ented, they may get bad wages, and perhaps go to
the workhouse in old age. Thus, the hand-weavers in Spitalfields would
continue weaving by hand, instead of learning to weave by steam power,
and the case is somewhat the same with the hand-nailers of South
Staffordshire. But when the younger workmen of a trade are wise and
foreseeing enough to adopt a new invention as soon as it is successful,
they are never injured, and usually much benefited by it. Seamstresses
in England received wretchedly poor wages before the introduction of the
American sewing machine, and they thought they would be starved
altogether when the same work could be done twenty times as fast by
machine as by hand. The effect, however, has been just of the opposite
kind. Those who were not young, skilful or wise enough to learn
machine-sewing, receive better wages for hand-sewing than they would
formerly have done. The machine sewers earn still more, as much in many
cases as 20s. a week. The explanation of this is that, when work is
cheapened, people want much more of it. When sewing can be done so
easily, more sewing is put into garments, and the garments being
cheapened, more are bought. At the same time a good deal of the sewing,
and finishing, and fitting, cannot be done by machinery, and this
furnishes plenty of employment for those who cannot work machines.

If masons were to employ machines for cutting stone, they would be
benefited like the seamstresses, instead of being injured. The cost of
cutting stone by hand is now so great that people cannot build many
stone buildings, nor use stone to decorate brick buildings, unless they
are wealthy people. Were the dressing of stone much cheapened by the aid
of machinery, a great deal more stone would be used, and the masons,
instead of labouring at the dull work of cutting flat surfaces, would
find plenty of employment in finishing, and carving, and setting the
machine-shaped stones. I have not the least doubt that, in addition to
those engaged in working the machines, there would in the end be more
masons wanted after the general introduction of machines than before.
With type-setters the same thing will happen, if they take betimes to
the new type-composing machines. It is true that a man with the aid of a
good machine can set types several times as fast as without. But though
the wages paid for setting a certain number of types might thus be
reduced, so many more books, pamphlets, newspapers, and do