WORKSHOP MACHINERY

Too Long; Didn't Read

"When I first entered this city," said Mr. William Fairbairn, in an inaugural address to the British Association at Manchester in 1861, "the whole of the machinery was executed by hand. There were neither planing, slotting, nor shaping machines, and with the exception of very imperfect lathes and a few drills, the preparatory operations of construction were effected entirely by the hands of the workmen. Now, everything is done by machine tools, with a degree of accuracy which the unaided hand could never accomplish. The automaton, or self-acting, machine tool has within itself an almost creative power; in fact, so great are its powers of adaptation, that there is no operation of the human hand that it does not imitate." If such things could be said with justice forty-five years ago, what would Mr. Fairbairn think could he see the wonderful machinery with which the present-day workshop is equipped—machinery as relatively superior to the devices he speaks of as they were superior to the unaided efforts of the human hand? Invention never stands still. The wonder of one year is on the scrap-heap of abandoned machines almost before another twelve months have passed. Some important detail has been improved, to secure ease or economy in working, and a more efficient successor steps into its place. In his curious and original Erewhon, Mr. Samuel Butler depicts a community which, from the fear that machinery should become too ingenious, and eventually drain away man's capacity for muscular and mental action, has risen in revolt against the automaton, broken up all machines which had been in use for less than 270 years—with the exception of specimens reserved for the national museums—and reverted to hand labour. His treatment of the dangers attending the increased employment of lifeless mechanisms as a substitute for physical effort does not, however, show sympathy with the Erewhonians; since their abandonment of invention had obviously placed them at the mercy of any other race retaining the devices so laboriously perfected during the ages. And we, on our part, should be extremely sorry to part with the inanimate helpers which in every path of life render the act of living more comfortable and less toilsome.