THE  DISPLACED  WORKER  AND  ANOTHER  TRADE  43
transport  services.  A  railway-porter,  a  warehouseman,
a  man  accustomed  to  drive  and  to  care  for  horses,  has  a
large  and  I  think  an  ever  larger  range  of  employments
open  for  him.
In  mercantile  and  retail  industry  the  writing  clerk  and
the  shop  assistant  are  serviceable  by  reason  of  certain  capacities ­
  of  quick  perception,  accuracy,  and  address  which
belong  to  trade  in  general  rather  than  to  any  specific
trade.  The  increased  proportion  of  the  labour  of  the
community  which  is  engaged  in  distribution  and  in  transport ­
  tends  here  to  assign  more  importance  to  the  common  as
distinguished  from  the  special  elements  of  labour  power.
But  there  is  some  reason  to  believe  that  as  machinery
obtains  larger  control  over  those  branches  of  industry,  the
subdivision  of  labour  which  prevails  in  manufacture  will
find  its  way  there  also,  reducing  the  extent  of  the  present
transferability  of  labour.
The  labour  of  the  railway  worker  and  of  the  “sailor”
on  a  steamship  is  more  specialised  than  the  work  of  the
coachman  and  the  sailor  on  a  sailing-vessel  which  they
have  displaced.  We  therefore  cannot  look  with  confidence ­
  to  the  operation  of  new  economic  forces  to  secure
greater  regularity  of  work  by  means  of  improved  transferability ­
  of  labour.
§  8.  Can  the  Displaced  Worker  Take  up
Another  Trade?
Even  if  it  be  admitted  that  a  special  process  in  modem
industry  (especially  in  manufacture)  does  not  generally
require  so  much  time  and  energy  to  acquire  as  formerly,
and  that  a  man  can  thus  more  easily  give  up  one  special
work  and  fit  himself  for  another,  it  by  no  means  follows