LABOUR-SAVING MACHINERY AND

EMPLOYMENT

IN the June number of The Nineteenth Century there appeared an article entitled 'Will Disarmament bring Peace?' by Mr. Howard Little. Part of it was devoted to considering the improbability of the risk of war being diminished by reduced armaments, and the author pointed out that the immediate effect of reducing armaments would be to increase unemployment. When the Government of a country require fewer munitions, the workers usually engaged in their production lose their employment, and help to swell the large army of 'out-of-works.' Competition and commercial rivalry then become more keen, and the animosity and friction engendered by these rivalries are as likely to cause war-although the fighting forces may have been reduced-as in the days when the race for armaments was maintained. This argument may be sound or not, and it is not intended in this article to deal with that side of the question, but rather to discuss the deductions and statements made about the effect of laboursaving machinery on employment.

About half the article is given to an examination of the results of the introduction of labour-saving machinery on the labour market, and the author is convinced that the results are harmful and permanent. He writes:

We are constantly told by so-called economists that such inventions do not create unemployment. This paradox is said to be explained by the simple assertion that when the product is cheapened the demand for it increases; therefore more employment will soon be available. Unfortunately, however, these high authorities omit all mention of cases where increased employment has actually come into being as a result of the continued use of such devices. A very little reflection makes it clear that in all industries the modern trend for unemployment is to increase.

The best statistics of unemployment available over a long period are the returns supplied by the trade unions. These figures do not include the whole of the workers in our industries, but they do include a very large proportion of the skilled workers who would be most affected by labour-saving machinery, and are indicative of the whole trade of the country.

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The great development of labour-saving machinery has taken place in the last fifty or sixty years covered by the above table, and it is evident that, whatever may be the immediate effect of the introduction of this machinery, the ultimate effect is not to create the serious unemployment the author expects. The (number of unemployed rises and falls with the state of trade, and is affected by various internal and external influences, and fluctuates throughout the whole period. If the complete tables be examined it will be found that there is no general increase in the percentage of unemployment, in spite of the changed methods of production.

The author of the article then states that a new machine will enable one workman to do the work that was formerly produced by ten men at least, and in some cases one operator can do the work of one hundred men. He bases his argument, however, on the lowest figure of one producer doing the work of ten men, and thus nine men are unemployed, unless the output and consumption of the goods are multiplied ten times. It seems scarcely reasonable to fix the productivity at ten times as the minimum increase due to all labour-saving machinery. The average increase is probably much less than ten times for each machine; but if the capacity for output of each worker be compared over a number of years, the growth may be much greater owing to the gradual 1 introduction of many new types of machines. The tendency of invention in manufacture is to advance gradually, and the new machines usually only affect a portion of the workers in an industry. The cost of that particular part or process carried out by the new machine is reduced, and the demand for the whole product of the factory is stimulated owing to the lessened price. The result is that though employment may be reduced in one section of the trade or factory, it is increased in the others, owing

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to the larger output. The introduction of new machinery is not immediate and universal in any industry. The conservatism of manufacturers, the want of sufficient capital to purchase new and expensive machinery, and the natural hesitation to buy plant until it has been proved to be efficient, all tend to delay the abandonment of the older methods, and help to ease the position of the workers who are liable to be displaced. In all industries it is possible to find good, bad and indifferent methods of production in the factories, and the absence in many of them of the modern labour-saving machinery is proof of the above statement that the transformation is slow and progressive.

The cotton trade is particularly referred to in the article:

To what factories can the economists point saying: 'Here is the truth of our contention proved in this industry'? Even the cotton trade, which was seriously improved on scientific principles seventy years ago, cannot yet furnish evidence of the soundness of the contention.

The evidence will clearly show that in the cotton trade the invention of labour-saving machinery has not led to less labour being employed, but to a very great increase in the number of operatives. Chevalier made some careful inquiries into the cotton trade, and he estimated that, owing to the use of machinery, one workman spinning cotton in 1840 produced as much as 320 men before 1769. In 1855 he estimated that, owing to improved laboursaving machinery, one workman was producing as much as 700 workers previous to 1769, the year in which Arkwright patented his first spinning machine. This enormous change in a worker's capacity had not led to decreased, but to increased, employment, and it is instructive to compare the returns of factory inspectors of the number of cotton operatives from 1835 to 1901, a period when invention was steadily replacing hand labour by machinery. In addition we have had to face the competition of the United States, the Continent, and India, where a very large number of cotton factories have been erected. OPERATIVES IN COTTON FACTORIES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

The population of the United Kingdom in 1831 was 24,028,584, and in 1911 it had risen to 45,221,615. In other words, while the population had not doubled in eighty years, the number of cotton

operatives had more than trebled, in a period in which there had been an extraordinary development of labour-saving machinery. What clearer proof is needed that in spite of, or rather because of, the greater use of machinery, the number of workers in an industry is increased, and as the price of the commodity is reduced the consumption is stimulated?

Reference is also made to a firm of motor-car builders, which in all probability is Ford's immense organisation. The author states that a car in that factory only requires 13l. 10s. worth of labour in its construction, and 'as the men are very highly paid, this means even less employment than the price of the labour suggests.' Surely low labour costs and high weekly earnings are not to be deplored! Is not the criterion of the value of an industry to the community the usefulness and efficiency of the services provided? In little more than twenty years the huge Ford factories have been developed, over 50,000 people are employed, and about one complete car is turned out every minute of every working day in the year. If the mass-production methods had not been adopted in the Ford factories, the cost would have been much higher, and the demand for the cars much less and fewer workmen employed. The effect on employment owing to the labour-saving machinery used in these factories cannot be gauged by the number of workers directly employed. As a result of the enormous output, coal and iron miners are working hard hundreds of miles away, steel furnaces and copper smelters are busy, and cotton operatives, paint and varnish makers, rubber and silk producers, machine tool manufacturers, railwaymen and retail salesmen are all employed because the cost of the Ford car is low, and the public demand for it is stupendous.

Two other industries in which labour-saving machinery has been largely introduced will show that, in spite of the new methods, the persons employed have increased both absolutely and relatively to the growth of the population in the country. The complete statistics of the Census of 1921 have not yet been published, and therefore the comparison is limited to the years 1871 to 1911, a period of numerous inventions and improvements.

POPULATION OF ENGLAND AND Wales.

In the engineering trade great changes have been made in the

VOL. XCIV-No. 559

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last thirty or forty years, and the use of high-speed steel for cutting-tools, of turret lathes, screw and gear-cutting mechanisms and other inventions, has made it possible for one man to do now the work that formerly was done by several men. In spite of these changes, the number of persons employed in England and Wales as engine and machine makers, millwrights, fitters, turners, tool-makers, watch-makers, etc., is as follows:

1881

1891

1901

507,782

22,738

530,520

1911

564,994

In the printing trade similar improvements have been made, not by one sweeping change that has revolutionised the industry, but by the continuous invention of machines that carry out a process or a part of a process with less labour than formerly. The last forty years have seen the invention of composing machines by which one man can set as many letters as five or six men working by hand. The growth in the size and the speed of the printing machinery, and the use of many automatic appliances, have probably increased the output per person employed in printing sheets to nearly the same extent. The modern novel is now bound by a series of complicated machines, whereas some forty years ago all the processes except two or three were carried out by hand. Under the conditions of hand labour it needed the work of about 450 women and of about 600 men for an hour to produce 5000 cloth-bound novels of the usual size. By the use of labour-saving machinery the same work can now be done by about 130 women and about 170 men in an hour, i.e., what formerly required approximately 1050 hours of labour to produce is now completed in approximately 300 hours.

The increase in the output of newspapers per man employed is as great as or greater than in other forms of printing. The printing industry shows how necessary it is, when considering the effect of machinery on employment, not to examine only the actual trade or part of the trade concerned, but to consider the reaction owing to increased output on the industries that are allied to it. The much greater use of machinery in the printing industry has coincided with improved education, and the cheapening of books and newspapers has caused a very large increase in the number of persons engaged as booksellers and newspaper dealers to distribute the greater output made possible by the use of machinery.