The following statement by a Trade Union official is at once the most emphatic and most detailed of a considerable mass of information on this subject:-- "Folding and stitching machines have largely superseded female labour and men's labour too. _E.g._, A. (a certain weekly paper), if folded, etc., by hand, would employ thirty hands--now it is all done by machinery. B. (another similar paper) by hand would employ 100 girls and, say, twenty or thirty men--now no girl touches it except just to insert 'things,' _e.g._, advertisements, and men merely pack it; machinery does the rest. Even wrapping is done by machinery--one machine with one man does the work of eight men. At X. (a well-known London firm) ten folding machines do the work of 100 girls." As a matter of fact the papers referred to have been created by the cheap work of machines, and no labour has been displaced by their employment. They have rather increased the demand for labour. But the statement shows the efficiency of machinery worked under the best conditions. Another statement by a woman worker, typical of many others, is as follows: "Machinery is ruining the trade, and workers are being turned off; thirty were turned off a few months ago, and twenty more will have to go soon." This applies to a certain well-known London firm of bookbinders, and it is curiously corroborated by other investigators who found in other firms traces of the women discharged from this one. The firm's own statement, however, was that they had to turn away "ten hands (young ones), the other day, because of the introduction of folding machines"; but this information was received five months before the woman employed quoted above was seen.[79] [Footnote 79: An Edinburgh firm states that one folding machine can be managed by two girls and it does the work of eight women hand-folders. The firm does not state if it turned away hands, but it considered that there is too great a strain placed upon girls in watching this machine constantly, so their work is varied.] [Sidenote: Displacement.] That there is some displacement, either directly or by the substitution of younger workpeople, cannot be gainsaid with reference to particular processes. The class most affected is the sewers. The evidence in support of their displacement places it beyond dispute, and though the increased facility for sewing has created an extra demand for folding, and some sewers have turned to folding in consequence, this class as a whole has suffered by machinery. Folders have been less affected.