smaller than the value added by the workman to the product with his tool, there is always a difference of labour saved in favour of the machine. The productiveness of a machine is therefore measured by the human labour-power it replaces. According to Mr. Baynes, 24 operatives are required for the 450 mule spindles, inclusive of preparation machinery,[1] that are driven by one-horse power; each self-acting mule spindle, working ten hours, produces 18 ounces of yarn (average number or thickness); consequently 24 operatives spin weekly 36558 lbs. of yarn. Hence, leaving waste on one side, 366 lbs. of cotton absorb, during their conversion into yarn, only 150 hours' labour, or fifteen days' labour of ten hours each. But with a spinning-wheel, supposing the hand-spinner to produce thirteen ounces of yarn in sixty hours, the same weight of cotton would absorb 2700 days' labour of ten hours each, or 27,000 hours' labour.[2] Where block printing, the old method of printing calico by hand, has been superseded by machine printing, a single machine prints, with the aid of one man or boy, as much calico of four colours in one hour, as it formerly took 200 men to do.[3] Before Eli Whitney invented the cotton-gin in 1793, the separation of the seed from a pound of cotton cost an average day's labour. By means of his invention one negress was enabled to clean 100 lbs. daily; and since then, the efficacy of the gin has been considerably increased. A pound of cotton wool, previously costing 50 cents to produce, included after that invention more unpaid labour, and was consequently sold with greater profit, at 10 cents. In India they employ for separating the wool from the seed, an instrument, half machine, half tool, called a churka; with this one
- ↑ According to the annual report (1863) of the Essen chamber of commerce, there was produced in 1862, at the cast-steel works of Krupp, with its 161 furnaces, thirty-two steam-engines (in the year 1800 this was about the number of all the steam-engines working in Manchester), and fourteen steam-hammers (representing in all 1236 horse-power), forty-nine forges, 208 tool-machines, and about 2400 workmen—thirteen million pounds of cast steel. Here there are not two workmen to each horse-power.
- ↑ Babbage estimates that in Java the spinning labour alone adds 117% to the value of the cotton. At the same period (1832) the total value added to the cotton by machinery and labour in the fine spinning-industry, amounted to about 33% of the value of the cotton. ("On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures," pp. 204-205.)
- ↑ Machine printing also economises colour.
