To The Editor Of The Time...
Sir,-In refereniec to a letter written by my son and published in severalof the mmrning and evening papers of this day, relative to the effects which necessarily arise in society, as it is at present consti- tuted, oat of the gradual increase of scientific power, it becomes use- ful that I should state to the public some facts which are but little known, and whose influence in modifying every system of poGitical economy which shall apply to thepresent advanced stage of scientific knowledge, no one seemns to have dalv appreciated. It is very difficult to calculate tle whole amount of scientific power at present applied to produce wealth in this coantry. The following facts will give some idea of its extent:_ It was estimated about six. or seven years ago, by three of the most experienced cotton.spinners in Great Britain, that the quantity of cotton thread produced on an average by each worker, comdpared with that which one person could have spun on the single wheel, as was the praetice before the late inventions of Arkwrig'ht and others, wvas then as 120 to 1 ',-that is, one person pToduced as much as 120 could have produced previously to these inventions. There are now about 289,000 persons engaged in the spinning of cotton thread in this country. 280,000 multiplied by 120, gives 33,600,000 as the number of operatives who would have been required to produce as much cotton thread on the old plan as is spun in Great Britain at present. Political economists generally reckonu one in five a producer: but say one in three; then it follows, that it would require the work- ing part ofapopulation of more than 100,000,000 of human beings to produce on the old single wheel as mucli cotton thaead as 280,000 workers are enabled to manufacture, in consequentce of the mecha. nism by which they are assisted. Now the spinning of cotton-thread is only one particular branch of one particular manufacture. The same impwovementshave been made in wool and flax-spinning. Wenderful and continually in- creasing and improving machines arc employed in hundreds of other opcrations_-in weaving, bleaching, dying, printing, dressing, &c. every species of cloth for the garments of the world-in the various hardware manufactureg-in letter-press printing and engraving, and an endless catalogue of other operations, which were formerly pet. formned at an immense expense of time and labour by unassisted ma. nual power alone. Add to this the thousand steam-engines which are now working for us all over the kingdom, some of them of con. sidereble powers: there is one steam-engine at present sn.Cornwall, wvorking day and night, and of 260 horse power; now each horse power IS estimated as equal to that of aic men; and it would require three sets of men, eatch wiorking incessantly eight hours out of the 2J, to produce the same effect as this single steamerngine, whici thus performns the labour of 4,690 persons. * In consequence of sabsequent improvements applied to spaintng the propertlon is conslderably inereased since ehat time, anuL id now lrpbably,s 140or10r5toone. If we reflectfor a moment on tbeae facts, we shsl be conyinC4I that the mechaical power which ii now at work for OesS Irit -and t?eaWd alone, exceeig th4elect vhich.would- be 'roduced b; tke maitiiallb,ur of %e'reral hundt'e. tillionst of'active iut certainly of moie than the working.opuilation of the w -r1d Is it possible'. thlen, tmpress the follosiug question,too earnest1 on the autention or thfe Britith Cabinet and Legislatuxe,. en the al tention of the modern politiel economists andofthepubbc? '+ Se'I ing~that labo sr is admitted tob h ortlhnc l clhwt' ceeds, how does it happen, that with this enrmtts invsne otlf i bour at our control...-by which wealth may be cleateti mnore-thn suI4 ficientito maintisin in full comfort mruch inoeeth3nsix timnes our pe sent population)_thoo.antda of our fellow-subjects shimii yet eXitt in poventy and mlisery, and that the Irish peasant starvea for vWr''t of toed ?" And may we not conclide, that every system of poU'tic31 econo mv which overlooks the intluence.of this overwhelming and increas ing power, whatever merit mav attacb to it en account of ingenult'I and talent in other respects, is totally inapplicable to thepreseoi state of things in this -country ? W lien tbe public shall have time to re9ect upon thaes facts, xn, to trace the inevitable consequences to which they lead, then shal the means of applying this new power in piactice for thc relief o ' Ireland, and of the poor and working clawses in Great Britain, bi' made obvious to all. The modern political economists wil be ev.4 abled nor only to comprehend its applicability to the sltezed stati, of society, bait-also constrained to admit the absolute neceasit3 which exists for the change, to staJ the increasing wretchedneis olF the Irish pearsantry, and the p resent gradual descent of the 2rjti,l- labourcr to the same noint of deevadation. ,- ROBT. OWEN. I Pall-mall, June 2S, 1a24. - TO THJC EDITOR O' THE TIMEE.