The Sun.
London, England, 1841-11-05 00:00:00

tists, and importunate writers demand for the
so-called Fine Arts, but we say that it has such
transcendant merits, that the Legislature ,is
bound to refrain from restraining or impeding
the invention and use of machinery.
That any man should raise a doubt in Eng.-
land at this day, whether the invention and use
of machinery, on the whole, augments or dimi-
nishes employment for the people, excites in us
great surprise. Why, on what does the very
existence of all our sea-port and manufacturing
towns depend but on the invention and use of
machinery? Ships are machines, and the great
improvements recently made in the modes of
impelling them by the adaptation to them of
other machinery, has much augmented the inha-
bitants and the wealth of our sea-ports, who
owe their very existence to the use of these ma-
chines. " Why, what," said Mr. COBDEN at the
late meeting at Stockport-,-
Why, what are Stockport and Manchester but the
growth of machinery ?—(Loud cries of " Hear, hear.)
What are Rochdale and Bolton but the growth of ma-
chinery ? Had not the machinery of these places at-
tracted the cotton from India, where it was spun upon
the wheel and distaff, we should have had no such towns
as these in existence. They would have been in the con-
dition of the small town of Buckingham, and the
wretched and miserable serfs of the landed aristocracy ;
and when those men tell you that machinery throws men
out of employment, these are my facts ; I point to the
towns of Manchester and Bolton, and Rochdale, and
show that machinery has not been the cause of a worse
state of things, but has been the increase of employment,
and given increased means of subsistence.
Glasgow, Paisley, Liverpool, Manchester, Bir-
mingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Coventry, and two-
thirds of London, with a considerable number
of other towns, and a large proportion of nearly
all our towns, and no inconsiderable portion of
our agricultural population, are indebted to ma-
chinery for their existence. Since the com-
mencement of the last century our population,
much of which, as all those then working with
ships, ploughs, and looms, found employment by
using machinery, has increased at least three-fold,
and nearly all that increase is mainly due to the
successive inventions and improvements of ma-
chinery. Although there is now a much greater
quantity of wealth in the country than in 1700,
and a much greater number of persons living at
their ease on their property, employment has in-
creased fully commensurate to the increase in
their numbers. There are, in fact, a much
greater variety of employments for the people.
Those who take the opposite view seem to
confine their attention exclusively to the few
persons whom every improvement may displace,
and wholly to overlook the still greater number
whom it employs. The extensive new buildings
at the terminus of every line of railway with
which we are acquainted, the new buildings
along the lines, the great shops or factories at
Manchester, Bury, Bolton, London, and other
places, for the manufacture of locomotives, the
number of men who are employed to guide
them, the watchmen on the roads, the addi-
tional colliers, miners, and smiths, to whom the
construction and use of the road must give work,
independent of the great increase of interchange
by facilitating it—all these circumstances, when
takea into consideration, will prove that the in-
vention of railways has, in tact, though it may
have diminished the employment for post-boys,
added very much to the whole sum of em-
ployment.
So the introduction and use of power looms,
the effect of which seems to have been measured
exclusively by the number of hand-loom weavers
whose employment was diminished, created a
new species of employment for a number of per-
sons who manufactured them, and gave great ad-
ditional employment to all the miners, smelters,
colliers, smiths, carpenters, &c. &c., whose la-
bour was necessary to complete the manufacture,
and great additional employment to all the sea-
men, carriers, merchants, brokers, &c., &c., who
were engaged in distributing the increased pro-
ductions of the power-loom. Similar facts hold
good throughout. The use of thrashing ma-
chines, of swing ploughs, &c., might have dimi-
nished the work of the agricultural labourer, but
it must have increased the employment f,)r all
the persons who were in any way concerned in
making and erecting those machines.
A gasometer is a machine without which our
streets could not be lighted, and independently of
the increased light, and safety, and improved
morals, which are the results of the use of gas,
there can be no doubt that the invention of gas
has very much more increased employment to
those connected with it, including those who
supply the coals and the metals, than it de-
creased employment for candle-makers and oil
producers. These instances are quite sufficient to
establish the general rule. The invention and
use of machinery is the creation of a new art,
and a new art is new employment. In fact,
therefore, however paradoxical it may seem
to those who are contented with first im-
pressions, as they are contented with the
belief that the sun moves round the earth, the
invention and use of machinery is the creation of
employment. This a priori theory is confirmed
by the growth of manufacturing towns in Eng-
land, in all of which the great mass of the popu-
lation find profitable, and in general ample, em-
ployment in arts wholly unknown to our an-
cestors.

The secondary, or collateral, effects of the use
of machinery are as striking as their immediate
and direct effects. In Wales, for example, a
vast population has grown up, chiefly of colliers
and miners. But they and all the multitude to
whom machinery gives employment, must be
fed. The demand for agricultural produce and
the cultivation of the soil, hay" increased as the
towns' people found employment in new arts; and
to them may be traced the increase which has
taken place in employment for agricultural la-
bourers since the year 1700. At present every
person who lives in the country, except persons
of property, works at agricultural occupations ;
but in the olden times a great number of idle
menials, with their families and dependents,
dwelt on the land. In our younger days there
was no inconsiderable number of huntsmen,
game-keepers, whippers-in, and unemployed
and half-employed persons in every country vil-
lage with which we were acquainted, the mass
of whom have now disappeared, and nearly all
who live on the land are now employed in agri-
culture. A much greater increase of employ-
ment in agriculture, therefore, than is indicated
by the increase of the rural population since
1700, is really due to the increased demand for
agricultural produce, arising from the invention
and use of machinery. The admirers of an
agricultural population are, in fact, much in-
debted to the manufacturing system, which they
foolishly decry, for the increase in the number of
the peasantry.
We have now, we think, demonstrated that
the invention and use of machinery, instead of
diminishing, adds very much to the sum of em-
ployment; and it will not be difficult to show, in
another article, that, instead of lowering, it
raises wages. Paradoxical as this may appear,
it flows directly and certainly from the principle
we have established. The real cause of the de-
cline of wages is perfectly different, as we will in
a future article endeavour to make apparent;
when we will also suggest what a provident and
wise Legislature ought to do to alleviate the
great evils a few individuals continually suffer
from the introduction of machinery, Fhich we set
out by adtnitting.

Mr. E. B. SMITH, who stands charged with
the forgery of Exchequer bills, was y esterday
brought before the Magistrates of Bow-street,
The depositions taken against him at the hearing
were read over, some few questions were asked,
and he was committed to Newgate to take his
trial. Mr. RAPALLO was remanded from the
Mansion-house, and will be again brought up on
the 17th instant. On him heavier suspicions now
rest, from Mr. SMITH'S statement, than we should
infer from his own account that he voluntarily
went to the Treasury to give information. Mr.
SMITH'S statement, however, that he did not
sign the bills, which was done by another hand