342 LAISSEZ FAIRE
but at all events, the incident brings out a special form of
injury to which labour might be exposed by the adoption
of machines, through the shifting of employment from one
class of labourers to another, and the loss which fell on the
skilled workman.
The So far as this and other branches of the cotton trade was
puality of concerned, the introduction of machinery had tended not
oo by only to an immense increase of the quantities produced, but
the dnire- ; to an improvement of the quality. A machine can go on
machinery turning out a perfectly regular yarn, in a way that very few
in fingers are capable of doing, and the possibilities of error
wades: in power weaving and steam printing are reduced to a
minimum. There are many wares which lose all artistic
interest, when they are turned out by machinery, but cotton
yarn is not one of them; the deftest spinners had cultivated a
mechanical precision, and the new machinery carried the
spinners’ art to a high degree of perfection. From every
point of view the economic advantage of the new develop-
ments was incontestable.
Lyon 251. The conditions of the woollen trades were in many
the 5, respects very different from those of the cotton manufacture.
ik 0 As a consequence, the effects of the introduction of machinery
of the were very dissimilar in the two great branches of textile
trad= industry. It is also true that the course of the transition in
A.D. 1776
—=1850.
London, but that a due proportion of journeymen were employed there. In
ourteen shops there were 37 apprentices to 216 journeymen (Reports, 18034,
y. 596). It is still more startling to find that the Manchester calico printers in
(815 had a very strong combination and were able to insist on the trade being
managed as they desired. One of the employers thus addressed the men: “ We
have by terms conceded what we ought all manfully to have resisted, and you
slated with success have been led on from one extravagant demand to another, till
the burden is become too intolerable to be borne. You fix the number of our
apprentices, and oftentimes even the number of our journeymen. You dismiss
certain proportions of our hands, and will not allow others to come in their stead.
You stop all Surface Machines, and go the length even to destroy the rollers
before our face. You restrict the Cylinder Machine, and even dictate the kind of
pattern it is to print. You dismiss our overlookers when they don’t suit you, and
lorce obnoxious servants into our employ. Lastly, you set all subordination and
good order at defiance, and instead of showing deference and respect to your
smployers, treat them with personal insult and contempt.” Considerations
addressed to the Journeyman Calico Printers by one of their Masters, quoted by
8. and B. Webb, History of Trade Unionism, 67. On the support which this
combination received from other trades, see a pamphlet, to which Mr Webb kindly
salled my attention, by W. DD. Evans, entitled Charge to the Grand Jury, pp. b, 17
