XXVI 
INTRO D UCTION 
possess great technical knowledge, and have the will necessary 
to make himself obeyed by his numerous employés ; he must 
know the needs of foreign countries, the extent of the market, 
and the vicissitudes of commerce, not only in his own im 
mediate neighbourhood, but over the entire globe. For to-day 
all countries are mutually dependent, and a crisis occurring even 
over the seas, in either hemisphere, re-echoes everywhere in ruins 
and failures. By his education, his position, his way of life, by 
the very necessity of exercising his authority, the head of a 
factory belongs to quite another world from that in which the 
operatives move. His Christian feelings as a man may lead 
him to regard them as brothers ; nevertheless, he has nothing 
in common with them, they are strangers to each other. In 
vain he may wish to increase their wages or improve their 
condition, he cannot do it. Competition forces him, in spite 
of himself, to reduce the cost of production as much as 
possible. 
The relations which the present industrial system has 
established between capitalist and labourer have been detailed 
with perfect exactness by the celebrated mechanical engineer 
and manufacturer, James Nasmyth, in his evidence before the 
committee appointed in England to inquire into trades-unions. 
He showed that it was for the advantage of trade that large 
numbers of workmen should be seeking employment, because 
the price of labour is thus lowered and with it the cost of 
production. He added that he had frequently increased 
his profits by putting apprentices to work in the place of 
grown-up workmen. When asked what he supposed had 
become of the workmen thus dismissed, and their families, he 
replied, “ I do not know j I can only leave it to the action of 
those natural laws which govern society.” In speaking thus, 
Nasmyth formulated the purely economic doctrine. Chris 
tianity, however, would have used other language. 
Thus, while perfecting its methods and extending the use 
of machinery and division of labour, the large system of 
manufacture has improved the condition of the lower classes 
by giving them cheaper goods, but at the same time the gulf 
that separates capitalist and labourer has been increased. The