Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1876-02-18
The Cause of Hard Times.

The Unitarian Review recently gave its
readers solution of our financial difficulties,
the substance of which is contained in the
following extract:
at is due simply to the introduction, dur.
ing the last twenty-five years, Of such an
enormous amount Of machinery. There is
nothing 10 our modern civilization which is
more wonderful, more significant, more q new
thing under e sun, AMI destined to be more
wide-reaching in its relations, than this use
of machinery. A single pegging machine
will turn ont more boots and shoes now than
a whole village of cobbers at work in their
little cubical shops fifty years ago. The
cloth woven in any Of our large mill towns is
probably equal to half Of what all the Indies
used to produce by the slow hand methods
of the middle ages. Steam engines alone arr
doing work which without them would give
employment to every one of the multitudes
Of men aud women who are now lying idle in
our country. California, a few years ago
was groaning over the introduction Of 80
much Chinese cheap labor : and yet, at that
very time, most inconsistency, was giving
welcome to mowers and reapsrs and mining
apparatus, which for cheapness and facility
Of use, made even Chinaman dear. And
then when it is seen how these muscles and
nerves of iron and steel are employed in
every department of industry, from carving
into shape a shaft of iron weighing twenty
tons, down to the finishing of a cambria
needle, and from the sewing of buiton-hole
to the sowing aud resping of whole states,
who can wonder that the market is over
Stoke II
"0f course this increase OF facilities for
doing work increased for a while the amount
of work to be done. But such a process
could not 20 on forever. There was limit
even to the number Of stitches which could
be put into lady's dress, and to the amount
of wheat which even an American family
could make way with. Aud this point has
at last beeV reached. The occurrence of
our civil war, with its enormous destruction
Of property, and its withdrawal of energies
into the battle field, put off the day but
the end Of the war, and their return again
into the pursuits of peace, soon filled up the
gap, and brought us to the point where it
was hardly possible to consume q half Of
what was being produced-the point, there
fore, where business was obliged to stop"
There is so much in this theory which
seems to US to be false that we deem il proper
to review the statements upon which this
reasoning il founded. 1t is true that the
last twenty-five years have introduced an
enormous amount Of machinery" into our
country, but is it true that the effect Of this
change has proved disastrous?
A single "pcgging machine" does the work
Of "whole village Of cobblers;" and does
the prosperity of the cobblers demand the
destruction Of that machine2 One large mill
village "weaVes half as much cloth as all
the Indies used to produce by the slow
hand methods of the middle ages" and
would the writer recommend that these mills
should be burned, and that the darkness Of
the middle ages should extnguish the light
Of our civilization in order that the ignorant
poor may again find work 10 the slow meth
DDS of ancient weaving2 And the steam en-
CINE is doing work enough to employ "thC
multitudss of men and women who are lying
idle in our country !" and shall we tear W
the rails and burn these engines and depots
and reverse the car of improvement and rur
it back until we have restored the good ole
times when men aud horses performed all thu
labor Of transportation in this countryf
Surely if these improvements Of our mod
ern civilization tend to degrade the labOrinl
classes aud to impOverish the country, they
should be set aside. II our "hard times
have resulted from the introduction of labo
saving machines, there is no way to remOv
the evil but to remove the cause. But it j
not 50. This whole argument is based upoI
fiction. The time was, wo know, when ssri
Gus apprehOnsons were entertained on thi
point by intelligent men in this country, bu
We had supposed that the deluSion had beef
exploded here.
Until very recently the ruling men o
China have opposed the introduction Of Ia
bor-saving agents, such as steam, electricity
cannon and iron-clads, on this principle
They have supposed that their vast pOpula
tiOu which depends entirely on labor for |
living could be kept in existence only by eT
d Guiding machinery that would do their wOrl
for them. But these men are beginning h
learn, what all intelligent Americans SHOULD
have known long ago, that lAbOr-savlng ma
chimes tend to reduce the price Of products