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Show LABOR-SAVING MACHINERY. Tho recent violent conduct ol Borne western workmen in reference to labor-saving machinery has caused ' tho fricntiilc American to collect and present some statistics that are inter-j inter-j esting and incontrovertible argu ments against the assertions of the misguided toilers. In some ol the agricultural districts a short time ago, idle men entered the bams and lool houses of farmers and destroyed or carried oft much labor saving machinery, ma-chinery, as mowers, reapers and - threshers. They also sent the farmers farm-ers threatening letters, 8gned by the "bread or blood" committee, warning warn-ing them that death would be tho consequence oi'a continuance lo pur chase and use machinery; also that their bouses, barns and 6tacks would surely he bnrned. The Scientific Amtiic in rihowi limt in the grain-producing grain-producing elates of the west the agricultural cIjss increased fully fifty per cent, in the ten years ending in 1S0O. During the succeeding ten years the increase waa thirty pei cent., being thirteen per cent, more than a proportionate share of the . gain of the country - at large. Toe Bame journal also gives some figures in connection with the shoe trade and cotton manufacture, man-ufacture, both of which industries indus-tries have been the subject of much adverse criticism by the laboring labor-ing clashes. It is only within the past twenty years that shoes have been made by machinery, previous to that time the work all being done in the old way, by hand. Now eighty-five eighty-five per cent, of the shoes made in this country are manufactured by labor earing machines, and it fur nishca a complete refutation of the workmen's assertions to state that the number of laborers in the shoe factories is greatly in .access of what it was provious to machines being employed. The wages paid are also better than those received by tho cobbler who did the pegging on his knee. In the case of the cotton mills the figures furnish, the same conclusive conclu-sive arguments. The number of persona employed has increased, and the product per hand is from three to five limes what it was before the improved looms and other machines were introduced. In the past twenty years the wages of mule cotton operatives have risen 40 per cent. and thrso nt women half ts much. It would Bf-em that with such conclusive facU before them the grumblers against labor saving machine'! should be uileuccd. V-trruniry on the earth rms invented and employed more of the-e machines than the United States, and no other , nation husbenun to make Ihe progress prog-ress that this has done. Our manu factures and produrts are ncild in all tho great markets of the wnrM, which would not I'd lb.- ruse if ivj- w re to discard the mechanical appliances now in use. Wherever labor-saving machinery and mod or d improvements improve-ments aro rejected there will be found greater d;slieei among the working people. Allot' the eastern countries iurnish couepicuouB examples oi this fact. If the working people would; - only intelligently reflect for a moment i they miht ho able to appreciate what is a positive truth, that labor-saving machinery is their best friend, in tbat! it gives a broader area for raw material, mate-rial, and hence a higher value toj man as a laborer. It actually furnishes fur-nishes more work, and gives to it: greater f profit, by simplifying production pro-duction and increasing the demand de-mand for labor. Men possess sing the power to reason are either mad or do not take time to reflect when they would discard mowers, reapers, threshers, the cotton jenny, the steam engine, and the various laboring machiues with which the world is blessed, and return to the primitive order of things, when all work waa performed by human hands. No one with aen.e could intelligently think of breaking his wile's sewing machine, and asking her to make hie clothing by hand, because thero are women who do not find employment with the needle; nor could any sane individual honestly desire the threshing machine to give: place lo tho fliil, or the sawmill to be eucceded by the whip-saw and pit. The more machinery there is the more labor will there be, and the easier will the working people find it to succeed in the world and earn a living. |