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METHODS OF SOCIAL A‘EFORM.
Trades Societies have, I believe, ceased any such opposition ;
and if they wish to advanae tho social and intellectual condition
of their fellow-men they will urge upon them to favour
macbinery. Every step achieved in the use of machinery
raises man abovo a mer0 labourer, and makes him an intellectual
agent, capable of ruling the things &out him. In
America they view the use of machinery in a very different
light, and all classes welcome the introduction of a Iaboursaving
machine because it means the suppIy of more of thc
conveniences of life at diminished cost and trouble. There
was D remarkablo account in The New York Tribune lately of a
now machine, wllich enables a single workman to mako 60,000
fish-hooks in a clay. It remarks, “That the fish-hooks are
chcaper than any other need hnrilly be added. Hitherto the
Amoricans havo fished with British-made hooks, but that day
is over. Tho European hooks have till now been made by
hand-slowly, c1nmsily, expensively. lye read recently an
account in The (British) Worki,tg-mnn of the fish-hook rnanufacture
in Ex~gland, which seems, in the light of what me
8aw in Nemhaven, the description of some antediluvian process
invented by Tubal Cain. ‘l’he aggregate cost must be ten
times that of making by tho automatic Crosby process.”
Porhaps you will say that the English artizan thinks of his
fellow-men and objects to seeing the hand-hook makers
thrown out of work. If so, perhaps he may bo induced to
look o little further, and remember the much more extensive
class of fishermen who will be bonefited by having cheap
hooks. He may even look n little further, and observe that
the supply of fish is really the object in view, and that any
invention which enables us to catch fish more cheaply and
plentifully than before is a lasting good to the whole popa-
Iation,
H.
And now before concluding let me say in a few words how
I think you may most surely advance the condition of your
order. It is not by fighting against capital and againsk
machinery, but by having them on your side. Do not lay