Thus while it may be true that the ultimate effect of the introduction
of machinery is not to diminish the demand for labour, it would seem to
operate in driving a larger and larger proportion of labour to find
employment in those industries which from their nature furnish a less
steady employment. Again, though the demand for labour may in the long
run always keep pace with the growth of machinery, it is obvious that
the workers whose skill loses its value by the introduction of machinery
must always be injured. The process of displacement in particular trades
has been responsible for a large amount of actual hardship and suffering
among the working-classes.
It is little comfort to the hand-worker, driven out to seek unskilled
labour by the competition of new machinery, that the world will be a
gainer in the long run. "The short run, if the expression may be used,
is often quite long enough to make the difference between a happy and a
miserable life."[13] Philosophers may reckon this evil as a part of the
inevitable price of progress, but it is none the less deplorable for
that. Society as a whole gains largely by each step; a small number of
those who can least afford to lose, are the only losers.
The following quotation from an address given at the Industrial
Remuneration Congress in 1886, puts the case with admirable
clearness--"The citizens of England are too intelligent to contend
against such cheapening of production, as they know the result has been
beneficial to mankind; but many of them think it is a hardship and
injustice which deserves more attention that those whose skilled labour
is often superseded by machinery, should have to bear all the loss and
poverty through their means to earn a living being taken away from them.
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