Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/371

Rh employment, must be admitted; and it has been maintained, by persons very competent to form an opinion on the subject, that they never produce that effect. The solution of this question depends on facts, which, unfortunately, have not yet been collected; and the circumstance of our not possessing the data necessary for the full examination of so important a subject, supplies an additional reason for impressing, upon the minds of all who are interested in such inquiries, the importance of procuring accurate registries, at various times, of the number of persons employed in particular branches of manufacture, of the number of machines used by them, and of the wages they receive.

(408.) In relation to the inquiry just mentioned, I shall offer some remarks upon the facts within my knowledge, and only regret that those which I can support by numerical statement are so few. When the Crushing Mill, used in Cornwall and other mining countries, superseded the labour of a great number of young women, who worked very hard in breaking ores with flat hammers, no distress followed. The reason of this appears to have been, that the proprietors of the mines, having one portion of their capital released by the superior cheapness of the process executed by the mills, found it their interest to apply more labour to other operations. The women, disengaged from mere drudgery, were thus profitably employed in dressing the ores, a work which required skill and judgment in the selection.

(409.) The increased production arising from alterations in the machinery, or from improved modes of using it, appears from the following table. A machine