer is from seven to ten pounds,
and it falls through a very small space, perhaps from one to two
inches. The cavities in the centre of these dies are connected
with the edge of a small groove, to admit of the body of the pin,
which is thus prevented from being flattened by the blow of the
die. (a) The operator with his left hand dips the pointed end of
the body of a pin into a tray of heads; having passed the point
through one of them, he carries it along to the other end with
the forefinger. He now takes the pin in the right hand, and
places the head in the cavity of the stake, and, lifting the die
with his foot, allows it to fall on the head. This blow tightens
the head on the shank, which is then turned round, and the head
receives three or four blows on different parts of its
circumference. The women and children who fix the heads are paid
at the rate of 1s. 6d. for every twenty thousand. A skilful
operator can with great exertion do twenty thousand per day, but
from ten to fifteen thousand is the usual quantity: children head
a much smaller number: varying, of course, with the degree of
their skill. About one per cent of the pins are spoiled in the
process; these are picked out afterwards by women, and are
reserved, along with the waste from other processes, for the
melting-pot. The die in which the heads are struck is varied in
form according to the fashion of the time; but the repeated blows
to which it is subject render it necessary that it should be
repaired after it has been used for about thirty pounds of pins.

233. 6. Tinning. The pins are now fit to be tinned, a process
which is usually executed by a man, assisted by his wife, or by a
lad. The quantity of pins operated upon at this stage is usually
fifty-six pounds. (a) They are first placed in a pickle, in order
to remove any grease or dirt from their surface, and also to
render them rough, which facilitates the adherence of the tin
with which they are to be covered. (b) They are then placed in a
boiler full of a solution of tartar in water, in which they are
mixed with a quantity of tin in small grains. In this they are
generally kept boiling for about two hours and a half, and are
then removed into a tub of water into which some bran has been
thrown, for the purpose of washing off the acid liquor. (c) They
are then taken out, and, being placed in wooden trays, are well
shaken in dry bran: this removes any water adhering to them; and
by giving the wooden tray a peculiar kind of motion, the pins are
thrown up, and the bran gradually flies off, and leaves them
behind in the tray. The man who pickles and tins the pins usually
gets one penny per pound for the work, and employs himself,
during the boiling of one batch of pins, in drying those
previously tinned. He can earn about 9s. per day; but out of this
he pays about 3s. for his assistant.

234. 7. Papering. The pins come from the tinner in wooden
bowls, with the points projecting in all directions: the
arranging of them side by side in paper is generally performed by
women. (a) A woman takes up some, and places them on a comb, and
shaking them, some of the pins fall back into the bowl, and the
rest, being caught by their heads, are detained between the teeth
of the comb. (b) Having thus arranged them in a parallel
direction, she fixes the requisite number between two pieces of
iron, having twenty-five small grooves, at equal distances; (c)
and having previously doubled the paper, she presses it against
the points of the pins until they have passed through the two
folds which are to retain them. The pins are then relieved from
the grasp of the tool, and the process is repeated. A woman gains
about 1s. 6d. per day by papering; but children are sometimes
employed, who earn from 6d. per day, and upwards.

235. Having thus generally described the various processes of
pin-making, and having stated the usual cost of each, it will be
convenient to present a tabular view of the time occupied by each
process, and its cost, as well as the sums which can be earned by
the persons who confine themselves solely to each process. As the
rate of wages is itself fluctuating, and as the prices paid and
quantities executed have been given only between certain limits,
it is not to be expected that this table can represent the cost
of each part of the work with the minutest accuracy, nor even
that it shall accord perfectly with the prices above given: but
it has been drawn up with some care, and will be quite sufficient
to serve as the basis of those reasonings which it is meant to
illustrate. A table nearly similar will be subjoined, which has
been deduced from a statement of M. Perronet, respecting the art
of pin-making in France, above seventy years ago.

English manufacture

236. Pins, Elevens, 5546 weigh one pound; one dozen = 6932
pins weigh twenty ounces, and require six ounces of paper.

Name of the process
Workman
Time for making 1 lb of pins Hours
Cost of making 1 lb of pins Pence
Workmen earns per day s. d.
Price of making each part of a single pin in millionths of a
penny

1. Drawing wire (224) Man .3636 1.2500 3 3 225
2. Straightening wire ( 225) Woman .3000 .2840 1 0 51
Girl .3000 .1420 0 6 26
3. Pointing (226) Man .3000 1.7750 5 3 319
4. Twisting and cutting heads Boy .0400 .0147 0 4 1/2 3
(227) Man .0400 .2103 5 4 1/2 38
5. Heading (228) Woman 4.0000 5.0000 1 3 901
6 Tinning or whitening Man .1071 .6666 6 0 121
(229) Woman .1071 .3333 3 0 60
7. Papering (230) Woman 2.1314 3.1973 1 6 576
7.6892 12.8732 - - 2320

Number of persons employed: Men. 4; Women. 4; Children, 2.
Total, 10.

French manufacture

237. Cost of 12,000 pins, No. 6, each being eight-tenths of an
English inch in length,--as they were manufactured in France about
1760; with the cost of each operation: deduced from the
observations and statement of M. Perronet.

Name of the process
Time for making twelve thousand pins Hours
Cost of making twelve thousand pins Pence
Workman usually earns per day Pence
Expense of tools and materials Pence

1. Wire -- -- -- 24.75
2. Straightening and cutting 1.2 .5 4.5 --
3. Coarse pointing 1.2 .625 10.0 --
Turning wheel(2*) 1.2 .875 7.0 --
Fine Pointing .8 .5 9.375 --
Turning wheel 1.2 .5 4.75 --
Cutting off pointed ends .6 .375 7.5 --
4. Turning spiral .5 .125 3.0 --
Cutting off heads .8 .375 5.625 --
Fuel to anneal ditto -- -- -- .125
5. Heading 12.0 .333 4.25 --
6. Tartar for cleaning -- -- -- .5
Tartar for whitening -- -- -- .5
7. Papering 4.8 .5 2.0 --
Paper -- -- -- 1.0
Wear of tools -- -- -- 2.0
24.3 4.708

The great expense of turning the wheel appears to have arisen
from the person so occupied being unemployed during half his
time, whilst the pointer went to another manufactory

338. It appears from the analysis we have given of the art of
pinmaking, that it occupies rather more than seven hours and a
half of time, for ten different individuals working in succession
on the same material, to convert it into a pound of pins; and
that the total expense of their labour, each being paid in the
joint ratio of his skill and of the time he is employed, amounts
very nearly to 1s. 1d. But from an examination of the first of
these tables, it appears that the wages earned by the persons
employed vary from 4 1/2d. per day up to 6s., and consequently
the skill which is required for their respective employments may
be measured by those sums. Now it is evident, that if one person
were required to make the whole pound of pins, he must have skill
enough to earn about 5s. 3d. per day, whilst he is pointing the
wires or cutting off the heads from the spiral coils--and 6s.
when he is whitening the pins; which three operations together
would occupy little more than the seventeenth part of his time.
It is also apparent, that during more than one half of his time
he must be earning only 1s. 3d, per day, in putting on the heads;
although his skill, if properly employed, would, in the same
time, produce nearly five times as much. If, therefore, we were
to employ, for all the processes, the man who whitens the pins,
and who earns 6s. per day, even supposing that he could make the
pound of pins in an equally short time, yet we must pay him for
his time 46. 14 pence, or about 3s. 10d. The pins would therefore
cost, in making, three times and three quarters as much as they
now do by the application of the division of labour.

The higher the skill required of the workman in any one
process of a manufacture, and the smaller the time during which
it is employed, so much the greater will be the advantage of
separating that process from the rest, and devoting one person's
attention entirely to it. Had we selected the art of
needle-making as our illustration, the economy arising from the
division of labour would have been still more striking; for the
process of tempering the needles requires great skill, attention,
and experience, and although from three to four thousand are
tempered at once, the workman is paid a very high rate of wages.
In another process of the same manufacture, dry-pointing, which
also is executed with great rapidity, the wages earned by the
workman reach from 7s. to 12s., 15s., and even, in some
instances, to 20s. per day; whilst other processes are carried on
by children paid at the rate of 6d. per day.

239. Some further reflections suggested by the preceding
analysis, will be reserved until we have placed before the reader
a brief description of a machine for making pins, invented by an
American. It is highly ingenious in point of contrivance, and, in
respect to its economical principles, will furnish a strong and
interesting contrast with the manufacture of pins by the human
hand. In this machine a coil of brass wire is placed on an axis;
one end of this wire is drawn by a pair of rollers through a
small hole in a plate of steel, and is held there by a forceps.
As soon as the machine is put in action, -

1. The forceps draws the wire on to a distance equal in
length to one pin: a cutting edge of steel then descends close to
the hole through which the wire entered, and severs the piece
drawn out.

2. The forceps holding the piece thus separated moves on,
till it brings the wire to the centre of the chuck of a small
lathe, which opens to receive it. Whilst the forceps is returning
to fetch another piece of wire, the lathe revolves rapidly, and
grinds the projecting end of the wire upon a steel mill, which
advances towards it.

3. After this first or coarse pointing, the lathe stops, and
another forceps takes hold of the half-pointed pin, (which is
instantly released by the opening of the chuck), and conveys it
to a similar chuck of an adjacent lathe, which receives it, and
finishes the pointing on a finer steel mill.

4. This mill again stops, and another forceps removes the
pointed pin into a pair of strong steel clams, having a small
groove in them by which they hold the pin very firmly. A part of
this groove, which terminates at that edge of the steel clams
which is intended to form the head of the pin, is made conical. A
small round steel punch is now driven forcibly against the end of
the wire thus clamped, and the head of the pin is partially
formed by compressing the wire into the conical cavity.

NOTES:

1. I have already stated that this principle presented itself to
me after a personal examination of a number of manufactories and
workshops devoted to different purposes; but I have since found
that it had been distinctly pointed out in the work of Gioja.
Nuovo Prospetto delle Scienze Economiche. 6 tom. 4to. Milano,
1815, tom. i. capo iv.

2. The great expense of turning the wheel appears to have arisen
from the person so occupied being unemployed during half his
time, whilst the pointer went to another manufactory.

CHAPTER 18.

2006-09-11T02:15:00.000-07:00

Of Raw Materials

210. Although the cost of any article may be reduced in its
ultimate analysis to the quantity of labour by which it was
produced; yet it is usual, in a certain state of the manufacture
of most substances, to call them by the term raw material. Thus
iron, when reduced from the ore and rendered malleable, is in a
state fitted for application to a multitude of useful purposes,
and is the raw material out of which most of our tools are made.
In this stage of its manufacture, but a moderate quantity of
labour has been expended on the substance; and it becomes an
interesting subject to trace the various proportions in which raw
material, in this sense of the term, and labour unite to
constitute the value of many of the productions of the arts.

211. Gold leaf consists of a portion of the metal beaten out
to so great a degree of thinness, as to allow a greenish-blue
light to be transmitted through its pores. About 400 square
inches of this are sold, in the form of a small book containing
25 leaves of gold, for 1s. 6d. In this case, the raw material, or
gold, is worth rather less than two-thirds of the manufactured
article. In the case of silver leaf, the labour considerably
exceeds the value of the material. A book of fifty leaves, which
would cover above 1000 square inches, is sold for 1s. 3d.

212. We may trace the relative influence of the two causes
above referred to, in the prices of fine gold chains made at
Venice. The sizes of these chains are known by numbers, the
smallest having been (in 1828) No. 1, and the numbers 2, 3, 4,
etc., progressively increasing in size. The following table shews
the numbers and the prices of those made at that time.(1*) The
first column gives the number by which the chain is known; the
second expresses the weight in grains of one inch in length of
each chain; the third column the number of links in the same
length; and the last expresses the price, in francs worth
tenpence each, of a Venetian braccio, or about two English feet
of each chain.

Venetian gold chains
Price of a Venetian
Braccio, equal to
Weight of Number of links two feet 1/8 inch
No. one inch, in grains in one inch English
0.44 98 to 100 60 francs
1.56 92 40
1 1/2.77 88 26
2.99 84 20
3 1.46 72 20
4 1.61 64 21
5 2.09 64 23
6 2.61 60 24
7 3.36 56 27
8 3.65 56 29
9 3.72 56 32
10 5.35 50 34
24 9.71 32 60

Amongst these chains, that numbered 0 and that numbered 24
are exactly of the same price, although the quantity of gold in
the latter is twenty-two times as much as in the former. The
difficulty of making the smallest chain is so great, that the
women who make it cannot work above two hours at a time. As we
advance from the smaller chain, the proportionate value of the
work to the worth of the material becomes less and less, until at
the numbers 2 and 3, these two elements of cost balance each
other: after which, the difficulty of the work decreases, and the
value of the material increases.

213. The quantity of labour expended on these chains is,
however, incomparably less than that which is applied in some of
the manufactures of iron. In the case of the smallest Venetian
chain the value of the labour is not above thirty times that of
the gold. The pendulum spring of a watch, which governs the
vibrations of the balance, costs at the retail price two pence,
and weighs fifteen one-hundredths of a grain, whilst the retail
price of a pound of the best iron, the raw material out of which
fifty thousand such springs are made, is exactly the same sum of
two pence.

214. The comparative price of labour and of raw material
entering into the manufactures of France, has been ascertained
with so much care, in a memoir of M. A. M. Heron de Villefosse,
Recherches statistiques, sur les Metaux de France.(2*) that we
shall give an abstract of his results reduced to English
measures. The facts respecting the metals relate to the year
1825.

In France the quantity of raw material which can be purchased
for L1, when manufactured into

Silk goods is worth L2.37
Broad cloth and woollens 2.15
Hemp and cables 3.94
Linen comprising thread laces 5.00
Cotton goods 2.44

The price of pig-lead was L1 1s. per cwt; and lead of the value
of L1 sterling, became worth, when manufactured into

Sheets or pipes of moderate dimensions L 1. 25
White lead 2.60
Ordinary printing characters 4.90
The smallest type 28.30

The price of copper was L5 2s. per cwt. Copper worth L1 became
when manufactured into

Copper sheeting L1.26
Household utensils 4.77
Common brass pins tinned 2.34
Rolled into plates covered with 1/20 silver 3.56
Woven into metallic cloth, each square inch of which contains
10,000 meshes 52.23

The price of tin was L4 12s. per cwt. Tin worth L1 when
manufactured into

Leaves for silvering glass became L1.73
Household utensils 1.85

Quicksilver cost L10 16s. per cwt. Quicksilver worth L1 when
manufactured into

Vermilion of average quality became L1.81

Metallic arsenic cost L1 4s. per cwt. Arsenic worth L1 when
manufactured into

White oxide of arsenic became L1.83
Sulphuret (orpiment) 4.26

The price of cast-iron was 8s. per cwt. Cast-iron worth L1
when manufactured into

Household utensils became L2.00
Machinery 4.00
Ornamental. as buckles. etc 45.00
Bracelets. figures, buttons. etc. 147.00

8ar-iron cost L1 6s. per cwt. Bar-iron worth L1 when
manufactured into

Agricultural instruments became L3.57
Barrels, musket 9. 10
Barrels of double-barrel guns. twisted and damasked 238.08
Blades of penknives 657.14
razor. cast steel 53.57 sabre, for cavalry. infantry, and
artillery. etc. from 9.25 to 16.07
of table knives 35.70
Buckles of polished steel, used as jewellery 896.66
Clothiers' pins 8.03
Door-latches and bolts from 4.85 to 8.50
Files, common 2.55 flat, cast steel 20.44
Horseshoes 2.55
Iron, small slit, for nails 1. 10
Metallic cloth, iron wire, No. 80 96.71
Needles of various sizes from 17.33 to 70.85
Reeds for weaving 3-4ths calico 21.87
Saws (frame) of steel 5. 12
for wood 14.28
Scissors, finest kind 446.94
Steel, cast 4.28
cast, in sheets 6.25
cemented 2.41
natural 1.42
Sword handles, polished steel 972.82
Tinned iron from 2.04 to 2.34
Wire, iron from 2. 14 to 10.71

215. The following is stated by M. de Villefosse to be the
price of bar-iron at the forges of various countries, in January,
1825.

per ton
L s. d.
France 26 10 0
Belgium and Germany 16 14 0
Sweden and Russia, at Stockholm and St Petersburg 13 13 0
England, at Cardiff 10 1 0

The price of the article in 1832 was 5 0 0

M. De Villefosse states, that in France bar-iron, made as it
usually is with charcoal, costs three times the price of the
cast-iron out of which it is made; whilst in England, where it is
usually made with coke, the cost is only twice the price of
cast-iron.

216. The present price (1832) of lead in England is L13 per
ton, and the worth of L1 of it manufactured into

Milled sheet lead becomes Ll.08

The present price of cake copper is L84 per ton, and the
worth of L1 of it manufactured into

Sheet copper becomes L1.11

NOTES:

1. A still finer chain is now manufactured (1832).

2. Memoires de l'Institut. 1826

CHAPTER 17.

2006-09-11T02:14:00.000-07:00

Of Price as Measured by Money

201. The money price at which an article sells furnishes us
with comparatively little information respecting its value, if we
compare distant intervals of time and different countries; for
gold and silver, in which price is usually measured, are
themselves subject, like all other commodities, to changes in
value; nor is there any standard to which these variations can be
referred. The average price of a certain quality of different
manufactured articles, or of raw produce, has been suggested as a
standard; but a new difficulty then presents itself; for the
improved methods of producing such articles render their money
price extremely variable within very limited periods. The annexed
table will afford a striking instance of this kind of change
within a period of only twelve years.

Prices of the following articles at Birmingham, in the
undermentioned years

Description 1818 1824 1828 1830
s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d.
Anvils cwt 25 0 20 0 16 0 13 0
Awls, polished, Liverpool gross 2 6 2 0 1 6 1 2
Bed-screws, 6 inches long gross 18 0 15 0 6 0 5 0
Bits, tinned. for bridles doz. 5 0 5 0 3 3 2 6
Bolts for doors, 6 inches doz. 6 0 5 0 2 3 1 6
Braces for carpenters, with 12 bits set 9 0 4 0 4 2 3 5
Buttons, for coats gross 4 6 6 3 3 0 2 2
Buttons, small, for waistcoats gross 2 6 2 0 1 2 0 8
Candlesticks, 6 in., brass pair 2 1 1 2 0 1 7 1 2
Curry-combs, six barred doz. 2 9 2 6 1 5 0 1 1
Frying-pans cwt 25 0 21 0 18 0 16 0
Gun-locks, single roller each 6 0 5 2 1 10 1 6
Hammers. shoe, No. 0 doz. 6 9 3 9 3 0 2 9

Description 1818 1824 1828 1830
s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d.
Hinges, cast-butts, 1 inch doz. 0 10 0 71/2 0 31/4 0 21/4
Knobs, brass, 2 inches for commodes doz. 4 0 3 6 1 6 1 2
Latches for doors, bright thumb doz. 2 3 2 2 1 0 0 9
Locks for doors, iron rim, 6 inches doz. 38 0 32 0 15 0 13 6
Sad-irons and other castings cwt 22 6 20 0 14 0 11 6
Shovel and tongs, fire-irons pair 1 0 1 0 0 9 0 6
Spoons, tinned table gross 17 6 15 0 10 0 7 0
Stirrups, plated pair 4 6 3 9 1 6 1 1
Trace-chains cwt 28 0 25 0 19 6 16 6
Trays, japanned tea, 30 inches each 4 6 3 0 2 0 1 5
Vices for blacksmiths cwt 30 0 28 0 22 0 19 6
Wire, brass lb. 1 10 1 4 1 0 0 9
--, iron, No. 6 bund. 16 0 13 0 9 0 7 0

202. I have taken some pains to assure myself of the accuracy
of the above table: at different periods of the years quoted the
prices may have varied; but I believe it may be considered as a
fair approximation. In the course of my enquiries I have been
favoured with another list, in which many of the same articles
occur, but in this last instance the prices quoted are separated
by an interval of twenty years. It is extracted from the books of
a highly respectable house at Birmingham; and the prices confirm
the accuracy of the former table, so far as they relate to the
articles which are found in that list.

Prices of 1812 and 1832
Reduction
per cent in
price of
Description 1812 1832 1812
s. d. s. d.

Anvils cwt 25 0 14 0 44
Awls, Liverpool blades gross 3 6 1 0 71
Candlesticks, iron, plain 3 103/4 2 31/2 41
screwed 6 41/2 3 9 41
Bed screws, 6 inch square head gross 7 6 4 6 40
flat head gross 8 6 4 8 45
Curry-combs, 6 barred dozen 4 01/2 1 0 75

Reduction
per cent in
price of
Description 1812 1832 1812
s. d. s. d.

Curry-combs, 8 barred dozen 5 51/2 1 5 74
patent, 6 barred dozen 7 11/2 1 5 80
8 barred dozen 8 63/4 1 10 79
Fire-irons, iron head, No. 1. 1 41/2 0 73/4 53
No. 2 1 6 0 81/2 53
No. 3 1 81/4 0 91/2 53
No. 4 1 101/2 0 101/2 53
Gun-locks, single roller each 7 21/2 1 11 73
Locks, 1 1/4 brass, port. pad 16 0 2 6 85
2 1/2 inch 3 keyed till-locks each 2 2 0 9 65
Shoe tacks gross 5 0 2 0 60
Spoons, tinned, iron table gross 22 6 7 0 69
Stirrups. com. tinned, 2 bar dozen 7 0 2 9 61
Trace-chains, iron cwt 46 91/2 15 0 68

Prices of the principal materials, used in mines in Cornwall, at
different periods [I am indebited to Mr John Taylor for this
interesting table]

ALL DELIVERED AT THE MINES

Description 1800 1810 1820 1830 1832
s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d.
Coals wey 81 7 85 5 53 4 51 0 40 0
Timber (balk) foot 2 0 4 0 1 5 1 0 0 10
(oak) foot 3 31/2 3 0 3 6 3 3
Ropes cwt 66 0 84 0 48 6 40 0 40 0
Iron (common bar) cwt 20 6 14 6 11 0 7 0 6 6
Common castings cwt 16 0 15 0 8 0 6 6
Pumps cwt 16s. & 17s. 17s. & 18s. 12s. & 15s. 6 6 6 10
Gunpowder 100 lbs. 114 2 117 6 68 0 52 6 49 0
Candles 9 3 10 0 8 9 5 11 4 10
Tallow cwt 72 0 84 0 65 8 52 6 43 0
Leather lb. 2 4 2 3 24 22 21
Blistered steel cwt 50 0 44 0 38 0
2s. nails cwt 32 0 28 6 22 0 17 0 16 6

203. I cannot omit availing myself of this opportunity of
calling the attention of the manufacturers, merchants, and
factors, in all our manufacturing and commercial towns, to the
great importance, both for their own interests, and for that of
the population to which their capital gives employment, of
collecting with care such averages from the actual sales
registered in their books. Nor, perhaps, would it be without its
use to suggest, that such averages would be still more valuable
if collected from as many different quarters as possible; that
the quantity of the goods from which they are deduced, together
with the greatest deviations from the mean, ought to be given;
and that if a small committee were to undertake the task, it
would give great additional weight to the information. Political
economists have been reproached with too small a use of facts,
and too large an employment of theory. If facts are wanting, let
it be remembered that the closet-philosopher is unfortunately too
little acquainted with the admirable arrangements of the factory,
and that no class of persons can supply so readily, and with so
little sacrifice of time, the data on which all the reasonings of
political economists are founded, as the merchant and
manufacturer; and, unquestionably, to no class are the deductions
to which they give rise so important. Nor let it be feared that
erroneous deductions may be made from such recorded facts: the
errors which arise from the absence of facts are far more
numerous and more durable than those which result from unsound
reasoning respecting true data.

204. The great diminution in price of the articles here
enumerated may have arisen from several causes: 1. The alteration
in the value of the currency. 2. The increased value of gold in
consequence of the increased demand for coin. The first of these
causes may have had some influence, and the second may have had a
very small effect upon the two first quotations of prices, but
none at all upon the two latter ones. 3. The diminished rate of
profit produced by capital however employed. This may be
estimated by the average price of three per cents at the periods
stated. 4. The diminished price of the raw materials out of which
these articles were manufactured. The raw material is principally
brass and iron, and the reduction upon it may, in some measure,
be estimated by the diminished price of iron and brass wire, in
the cost of which articles, the labour bears a less proportion
than it does in many of the others. 5. The smaller quantity of
raw material employed, and perhaps, in some instances, an
inferior, quality of workmanship. 6. The improved means by which
the same effect was produced by diminished labour.

205. In order to afford the means of estimating the influence
of these several causes, the following table is subjoined:

1812 1818 1824 1828 1830 1832
Average Price of L s d. L s. d. L s d L s. d L s d L s. d
Gold. per oz 4 15 6 4 0 3 17 61/2 3 17 7 3 17 91/2 3 17 10 1/2
Value of currency. per cent 79 5 3 97 6 10 100 100 100 100
Price of 3 per cent consols 591/4 781/4 935/8 86 893/4 821/2
Wheat per quarter 6 5 0 4 1 0 3 2 l 3 1 1 10 3 14 6 2 19 3

English pig iron at Birmingham 7 l0 0 6 7 6 6 l0 0 5 10 0 4 l0 0

English bar iron at Birmingham 10 10 0 9 10 0 7 15 0 6 0 0 5 0 0
Swedish bar iron in London, excluding duty of from L4 to L6 10s
per ton 16 10 0 17 10 0 14 0 0 14 10 0 13 15 0 13 2 0

As this table, if unaccompanied by any explanation, might
possibly lead to erroneous conclusions, I subjoin the following
observations, for which I am indebted to the kindness of Mr
Tooke, who may yet, I hope, be induced to continue his valuable
work on High and Low Prices, through the important period which
has elapsed since its publication.

'The table commences with 1812, and exhibits a great falling
off in the price of wheat and iron coincidently with a fall in
the price of gold, and leading to the inference of cause and
effect. Now, as regards wheat, it so happened that in 1812 it
reached its highest price in consequence of a series of bad
harvests, when relief by importation was difficult and enormously
expensive. In December, 1813, whilst the price of gold had risen
to L5, the price of wheat had fallen to 73s., or 50 per cent
under what it had been in the spring of 1812; proving clearly
that the two articles were under the influence of opposite
causes.

'Again, in 1812, the freight and insurance on Swedish iron
were so much higher than at present as to account for nearly the
whole of the difference of price: and in 1818 there had been an
extensive speculation which had raised the price of all iron, so
that a part of the subsequent decline was a mere reaction from a
previously unfounded elevation. More recently, in 1825, there was
a great speculative rise in the article, which served as a strong
stimulus to increased production: this, aided by improved power
of machinery, has proceeded to such an extent as fully to account
for the fall of price.'

To these reflections I will only add, that the result of my
own observation leads me to believe that by far the most
influential of these causes has been the invention of cheaper
modes of manufacturing. The extent to which this can be carried,
while a profit can yet be realized at the reduced price, is truly
astonishing, as the following fact, which rests on good
authority, will prove. Twenty years since, a brass knob for the
locks of doors was made at Birmingham; the price, at that time,
being 13s. 4d. per dozen. The same article is now manufactured,
having the same weight of metal, and an equal, or in fact a
slightly superior finish, at 1s. 9 1/4d. per dozen. One
circumstance which has produced this economy in the manufacture
is, that the lathe on which these knobs are finished is now
turned by a steam-engine; so that the workman, relieved from that
labour, can make them twenty times as fast as he did formerly.

206. The difference of price of the same article, when of
various dimensions at different periods in the same country--and
in different countries--is curiously contrasted in the annexed
table.

Comparative price of plate glass, at the manufactories of
London, Paris, Berlin, and Petersburg

DIMENSIONS LONDON PARIS BERLIN PETERSBURG
Height Breadth 1771 1794 1832 1825 1835 1828 1825
in inches in inches L s d L s d L s d L s d L s d L s d L s d
16 16 0103 0101 0176 087 076 081 0410
30 20 146 232 2610 11610 1710 0106 1210
50 30 24 2 4 11 5 0 6 12 10 9 0 5 5 0 3 8 13 0 5 15 0
60 40 67 14 10 27 0 0 13 9 6 22 7 5 10 4 3 21 18 0 12 9 0
76 40 43 6 0 19 2 9 36 4 5 14 17 5 35 2 11 17 5 0
90 50 84 8 0 34 12 9 71 3 8 28 13 4 33 18 7
100 75 275 0 0 74 5 10 210 13 3 70 9 7
120 75 97 15 9 354 3 2 98 3 10

The price of silvering these plates is twenty per cent on the
cost price for English glass; ten per cent on the cost price for
Paris plates; and twelve and a half on those of Berlin.

The following table shews the dimensions and price, when
silvered, of the largest plates of glass ever made by the British
Plate Glass Company, which are now at their warehouse in London:

Height Breadth Price when silvered
Inches Inches L s. d.

132 84 200 8 0
146 81 220 7 0
149 84 239 1 6
131 83 239 10 7
160 80 246 15 4

The prices of the largest glass in the Paris lists when
silvered, and reduced to English measure, were:

Year Inches Inches Price when silvered
L s. d.
1825 128 80 629 12 0
1835 128 80 136 19 0

207. If we wish to compare the value of any article at
different periods of time, it is clear that neither any one
substance, nor even the combination of all manufactured goods,
can furnish us with an invariable unit by which to form our scale
of estimation. Mr Malthus has proposed for this purpose to
consider a day's labour of an agricultural labourer, as the unit
to which all value should be referred. Thus, if we wish to
compare the value of twenty yards of broad cloth in Saxony at the
present time, with that of the same kind and quantity of cloth
fabricated in England two centuries ago, we must find the number
of days' labour the cloth would have purchased in England at the
time mentioned, and compare it with the number of days' labour
which the same quantity of cloth will now purchase in Saxony.
Agricultural labour appears to have been selected, because it
exists in all countries, and employs a large number of persons,
and also because it requires a very small degree of previous
instruction. It seems, in fact, to be merely the exertion of a
man's physical force; and its value above that of a machine of
equal power arises from its portability, and from the facility of
directing its efforts to arbitrary and continually fluctuating
purposes. It may perhaps be worthy of enquiry, whether a more
constant average might not be deduced from combining with this
species of labour those trades which require but a moderate
exertion of skill and which likewise exist in all civilized
countries, such as those of the blacksmith and carpenter,
etc.(1*) In all such comparisons there is, however, another
element, which, though not essentially necessary, will yet add
much to our means of judging.

It is an estimate of the quantity of that food on which the
labourer usually subsists, which is necessary for his daily
support, compared with the quantity which his daily wages will
purchase.

208. The existence of a class of middlemen, between small
producers and merchants, is frequently advantageous to both
parties; and there are certain periods in the history of several
manufactures which naturally call that class of traders into
existence. There are also times when the advantage ceasing, the
custom of employing them also terminates; the middlemen,
especially when numerous, as they sometimes are in retail trades,
enhancing the price without equivalent good. Thus, in the recent
examination by the House of Commons into the state of the coal
trade, it appears that five-sixths of the London public is
supplied by a class of middlemen who are called in the trade
Brass plate coal merchants: these consist principally of
merchants' clerks, gentlemen's servants, and others, who have no
wharfs of their own, but merely give their orders to some true
coal merchant, who sends in the coals from his wharf: the brass
plate coal merchants, of course, receiving a commission for his
agency.

209. In Italy this system is carried to a great extent
amongst the voituriers, or persons who undertake to convey
travellers. There are some possessed of greater fluency and a
more persuasive manner who frequent the inns where the English
resort, and who, as soon as they have made a bargain for the
conveyance of a traveller, go out amongst their countrymen and
procure some other voiturier to do the job for a considerably
smaller sum, themselves pocketing the difference. A short time
before the day of starting, the contractor appears before his
customer in great distress, regretting his inability to perform
the journey on account of the dangerous illness of a mother or
some relative, and requesting to have his cousin or brother
substituted for him. The English traveller rarely fails to
acquiesce in this change, and often praises the filial piety of
the rogue who has deceived him.

NOTES:

1. Much information for such an enquiry is to be found, for the
particular period to which it refers, in the Report of the
Committee of the House of Commons on Manufacturers' Employment, 2
July, 1830.

CHAPTER 16.

2006-09-11T02:13:00.001-07:00

On the Influence of Durability on Price

197. Having now considered the circumstances that modify what
may be called the momentary amount of price, we must next examine
a principle which seems to have an effect on its permanent
average. The durability of any commodity influences its cost in a
permanent manner. We have already stated that what may be called
the momentary price of any commodity depends upon the proportion
existing between the supply and demand, and also upon the cost of
verification. The average price, during a long period, will
depend upon the labour required for producing and bringing it to
market, as well as upon the average supply and demand; but it
will also be influenced by the durability of the article
manufactured.

Many things in common use are substantially consumed in
using: a phosphorus match, articles of food, and a cigar, are
examples of this description. Some things after use become
inapplicable to their former purposes, as paper which has been
printed upon: but it is yet available for the cheesemonger or the
trunk-maker. Some articles, as pens, are quickly worn out by use;
and some are still valuable after a long continued wear. There
are others, few perhaps in number, which never wear out; the
harder precious stones, when well cut and polished, are of this
later class: the fashion of the gold or silver mounting in which
they are set may vary with the taste of the age, and such
ornaments are constantly exposed for sale as second-hand, but the
gems themselves, when removed from their supports, are never so
considered. A brilliant which has successively graced the necks
of a hundred beauties, or glittered for a century upon patrician
brows, is weighed by the diamond merchant in the same scale with
another which has just escaped from the wheel of the lapidary,
and will be purchased or sold by him at the same price per carat.
The great mass of commodities is intermediate in its character
between these two extremes, and the periods of respective
duration are very various. It is evident that the average price
of those things which are consumed in the act of using them, can
never be less than that of the labour of bringing them to market.
They may for a short time be sold for less, but under such
circumstances their production must soon cease altogether. On the
other hand, if an article never wears out, its price may continue
permanently below the cost of the labour expended in producing
it; and the only consequence will be, that no further production
will take place: its price will continue to be regulated by the
relation of the supply to the demand; and should that at any
aftertime rise, for a considerable period, above the cost of
production, it will be again produced.

198. Articles become old from actual decay, or the wearing
out of their parts; from improved modes of constructing them; or
from changes in their form and fashion, required by the varying
taste of the age. In the two latter cases, their utility is but
little diminished; and, being less sought after by those who have
hitherto employed them, they are sold at a reduced price to a
class of society rather below that of their former possessors.
Many articles of furniture, such as well-made tables and chairs,
are thus found in the rooms of those who would have been quite
unable to have purchased them when new; and we find constantly,
even in the houses of the more opulent, large looking-glasses
which have passed successively through the hands of several
possessors, changing only the fashion of their frames; and in
some instances even this alteration is omitted, an additional
coat of gilding saving them from the character of being
second-hand. Thus a taste for luxuries is propagated downwards in
society', and, after a short period, the numbers who have
acquired new wants become sufficient to excite the ingenuity of
the manufacturer to reduce the cost of supplying them, whilst he
is himself benefited by the extended scale of demand.

199. There is a peculiarity in looking-glasses with reference
to the principle just mentioned. The most frequent occasion of
injury to them arises from accidental violence; and the
peculiarity is, that, unlike most other articles, when broken
they are still of some value. If a large mirror is accidentally
cracked, it is immediately cut into two or more smaller ones,
each of which may be perfect. If the degree of violence is so
great as to break it into many fragments, these smaller pieces
may be cut into squares for dressing-glasses; and if the
silvering is injured, it can either be resilvered or used as
plate-glass for glazing windows. The addition from our
manufactories to the stock of plate-glass in the country is
annually about two hundred and fifty thousand square feet. It
would be very difficult to estimate the quantity annually
destroyed or exported, but it is probably small; and the effect
of these continual additions is seen in the diminished price and
increased consumption of the article. Almost all the better order
of shop fronts are now glazed with it. If it were quite
indestructible, the price would continually diminish; and unless
an increased demand arose from new uses, or from a greater number
of customers, a single manufactory, unchecked by competition,
would ultimately be compelled to shut up, driven out of the
market by the permanance of its own productions.

200. The metals are in some degree permanent, although
several of them are employed in such forms that they are
ultimately lost.

Copper is a metal of which a great proportion returns to use:
a part of that employed in sheathing ships and covering houses is
lost from corrosion; but the rest is generally remelted. Some is
lost in small brass articles, and some is consumed in the
formation of salts, Roman vitriol (sulphate of copper), verdigris
(acetate of copper), and verditer.

Gold is wasted in gilding and in embroidering; but a portion
of this is recovered by burning the old articles. Some portion is
lost by the wear of gold, but, upon the whole, it possesses
considerable permanence.

Iron. A proportion of this metal is wasted by oxidation, in
small nails, in fine wire; by the wear of tools, and of the tire
of wheels, and by the formation of some dyes: but much, both of
cast- and of wrought-iron, returns to use.

Lead is wasted in great quantities. Some portion of that
which is used in pipes and in sheets for covering roofs returns
to the melting-pot; but large quantities are consumed in the form
of small shot, or sometimes in that of musket balls, litharge,
and red lead, for white and red paints, for glass-making, for
glazing pottery, and for sugar of lead (acetate of lead).

Silver is rather a permanent metal. Some portion is consumed
in the wear of coin, in that of silver plate, and a portion in
silvering and embroidering.

Tin. The chief waste of this metal arises from tinned iron;
some is lost in solder and in solutions for the dyers.

CHAPTER 15.

2006-09-11T02:13:00.000-07:00

On the Influence of Verification on Price

181. The money price of an article at any given period is
usually stated to depend upon the proportion between the supply
and the demand. The average price of the same article during a
long period, is said to depend, ultimately, on the power of
producing and selling it with the ordinary profits of capital.
But these principles, although true in their general sense, are
yet so often modified by the influence of others, that it becomes
necessary to examine a little into the disturbing forces.

182. With respect to the first of these propositions, it may
be observed, that the cost of any article to the purchaser
includes, besides the ratio of the supply to the demand, another
element, which, though often of little importance, is, in many
cases, of great consequence. The cost, to the purchaser, is the
price he pays for any article, added to the cost of verifying the
fact of its having that degree of goodness for which he
contracts. In some cases the goodness of the article is evident
on mere inspection: and in those cases there is not much
difference of price at different shops. The goodness of loaf
sugar, for instance, can be discerned almost at a glance; and the
consequence is, that the price is so uniform, and the profit upon
it so small, that no grocer is at all anxious to sell it; whilst,
on the other hand, tea, of which it is exceedingly difficult to
judge, and which can be adulterated by mixture so as to deceive
the skill even of a practised eye, has a great variety of
different prices, and is that article which every grocer is most
anxious to sell to his customers.

The difficulty and expense of verification are, in some
instances, so great, as to justify the deviation from
well-established principles. Thus it is a general maxim that
Government can purchase any article at a cheaper rate than that
at which they can manufacture it themselves. But it has
nevertheless been considered more economical to build extensive
flour-mills (such are those at Deptford), and to grind their own
corn, than to verify each sack of purchased flour, and to employ
persons in devising methods of detecting the new modes of
adulteration which might be continually resorted to.

183. Some years since, a mode of preparing old clover and
trefoil seeds by a process called doctoring, became so prevalent
as to excite the attention of the House of Commons. It appeared
in evidence before a committee, that the old seed of the white
clover was doctored by first wetting it slightly, and then drying
it with the fumes of burning sulphur, and that the red clover
seed had its colour improved by shaking it in a sack with a small
quantity of indigo; but this being detected after a time, the
doctors then used a preparation of logwood, fined by a little
copperas, and sometimes by verdigris; thus at once improving the
appearance of the old seed, and diminishing, if not destroying,
its vegetative power already enfeebled by age. Supposing no
injury had resulted to good seed so prepared, it was proved that
from the improved appearance, the market price would be enhanced
by this process from five to twenty-five shillings a hundred
weight. But the greatest evil arose from the circumstance of
these processes rendering old and worthless seed equal in
appearance to the best. One witness had tried some doctored seed,
and found that not above one grain in a hundred grew, and that
those which did vegetate died away afterwards; whilst about
eighty or ninety per cent of good seed usually grows. The seed so
treated was sold to retail dealers in the country, who of course
endeavoured to purchase at the cheapest rate, and from them it
got into the hands of the farmers; neither of these classes being
capable of distinguishing the fraudulent from the genuine seed.
Many cultivators, in consequence, diminished their consumption of
the article; and others were obliged to pay a higher price to
those who had skill to distinguish the mixed seed, and who had
integrity and character to prevent them from dealing in it.

184. In the Irish flax trade, a similar example of the high
price paid for verification occurs. It is stated in the report of
the committee, "That the natural excellent quality of Irish flax,
as contrasted with foreign or British, has been admitted." Yet
from the evidence before that committee it appears that Irish
flax sells, in the market, from 1d. to 2d. per pound less than
other flax of equal or inferior quality. Part of this difference
of price arises from negligence in its preparation, but a part
also from the expense of ascertaining that each parcel is free
from useless matter to add to its weight: this appears from the
evidence of Mr J. Corry, who was, during twenty-seven years,
Secretary to the Irish Linen-Board:--

"The owners of the flax, who are almost always people in the lower
classes of life, believe that they can best advance their own
interests by imposing on the buyers. Flax being sold by weight,
various expedients are used to increase it; and every expedient
is injurious, particularly the damping of it; a very common
practice, which makes the flax afterwards heat. The inside of
every bundle (and the bundles all vary in bulk) is often full of
pebbles, or dirt of various kinds, to increase the weight. In
this state it is purchased, and exported to Great Britain. The
natural quality of Irish flax is admitted to be not inferior to
that produced by any foreign country; and yet the flax of every
foreign country, imported into Great Britain, obtains a
preference amongst the purchasers, because the foreign flax is
brought to the British market in a cleaner and more regular
state. The extent and value of the sales of foreign flax in Great
Britain can be seen by reference to the public accounts; and I am
induced to believe, that Ireland, by an adequate extension of her
flax tillage, and having her flax markets brought under good
regulations, could, without encroaching in the least degree upon
the quantity necessary for her home consumption, supply the whole
of the demand of the British market, to the exclusion of the
foreigners."

185. The lace trade affords other examples; and, in enquiring
into the complaints made to the House of Commons by the framework
knitters, the committee observe, that, "It is singular that the
grievance most complained of one hundred and fifty years ago,
should, in the present improved state of the trade, be the same
grievance which is now most complained of: for it appears, by the
evidence given before your committee, that all the witnesses
attribute the decay of the trade more to the making of fraudulent
and bad articles, than to the war, or to any other cause." And it
is shewn by the evidence, that a kind of lace called "single-press"
was manufactured, which, although good to the eye, became nearly
spoiled in washing by the slipping of the threads; that not one
person in a thousand could distinguish the difference between
"single-press" and "double-press" lace; and that, even workmen and
manufacturers were obliged to employ a magnifying glass for that
purpose; and that, in another similar article, called "warp lace,"
such aid was essential. It was also stated by one witness, that

"The trade had not yet ceased, excepting in those places where the
fraud had been discovered; and from those places no orders are
now sent for any sort of Nottingham lace, the credit being
totally ruined."

186. In the stocking trade similar frauds have been practised. It
appeared in evidence, that stockings were made of uniform width
from the knee down to the ankle, and being wetted and stretched
on frames at the calf, they retained their shape when dry, but
that the purchaser could not discover the fraud until, after the
first washing, the stockings hung like bags about his ankles.

187. In the watch trade the practice of deceit, in forging
the marks and names of respectable makers, has been carried to a
great extent both by natives and foreigners; and the effect upon
our export trade has been most injurious, as the following
extract from the evidence before a committee of the House of
Commons will prove:--

"Question. How long have you been in the trade?
Answer. Nearly thirty years.
Question. The trade is at present much depressed?
Answer. Yes, sadly.
Question. What is your opinion of the cause of that distress?
Answer. I think it is owing to a number of watches that have been
made so exceedingly bad that they will hardly look at them in the
foreign markets; all with a handsome outside show, and the works
hardly fit for anything.
Question. Do you mean to say, that all the watches made in this
country are of that description?
Answer. No; only a number which are made up by some of the Jews,
and other low manufacturers. I recollect something of the sort
years ago, of a falloff of the East India work, owing to there
being a number of handsome-looking watches sent out, for
instance, with hands on and figures, as if they shewed seconds,
and had not any work regular to shew the seconds: the hand went
round, but it was not regular.
Question. They had no perfect movements?
Answer. No, they had not; that was a long time since, and we had
not any East India work for a long time afterwards."

In the home market, inferior but showy watches are made at a
cheap rate, which are not warranted by the maker to go above half
an hour; about the time occupied by the Jew pedlar in deluding
his country customer.

188. The practice, in retail linen-drapers' shops, of calling
certain articles yard wide when the real width is perhaps, only
seven-eighths or three-quarters, arose at first from fraud, which
being detected, custom was pleaded in its defence: but the result
is, that the vender is constantly obliged to measure the width of
his goods in the customer's presence. In all these instances the
object of the seller is to get a higher price than his goods
would really produce if their quality were known; and the
purchaser, if not himself a skilful judge (which rarely happens
to be the case), must pay some person, in the shape of an
additional money price, who has skill to distinguish, and
integrity to furnish, articles of the quality agreed on. But as
the confidence of persons in their own judgement is usually
great, large numbers will always flock to the cheap dealer, who
thus, attracting many customers from the honest tradesman,
obliges him to charge a higher price for his judgement and
character than, without such competition, he could afford to do.

189. There are few things which the public are less able to
judge of than the quality of drugs; and when these are compounded
into medicines it is scarcely possible, even for medical men, to
decide whether pure or adulterated ingredients have been
employed. This circumstance, concurring with the present
injudicious mode of paying for medical assistance, has produced a
curious effect on the price of medicines. Apothecaries, instead
of being paid for their services and skill, are remunerated by
being allowed to place a high charge upon their medicines, which
are confessedly of very small pecuniary value. The effect of such
a system is an inducement to prescribe more medicine than is
necessary; and in fact, even with the present charges, the
apothecary, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, cannot be
fairly remunerated unless the patient either takes, or pays for,
more physic than he really requires. The apparent extravagance of
the charge of eighteen pence for a two-ounce phial(1*) of
medicine, is obvious to many who do not reflect on the fact that
a great part of the charge is, in reality, payment for the
exercise of professional skill. As the same charge is made by the
apothecary, whether he attends the patient or merely prepares the
prescription of a physician, the chemist and druggist soon
offered to furnish the same commodity at a greatly diminished
price. But the eighteen pence charged by the apothecary might
have been fairly divided into two parts, three pence for medicine
and bottle, and fifteen pence for attendance. The chemist,
therefore, who never attends his customers, if he charges only a
shilling for the same medicine, realizes a profit of 200 or 300
per cent upon its value. This enormous profit has called into
existence a multitude of competitors; and in this instance the
impossibility of verifying has, in a great measure, counteracted
the beneficial effects of competition. The general adulteration
of drugs, even at the extremely high price at which they are
retailed as medicine, enables those who are supposed to sell them
in an unadulterated state to make large profits, whilst the same
evil frequently disappoints the expectation, and defeats the
skill, of the most eminent physician.

It is difficult to point out a remedy for this evil without
suggesting an almost total change in the system of medical
practice. If the apothecary were to charge for his visits, and to
reduce his medicines to one-fourth or one-fifth of their present
price, he would still have an interest in procuring the best
drugs, for the sake of his own reputation or skill. Or if the
medical attendant, who is paid more highly for his time, were to
have several pupils, he might himself supply the medicines
without a specific charge, and his pupils would derive
improvement from compounding them, as well as from examining the
purity of the drugs he would purchase. The public would gain
several advantages by this arrangement. In the first place, it
would be greatly for the interest of the medical practitioner to
have the best drugs; it would be in his interest also not to give
more physic than needful; and it would enable him, through some
of his more advanced pupils, to watch more frequently the changes
of any malady.

190. There are many articles of hardware which it is
impossible for the purchaser to verify at the time of purchase,
or even afterwards, without defacing them. Plated harness and
coach furniture may be adduced as examples: these are usually of
wrought iron covered with silver, owing their strength to the one
and a certain degree of permanent beauty to the other metal. Both
qualities are, occasionally, much impaired by substituting cast-
for wrought-iron, and by plating with soft solder (tin and lead)
instead of with hard solder (silver and brass). The loss of
strength is the greatest evil in this case; for cast iron, though
made for this purpose more tough than usual by careful annealing,
is still much weaker than wrought-iron, and serious accidents
often arise from harness giving way. In plating with soft
solder, a very thin plate of silver is made to cover the iron,
but it is easily detached, particularly by a low degree of heat.
Hard soldering gives a better coat of silver, which is very
firmly attached, and is not easily injured unless by a very high
degree of heat. The inferior can be made to look nearly as well
as the better article, and the purchaser can scarcely discover
the difference without cutting into it.

191. The principle that price, at any moment, is dependent on
the relation of the supply to the demand, is true to the full
extent only when the whole supply is in the hands of a very large
number of small holders, and the demand is caused by the wants of
another set of persons, each of whom requires only a very small
quantity. And the reason appears to be, that it is only in such
circumstances that a uniform average can be struck between the
feelings, the passions, the prejudices, the opinions, and the
knowledge, of both parties. If the supply, or present stock in
hand, be entirely in the possession of one person, he will
naturally endeavour to put such a price upon it as shall produce
by its sale the greatest quantity of money; but he will be guided
in this estimate of the price at which he will sell, both by the
knowledge that increased price will cause a diminished
consumption, and by the desire to realize his profit before a new
supply shall reach the market from some other quarter. If,
however, the same stock is in the hands of several dealers, there
will be an immediate competition between them, arising partly
from their different views of the duration of the present state
of supply, and partly from their own peculiar circumstances with
respect to the employment of their capital.

192. The expense of ascertaining that the price charged is
that which is legally due is sometimes considerable. The
inconvenience which this verification produces in the case of
parcels sent by coaches is very great. The time lost in
recovering an overcharge generally amounts to so many times the
value of the sum recovered, that it is but rarely resorted to. It
seems worthy of consideration whether it would not be a
convenience to the public if government were to undertake the
general conveyance of parcels somewhat on the same system with
that on which the post is now conducted. The certainty of their
delivery, and the absence of all attempt at overcharge, would
render the prohibition of rival carriers unnecessary. Perhaps an
experiment might be made on this subject by enlarging the weight
allowed to be sent by the two-penny post, and by conveying works
in sheets by the general post.

This latter suggestion would be of great importance to
literature, and consequently to the circulation of knowledge. As
the post-office regulations stand at present, it constantly
happens that persons who have an extensive reputation for
science, receive by post, from foreign countries, works, or parts
of works, for which they are obliged to pay a most extravagant
rate of postage, or else refuse to take in some interesting
communication. In France and Germany, printed sheets of paper are
forwarded by post at a very moderate expense, and it is fit that
the science and literature of England should be equally favoured.

193. It is important, if possible, always to connect the name
of the workman with the work he has executed: this secures for
him the credit or the blame he may justly deserve; and
diminishes, in some cases, the necessity of verification. The
extent to which this is carried in literary works, published in
America, is remarkable. In the translation of the Mecanique
Celeste by Mr Bowditch, not merely the name of the printer, but
also those of the compositors, are mentioned in the work.

194. Again, if the commodity itself is of a perishable
nature, such, for example, as a cargo of ice imported into the
port of London from Norway a few summers since, then time will
supply the place of competition; and, whether the article is in
the possession of one or of many persons, it will scarcely reach
a monopoly price. The history of cajeput oil during the last few
months, offers a curious illustration of the effect of opinion
upon price. In July of last year, 1831, cajeput oil was sold,
exclusive of duty, at 7 d. per ounce. The disease which had
ravaged the East was then supposed to be approaching our shores,
and its proximity created alarm. At this period, the oil in
question began to be much talked of, as a powerful remedy in that
dreadful disorder; and in September it rose to the price of 3s.
and 4s. the ounce. In October there were few or no sales: but in
the early part of November, the speculations in this substance
reached their height, and between the 1st and the 15th it
realized the following prices: 3s. 9d., 5s., 6s. 6d., 7s. 6d.,
8s., 9s., 10s., 10s. 6d., 11s. After 15 November, the holders of
cajeput oil were anxious to sell at much lower rates; and in
December a fresh arrival was offered by public sale at 5s., and
withdrawn, being sold afterwards, as it was understood, by
private contract, at 4s. or 4s. 6d. per oz. Since that time, 1s.
6d. and 1s. have been realized; and a fresh arrival, which is
daily expected (March, 1832) will probably reduce it below the
price of July. Now it is important to notice, that in November,
the time of greatest speculation, the quantity in the market was
held by few persons, and that it frequently changed hands, each
holder being desirous to realize his profit. The quantity
imported since that time has also been considerable.(2*)

195. The effect of the equalization of price by an increased
number of dealers, may be observed in the price of the various
securities sold at the Stock Exchange. The number of persons who
deal in the 3 per cent stock being large, any one desirous of
selling can always dispose of his stock at one-eighth per cent
under the market price; but those who wish to dispose of bank
stock, or of any other securities of more limited circulation,
are obliged to make a sacrifice of eight or ten times this amount
upon each hundred pounds value.

196. The frequent speculations in oil, tallow, and other
commodities, which must occur to the memory of most of my
readers, were always founded on the principle of purchasing up
all the stock on hand, and agreeing for the purchase of the
expected arrivals; thus proving the opinion of capitalists to be,
that a larger average price may be procured by the stock being
held by few persons.

NOTES:

1. Apothecaries frequently purchase these phials at the old
bottle warehouses at ten shillings per gross; so that when their
servant has washed them, the cost of the phial is nearly one
penny.

2. I have understood that the price of camphor, at the same time,
suffered similar changes.