Machinery of this class has increased our command over nature, but it has not directly altered the character of man's work very much; for that which it does he could not have done without it.But in other trades machinery has lightened man's labours.The house carpenters, for instance, make things of the same kind as those used by our forefathers, with much less toil for themselves.They now give themselves chiefly to those parts of the task which are most pleasant and most interesting; while in every country town and almost every village there are found steam mills for sawing, planing and moulding, which relieve them of that grievous fatigue which not very long ago used to make them prematurely old.(11*)New machinery, when just invented, generally requires a great deal of care and attention.But the work of its attendant is always being sifted; that which is uniform and monotonous is gradually taken over by the machine, which thus becomes steadily more and more automatic and self-acting; till at last there is nothing for the hand to do, but to supply the material at certain intervals and to take away the work when finished.There still remains the responsibility for seeing that the machinery is in good order and working smoothly; but even this task is often made light by the introduction of an automatic movement, which brings he machine to a stop the instant anything goes wrong.
Nothing could be more narrow or monotonous than the occupation of a weaver of plain stuffs in the old time.But now one woman will manage four or more looms, each of which does many times as much work in the course of the day as the old hand-loom did; and her work is much less monotonous and calls for much more judgment than his did.So that for every hundred yards of cloth that are woven, the purely monotonous work done by human beings is probably not a twentieth part of what it was.(12*)Facts of this kind are to be found in the recent history of many trades: and they are of great importance when we are considering the way in which the modern organization of industry is tending to narrow the scope of each person's work, and thereby to render it monotonous.For those trades in which the work is most subdivided are those in which the chief muscular strain is most certain to be taken off by machinery; and thus the chief evil of monotonous work is much diminished.As Roscher says, it is monotony of life much more than monotony of work that is to be dreaded: monotony of work is an evil of the first order only when it involves monotony of life.Now when a person's employment requires much physical exertion, he is fit for nothing after his work; and unless his mental faculties are called forth in his work, they have little chance of being developed at all.But the nervous force is not very much exhausted in the ordinary work of a factory, at all events where there is not excessive noise, and where the hours of labour are not too long.The social surroundings of factory life stimulate mental activity in and out of working hours; and many of those factory workers, whose occupations are seemingly the most monotonous, have considerable intelligence and mental resource.(13*)It is true that the American agriculturist is an able man, and that his children rise rapidly in the world.But partly because land is plentiful, and he generally owns the farm that he cultivates, he has better social conditions than the English; he has always had to think for himself, and has long had to use and to repair complex machines.The English agricultural labourer has had many great disadvantages to contend with.Till recently he had little education; and he was in a great measure under a semi-feudal rule, which was not without its advantages, but which repressed enterprise and even in some degree self-respect.These narrowing causes are removed.He is now fairly well educated in youth.He learns to handle various machinery; he is less dependent on the good-will of any particular squire or group of farmers; and, since his work is more various, and educates intelligence more than the lowest grades of town work do, he is tending to rise both absolutely and relatively.
7.We must now proceed to consider what are the conditions under which the economies in production arising from division of labour can best be secured.It is obvious that the efficiency of specialized machinery or specialized skill is but one condition of its economic use; the other is that sufficient work should be found to keep it well employed.As Babbage pointed out, in a large factory "the master manufacturer by dividing the work to be executed into different processes, each requiring different degrees of skill or force, can purchase exactly that precise quantity of both which is necessary for each process; whereas if the whole work were executed by one workman that person must possess sufficient skill to perform the most difficult and sufficient strength to execute the most laborious of the operations into which the work is divided." The economy of production requires not only that each person should be employed constantly in a narrow range of work, but also that, when it is necessary for him to undertake different tasks, each of these tasks should be such as to call forth as much as possible of his skill and ability.Just in the same way the economy of machinery requires that a powerful turning-lathe when specially arranged for one class of work should be kept employed as long as possible on that work; and if there is occasion to employ it on other work, that should be such as to be worthy of the lathe, and not such as could have been done equally well by a much smaller machine.
