AND ON THE CONTINENT.
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remaining production in respect, to quantity since 1871. It isunanimously considered that a further lowering of wages forlessening the cost of production is inadmissible if the labour-powershall not be lessened and the bodily as well as spiritual welfare ofthe workers endangered” (22).
If we now search for some foundation of the tenet advanced, theproofs—in agreement with the present method of science—canonly be historical and psychological. With regard to the his-torical element we refer the reader to Chapter I., and to theuplifting development of certain working classes from a. sociallydeeply submerged mill proletarianism which is there depicted. Inthe psychological aspect the following appears to be noticeable.
We have to start from the fact that the enormous increase ofproduction which we observed depends in the first degree upon themachine. Labour has not become more burdensome in the sameproportion as the production has increased; much rather is thereal bodily exertion less. The mule-spinner does not work 2,000times as intensely as the active hand-spinner, nor the weaver onthe power-loom 40 times as hard as the untiring hand-weaver, andstill his production outweighs that of the latter in the proportiongiven (23). “In the year 1840,” said E. Atkinson, in a lecturebefore the female cotton-weavers at Providence, “the work washard and continuous—13 hours per day; to-day you can comband smooth your hair whilst the loom runs almost by itself; thehours of labour amount to 10” (24). Alongside of the operativethere now’ stands a powerful companion in labour—the labour-genius of generations which is embodied in the machinery.
Formerly that operative had the greatest result who moved hishands most continuously. With perfected mechanical arrange-ments that operative produces the most who has to interfere theleast with his hands, and knows how r to curtail these interferencesto the shortest space of time. For the machine changes in con-tinuous process the raw’ material into the finished article. Theinterference of the operative means the eliminating of disturbingelements, and an attendant less production. The chief thing to