It must be remembered that so far as the class of job hands is concerned, they owe their present position in a large measure to factory legislation. By utilising them, the employer has been able to meet a sudden press of work, and yet to comply with the provisions of the law, so that, without the legislation of which they now complain, many of them would not have found employment. Moreover, job hands are not numerous when compared with regular workers, and the provisions in the Factory Acts which seem to bear hardly on casual labour have rightly been passed in the interest of the permanent staff. To accede to the demand for greater elasticity is to suppose a higher code of morals on the part both of employers and of employed than experience justifies, and it would also render necessary a far more elaborate and irritating system of inspection than at present exists. The efficiency of modern factory industry depends very greatly upon automatic working--upon its standardisation of conditions, and the existing factory law with its inelastic provisions is, in reality, a great aid in maintaining those conditions of efficiency. Now and again an employer complains of some hard experience, and forgets that a departure from rigid rule would destroy the certainty which he feels that the law is treating him exactly as it is his competitors. Such a feeling of security is essential to business enterprise. CHAPTER VII. _WOMEN AND MACHINERY._ There is a general opinion amongst the women workers themselves that the introduction of machinery has ruined these trades for them. But we have found that certain opinions prevail, not because they have stood the test of investigation, but because they are passed round, and have never been subjected to enquiry. We have already referred to the question in a general way.[77] [Footnote 77: P. 48.] [Sidenote: Effect of machinery.] The impression of workers that machinery is displacing them, must be received with a great deal of reserve as they rarely take long or broad views. Mechanical aid is very imperfect in most of these trades, and in book folding, envelope making, black bordering, etc., its use has hitherto been greatly restricted owing to the nature of the work. The census figures, moreover, seem to be pretty conclusive that, taking the trade as a whole, machinery cannot have had such a very destructive influence upon women's employment.[78] [Footnote 78: An old-established publisher commits himself to the statement that machinery has increased women's work by 20 per cent. The manager of a leading Scottish paper and stationery firm stated, with reference to envelope making: "The use of machinery is always extending; but only in the direction of increasing the output; there has been no displacing of workers; the result has been rather to increase their employment."]