On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, Charles Babbage [classic romance novels .TXT] 📗
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coal merchant, who sends in the coals from his wharf: the brass
plate coal merchants, of course, receiving a commission for his
agency.
209. In Italy this system is carried to a great extent
amongst the voituriers, or persons who undertake to convey
travellers. There are some possessed of greater fluency and a
more persuasive manner who frequent the inns where the English
resort, and who, as soon as they have made a bargain for the
conveyance of a traveller, go out amongst their countrymen and
procure some other voiturier to do the job for a considerably
smaller sum, themselves pocketing the difference. A short time
before the day of starting, the contractor appears before his
customer in great distress, regretting his inability to perform
the journey on account of the dangerous illness of a mother or
some relative, and requesting to have his cousin or brother
substituted for him. The English traveller rarely fails to
acquiesce in this change, and often praises the filial piety of
the rogue who has deceived him.
NOTES:
1. Much information for such an enquiry is to be found, for the
particular period to which it refers, in the Report of the
Committee of the House of Commons on Manufacturers’ Employment, 2
July, 1830.
Of Raw Materials
210. Although the cost of any article may be reduced in its
ultimate analysis to the quantity of labour by which it was
produced; yet it is usual, in a certain state of the manufacture
of most substances, to call them by the term raw material. Thus
iron, when reduced from the ore and rendered malleable, is in a
state fitted for application to a multitude of useful purposes,
and is the raw material out of which most of our tools are made.
In this stage of its manufacture, but a moderate quantity of
labour has been expended on the substance; and it becomes an
interesting subject to trace the various proportions in which raw
material, in this sense of the term, and labour unite to
constitute the value of many of the productions of the arts.
211. Gold leaf consists of a portion of the metal beaten out
to so great a degree of thinness, as to allow a greenish-blue
light to be transmitted through its pores. About 400 square
inches of this are sold, in the form of a small book containing
25 leaves of gold, for 1s. 6d. In this case, the raw material, or
gold, is worth rather less than twothirds of the manufactured
article. In the case of silver leaf, the labour considerably
exceeds the value of the material. A book of fifty leaves, which
would cover above 1000 square inches, is sold for 1s. 3d.
212. We may trace the relative influence of the two causes
above referred to, in the prices of fine gold chains made at
Venice. The sizes of these chains are known by numbers, the
smallest having been (in 1828) No. 1, and the numbers 2, 3, 4,
etc., progressively increasing in size. The following table shews
the numbers and the prices of those made at that time.(1*) The
first column gives the number by which the chain is known; the
second expresses the weight in grains of one inch in length of
each chain; the third column the number of links in the same
length; and the last expresses the price, in francs worth
tenpence each, of a Venetian braccio, or about two English feet
of each chain.
Venetian gold chains
Price of a Venetian
Braccio, equal to
Weight of Number of links two feet 1/8 inch
No. one inch, in grains in one inch English
0.44 98 to 100 60 francs
1.56 92 40
1 1/2.77 88 26
2.99 84 20
3 1.46 72 20
4 1.61 64 21
5 2.09 64 23
6 2.61 60 24
7 3.36 56 27
8 3.65 56 29
9 3.72 56 32
10 5.35 50 34
24 9.71 32 60
Amongst these chains, that numbered 0 and that numbered 24
are exactly of the same price, although the quantity of gold in
the latter is twenty-two times as much as in the former. The
difficulty of making the smallest chain is so great, that the
women who make it cannot work above two hours at a time. As we
advance from the smaller chain, the proportionate value of the
work to the worth of the material becomes less and less, until at
the numbers 2 and 3, these two elements of cost balance each
other: after which, the difficulty of the work decreases, and the
value of the material increases.
213. The quantity of labour expended on these chains is,
however, incomparably less than that which is applied in some of
the manufactures of iron. In the case of the smallest Venetian
chain the value of the labour is not above thirty times that of
the gold. The pendulum spring of a watch, which governs the
vibrations of the balance, costs at the retail price two pence,
and weighs fifteen one-hundredths of a grain, whilst the retail
price of a pound of the best iron, the raw material out of which
fifty thousand such springs are made, is exactly the same sum of
two pence.
214. The comparative price of labour and of raw material
entering into the manufactures of France, has been ascertained
with so much care, in a memoir of M. A. M. Heron de Villefosse,
Recherches statistiques, sur les Metaux de France.(2*) that we
shall give an abstract of his results reduced to English
measures. The facts respecting the metals relate to the year
1825.
In France the quantity of raw material which can be purchased
for L1, when manufactured into
Silk goods is worth L2.37
Broad cloth and woollens 2.15
Hemp and cables 3.94
Linen comprising thread laces 5.00
Cotton goods 2.44
The price of pig-lead was L1 1s. per cwt; and lead of the value
of L1 sterling, became worth, when manufactured into
Sheets or pipes of moderate dimensions L 1. 25
White lead 2.60
Ordinary printing characters 4.90
The smallest type 28.30
The price of copper was L5 2s. per cwt. Copper worth L1 became
when manufactured into
Copper sheeting L1.26
Household utensils 4.77
Common brass pins tinned 2.34
Rolled into plates covered with 1/20 silver 3.56
Woven into metallic cloth, each square inch of which contains
10,000 meshes 52.23
The price of tin was L4 12s. per cwt. Tin worth L1 when
manufactured into
Leaves for silvering glass became L1.73
Household utensils 1.85
Quicksilver cost L10 16s. per cwt. Quicksilver worth L1 when
manufactured into
Vermilion of average quality became L1.81
Metallic arsenic cost L1 4s. per cwt. Arsenic worth L1 when
manufactured into
White oxide of arsenic became L1.83
Sulphuret (orpiment) 4.26
The price of cast-iron was 8s. per cwt. Cast-iron worth L1
when manufactured into
Household utensils became L2.00
Machinery 4.00
Ornamental. as buckles. etc 45.00
Bracelets. figures, buttons. etc. 147.00
8ar-iron cost L1 6s. per cwt. Bar-iron worth L1 when
manufactured into
Agricultural instruments became L3.57
Barrels, musket 9. 10
Barrels of double-barrel guns. twisted and damasked 238.08
Blades of penknives 657.14
razor. cast steel 53.57 sabre, for cavalry. infantry, and
artillery. etc. from 9.25 to 16.07
of table knives 35.70
Buckles of polished steel, used as jewellery 896.66
Clothiers’ pins 8.03
Door-latches and bolts from 4.85 to 8.50
Files, common 2.55 flat, cast steel 20.44
Horseshoes 2.55
Iron, small slit, for nails 1. 10
Metallic cloth, iron wire, No. 80 96.71
Needles of various sizes from 17.33 to 70.85
Reeds for weaving 3-4ths calico 21.87
Saws (frame) of steel 5. 12
for wood 14.28
Scissors, finest kind 446.94
Steel, cast 4.28
cast, in sheets 6.25
cemented 2.41
natural 1.42
Sword handles, polished steel 972.82
Tinned iron from 2.04 to 2.34
Wire, iron from 2. 14 to 10.71
215. The following is stated by M. de Villefosse to be the
price of bar-iron at the forges of various countries, in January,
1825.
per ton
L s. d.
France 26 10 0
Belgium and Germany 16 14 0
Sweden and Russia, at Stockholm and St Petersburg 13 13 0
England, at Cardiff 10 1 0
The price of the article in 1832 was 5 0 0
M. De Villefosse states, that in France bar-iron, made as it
usually is with charcoal, costs three times the price of the
cast-iron out of which it is made; whilst in England, where it is
usually made with coke, the cost is only twice the price of
cast-iron.
216. The present price (1832) of lead in England is L13 per
ton, and the worth of L1 of it manufactured into
Milled sheet lead becomes Ll.08
The present price of cake copper is L84 per ton, and the
worth of L1 of it manufactured into
Sheet copper becomes L1.11
NOTES:
1. A still finer chain is now manufactured (1832).
2. Memoires de l’Institut. 1826
On the Division of Labour
217. Perhaps the most important principle on which the
economy of a manufacture depends, is the division of labour
amongst the persons who perform the work. The first application
of this principle must have been made in a very early stage of
society, for it must soon have been apparent, that a larger
number of comforts and conveniences could be acquired by each
individual, if one man restricted his occupation to the art of
making bows, another to that of building houses, a third boats,
and so on. This division of labour into trades was not, however,
the result of an opinion that the general riches of the community
would be increased by such an arrangement; but it must have
arisen from the circumstance of each individual so employed
discovering that he himself could thus make a greater profit of
his labour than by pursuing more varied occupations. Society must
have made considerable advances before this principle could have
been carried into the workshop; for it is only in countries which
have attained a high degree of civilization, and in articles in
which there is a great competition amongst the producers, that
the most perfect system of the division of labour is to be
observed. The various principles on which the advantages of this
system depend, have been much the subject of discussion amongst
writers on political economy; but the relative importance of
their influence does not appear, in all cases, to have been
estimated with sufficient precision. It is my intention, in the
first instance, to state shortly those principles, and then to
point out what appears to me to have been omitted by those who
have previously treated the subject.
218. 1. Of the time required for learning. It will readily be
admitted, that the portion of time occupied in the acquisition of
any art will depend on the difficulty of its execution; and that
the greater the number of distinct processes, the longer will be
the time which the apprentice must employ in acquiring it. Five
or seven years have been adopted, in a great many trades, as the
time considered requisite for a lad to acquire a sufficient
knowledge of his art, and to enable him to repay by his labour,
during the latter portion of his time, the expense incurred by
his master at its commencement. If, however, instead of learning
all the different processes for making a needle, for instance,
his attention be confined to one operation, the portion of time
consumed unprofitably at the commencement of his apprenticeship
will be small, and all the rest of it will be beneficial to his
master: and, consequently, if there be any
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