On the Exportation of Machinery

Too Long; Didn't Read

A few years only have elapsed, since our workmen were not merely prohibited by Act of Parliament from transporting themselves to countries in which their industry would produce for them higher wages, but were forbidden to export the greater part of the machinery which they were employed to manufacture at home. The reason assigned for this prohibition was, the apprehension that foreigners might avail themselves of our improved machinery, and thus compete with our manufacturers. It was, in fact, a sacrifice of the interests of one class of persons, the makers of machinery, for the imagined benefit of another class, those who use it. Now, independently of the impolicy of interfering, without necessity, between these two classes, it may be observed, that the first class, or the makers of machinery, are, as a body, far more intelligent than those who only use it; and though, at present, they are not nearly so numerous, yet, when the removal of the prohibition which cramps their ingenuity shall have had time to operate, there appears good reason to believe, that their number will be greatly increased, and may, in time, even surpass that of those who use machinery. The advocates of these prohibitions in England seem to rely greatly upon the possibility of preventing the knowledge of new contrivances from being conveyed to other countries; and they take much too limited a view of the possible, and even probable, improvements in mechanics.