Mechanical Labor

M' . Robert Dale Owen f ayg thatin 1835 bis father put down theaggregate of me;hanical force as equal the labor of tour hundred raillion adults, and estimates by recent English statisticians, brought up to the present time, vary from five hunired to seven hundred. millions. Wa tnay safely assumo tho mean of these estimates - sis hundred millions - as clogely approxiinating the truth to-day. But tho population of the world is, in round nuinbers, twelvo hundred millions; and the usual cstimata of the produotira manual labor of a country is that it does not exceed that of a number of adult workinen equal to oneone-fourth of its population. Thus the daily labor of three hündrsd million. adulta representa the productiva manual power of tho world. It follows that Great Britain and Ireland's labor saving machinery equals, in productiva action, tho manual labor power of two worlds a3 populous as this. It follows, further, the Britisk Isles is lcss than thirty millions, that seven millions and a half of adults represent the number of living operativos who control and insnipulato that prodigious araount of animate force. ThuB, in nid of tho manual labor of seven and a half millions of human workmen, Great Britain may bo said to have imported, f rom tho vast regions of invention, sis hundred millions of powerful and passive slaves- slaves that consuma neithor l'ood nor clothing ; slaves _ that sleep not, weary not, sicken not : tic slaves tliat aram suuierraiinnu iu..oo in thoir rnaster's service, or set in motion, at a touch from his hand, machinery under which the hugc and solid buildings that contain it groan and shake; ingenious slaves that outrival, in the delicacy of their operations, the tonch of man, and put to shame the best exertions oL his steadiness and accuracy. yet slaves patiënt, submissive, obedient, from whpm no rebellion need be feared, who can not suffer cruelty nor experience pain. i m il -