The Evolution of Modern Capitalism: A Study of Machine Production. J. A. Hobson
System, p. 61).
[45] Baines, History of the County Palatine of Lancashire, vol. ii. p. 413.
[46] Ure, History of Cotton Manufacture, vol. i. p. 224, etc.
[47] Dr. Aikin, History of Manchester (quoted Baines, p. 406).
[48] Taylor, The Modern Factory System, p. 69.
[49] Economic History, vol. ii. p. 237.
[50] Defoe, Tour, vol. iii. p. 89.
[51] Report from the Committee on the Woollen Manufacture of England, (1806).
[52] Tour, vol. ii. p. 35.
[53] For an interesting account of the cunning devices of "factors" see Smith's Memoirs of Wool, vol. ii. p. 311, etc.
[54] Cf. Booth, Labour and Life of the People, vol. i. p. 486, etc.
[55] Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, p. 55.
[56] Cunningham, vol. ii. p. 350.
[57] Wealth of Nations, Bk. V., chap. i., part 3.
CHAPTER III.ToC
THE ORDER OF DEVELOPMENT OF MACHINE INDUSTRY.
§ 1. A Machine differentiated from a Tool.
§ 2. Machinery in Relation to the Character of Human Labour.
§ 3. Contributions of Machinery to Productive Power.
§ 4. Main Factors in Development of Machine Industry.
§ 5. Importance of Cotton-trade in Machine Development.
§ 6. History refutes the "Heroic" Theory of Invention.
§ 7. Application of Machinery to other Textile Work.
§ 8. Reverse order of Development in Iron Trades.
§ 9. Leading Determinants in the General Application of Machinery and Steam-Motor.
§ 10. Order of Development of modern Industrial Methods in the several Countries—Natural, Racial, Political, Economic.
§ 1. It appears that in the earlier eighteenth century, while there existed examples of various types of industrial structure, the domestic system in its several phases may be regarded as the representative industrial form. The object of this chapter is to examine the nature of those changes in the mechanical arts which brought about the substitution of machine-industry conducted in factories or large workshops for the handicrafts conducted within the home or in small workshops, with the view of discovering the economic bearing of these changes.
A full inductive treatment would perhaps require this inquiry to be prefaced by a full history of the inventions which in the several industries mark the rise of the factory system and the adoption of capitalist methods. This, however, is beyond the scope of the present work, nor does it strictly belong to our scientific purpose, which is not to write the narrative of the industrial revolution, but to bring such analysis to bear upon the records of industrial changes as shall enable us to clearly discern the laws of those changes.
The central position occupied by machinery as the chief material factor in the modern evolution of industry requires that a distinct answer should be given to the question, What is machinery?
In distinguishing a machine from a mere tool or handicraft implement it is desirable to pay special attention to two points, complexity of structure and the activity of man in relation to the machine. Modern machinery in its most developed shape consists, as Karl Marx points out, of three parts, which, though mechanically connected, are essentially distinct, the motor mechanism, the transmitting mechanism, and the tool or working machine.
"The motor mechanism is that which puts the whole in motion. It either generates its own motive power, like the steam-engine, the caloric engine, the electro-magnetic machine, etc., or it receives its impulse from some already existing natural force, like the water-wheel from a head of water, the windmill from wind, etc. The transmitting mechanism, composed of fly-wheels, shafting, toothed wheels, pullies, straps, ropes, bands, pinions, and gearing of the most varied kind, regulates the motion, changes its form where necessary, as, for instance, from linear to circular, and divides and distributes it among the working machines. These two first parts of the whole mechanism are there solely for putting the working machines in motion, by means of which motion the subject of labour is seized upon and modified as desired."[58]
Although the development of modern machinery is largely concerned with motor and transmitting mechanisms, it is to the working machine we must look in order to get a clear idea of the differences between machines and tools. A tool may be quite simple in form and action as a knife, a needle, a saw, a roller, a hammer, or it may embody more complex thought in its construction, more variety in its movement, and call for the play of higher human skill. Such tools or implements are the hand-loom, the lathe, the potter's-wheel. To these tools man stands in a double relation. He is handicraftsman in that he guides and directs them by his skill within the scope of activity to which they are designed. He also furnishes by his muscular activity the motive force with which the tool is worked. It is the former of these two relations which differentiates the tool from the machine. When the tool is removed from the direct and individual guidance of the handicraftsman and placed in a mechanism which governs its action by the prearranged motion of some other tool or mechanical implement, it ceases to be a tool and becomes part of a machine. The economic advantage of the early machines consisted chiefly in the economy of working in combined action a number of similar tools by the agency of a single motor. In the early machine the former tool takes its place as a central part, but its movements are no longer regulated by the human touch.[59] The more highly evolved modern machinery generally represents an orderly sequence of processes by which mechanical unity is given to the labour once performed by a number of separate individuals, or groups of individuals with different sorts of tools. But the economy of the earlier machines was generally of a different character. For the most part it consisted not in the harmonious relation of a number of different processes, but rather in a multiplication of the same process raised sometimes to a higher size and speed by mechanical contrivances. So the chief economic value of the earlier machinery applied to spinning consisted in the fact that it enabled each spinner to work an increased number of spindles, performing with each the same simple process as that which he formerly performed with one. In other cases, however, the element of multiplication was not present, and the prime economy of the machine