SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
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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 work 
less 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