y or thirty years ago than at the present
moment--I moan the introduction of machinery into industries formerly
carried on to a large extent by hand. One of the most conspicuous
characteristics of the present century is the ever-increasing extent
to which inventions of all kinds have invaded almost every department
of industry. As far as the young are concerned, those inventions have
been on the whole a benefit, and what used to be hard work has become,
as Professor Alfred Marshall recently said, merely looking on. But the
case stands differently with workmen who are surprised by some new
invention at a period of life when the power of adaptability to a
fresh set of industrial circumstances is almost entirely gone. One of
the first consequences of a new invention may be, and often is, that
work which had hitherto been performed by men can now be done by women
and boys; or an occupation which had formerly taken years to learn can
now be mastered in a few weeks. In other cases the new machine is able
to do the work of twenty, fifty, or a hundred men; the article
produced is so immensely cheapened that the old handicraftsman is
driven out of the field; if he is a man entering into years, and
therefore unable to turn his hand to something else, the bread is
practically taken out of his mouth, and the machine, which is
undoubtedly a benefit to the community as a whole, means starvation to
him as an individual. When such circumstances occur, and positive
proof in abundance can be adduced to show that they do take place, the
position of the aged worker becomes a very hard and embarrassing one.
He finds it a very uphill task to change the whole course of his
industrial activities at a period of life when nature has lost much of
her elasticity; the new means he has had to adopt in order to earn a
livelihood are irksome to him; the diminished sum he is now able to
earn per week depresses his spirits and deprives him of certain little
comforts he had long been accustomed to enjoy; but in spite of these
unforeseen and unexpected hardships it is marvellous to see how nobly
working-men, as a rule, struggle on to the end, like a bird with a
broken wing. There are, however, cases in which the struggle is given
up. It would be impossible to enumerate all the causes which lead to
such a deplorable result; sometimes these causes are personal,
sometimes they are social, while in many instances they are a
combination of both. But, whatever s