‘- WORK AND WEALTH 
increased share of the labour employed in close connection with 
the machinery is that of the skilled engineer or fitter rather than 
of the mere tender. The heaviest and the most costly labour in 
these trades is usually found in the processes where it has not 
been found practicable or economical to apply machinery. In- 
deed, the general tendency, especially noticed in America, in the 
metal trades, has been to substitute for a large employment of 
skilled hand labour of a narrowly specialised order, a small em- 
ployment of more skilled and responsible supervisors of machin- 
ery and a large employment of low-skilled manual labour in the 
less mechanical departments, such as furnace work and other 
operations preparatory to the machine processes. 
§ 2. Though accurate statistics are not available, it appears 
that in this country the proportion of the working population 
employed in manufactures is not increasing, and it is more than 
probable that an exact analysis of the nature of the work of 
our factories and workshops would show that the proportion 
engaged in direct attendance on machinery was steadily fall- 
ing. 
For even in manufacture, the department of industry where 
machine processes have made most advance, there are many 
processes where hand labour is still required, in sorting and pre- 
paring materials for machinery, in performing minor processes 
of trimming or decoration, in putting together parts or in pack- 
ing, etc. Where female labour is employed, a very large propor- 
tion of it will be found to be engaged in such processes outside 
the direct dominion of machinery. Though most of the distinc- 
tively human ‘costs’ of machine processes, the long hours, high 
pace, monotony of muscles and nerve strain, are usually present 
in such work, it is not absolutely mechanical, some slight ele- 
ments of skill and volitional direction being present. 
There are other restrictions upon the purely repetitive or 
routine character of manufacture. There is much work which 
no machine can be invented to do because of certain inherent 
elements of irregularity. Most of these are related to the organic 
nature of some of the materials used. Where expensive animal 
or vegetable products require treatment, their natural inequali- 
ties often render a purely mechanical operation impossible or 
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