Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/406

372 possess much more skill, and are paid much more highly than that class who merely use it and, if a free exportation were allowed, the more valuable class would, undoubtedly, be greatly increased; for, notwithstanding the high rate of wages, there is no country in which it can at this moment be made, either so well or so cheaply as in England. We might, therefore, supply the whole world with machinery, at an evident advantage, both to ourselves and our customers. In Manchester, and the surrounding district, many thousand men are wholly occupied in making the machinery, which gives employment to many hundred thousands who use it; but the period is not very remote, when the whole number of those who used machines, was not greater than the number of those who at present manufacture them. Hence, then, if England should ever become a great exporter of machinery, she would necessarily contain a large class of workmen, to whom skill would be indispensable, and, consequently, to whom high wages would be paid; and although her manufacturers might probably be comparatively fewer in number, yet they would undoubtedly have the advantage of being the first to derive profit from improvement. Under such circumstances, any diminution in the demand for machinery, would, in the first instance, be felt by a class much better able to meet it, than that which now suffers upon every check in the consumption of manufactured goods; and the resulting misery would therefore assume a mitigated character.

(446.) It has been feared, that when other countries have purchased our machines, they will cease to