Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/322

288 This information is of great importance, if the numbers here given are nearly correct, and if no other causes intervened to diminish the price of frames; for it shews the numerical connexion between the increased production of those machines and their diminished value.

(347.) The great importance of simplifying all transactions between masters and workmen, and of dispassionately discussing with the latter the influence of any proposed regulations connected with their trade, is well exemplified by a mistake into which both parties unintentionally fell, and which was productive of very great misery in the lace trade. Its history is so well told by William Allen, a frame-work knitter, who was a party to it, that an extract from his evidence, as given before the Frame-work Knitters' Committee of 1812, will best explain it.

"I beg to say a few words respecting the frame-rent; the rent paid for lace-frames, until the year 1805, was 1s. 6d. a frame per week; there then was not any very great inducement for persons to buy frames and let them out by the hire, who did not belong to the trade; at that time an attempt was made, by one or two houses, to reduce the prices paid to the workmen, in consequence of a dispute between these two houses and another great house: some little difference being paid in the price among the respective houses, I was one chosen by the workmen to try if we could not remedy the impending evil: we consulted the respective parties, and found them inflexible; these two houses that were about to reduce the prices, said that they would either immediately reduce the price of making net, or they would increase the frame-rent: the difference to the workmen was considerable, between the one and the other; they would