ten men
formerly required, that with modern machinery one man can make as many
bottles as six men made formerly, that in the boot and shoe trade one
man can do the work five used to do, that "in the manufacture of
agricultural implements 600 men now do the work which fifteen or
twenty years ago required 2145, thus displacing 1515," and so
forth.[176] Now in some of these cases we shall find that the fall of
prices following such displacements has led to so large an increase of
demand that more persons are directly engaged in these industries than
before; in other cases this is not the case.

The following quotation from a speech made at the Industrial
Remuneration Conference in 1885 will present the most effective
criticism upon Professor Leone Levi's position:--

"In carpet weaving fifty years ago the workman drove the shuttle with
the hand, and produced from forty-five to fifty yards per week, for
which he was paid from 9d. to 1s. per yard, while at the present day a
girl attending a steam loom can produce sixty yards a day, and does
not cost her employer 1-1/2d. per yard for her labour. That girl with
her loom is now doing the work of eight men. The question is, How are
these men employed now? In a clothier's establishment, seeing a girl
at work at a sewing machine, he asked the employer how many men's
labour that machine saved him. He said it saved him twelve men's
labour. Then he asked, 'What would those twelve men be doing now?'
'Oh,' he said, 'they will be much better employed than if they had
been with me, perhaps at some new industry.' He asked, 'What new
industry?' But the employer could not point out any except
photography; at last he said they would probably have found employment
in making sewing machines. Shortly afterwards he was asked to visit
the American Singer Sewing Machine Factory, near Glasgow. He got this
clothier to accompany him, and when going over the works they came
upon the very same kind of machines as the clothier had in his
establishment. Then he put the question to the manager, 'How long
would it take a man to make one of these machines?' He said he could
not tell, as no man made a machine; they had a more expeditious way of
doing it than that--there would be upwards of thirty men employed in
the making of one machine; but he said 'if they were to make this
particular kind of machine, they would turn out one for every four
and a half days' work of each man in their employment.' Now, the