MACHINERY AND WAGES.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3236, 3 July 1879, Page 3

MACHINERY AND WAGES.

The substitution of machinery, for hand labour in the various branches of trade has been the text on which a number of the so called friends of the working man never weary of .founding lon# tirades against the oppression to which they endeavour to make the sons of labour think they are subjected by their employers. One of the latest exponents of the theory that the extended use of machinery is likely to lead to the ruin of tho labouring classes is the agricultui'al agitator, Joseph Arch, who, has publioly denounced the use of steam ploughs, steam threshing machines, and similar implements in farm work, as= tending to diminish, the value of hand; labour. It is difficult to prove the fallacy of the idea, but one

would think that if any country suffered I from a plethora of labour-saving inventions, or experienced lovsses from their adoption, it would bo America, where the one object of a citizen's life appears to be tp produce, some invention which shall take the. place of hand-labour. A recent number of the Scientific American contains some interesting figures to show the influence which the increasing use of machinery,has on the employment of!stork men and their wages. In the year 1870, it is stated that out of a total population of a littUjiarer jtwenty-three: millions,.!less than "Sue million workmen were employed in the various manufactories of the States^ whoße w.ages amounted in round numbers to ab* out £48,000,000. > Ten years la* er the population had increased to less than 31| i miljlio^s (or, by 35 per cent.); the work; .jmen employed to 1,310,000 (or by 37 per cent.);, and the w&ges to £70,000,000 (or 58 perj cent); while in 1870-the figures respectively showed an increase over 1860 of 23 per cent, in the population; 0f"54 per} centy>(ip ,the number of workmen j and iof;:'o.ver 100 per cent; in tlie'wafjpsi -jAt the. ■same- time,: the market price

of mSny manufactured commodities i {«■■■ '< much less than it was wheri •the •' ambiint of ; wages ; paid, / wns i-Bmaller'i "'alffipugh tjie pnce's,. ; of; raw| material haye 1 Jargely increased. For; instance, a pair of woman's boots cost! two dollars before t\\e. introduction oi; sewinjf'machinesi'whiro'faef same articles now cost a dollar and a balf. A 9imjlar inquiry into the relative jgrowth,of poppla-j tion, of wbrttben emplqy i fid,,and of w*i,Re.S paid in^ rEnelatlid m'ttie 1 last twenty or, thirty years would well repay the., labour'; involved in the collection of the necessaryi statiaticsV and" would through"much lightj on the meritskof the too frequent djsputesi between capual and labour.—Olobe.,, !

Safe Criticism.-—President '-Lincoln 1 listened patiently while a friend read a long manuscript to him, and who then asked, "What 1 do you think of it Pi How 'will it take ?" The president •reflected a little'while, and then answered, "Well, for. people who like that kind,, of thing'! think that that is; just about the iina^of thing they'd like."