Capital Volume I
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Capital-Volume-I
Nota bene. My illustration is entirely on the lines of those given by the above named economists.
345 Chapter 15 134 A disciple of Ricardo, in answer to the insipidities of J. B. Say, remarks on this point: “Where division of labour is well developed, the skill of the labourer is available only in that particular branch in which it has been acquired; he himself is a sort of machine. It does not therefore help matters one jot, to repeat in parrot fashion, that things have a tendency to find their level. On looking around us we cannot but see, that they are unable to find their level for a long time; and that when they do find it, the level is always lower than at the commencement of the process.” (“An Inquiry into those Principles Respecting the Nature of Demand,” &c., Lond. 1821, p. 72.) 135 MacCulloch, amongst others, is a past master in this pretentious cretinism. “If,” he says, with the affected naïveté of a child of 8 years, “if it be advantageous, to develop the skill of the workman more and more, so that he is capable of producing, with the same or with a less quantity of labour, a constantly increasing quantity of commodities, it must also be advantageous, that he should avail himself of the help of such machinery as will assist him most effectively in the attainment of this result.” (MacCulloch: “Princ. of Pol. Econ.,” Lond. 1830, p. 166.) 136 “The inventor of the spinning machine has ruined India, a fact, however, that touches us but little.” A. Thiers: De la propriété. — M. Thiers here confounds the spinning machine with the power-loom, “a fact, however, that touches us but little.” 137 According to the census of 1861 (Vol. II., Lond., 1863), the number of people employed in coal mines in England and Wales, amounted to 246,613 of which 73,545 were under, and 173,067 were over 20 years. Of those under 20, 835 were between 5 and 10 years, 30,701 between 10 and 15 years, 42,010 between 15 and 19 years. The number employed in iron, copper, lead, tin, and other mines of every description, was 319, 222. 138 In England and Wales, in 1861, there were employed in making machinery, 60,807 persons, including the masters and their clerks, &c., also all agents and business people connected with this industry, but excluding the makers of small machines, such as sewing-machines, &c., as also the makers of the operative parts of machines, such as spindles. The total number of civil engineers amounted to 3,329. 139 Since iron is one of the most important raw materials; let me here state that, in 1861, there were in England and Wales 125,771 operative iron founders, of whom 123,430 were males, 2,341 females. Of the former 30,810 were under, and 92,620 over 20 years. 140 “A family of four grown-up persons, with two children as winders, earned at the end of the last, and the beginning of the present century, by ten hours’ daily labour, £4 a week. If the work was very pressing, they could earn more.... Before that, they had always suffered from a deficient supply of yarn.” (Gaskell, l.c., pp. 25-27.) 141 F. Engels, in “Lage, &c.,” points out the miserable condition of a large number of those who work on these very articles of luxury. See also numerous instances in the “Reports of the Children’s Employment Commission.” 142 In 1861, in England and Wales, there were 94,665 sailors in the merchant service. 143 Of these only 177,596 are males above 13 years of age. 144 Of these, 30,501 are females. 145 Of these, 137,447 males. None are included in the 1,208,648 who do not serve in private houses. Between 1861 and 1870 the number of male servants nearly doubled itself. It increased to 267,671. In the year 1847 there were 2,694 gamekeepers (for the landlords’ preserves), in 1869 there were 4,921. The young servant girls in the houses of the London lower middle class are in common parlance called “slaveys.” 146 Ganilh, on the contrary, considers the final result of the factory system to be an absolutely less number of operatives, at whose expense an increased number of “gens honnêtes” live and develop 346 Chapter 15 their well-known “perfectibilité perfectible.” Little as he understands the movement of production, at least he feels, that machinery must needs be a very fatal institution, if its introduction converts busy workmen into paupers, and its development calls more slaves of labour into existence than it has suppressed. It is not possible to bring out the cretinism of his standpoint, except by his own words: “Les classes condamnées à produire et à consommer diminuent, et les classes qui dirigent le travail, qui soulagent, consolent, et éclairent toute la population, se multiplient ... et s’approprient tous les bienfaits qui résultent de la diminution des frais du travail, de l’abondance des productions, et du bon marché des consommations. Dans cette direction, l’espéce humaine s’élève aux plus hautes conceptions du génie, pénètre dans les profoundeurs mystérieuses de la religion, établit les principes salutaires de la morale (which consists in ‘s’approprier tous les beinfaits,’ &c.), les lois tutélaires de la liberté (liberty of ‘les classes condamnées à produire?’) et du pouvoir, de l’obéissance et de la justice, du devoir et de la l’humanité.” [The classes condemned to produce and to consume diminish, and the classes which direct labour, which relieve, console and enlighten the whole population, multiply ... and appropriate all the benefits which result from the diminution of the costs of labour, from the abundance of products and the cheapness of consumer goods. In this way, the human species rises to the highest creations of genius, penetrates the mysterious depths of religion, and establishes the salutory principles of morality, the laws for the protection of liberty, and power, of obedience and justice, of obligation and humanity] For this twaddle, see “Des Systèmes d’Economie Politique, &c., Par M. Ch. Ganilh,” 2ème ed., Paris, 1821, t. I, p. 224, and see p. 212. 147 “Reports of Insp. of Fact., 31 Oct., 1865,” p. 58, sq. At the same time, however, means of employment for an increased number of hands was ready in 110 new mills with 11,625 looms, 628,576 spindles and 2,695 total horse-power of steam and water (l.c.). 148 “Reports, &c., for 31 Oct., 1862,” p. 79. At the end of 1871, Mr. A. Redgrave, the factory inspector, in a lecture given at Bradford, in the New Mechanics’ Institution, said: “What has struck me for some time past is the altered appearance of the woollen factories. Formerly they were filled with women and children, now machinery seems to do all the work. At my asking for an explanation of this from a manufacturer, he gave me the following: ‘Under the old system I employed 63 persons; after the introduction of improved machinery I reduced my hands to 33, and lately, in consequence of new and extensive alterations, I have been in a position to reduce those 33 to 13’.” 149 See “Reports, &c., 31 Oct., 1856,” p. 16. 150 “The sufferings of the hand-loom weavers were the subject of an inquiry by a Royal Commission, but although their distress was acknowledged and lamented, the amelioration of their condition was left, and probably necessarily so, to the chances and changes of time, which it may now be hoped” [20 years later!] “have nearly obliterated those miseries, and not improbably by the present great extention of the power-loom.” (“Rep. Insp. of Fact., 31 Oct., 1856,” p. 15.) 151 Other ways in which machinery affects the production of raw material will be mentioned in the third book. 152 EXPORT OF COTTON FROM INDIA TO GREAT BRITAIN.1846. —34,540,143 lbs.1860. —204,141,168 lbs.1865. —445,947,600 lbs.EXPORT OF WOOL FROM INDIA TO GREAT BRITAIN.1846. —4,570,581 lbs.1860. —20,214,173 lbs.1865. — 20,679,111 lbs. 153 EXPORT OF WOOL FROM THE CAPE TO GREAT BRITAIN.1846. —2,958,457 lbs.1860. —16,574,345 lbs.1865. —29,920,623 lbs.EXPORT OF WOOL FROM 347 Chapter 15 AUSTRALIA TO GREAT BRITAIN.1846. —21,789,346 lbs.1860. —59,166,616 lbs.1865. —109,734,261 lbs. 154 The economic development of the United States is itself a product of European, more especially of English modern industry. In their present form (1866) the States must still be considered a European colony. [Added in the 4th German edition. — “Since then they have developed into country whose Download 6.24 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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