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the  complex  labourer  in  the  above  case  will  exchange  for  no
more  than  that  of  the  simple  labourer,  although  the  capitalist,
who  is  usually  credited  with  cunning,  has  expended  three  times
the  amount  of  wages  in  procuring  it.  If,  as  would  appear
from  the  corresponding  passage  in  Das  Kapital,  the  meaning
is  that,  in  the  case  of  skilled  labour,  the  cost  of  education  or
apprenticeship  must  be  taken  into  consideration,  it  may  be
replied  that  this  cost,  if  spread  over  the  average  working-life
of  the  skilled  labourer,  would  by  no  means  eat  up  the  excess
of  his  wages  over  those  of  the  ordinary  labourer.  And  in  the
next  place,  the  duration  of  time  of  this  apprenticeship,  added
to  the  duration  of  the  working-life  of  the  skilled  labourer,
would  by  no  means  measure  the  far  greater  value  of  his
aggregate  product  as  compared  with  the  value  of  the  aggregate
product  of  the  ordinary  labourer.
As  to  machines,  Mr.  Hyndman  says  that  they  add  no  value
to  the  commodities  produced  beyond  the  equivalent  of  the
wear  and  tear  of  the  machine,  or,  in  other  words,  the  amount
of  labour  needed  to  put  the  machine  in  as  good  a  condition  as
before.  Of  course,  if  the  same  quantity  of  human  labour  is
employed,  he  admits  that  the  machine  produces  a  far  greater
amount  of  wealth  ;  but  none  of  it,  he  maintains,  goes  to  the
workers.  On  the  contrary,  by  aiding  in  the  accumulation  of
capital,  machinery  merely  serves  to  rivet  tighter  their  chains.
Both  the  direct  and  the  indirect  effect  of  machines  is  to
depreciate  the  value  of  labour-force.  Their  introduction  turns
labourers  out  of  employment  with  less  aptitude  for  work  of  a
different  nature,  and  thus  creates  a  permanent  over-population
in  the  face  of  increasing  wealth—“  an  industrial  army  of
reserve  ”  ready  to  be  absorbed  by  capital  “  into  the  whirl  of
production  during  times  of  expansion  only  to  be  thrown  workless ­
  on  the  streets  in  periods  of  collapse.”  There  is  absolutely
no  redeeming  feature.  True,  machinery  lowers  the  price
of  commodities,  but,  so  far  as  this  affects  the  labourer,  wages  are
reduced  by  the  same  amount,  leaving  a  relatively  larger  surplus
value  for  the  capitalist.
Much  of  what  Mr.  Hyndman  says  as  to  the  effects  of
machinery  and  the  large  industrial  system  on  the  operatives  is