Principles of Political EconomyPerry, Arthur Latham
General
Principles of Political Economy
Perry, Arthur Latham
Economics
If the curiosity of our supposed observer be whetted by what he saw on
London Bridge, and if the natural impulse to generalize from
particulars be deepened in his mind, he may perhaps on his return to
America take an opportunity to see what he can see and learn what he
can learn within and around one of the mammoth cotton mills in Lowell
or Fall River or Cohoes. Should he take his stand for this purpose at
one of these points, say Lowell, he will be struck at once by some of
the differences between what he saw on the bridge and what he now sees
in the mill. He will indeed see as before some commodities brought in
and carried out, such as the raw cotton and new machinery and the
finished product ready for sale, but in general no other commodities
than the cotton in its various stages of manufacture, and those like
the machinery and means of transportation directly connected with
transforming the cotton into cloth and taking it to market.
But he sees a host of persons both within and without the mill, all
busy here and there, and all evidently bound to the establishment by a
strong unseen tie of some sort; he sees varying degrees of authority
and subordination in these persons from the Treasurer, the apparent
head of the manufactory, down to the teamsters in the yard and the
common laborers within and without; he will not find the owners of
the property present in any capacity, for they are scattered
capitalists of Boston and elsewhere, who have combined through an act
of incorporation their distinct capitals into a "Company" for
manufacturing cotton; besides their Treasurer present, whose act is
their act and whose contracts their contracts, he will see an Agent
also who acts under the Treasurer and directly upon the Overseers and
their assistants in the spinning and weaving and coloring and
finishing rooms, and under these Operatives of every grade as skilled
and unskilled; and lastly he will observe, that the direct
representatives of the owners and all other persons present from
highest to lowest are conspiring with a will towards the common end of
getting the cotton cloth all made and marketed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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