rate so
far as the making of machinery is concerned. Statistics relating to
the number of those engaged in making machinery and tools show that
the proportion they bear to the whole working population is an
increasing one; but the rate of this increase is by no means
proportionate to the rate of increase in the use of machinery. While
the percentage of those engaged in making machinery and tools rises
from 1.7 in 1861 to 1.8 in 1871 and 1.9 in 1881, 2.0 in 1891, the
approximate increase of steam-power applied to fixed machinery and
locomotives shows a much more rapid rise,--from 2,100,000 horse-power
in 1860 to 3,040,000 in 1870 and 5,200,000 in 1880.[214] Moreover, an
increased proportion of machinery production is for export trade, so
that a large quantity of the labour employed in those industries is
not required to sustain the supply of machinery used in English work.
In repairs of machinery, the economy effected by the system of
interchangeable parts is one of growing magnitude, and tends likewise
to minimise the skilled labour of repair.[215]

Finally, it should be borne in mind that in several large industries
where machinery fills a prominent place, the bulk of the labour is not
directly governed by the machine. This fact has already received
attention in relation to railway workers. The character of the machine
certainly impresses itself upon these in different degrees, but in
most cases there is a large amount of detailed freedom of action and
scope for individual skill and activity.

Though the quality of intelligence and skill applied to the invention,
application, and management of machinery is constantly increasing,
practical authorities are almost unanimous in admitting that the
proportion which this skilled work bears to the aggregate of labour in
machine industry is constantly diminishing. Now, setting on one side
this small proportion of intelligent labour, what are we to say of the
labour of him who, under the minute subdivision enforced by machinery,
is obliged to spend his working life in tending some small portion of
a single machine, the whole result of which is continually to push
some single commodity a single step along the journey from raw
material to consumptive goods?

The factory is organised with military precision, the individual's
work is definitely fixed for him; he has nothing to say as to the plan
of his work or its final completion or its ultimate use. "The constant
employment on