Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1880-04-02
Labor Lultipliers.

Labor saving machinery is mis-
homer. 1t is unfortunate that it is so.
1t has created prejudice against ma
chinery and improved appliances for
obtaining the best economic results
from labor. Men have reasoned that
the device which saves labor robs the
laborer. And it does look, upon the
surface of things, that the laborer must
be the loser by having less work to do.
For, If two men can plant four acres of
corn in day, one using the hoe the
other dropping, while two men with
two planters can put in twenty acres ;
and one man with scythe can cut, say,
one acre of grass in day while one
man with mower can cut ten acres
and If q woman with sewing machine
can do five to ten times as much work
in day as q woman with only needle
and if in all other kinds of work sim
liar disparity of results as bet ween
does not the labor-saving appliance
crowd the workman and cause surfeit
of labor? And if surfeit, then de-
crease in wages? This looks plausible,
and ignorant men have believed it, and
INSCRIPTIONS men have triedsto instill
the belief into the minds of working
men.
But history, experience, incontro-
vertible facts as we'll as the philosophy
of the worlds economies are all adj
verse to such = conclusion. And, to
get at the foundation principle of po-
litical economy, there cannot be any
such thing as overproduction of the
necessities of life, and, consequently,
there cannot be All excess of labor or
lack of field for work. There may be
overproduction of any one or more ar
ticles there may be an excess OF labor
in any one or more trades, but there is
not an excess Of all kinds of articles
that are needful for mans comfort and
progress in life and there is not an ex-
cess of all kinds of labor if rightly di.
rected. If all men were tailors, or if
all men were coopers, or if all were
common laborers, the supply would
undoubtedly exceed the demand. In
the more primitive days there were but
few trades and professions and there
was far more limited demand for the
products OF labor than there is now.
But as the labor has increased by the
increase of population and as its prod
ucts have been multiplied ten and an
hundred fold and more by machinery
and ingenious tools, the wants of peo-
pie and the demands of society have
multiplied in full proportion. Wages
have not decreased on the contrary,
they are higher than before the era of
labor-saving machinery. The condition
of the workingman il not worse but
better than it used to be. The whole
logic of the history of the labor ques-
ton is tn at the laborer has been dlgni-
fed and elevated by the offspring of
mems inventive genius. Labor-saving
appliances have lifted men to higher
planes of life, and have blessed the
world far beyond the possibilities of
the old-time servitude of muscle to the
less varied wants of humanity. Men
still earn their bread by the sweat of
their brow, but they have better bread
and more of it, and great many Great.
ure comforts and hopeful opportunities
which their forefathers did not have.
The labor saving tools have blessed man
by multiplying the opportunities for
labor and increasing the reward of toll.
-Ha,okeye.