to
the progress of mechanical invention, or to the rate at which that
progress may be effected. If certain preliminary difficulties in the
general application of electricity as a motor can be overcome, there
is every reason to believe that, with the improved means of rapidly
communicating knowledge we possess, our factory system may be
reorganised and labour displaced far more rapidly than in the case of
steam, and at a rate which might greatly exceed the capacity of labour
to adjust itself to the new industrial conditions. At any rate we are
not at liberty to take for granted that the mobility of labour must
always keep pace with the application of new and labour-disturbing
inventions. Since we are not able to assume that the market will be
extended _pari passu_ with the betterment in methods of production, it
is evident that improvements in machinery must be reckoned as a normal
cause of insecurity of employment. The loss of employment may be only
"temporary," but as the life of a working man is also temporary, such
loss may as a disturbing factor in the working life have a
considerable importance.

Sec. 5. (_b_) Whether machinery, apart from the changes due to its
introduction, favours regularity or irregularity of employment, is a
question to which a tolerably definite answer can be given. The
structure of the individual factory, with its ever-growing quantity of
expensive machinery, would seem at first sight to furnish a direct
guarantee of regular employment, based upon the self-interest of the
capitalist. Some of the "sweating" trades of London are said to be
maintained by the economy which can be effected by employers who use
no expensive plant or machinery, and who are able readily to increase
or diminish the number of their employees so as to keep pace with the
demands of some "season" trade, such as fur-pulling or artificial
flowers. When the employer has charge of enormous quantities of fixed
capital, his individual interest is strongly in favour of full and
regular employment of labour. On this account, then, machinery would
seem to favour regularity of employment. On the other hand, Professor
Nicholson has ample evidence in support of his statement that "great
fluctuations in price occur in those commodities which require for
their production a large proportion of fixed capital. These
fluctuations in prices are accompanied by corresponding fluctuations
in wages and irregularity of employment."[192] In a w