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I had never seen, and with whom I had never

previously had the slightest communication. I left the book in Mr

Knight’s hands, with a request that, when he had read it, I might

be informed whether he would undertake the publication of it; and

this he consented to do. Mr Knight, therefore, is so far from

being responsible for a single opinion in the present volume,

that he saw it only, for a short time, a few days previous to its

publication.

 

It has been objected to me, that I have exposed too freely

the secrets of trade. The only real secrets of trade are

industry, integrity, and knowledge: to the possessors of these no

exposure can be injurious; and they never fail to produce respect

and wealth.

 

The alterations in the present edition are so frequent, that

I found it impossible to comprise them in a supplement. But the

three new chapters, ‘On money as a medium of exchange’; ‘On a new

system of manufacturing’; and ‘On the effect of machinery in

reducing the demand for labour’; will shortly be printed

separately, for the use of the purchasers of the first edition.

 

I am inclined to attach some importance to the new system of

manufacturing; and venture to throw it out with the hope of its

receiving a full discussion among those who are most interested

in the subject. I believe that some such system of conducting

manufactories would greatly increase the productive powers of any

country adopting it; and that our own possesses much greater

facilities for its application than other countries, in the

greater intelligence and superior education of the working

classes. The system would naturally commence in some large town,

by the union of some of the most prudent and active workmen; and

their example, if successful, would be followed by others. The

small capitalist would next join them, and such factories would

go on increasing until competition compelled the large capitalist

to adopt the same system; and, ultimately, the whole faculties of

every man engaged in manufacture would be concentrated upon one

object—the art of producing a good article at the lowest

possible cost—whilst the moral effect on that class of the

population would be useful in the highest degree, since it would

render character of far greater value to the workman than it is

at present.

 

To one criticism which has been made, this volume is

perfectly open. I have dismissed the important subject of the

patent-laws in a few lines. The subject presents, in my opinion,

great difficulties, and I have been unwilling to write upon it,

because I do not see my way. I will only here advert to one

difficulty. What constitutes an invention? Few simple mechanical

contrivances are new; and most combinations may be viewed as

species, and classed under genera of more or less generality; and

may, in consequence, be pronounced old or new, according to the

mechanical knowledge of the person who gives his opinion.

 

Some of my critics have amused their readers with the

wildness of the schemes I have occasionally thrown out; and I

myself have sometimes smiled along with them. Perhaps it were

wiser for present reputation to offer nothing but profoundly

meditated plans, but I do not think knowledge will be most

advanced by that course; such sparks may kindle the energies of

other minds more favourably circumstanced for pursuing the

enquiries. Thus I have now ventured to give some speculations on

the mode of blowing furnaces for smelting iron; and even

supposing them to be visionary, it is of some importance thus to

call the attention of a large population, engaged in one of our

most extensive manufactures, to the singular fact, that

four-fifths of the steam power used to blow their furnaces

actually cools them.

 

I have collected, with some pains, the criticisms* on the

first edition of this work, and have availed myself of much

information which has been communicated to me by my friends, for

the improvement of the present volume. If I have succeeded in

expressing that I had to explain with perspicuity, I am aware

that much of this clearness is due to my friend, Dr Fitton, to

whom both the present and the former edition are indebted for

such an examination and correction, as an author himself has very

rarely the power to bestow.

 

[*Footnote: Several of these have probably escaped me, and I shall

feel indebted to any one who will inform my publisher of any future

remarks.]

 

22 November, 1832.

 

Section I.

 

INTRODUCTION.

 

The object of the present volume is to point out the effects

and the advantages which arise from the use of tools and

machines;—to endeavour to classify their modes of action;—and to

trace both the causes and the consequences of applying machinery

to supersede the skill and power of the human arm.

 

A view of the mechanical part of the subject will, in the

first instance, occupy our attention, and to this the first

section of the work will be devoted. The first chapter of the

section will contain some remarks on the general sources from

whence the advantages of machinery are derived, and the

succeeding nine chapters will contain a detailed examination of

principles of a less general character. The eleventh chapter

contains numerous subdivisions, and is important from the

extensive classification it affords of the arts in which copying

is so largely employed. The twelfth chapter, which completes the

first section, contains a few suggestions for the assistance of

those who propose visiting manufactories.

 

The second section, after an introductory chapter on the

difference between making and manufacturing, will contain, in the

succeeding chapters, a discussion of many of the questions which

relate to the political economy of the subject. It was found that

the domestic arrangement, or interior economy of factories, was

so interwoven with the more general questions, that it was deemed

unadvisable to separate the two subjects. The concluding chapter

of this section, and of the work itself, relates to the future

prospects of manufactures, as arising from the application of

science.

Chapter 1

Sources of the Advantages arising from Machinery and Manufactures

 

1. There exists, perhaps, no single circumstance which

distinguishes our country more remarkably from all others, than

the vast extent and perfection to which we have carried the

contrivance of tools and machines for forming those conveniences

of which so large a quantity is consumed by almost every class of

the community. The amount of patient thought, of repeated

experiment, of happy exertion of genius, by which our

manufactures have been created and carried to their present

excellence, is scarcely to be imagined. If we look around the

rooms we inhabit, or through those storehouses of every

convenience, of every luxury that man can desire, which deck the

crowded streets of our larger cities, we shall find in the

history of each article, of every fabric, a series of failures

which have gradually led the way to excellence; and we shall

notice, in the art of making even the most insignificant of them,

processes calculated to excite our admiration by their

simplicity, or to rivet our attention by their unlooked-for

results.

 

2. The accumulation of skill and science which has been

directed to diminish the difficulty of producing manufactured

goods, has not been beneficial to that country alone in which it

is concentrated; distant kingdoms have participated in its

advantages. The luxurious natives of the East,(1*) and the ruder

inhabitants of the African desert are alike indebted to our

looms. The produce of our factories has preceded even our most

enterprising travellers.(2*) The cotton of India is conveyed by

British ships round half our planet, to be woven by British skill

in the factories of Lancashire: it is again set in motion by

British capital; and, transported to the very plains whereon it

grew, is repurchased by the lords of the soil which gave it

birth, at a cheaper price than that at which their coarser

machinery enables them to manufacture it themselves.(3*)

 

3. The large proportion of the population of this country,

who are engaged in manufactures, appears from the following table

deduced from a statement in an Essay on the Distribution of

Wealth, by the Rev. R. Jones:

 

For every hundred persons employed in agriculture, there are:

 

Agriculturists Non-agriculturists

 

In Bengal 100 25

In Italy 100 31

In France 100 50

In England 100 200

 

The fact that the proportion of non-agricultural to

agricultural persons is continually increasing, appears both from

the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons upon

Manufacturers’ Employment, July, 1830, and from the still later

evidence of the last census; from which document the annexed

table of the increase of population in our great manufacturing

towns, has been deduced.

 

Increase of population per cent

 

Names of places

1801-11 1811-21 1821-31 Total

Manchester 22 40 47 151

Glasgow 30 46 38 161

Liverpool(4*) 26 31 44 138

Nottingham 19 18 25 75

Birmingham 16 24 33 90

Great Britain 14.2 15.7 15.5 52.5

 

Thus, in three periods of ten years, during each of which the

general population of the country has increased about 15 per

cent, or about 52 per cent upon the whole period of thirty years,

the population of these towns has, on the average, increased 132

per cent. After this statement, there requires no further

argument to demonstrate the vast importance to the wellbeing of

this country, of making the interests of its manufacturers well

understood and attended to.

 

4. The advantages which are derived from machinery and

manufactures seem to arise principally from three sources: The

addition which they make to human power. The economy they produce

of human time. The conversion of substances apparently common and

worthless into valuable products.

 

5. Of additions to human power. With respect to the first of

these causes, the forces derived from wind, from water, and from

steam, present themselves to the mind of every one; these are, in

fact, additions to human power, and will be considered in a

future page: there are, however, other sources of its increase,

by which the animal force of the individual is itself made to act

with far greater than its unassisted power; and to these we shall

at present confine our observations.

 

The construction of palaces, of temples, and of tombs, seems

to have occupied the earliest attention of nations just entering

on the career of civilization; and the enormous blocks of stone

moved from their native repositories to minister to the grandeur

or piety of the builders, have remained to excite the

astonishment of their posterity, long after the purposes of many

of these records, as well as the names of their founders, have

been forgotten. The different degrees of force necessary to move

these ponderous masses, will have varied according to the

mechanical knowledge of the people employed in their transport;

and that the extent of power required for this purpose is widely

different under different circumstances, will appear from the

following experiment, which is related by M. Rondelet, Sur L’Art

de Batir. A block of squared stone was taken for the subject of

experiment:

 

1. Weight of stone 1080 lbs

 

2. In order to drag this stone along the floor of the quarry,

roughly chiselled, it required a force equal to 758 lbs

 

3. The same stone dragged over a floor of planks required 652 lbs

 

4. The same stone placed on a platform of wood, and dragged over

a floor of planks, required 606 lbs

 

5. After soaping the two surfaces of wood which slid over each

other, it required 182 lbs

 

6. The same stone was now placed upon rollers of three inches

diameter, when it required to put it in motion along the floor of

the

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