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—“ Whilst the engine runs the people must work. Men, women,and children are yoked together with iron and steam. Theanimal machine—breakable in the best case, subject to a thou-sand sources of suffering, changeable every moment—is chainedfast to the iron machine, which knows no suffering and no weari-ness.” (31). It is noteworthy how here the machine, as such, isaccused of inhumanity; the almost mathematical precision whichit requires from the worker is pictured as unendurable tyranny.In all the labour movements of the first ten years of the centurythe hatred of the masses turned against machinery.
But gradually a change came—a change by reason of economic-al progress. It was in the “ thirties ” that, on the field of theoldest Centralised Industry, international competition marchedfor the first time. If England would conquer it must lower thecosts of production. How was this possible? No longer by press-ing down the worker, because these were already reduced to theminimum of life’s wants. The only means for economical victorylay, therefore, in technical improvement, as also in the lesseningof the number of workers employed in comparison with thework accomplished. Both led to continuous lowering of piece-work prices, which was decisive in the battle of competition, and,on the other hand, raised the weekly earnings of the individualworker. Similarly, as one could not put better tools in the handsof slaves, neither were the increasingly complicated and morevaluable machines to be trusted to miserable factory proletarians.In order to increase the speed of the spindle, to raise the numberof spindles to be tended, and to lessen the number of operativesper spinning mill, a worker with a higher standard of living wasnecessary. Thus the unmeasured services of the serfs
became measured, and from the latter came freedom, from thetrade working slave the free craftsman, from the servant of themaster the journeyman of the Guild; the servant rose, but themaster had more than before. In the same manner, also, theeconomical need raised the worker of Centralised Industry.
This development on the part of the worker appears to havebeen followed hv a psychological change similar to
that which had produced the modern employer.
Whilst the man of the Middle Ages was born to
his standard of living, his wants authoritatively defined—
31. Dr. Kay: “On the Moral and Physical Conditions of the WorkingClasses ” (Manchester, p. 24). Similarly: Gohre: “ Drei Monate Fahrik-arheiter ” (Leipzig, 1891).