Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/374

340 steam engines to drive it, and in devising improvements in the structure of the looms, as well as in regulating the economy of the establishment, is of a much higher order than that which it had assisted in superseding; and if we possessed any means of measuring this, it would probably be found larger in amount. Nor, in this view of the subject, must we omit the fact, that although hand-looms would have increased in number if those moved by steam had not been invented, yet it is the cheapness of the article manufactured by power-looms which has caused this great extension of their employment, and that by diminishing the price of one article of commerce, we always call into additional activity the energy of those who produce others. It appears that the number of hand-looms in use in England and Scotland in 1830, was about 240,000; nearly the same number existed in the year 1820: whereas the number of power-looms which, in 1830, was 55,000, had, in 1820, been 14,000. When it is considered that each of these power-looms did as much work as three worked by hand, the increased producing power was equal to that of 123,000 hand-looms. During the whole of this period the wages and employment of hand-loom weavers have been very precarious.

(413.) Increased intelligence amongst the working classes, may enable them to foresee some of those improvements which are likely for a time to affect the value of their labour; and the assistance of Savings Banks and Friendly Societies, (the advantages of which can never be too frequently, or too strongly, pressed upon their attention,) may be