s referred to by the large majority of
correspondents in all parts of the country. With the exception of the
self-binding harvester, which was introduced into this country in the
eighties, few machines for the performance of a specific manual
operation have perhaps been invented since 1891 (unless milking
machines, shearing machines, and perhaps potato diggers come within that
category), but whereas twenty years ago labor saving machinery was fully
employed by comparatively few, it has now become almost universal on all
holdings of sufficient size to make its use practicable. The
substitution of mechanical for horse or hand power, for mixed machinery,
e.g., threshing machines, chaff cutters, pumps, etc., has taken place
largely, although it has made comparatively little progress for tractive
purposes. It may indeed, be questioned if steam is so largely employed
in the cultivation of land as it was twenty years ago. But the
displacement of manual labor arising from the greatly extended use of
drills, horse hoes, mowers, binders, manure distributors and the like
must have been in the aggregate very great and probably to this more
than to any other single cause the reduced demand for farm laborers may
be attributed."[24] As Professor Marshall has remarked of such cases of
competition for employment between labor and capital as this, the
competition is in reality between one kind of labor aided by much
waiting, and another kind of labor aided by little waiting.
Nevertheless, the fact of competition between the various groups or
agents is a fact of no mean importance in distribution. As has already
been suggested, the efficiency of the wage earners plays a part in
determining their field of employment in this competition for
employment.

Secondly, the simpler statements of the action of the factor of relative
plenty and scarcity, such as are represented by the marginal
diagrammatic expositions familiar in economics, obscure the fact that
distribution is a process in which human wills are actively engaged. The
constant assertion of will is a real force in the working out of
distribution. Each group with a claim to a share of the product, by
organization, agitation, and other tricks of the market place strives to
forward its interest. It explores, by pressure upon the price mechanism
and otherwise, the full extent of the dependence of the industrial
system upon it or its product, as when monopolists control prices, or a
trade