The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-04 00:00:00

LABOUR IN FACTORIES.

'THE MONOTONY OF AN OCCUPATION DOES NOT I
EXERT A PERNICIOUS INFLUENCE OVER THE MENTAL
VACULTIES or THE WORKMAN..—The effect of the
extreme subdivision of labour in manufacturing esta-
blishments, and the eXclusive attention it requires the
werliman to bestow on one operation, has been sup-
posed to exert a most pernicious influence over his
mental faculties. The genius of the master is said to
be cultivated, but that of the workman to be con-
demned to perpetual neglect. Most mechanical arts,
we are told, succeed-best under a total suppression
of sentiment and reason. A "'habit of moving the
hand.or the foot is said to be independent of either;
and the wOrkshOp has been coropiuT4 to an engine;
the yarts of which are men !-(Ferguson `,‘ on Civil
Society," p.. 303.- Smith, who has given' so ad-
mirable an exposition of the benefits resulting
from the division of labour, has, notwithstanding,
concurred with the popular prejudices on this
subject ; and has gone so far as to affirm that
constant application to a particular occupation in a
large manufactory, " necessarily renders the work-
man as stupid and ignorant as it is' possible' to make a
huMan being." Nothing can be more marvellously
incorrect than these representations. Instead of its-
being true that the workmen employed in manufac-
turing establishments are less intelligent and acute
than those employed in agriculture, the fact is dis-
tinctly and completely the reverse. The weavers and
other mechanics of Glasgow, Manchester, and Bir-
mingham, possess infinitely`more general and exten-
sive information than is possessed by the agricultural
labourers of any county of the empire. And this is
really what a more' unprejudiced inquiry into the
subject would have led us to anticipate. The variety of
occupations in which the husbandman has successively
to engage, their constant liability to be affected by so
variables power as the weather, and the perpetnal change
in' the appearance of the objects which. meet this
eyes, and with which he is conversant, occupy his
attention, and render him a stranger to that ennui
and desire for extrinsic and adventitious excitement
which must ever be felt by those who are constantly
engaged in burnishing the point of 'a pin, and in per-
forming the same 'endless routine of precisely similar
operations. This want of excitement cannot, however,
be so cheaply or effectually gratified in any other
way as it may be by cultivating, that, is, by stimu-
lating, the mental powers. The generality of work-
men have no time for dissipation ; and if they had,
the wages of labour in all old settled and densely-
peopled countries are too low, and the propensity to
save and accumulate too powerful to permit any very
large portion of them seeking to divert themselves by
' indulging in riot and excess. They arethus driven to
seek for recreation in mental excitement;` and the cir-
cumstances in which they 'are placed afford every possi-
ble facility for their amusing and diverting themselves
in this manner. By working together, they have con-
stant opportunities of entering into conversation ; and
a small contribution from each enables them to obtain
a large supply of newspapers and of the cheaper class
of periodical publications. But whatever difference
of opinion may exist respecting the cause, there can
be no doubt of the fact, that the workmen employed
in manufactures have become more intelligent accord-
ing as their numbers have increased, and as their em-
ployments have been more and more Subdivided. We
do not believe that they ever were less intelligent than
the agriculturists ; but, whatever may have been the
case formerly, none will now venture to affirm that
they are inferior to them in intellectual acquirements,
or that they' are machines without sentiment dr
reason.--Encyclopadia Britannica, Seventh' Editioh.
Art. " Political Economy;" by d. R. M'Culloch,Esv.
f