y them. Perhaps you think that if there
was no machinery and we all had to work thirteen or fourteen hours a
day in order to obtain a bare living, we should not be in a condition
of poverty? Talk about there being something the matter with your
minds! If there were not, you wouldn't talk one day about Tariff Reform
as a remedy for unemployment and then the next day admit that Machinery
is the cause of it! Tariff Reform won't do away with the machinery,
will it?'

'Tariff Reform is the remedy for bad trade,' returned Crass.

'In that case Tariff Reform is the remedy for a disease that does not
exist. If you would only take the trouble to investigate for yourself
you would find out that trade was never so good as it is at present:
the output--the quantity of commodities of every kind--produced in and
exported from this country is greater than it has ever been before.
The fortunes amassed in business are larger than ever before: but at
the same time--owing, as you have just admitted--to the continued
introduction and extended use of wages-saving machinery, the number of
human beings being employed is steadily decreasing. I have here,'
continued Owen, taking out his pocket-book, 'some figures which I
copied from the Daily Mail Year Book for 1907, page 33:

'"It is a very noticeable fact that although the number of factories
and their value have vastly increased in the United Kingdom, there is
an absolute decrease in the number of men and women employed in those
factories between 1895 and 1901. This is doubtless due to the
displacement of hand labour by machinery!"

'Will Tariff Reform deal with that? Are the good, kind capitalists
going to abandon the use of wages-saving machinery if we tax all
foreign-made goods? Does what you call "Free Trade" help us here? Or
do you think that abolishing the House of Lords, or disestablishing the
Church, will enable the workers who are displaced to obtain employment?
Since it IS true--as you admit--that machinery is the principal cause
of unemployment, what are you going to do about it? What's your remedy?'

No one answered, because none of them knew of any remedy: and Crass
began to feel sorry that he had re-introduced the subject at all.

'In the near future,' continued Owen, 'it is probable that horses will
be almost entirely superseded by motor cars and electric trams. As the
services of horses will be no longer required, all but a few of those
animals will be caused