Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/335

Rh (364.) Similar examples must have presented themselves to all those who are familiar with the details of our manufactories, but these are sufficient to illustrate one of the results of combinations. It would not, however, be fair to push the conclusion deduced from these instances to its extreme limit. Although it is very apparent, that in the two cases which have been stated, the effects of combination were permanently injurious to the workman, by almost immediately placing him in a lower class (with respect to his wages) than he occupied before; yet they do not prove that all such combinations have this effect. It is quite evident that they have all this tendency; it is also certain that considerable stimulus must be applied to induce a man to contrive a new and expensive process; and that in both these cases, unless the fear of pecuniary loss had acted powerfully, the improvement would not have been made. If, therefore, the workmen had in either case combined for only a small advance of wages, they would, in all probability, have been successful, and the public would have been deprived, for many years, of the inventions to which these combinations gave rise. It must, however, be observed, that the same skill which enabled the men to obtain, after long practice, higher wages than the rest of their class, would prevent many of them from being permanently thrown back into the class of ordinary workmen. Their diminished wages will continue only until they have acquired, by practice, a facility of execution in some other of the more difficult operations:But a diminution of wages, even for a year or two, is still a very serious inconvenience to