Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/331

Rh stocking-frames. It would, indeed, be of great mutual advantage to the industrious workman, and to the master-manufacturer in every trade, if the machines employed in it could register the quantity of work which they perform, in the same manner as a steam-engine does the number of strokes it makes. The introduction of such contrivances gives a greater stimulus to honest industry than can readily be imagined, and removes one of the sources of disagreement between parties, whose real interests must always suffer by any estrangement between them.

(361.) The effects arising from combinations amongst the workmen, are almost always injurious to the parties themselves. There are numerous instances, in which the public suffer by increased price at the moment, but are ultimately gainers from the permanent reduction which results; whilst, on the other hand, the improvements which are often made in machinery in consequence of "a strike" amongst the workmen, most frequently do injury, of greater or less duration, to that particular class which gave rise to them. As the injury to the men and to their families is almost always more serious than that which affects their employers, it is of the utmost importance to the comfort and happiness of the former class, that they should themselves entertain sound views upon this question. For this purpose a few illustrations of the principle which is here maintained, will probably have greater weight than any reasoning of a more general nature, though drawn from admitted principles of political economy. Such instances will, moreover, present the advantage of