Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/245

CHAP. XXII.

ON THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF LARGE FACTORIES.

(263.) On examining the analysis which has been given in Chap. XIX. of the operations in the art of pin-making, it will be observed, that ten individuals are employed in it, and also that the time occupied in executing the several processes is very different. In order, however, to render more simple the reasoning which follows, it will be convenient to suppose that each of the seven processes there described requires an equal quantity of time. This being supposed, it is at once apparent, that, to conduct an establishment for pin-making most profitably, the number of persons employed must be a multiple of ten. For if a person with small means has only sufficient capital to enable him to employ half that number of persons, they cannot each of them constantly adhere to the execution of the same process; and if a manufacturer employs any number not a multiple of ten, a similar result must ensue with respect to some portion of them. The same reflection constantly presents itself on examining any well-arranged factory. In that of Mr. Mordan, the patentee of the ever-pointed pencils, one room is devoted to some of the processes by which steel pens are manufactured. Six fly-presses are here constantly at work;—in the first a sheet of thin