valuable, both for the guidance of the parties who are themselves most interested, and to enable them, upon any application to government for assistance, or with a view to legislative enactments, to supply those details, without which the propriety of any proposed measure cannot be duly estimated.  Such details may be collected by men actually engaged in any branch of trade, at a much smaller expense of time, than by persons less acquainted with, and less interested in it.

360.  One of the most legitimate and most important objects of such associations as we have just mentioned, is to agree upon ready and certain modes of measuring the quantity of work done by the workmen.  For a long time a difficulty upon this point existed in the lace trade, which was justly complained of by the men as a serious grievance; but the introduction of the rack, which counts the number of holes in the length of the piece, has entirely put an end to the most fertile cause of disputes.  This invention was adverted to by the Committee of 1812, and a hope was expressed, in their report, that the same contrivance would be applied to stocking-frames.  It would, indeed, be of great mutual advantage to the industrious workman, and to the master manufacturer in every trade, if the machines employed in it could register the quantity of work which they perform, in the same manner as a steam-engine does the number of strokes it makes.  The introduction of such contrivances gives a greater stimulus to honest industry than can readily be imagined, and removes one of the sources of disagreement between parties, whose real interests must always suffer by any estrangement between them.

361.  The effects arising from combinations amongst the workmen, are almost always injurious to the parties themselves.  There are numerous instances, in which the public suffer by increased price at the moment, but are ultimately gainers from the permanent reduction which results; whilst, on the other hand, the improvements which are often made in machinery in consequence of ‘a strike’ amongst the workmen, most frequently do injury, of greater or less duration, to that particular class which gave rise to them.  As the injury to the men and to their families is almost always more serious than that which affects their employers, it is of the utmost importance to the comfort and happiness of the former class, that they should themselves entertain sound views upon this question.  For this purpose a few illustrations of the principle which is here maintained, will probably have greater weight than any reasoning of a more general nature, though drawn from admitted principles of political economy.  Such instances will, moreover, present the advantage of appealing to facts known to many individuals of those classes for whose benefit these reflections are intended.

362.  There is a process in the manufacture of gun barrels for making what, in the language of the trade, are called skelps.  The skelp is a piece or bar of iron, about three feet long, and four inches wide, but thicker and broader at one end than at the other; and the barrel of a musket is formed by forging out such pieces to the proper dimensions, and then folding or bending them into a cylindrical form, until the edges overlap, so that they can be welded together.