The Sun.
London, England, 1841-11-08 00:00:00

(6tt oti ult.

LONDON
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1841.

We have undertaken to prove that the inven-
tion and use of machinery raises wages, and as
,such a ;doctrine is somewhat contrary to the
popular belief, particularly in that class—the la-
bourers—whose interests we desire to promote,
we hope that they will read our remarks with
patience to the end. Fortunately, however, we
have one practical test of our doctrines close at
hand that may serve, if not to convince the
sceptical, to prepare the way for its favourable
reception. In Ireland comparatively little ma-
chinery has Nen used or erected, and in Ireland
wages are, as the rule, much lower than in Eng-
land, which abounds with machinery. Looking
at the question under the general aspect, instead
of merely looking at the temporary and local
effects of the use of machinery in displacing
some few labourers, we are at once reconciled to
the belief that it is possible for that which adds
to the sum of employment, also to raise the
wages of the labourer.

Another practical view of the question may be
taken from a comparison of wages in former
times, when there was little machinery, with
wages at present. In the fourteenth century,
namely, in 1330, when a statute was passed for
the unjust purpose of preventing the price of
labour from rising after the great pestilence,"
the wages of day-labourers were about equal to
three-fourths of a peck of wheat. In the fifteenth
century, .when another statute was passed to re-
gulate labourers—the object of all such statutes
being, as Mr. MALTHUS remarks, the unjust one
of preventing the price or labour from rising—
the wages of a common day-labourer were about 6
41d. without diet; and, according to the then
price of wheat, his wages would enable him to
purchase half a bushel of' wheat, within one far-
thing. This was, however, an extraordinary
- state, which did not last. In the sixteenth cen-
tury the price of day-labour was Bd., which at
the then price of wheat, 01d. a peck, would pur-
chase very nearly a peck of corn.
In 1601 wages are mentioned as lOd., which,
according to the price of wheat, would buy two-
thirds only of a peck of corn. in 1651, after
the effects of the importation of silver from
America in lowering its value is supposed to
have ceased, the wages of day-labour were
.Is. 2d., which, at the average price of wheat,
Bs. per bushel, would enable the labourer to
command only seven-twelfths of a peck. In
1661 the wages were equivalent to three-fourths
of a peck. In 1682 we have also a record of
wages commanding three-fourths of a peck. In
the early part of the eighteenth century the
wages of husbandry labourers were not more
than ls. per day, and equivalent to about three-
-fourths or four-fifths of a peck of wheat.

_ -
' Between 17:20 and 1755, wages were compara-
tively good, and a day's labour commanded
about a peck of wheat. Subsequently to that
period, and to the close of the century, during
which the prices of both labour and wheat were
nearly doubled, though the proportions between
.
them continued nearly the same, the price of
husbandry labour, for many years, commanded
about five-sixths of a peck of w heat. At present, as-
suming the wages of husbandry labourers to be
90. per day, as stated by the Pro-Corn-law men,
and wheat to be G6s., they will command a peck
of wheat a day. But we apprehend that I s.
is nearer the average, so that, without being far
wrong, we may state that the wages of husbandry
labourers now command, and have for some time
commanded, about two-thirds of a peck of wheat
per day. These facts, which are a summary of
the statements made by Mr. MALTHUS in his
" Principles of Political Economy," chapter "On
Wages," show a remarkableuniformity in the real
wages of husbandry labour, and go far to justify
Mr. RICARDO'S definition of the natural (custo-
mary) price of labour, "that which is necessary to

enable the labourers (in husbandry), one with
another, to subsist and to perpetuate their race."
But while the wages of the husbandry labourers,
measured in corn, have undergone no consider-
able and permanent change for many years, and
have always been at nearly the lowest point
which would support existence, the successive
invention and improvements of machinery have
supplied the agricultural labourer with clothing,
utensils, and instruments at a continually declin-
ing price ; so that, supposing his labour always to
have commanded the same quantity of corn, the
little he could spare to exchange for other things,
as they were made cheaper by machinery, came ,
to command a continually increasing quantity of
them ; and so far the use of machinery contri-
buted to improve the condition of the agricul-
tural labourer. It has made his wages more va-
luable. But to show how the use of machinery
has increased wages on the whole, we must com-
pare the wages of those who have successively in-
vented and used machinery with the wages of hus-
bandry labourers.. The further back we carry our
view, the fewerlabourers we find engaged in other
pursuits than husbandry, and, accordingly, if we
now find other artizans are better paid than
labourers in husbandry; a presumptive proof
arises that the use of machinery has tended to
improve the condition of the labourers, and raise
their wages.
Now it is plain that every new art, as it came
into existence, could not find hands ready made
to practise it. Men had to learn it, and they
were tempted to learn it by wages higher than
they could get in husbandry labour. This is true
generally, and the consequence has been that
every new art which, as we have proved,
increased the sum of employment, gave higher
wages to those who were engaged in it. The in-
vention and_ use of machinery is synonymous
with the successive rise of such arts,
each one of which, by practically raising
wages, necessarily tended to raise the
standard of wages, and give to the lahourinc
classes a higher idea of comfort. That there has
been such a gradual elevation, since the time
when the labourers were dressed in skins, and
fed on acorns, when they watched the swine of
their lords with iron rings on their limbs, cannot
be doubted ; nor can it be doubted that this
improvement originated in towns, and is most
conspicuous amongst labourers who work in the
newest arts. We can see, we think, a succession
of inventions—such, for example, as the print.
ing-press, the spinning-jenny, the steam-engine—
each of which called into existence a superior
body of labourers, gave them much higher
wages than the labourers in agriculture, and
raised the standard of reward with each in-
vention.

At present the average wages of printers are
at least, distressed as they are, three times as
much as the wages of agricultural labourers,
or, they could command two pecks of wheat
a day. Mr. M'CULLOCH mentions, in his sta-
tistical work, that colliers can earn ss. a day,
and that, whether employed or not, they can
call on their masters to pay them 14s. per week.
Persons employed in the woollen trade, he says,
receive on an average, which includes all species
of labourers, women and children, 26/. a year,
or ls. Bd. per day. Even the females, who are
much indebted to machinery, are much better
off than agricultural labourers. The wages of
the males engaged in this work are set down at
from 19s. to 225. Gd. per week.
In the cotton manufacture the average waves
of all classes, according to the same author, are
10s. Gd.; so that the children in the factories
must get nearly as much as the male peasantry;
while the wages of engineers, firemen, mecha-
nics, &c., is 20s. 6d., on the average, including
boys, or double the wages of agricultural la-
bourers. " The wages of adults," says Mr.
M'CULLOCH, " engaged in factories, are in gene-
ral high, many of them earning from 3s. to Os. 6d.
a-day, and some more. Employment in fac-
tories is also remarkably steady, not depending,
like work carried on out of doors, on the state
of the weather or other uncertain contingencies,
but is prosecuted almost without intermission.
Hence the superior condition of the factory
work-people."
In flax mills at Leeds and Dundee, the
wages of males are set down at 18s. and 195.,
and at 15s. Of the workmen in Birmingham,
Mr. M'Cum.ocn wrote before the effects of
the Corn-law became so apparent, "their con-
dition is on the whole very favourable. In those
branches in which superior skill and attention
are required, their wages are very little, if at all,
inferior to those earned by the best workmen of
the metropolis." Wages in Sheffield, he tells
us, vary from 15s. to 355. and 40s. per week. We
might quote a variety of other trades, particularly
those of the millwright, or engineer, which are
notoriously much better paid than those of hus-
bandry labourers, to prove that the wages of men,
who either make the machinery in use or work
it, are uniformly higher than the wages of agri-
cultural labourers ; but these must suffice, and
we shall only say that in all these new arts the
wages were higher at the commencement of the
art than subsequently, showing both the effect
of the invention in raising wages, and the
general tendency, but for these successive inven-
tions, of wages to fall to the lowest level at which
subsistence can be preserved,
But it is of little use to quote particular fact:
on this question, because it is plain that the
growth and increase of towns, and the great
quantity of employment found in them, is mainly
due to the new arts connected with machinery. I
Now into the towns and the manufacturing dis-
tricts, the population of the rural districts is con-
tinually pouring, because wages in almost all
situations are higher in the manufacturing dis-
tricts, where machinery is much used, than in the
rural districts. That is a decisive proof that the
successive inventions of machinery, and the con-
sequent successive introduction of new arts, raise
wages as they increase the source of employment.
Suppose there were no such inventions as the
printing press, and the steam-engine, and no
such arts as the printer and the engine-maker,
and that all the population had to look exclu-
sively to the land for subsistence and employ-
ment : if under such circumstances it were
possible that the present amount of our popu-
lation could exist, the competition amongst them
for employment on the land would reduce all
the well paid and well employed artisans of the
towns to a worse condition than that of the lumper-
fed Irish.
It must be known to all who have looked at
the writings of the political economists, that they
regard the naturally increasing difficulty of pro-
curing subsistence, as population increases, as a
permanent cause for a continual declension Of
I Ntvioagneosi. inankid.
anda7ntinAuaelcodrdeting to their statements,eriorationinthecondi
this condition would go on from bad to worse;
dearth would come after extreme poverty, great
misery would ensue, quarrels would follow, and
mankind would devour each other; but ever and
anon the brain of man teems with some mighty
invention, and the downward progress is arrested
ywhich facilitates
procuring
ence. bsist...
abnydsolmesesenneswtimieadcilfaiincearlyt
siasyesqiunaltlhyeafpupllloicawibulge
ence.
sf
oßipernolintso,
tpoasswage age;
:--.

The natural tendency of profits, then, is to f ll;for, in
the progress of society and wealth, the' additionala‘ quan-
tity of food required is obtained by the sacrifice of
and more labour.. This
.tendency—this gravitation, as
it were, of profits is happily checked at repeated interw 18
by improvements .in machinery connected with the p;os-
duction of necessaries, as well as by discoveries in the
science of agriculture, which enable us to relinquish a
portion of labour before required; and, therefore, to
lower the price of the prime necessary of the labourer.
On the one hand, then, wages, as population in-
creases, and as the difficulty of procuring the
necessaries of life increase, have a tendency to
fall; and on the other, successive inventions and
improvements in machinery, lessening that diffi-
culty—for it is as much lessened by the inven-
tion of a spinning mule and a power-loom, which
enables us to purchase at a small cost of our
labour the rich productions of the virgin and un-
taxed and untithed soil of the United States, as
" by discoveries in the science of agriculture ;"