On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, Charles Babbage [classic romance novels .TXT] 📗

difficulty will be removed; if

otherwise, the proportion must be left to find its level, and

will be discovered by experience; and it is probable that it will

not fluctuate much. Let us suppose it to be agreed that the

capital of L800 shall receive the wages of one workman. At the

end of each week every workman is to receive one pound as wages,

and one pound is to be divided amongst the owners of the capital.

After a few weeks the returns will begin to come in; and they

will soon become nearly uniform. Accurate accounts should be kept

of every expense and of all the sales; and at the end of each

week the profit should be divided. A certain portion should be

laid aside as a reserved fund, another portion for repair of the

tools, and the remainder being divided into thirteen parts, one

of these parts would be divided amongst the capitalists and one

belong to each workman. Thus each man would, in ordinary

circumstances, make up his usual wages of two pounds weekly. If

the factory went on prosperously, the wages of the men would

increase; if the sales fell off they would be diminished. It is

important that every person employed in the establishment,

whatever might be the amount paid for his services, whether he

act as labourer or porter, as the clerk who keeps the accounts,

or as bookkeeper employed for a few hours once a week to

superintend them, should receive one half of what his service is

worth in fixed salary, the other part varying with the success of

the undertaking.

 

312. In such a factory, of course, division of labour would

be introduced: some of the workmen would be constantly employed

in forging the fire-irons, others in polishing them, others in

piercing and forming the fenders. It would be essential that the

time occupied in each process, and also its expense, should be

well ascertained; information which would soon be obtained very

precisely. Now, if a workman should find a mode of shortening any

of the processes, he would confer a benefit on the whole party,

even if they received but a small part of the resulting profit.

For the promotion of such discoveries, it would be desirable that

those who make them should either receive some reward, to be

determined after a sufficient trial by a committee assembling

periodically; or if they be of high importance, that the

discoverer should receive one-half, or twothirds, of the profit

resulting from them during the next year, or some other

determinate period, as might be found expedient. As the

advantages of such improvements would be clear gain to the

factory, it is obvious that such a share might be allowed to the

inventor, that it would be for his interest rather to give the

benefit of them to his partners, than to dispose of them in any

other way.

 

313. The result of such arrangements in a factory would be,

 

1. That every person engaged in it would have a direct

interest in its prosperity; since the effect of any success, or

falling off, would almost immediately produce a corresponding

change in his own weekly receipts.

 

2. Every person concerned in the factory would have an

immediate interest in preventing any waste or mismanagement in

all the departments.

 

3. The talents of all connected with it would be strongly

directed to its improvement in every department.

 

4. None but workmen of high character and qualifications

could obtain admission into such establishments; because when any

additional hands were required, it would be the common interest

of all to admit only the most respectable and skilful; and it

would be far less easy to impose upon a dozen workmen than upon

the single proprietor of a factory.

 

5. When any circumstance produced a glut in the market, more

skill would be directed to diminishing the cost of production;

and a portion of the time of the men might then be occupied in

repairing and improving their tools, for which a reserved fund

would pay, thus checking present, and at the same time

facilitating future production.

 

6. Another advantage, of no small importance, would be the

total removal of all real or imaginary causes for combinations.

The workmen and the capitalist would so shade into each other—

would so evidently have a common interest, and their difficulties

and distresses would be mutually so well understood that, instead

of combining to oppress one another, the only combination which

could exist would be a most powerful union between both parties

to overcome their common difficulties.

 

314. One of the difficulties attending such a system is, that

capitalists would at first fear to embark in it, imagining that

the workmen would receive too large a share of the profits: and

it is quite true that the workmen would have a larger share than

at present: but, at the same time, it is presumed the effect of

the whole system would be, that the total profits of the

establishment being much increased, the smaller proportion

allowed to capital under this system would yet be greater in

actual amount, than that which results to it from the larger

share in the system now existing.

 

315. It is possible that the present laws relating to

partnerships might interfere with factories so conducted. If this

interference could not be obviated by confining their purchases

under the proposed system to ready money, it would be desirable

to consider what changes in the law would be necessary to its

existence: and this furnishes another reason for entering into

the question of limited partnerships.

 

316. A difficulty would occur also in discharging workmen who

behaved ill, or who were not competent to their work; this would

arise from their having a certain interest in the reserved fund,

and, perhaps, from their possessing a certain portion of the

capital employed; but without entering into detail, it may be

observed, that such cases might be determined on by meetings of

the whole establishment; and that if the policy of the laws

favoured such establishments, it would scarcely be more difficult

to enforce just regulations, than it now is to enforce some which

are unjust, by means of combinations either amongst the masters

or the men.

 

317. Some approach to this system is already practised in

several trades: the mode of conducting the Cornish mines has

already been alluded to; the payment to the crew of whaling ships

is governed by this principle; the profits arising from fishing

with nets on the south coast of England are thus divided:

one-half the produce belongs to the owner of the boat and net;

the other half is divided in equal portions between the persons

using it, who are also bound to assist in repairing the net when

injured.

 

NOTES:

 

1. For a detailed account of the method of working the Cornish

mines, see a paper of Mr John Taylor’s Transactions of the

Geological Society, vol. ii, p. 309.