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

Tin cc-71,111,4

LONDON:
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1841.

Some of our Tory Contemporaries have lateli
renewed the war against machinery and lin

provement, which ignorance and prejudice have
waged at all times. That new intentions and
contrivances may injure individuals, is proved
every day. The use of railroads has almost put
an end to travelling post, and postmasters and
innkeepers are suffering very severely from a

change in the mode of travelling, which is of
great benefit to the multitude of travellers. In
like manner, the substitution of power-looms for
hand-looms, of spinning-mules for spinning-

jennies, of self-acting mules for spinning mules,
has lessened the employment for hand-loom

weavers and spinners, and reduced their wages;
_ . _

but all the consumers of the products of the loom
are very much benefited by the cheap produc-
tion of an increased quantity of cloth. In all
questions of legislation we are bound to consider
chiefly the advantage of the numerous classes of
travellers and consumers, for whose benefit roads
and weaving exist ; but we are not wholly to
overlook or neglect the few who suffer by such
improvements.

When the question is, therefore, whether the
successive inventions of machinery be beneficial
to society, the answer is to be found in the mul-
tiplied conveniences and enjoyments which its
use has provided for the bulk of society. The
few sufferers' constitute at the utmost a very
small portion of the whole, and their sufferings
last for a brief period, while inventions and im-
provements in machinery, leading one to an-
other, benefit mankind through all ages poste-
rior to the date of the invention. When we
consider this subject, then, in reference to legis-
lation, we must remember that laws which would
tax, or repress the use of machinery are perma-
nent, while the distress to be relieved by them is
the benefits they would limit
ternporary, and
and curtail extend through all futurity. If, for
example, the use of power-looms had been pro-
hibited or restrained by a tax, there would have
been a limitation to the great present demand
for yarn, and,
we may venture to assert that the
self-acting mule would not yet have been calle:1
into existence.
With that a great number of
•
-qne would ave beer
other ingenious contri cs
v,
rhaps, to haveh been in-
suppressed, never, Pe
vented, had machinery been taxed, or the use of
it restrained. The vast future benefits growing
from every useful invention, and such as are not
useful are soon cast aside and foriotten should
be, in making permanent laws, or laws intended
to be durable, perfectly decisive against taxing
or restraining the use of machinery. .
Moreover, it should be considered that even
those who temporarily suffer from the introduc-
tion of new inventions and improvements, as a
•
part of the great body of consumers, share in the
general advantages the use of machinery confers
on the human race. Ships, for example, are
some of the noblest machines ever invented, and
the wants even of the suffering hand-loom weavers
are now comparatively easily and cheaply supplied
by importations of food from various places, while
the bulk of their employment is derived from
the trade which those instruments are used
to carry on. Looking at the employment of
machinery undir these general aspects, there can
be no shadow of a doubt that society in all
tinie is amazingly benefited by such ingenious
contrivances as now b a ound in England. But
as the general benefit, not special and particular
interests—as the welfare of
well as their present temporary enjoyment, is
the proper rule and guide of legislation, there
can be no manner of Vioubt that the invention
and use of machinery ought to
receive from the
Legislature as complete and effectual protection
as any other species of industry, or any other
kind of. art whatever. We do not ask for it
patronage- and rewards, such as importunate ar-