For the rest, the following documents, which I take from the same
source, will give a more positive idea of the influence of
industrial improvements upon the condition of the workers.
The average weekly wages, at Manchester, is ten shillings. Out
of four hundred and fifty workers there are not forty who earn
twenty shillings.
The author of the article is careful to remark that an Englishman
consumes five times as much as a Frenchman; this, then, is as if
a French workingman had to live on two francs and a half a week.
"Edinburgh Review," 1835: "To a combination of workmen (who did
not want to see their wages reduced) we owe the mule of Sharpe
and Roberts of Manchester; and this invention has severely
punished the imprudent unionists."
PUNISHED should merit punishment. The invention of Sharpe and
Roberts of Manchester was bound to result from the situation; the
refusal of the workmen to submit to the reduction asked of them
was only its determining occasion. Might not one infer, from the
air of vengeance affected by the "Edinburgh Review," that
machines have a retroactive effect?
An English manufacturer: "The insubordination of our workmen has
given us the idea of DISPENSING WITH THEM.
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