514 LAISSEZ FAIRE 
characteristic feature is that it is an application of power, and 
not of human exertion. Hence the introduction of machinery 
always has a very direct bearing on the position of the 
labourer. From one point of view we may say that it saves 
him from drudgery; from another, that it forces upon him the 
strain of a competition in which he is overmatched, and thus 
gradually deprives him of employment. The invention of 
new processes and new implements has not such a necessary 
and direct result on the employment and remuneration of 
labour as occurs with the introduction of machines. So far 
as the wealth of the realm was concerned, the development of 
the coal and iron trades was of extraordinary importance, but 
she substitution of mechanical inventions for hand labour in 
the textile trades brought about a revolution in social life 
throughout the country. 
244. Though the changes effected by the industrial revo- 
‘ution have been so startling, it may yet be said, when we view 
them from an economic standpoint, that they were of un- 
sxampled violence rather than wholly new. After all, the 
age of mechanical invention was only one phase of a larger 
movement. We have traced the gradual intervention of capital 
in industry and agriculture, especially during the eighteenth 
sentury; we shall now have to note the operation of the same 
force, but at a greatly accelerated pace. Capitalism obtained 
a footing and held its ground in the cloth trade’, because of 
the facilities which the wealthy man enjoyed for purchasing 
materials, or for meeting the markets. Other trades, such 
as coal mining or iron manufacture, had been necessarily 
capitalistic in type from the earliest days, because none but 
wealthy men were able to purchase expensive plant, and to 
en TUD the risks of setting it up. The invention of mechanical 
os Lg appliances for the textile trades gave a still greater advantage 
ism. to the rich employer, as compared with the domestic weaver, 
since only substantial men could afford to employ machines. 
It was a farther sign of the triumph of the modern system of 
business management. 
It is worth while to distinguish some of the principal 
changes in connection with labour, which resulted from the 
increase of capitalist organisation and especially from machine 
1 See pp. 499 and 505 above. 
A.D. 1776 
—1850. 
had such 
marked 
results as 
the substi- 
tution of 
machinery 
for hand 
labour. 
The tntro- 
luction of 
machines 
and led to 
increased