but that the same tendency occurs in the staple processes of manufacture:  either there is an absolute decline in employment, as in the textile and dress trades, or the rate of increase is considerably slower than that of the occupied class as a whole, indicating a relative decline of importance.  This tendency is greatest where machinery is most highly developed—­that is to say, machinery has kept out of these industries a number of workers who in the ordinary condition of affairs would have been required to assist in turning out the increased supply.  The recent increase of population has been shut out of the staple industries.  They are not therefore compelled to be idle.  Employment for these has been found chiefly in satisfying new wants.  But industries engaged in supplying new wants, i.e. new comforts or new luxuries, are obviously less steady than those engaged in supplying the prime necessaries of ordinary life.

Thus while it may be true that the ultimate effect of the introduction of machinery is not to diminish the demand for labour, it would seem to operate in driving a larger and larger proportion of labour to find employment in those industries which from their nature furnish a less steady employment.  Again, though the demand for labour may in the long run always keep pace with the growth of machinery, it is obvious that the workers whose skill loses its value by the introduction of machinery must always be injured.  The process of displacement in particular trades has been responsible for a large amount of actual hardship and suffering among the working-classes.

It is little comfort to the hand-worker, driven out to seek unskilled labour by the competition of new machinery, that the world will be a gainer in the long run.  “The short run, if the expression may be used, is often quite long enough to make the difference between a happy and a miserable life."[13] Philosophers may reckon this evil as a part of the inevitable price of progress, but it is none the less deplorable for that.  Society as a whole gains largely by each step; a small number of those who can least afford to lose, are the only losers.

The following quotation from an address given at the Industrial Remuneration Congress in 1886, puts the case with admirable clearness—­“The citizens of England are too intelligent to contend against such cheapening of production, as they know the result has been beneficial to mankind; but many of them think it is a hardship and injustice which deserves more attention that those whose skilled labour is often superseded by machinery, should have to bear all the loss and poverty through their means to earn a living being taken away from them.  If there is a real vested interest in existence which entitles to compensation in some form when it is interfered with, it is that of a skilled producer in his trade; for that skill has not only given him a living, but has added to the wealth and prosperity of the community."[14] The quantity of labour displaced by machinery and seeking new employment, forms a large section of the margin of unemployed, and will form an important factor in the problem of poverty.