The New York herald., 1878-07-11
Tn. war Again. Machinery.


ceived notices that their reapers, mowers
and other agricultural machines are to be
destroyed, at the same time that they are
unable to hire hands to gather the harvest.
In several parts of the country demagogues
are denouncing labor-saving contrivances,
and within sight of the Patent Office in
Washington some weeks ago public
speaker. addressing "Workingmens
Assembly," asserted that labor-saving
machinery is the cause of all the industrial
prostration, poverty and distress here and
abroad; patent laws make paupers; rail-
roads, telegraphs, agricultural and other
machinery fill the country with tramps; the
canals and stage lines, which formerly \
gave employment TO many thousands, have
given way before railroads; the land is now
almost altogether cultivated by machinery,
and good times, he asserted, can never re-
turn while such things are tolerated.
We suspect that if Mr.. David A. Wells
were asked he could give great number OF
facts which would seem to bear out the
assertion that machinery is curse to the
people He could tell the workingmen's
assemblies, for instance, that Ave men can
now, with the help of machinery, make as
many boots or shoes in day as eight could
in 1850; that ten men with moving machines
can get in as much hay as fifty in the good
old times Of scythes; and that III short,
in oil branches of industry machinery has
enabled greater production with fewer
hands,
Is machinery, then, really q curse? Were
the old handloom weavers in England
wise beyond their generation when they
tried to destroy the inventions Of Arkwright
and others? Would it really be better for
this country, or for any other, TO abolish
machinery and return to hand labor? The
Washington speaker told the workingmen
who listened to him that "the Empire of
China has kept up its revenues and indus
trial pursuits by system of hand labor and
by resisting the introduction of machin-
cry y but he forgot to tell them that the
Chinese laborer gladly works for about
three or four cents day, lives on rice,
makes meat Of animals which American
workmen would reject with disgust, and
that the Chinese are but too happy to come
to this country of machinery to earn bet
ter living. That is to say, this lecturer to
workingmen gave them n one-sided and dis
torted view of m important question, and
we should have thought more highly Of the
workingmen who heard him if some of them
had risen there and then to expose
his sophistries. Labor-saving machinery,
so far from being o curse to the laborers,
has been in many ways a blessing to them.
1t has greatly lightened their toll it has
cheapened products SO that in all civilized
countries the condition of the laboring
class has immensely and steadily improved
during the last half century; the houses,
clothes and food Of the laborers and their
families have constantly improved in both
kind and variety; they now count as the
common necessaries OF life many articles
which but half century ago we're the lux
uries of the rich so greatly has their toll
been lightened and their comfort increased
by labor-saving machinery that even their
average length of life has increased The
workingmen of this generation wear more
and better shoes, hats and clothes; they ca {
a greater amount and variety of food ; they
read more newspapers and books; they
have greater facilities for travel and change
of place; their health is better and their
wages higher than before the general intro
duction of labor-saving machinery.
But it will be asked, is it not fact that
if machinery enables four men to do the
work of eight or ten without it, this throws
a certain number Of men out of employ
ment? We reply, even this, which is
the most plausible statement, is false. 1t
is. on the contrary. true that machinery
has very greatly increased the number Of
employments, and by cheapening produc-
ton has enormously increased consump-
ton, and therefore the demand for products
of all kinds. The old stage coachmen, for
instance, predicted that when railroads be-
came general it would cease to be profitable
mand than ever before and we need only
recall the fact that the number of operatives
in any branch Of business where machinery
has been introduced has been greatly and
constantly increased instead Of diminishing.
All this is good deal like demonstrating
by laborious argument that twice two makes
four, or that the moon is not made of green
cheese and we should not weary our
readers with it if it were not fact that
good many people entertain o vague general
notion that machinery has really in some
way deprived men of employment-that
there is settled over-production, and that
the so-called Christian nations, and espe-
cially our own. have been SO ingenious in
contriving labor-saving appliances as to
crush themselves under an unbearable bur-
den Of abundance. But plainly this does
not meet the case, for the complaint is not.
Of too much, but of too little food and
clothing The truth is that labor-saving
machinery, rapidly enlarging the power of