Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/320

286 that at the rate at which he can dispose of his manufactured produce, each new engine would repay the cost of its making, together with the ordinary profit of capital, in three years: he also concludes from his experience of the trade, that the improvement he is about to make, will not be generally adopted by other manufacturers before that time. On these considerations, it is clearly his interest to sell his present engines, even at half-price, and construct new ones on the improved principle. But the purchaser who gives only fifty pounds for the old engines, has not so large a fixed capital invested in his factory, as the person from whom he purchased them; and as he produces the same quantity of the manufactured article, his profits will be larger. Hence, the price of the commodity will fall, not only in consequence of the cheaper production by the new machines, but also by the more profitable working of the old, thus purchased at a reduced price. This change, however, can be only transient; for a time will arrive when the old machinery, although in good repair, must become worthless. The improvement which took place not long ago in frames for making patent-net was so great, that a machine, in good repair, which had cost 1200l., sold a few years after for 60l. During the great speculations in that trade, the improvements succeeded each other so rapidly, that machines which had never been finished were abandoned in the hands of their makers, because new improvements had superseded their utility.

(345.) The durability of watches, when well made, is very remarkable. One was produced, in "going order," before a committee of the House of