The greatest cure hitherto found is inherent in the system itself. For when the work is such that it is done by a human machine, the step is not far distant when a machine will be actually invented, with a surer grip of the material, a readier tool for piercing, a straighter edge for cutting. This process is going on in every department of manufacture. Boards are planed, picture frames carved, table legs made, mouldings cut by machinery. Watches and sewing machines are made of interchangeable parts, each the product of a machine. The only limit to the taking over of every manufacture by machines seems to be that a large output is necessary to make it pay to invent and manufacture and sell costly machines. So great have been the triumphs of many-fingered machinery that we are not inclined to limit them. Thus, most of the monotonous, and most of the physically laborious work is done by the man of steel. For every textile operative in the country rather more than one horse power is provided by steam; which is equal to the strength of ten adult men. Self-feeding furnaces are similarly saving of human flesh and eyesight. Thus our manual workers have largely become makers and minders of machines. To help to make a machine, to watch and repair it, and take care of it--even to understand it and to feed it, is a not unworthy form of labour. To care for a complex machine requires intelligence and a wide-awake sense of responsibility. It is much better, at any rate, than hand-loom weaving was, or than nail-making by hand, or match-box-making is. Even so mechanical a task as working a sewing machine, poor as it is, may be a trifle less soul-destroying than working with a needle at plain sewing all day. And though minding looms is monotonous, yet they turn out so much more cloth per operative, that the evil of monotony of which we speak is probably a very small percentage per yard produced, of what it was when weaving was done in the weavers’ cottages by hand. It is therefore in extending machinery for all articles which have no individual artistic value that we shall get rid of most of the lower and more degrading forms of labour--machinery for ploughing, sowing, reaping, binding, thrashing, dairying, laundry work, baking, cooking, cutting straight and smoothing clean, grinding and polishing, and for the processes of printing. These are true friends of man.