Wages Heightened by Improvement in Machinery
It is stated, in a Report of the Commissioners appointed in 1832 to inquire concerning the employment of women and children in factories, that “in the cotton-mill of Messrs. Houldsworth, in Glasgow, a spinner employed on a mule of 336 spindles, and spinning cotton 120 hanks to the pound, produced in 1823, working 74½ hours a week, 46 pounds of yarn, his net weekly wages for which amounted to 27s. 7d. Ten years later, the rate of wages having in the meantime been reduced 13 per cent., and the time of working having been lessened to 69 hours, the spinner was enabled by the greater perfection of the machinery to produce on a mule of the same number of spindles, 53½ pounds of yarn of the same fineness, and his net weekly earnings were advanced from 27s. 7d. to 29s. 10d.” Similar results from similar circumstances were experienced in the Manchester factories. The cheapening of the article produced by help of machinery increases the demand for the article; and there being consequently a need for an increased number of workmen, the elevation of wages follows as a matter of course. Nor is this the only benefit which the working-man derives in the case, for he shares with the community in acquiring a greater command over the necessities which machinery is concerned in producing.—G. R. Porter.