Dunoyer tells us, "there were established between
Pecq and a multitude of places in the more or less immediate
vicinity such a number of omnibus and stage lines that this
establishment, contrary to all expectation, has considerably
increased the employment of horses."
CONTRARY TO ALL EXPECTATION! It takes an economist not to
expect these things. Multiply machinery, and you increase the
amount of arduous and disagreeable labor to be done: this
apothegm is as certain as any of those which date from the
deluge. Accuse me, if you choose, of ill-will towards the most
precious invention of our century,--nothing shall prevent me from
saying that the principal result of railways, after the
subjection of petty industry, will be the creation of a
population of degraded laborers,--signalmen, sweepers, loaders,
lumpers, draymen, watchmen, porters, weighers, greasers,
cleaners, stokers, firemen, etc. Two thousand miles of railway
will give France an additional fifty thousand serfs: it is not
for such people, certainly, that M.
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