CHAPTER XXXI.-CARRYING AND LOCOMOTION. TO this class belong the persons employed in the following occupations: In railway service In streets and roads On canals On seas and rivers . As coachmen (not domestic) As cab and flymen . As carriers and carters . 100,000 35,000 206,000 17,000 10,000 67,000 20,000 74,000 582,000 The reduction that will be effected in these employments will be very great, and will arise from the total suppression of the wholesale and retail trade, and from the introduction of another and more economical system of distributing produce, in which only the tenth part of the present number of porters, messengers, errand boys, warehousemen, packers, carriers, carters, seamen, lightermen, railway servants, road labourers, street sweepers, omnibus drivers, and coachmen will be required to do all the necessary work. In the storage of goods Total 53,000 persons Very few cab and fly men will be wanted, for every individual of the great bulk of the people will have plenty of time to walk on foot to his work, and to return from it in the same fashion. With the exception of the conveyance of patients and doctors in cases of sudden illness or accidents, there will be a total cessation of the occupation of cab and flymen. The railway service will also require a much smaller number of servants, owing to the diminution of the goods traffic; but will, on the other hand, probably want some more servants for the increased passenger locomotion arising from the frequent dislocation of the whole population, in order to convey all persons to their alternate occupations in factories and national workshops, and on the land. Still, this passenger locomotion. will even then, when embracing the whole nation, remain inferior in mileage and numbers to the present senseless railway travelling, used either for the purposes of trade and commerce, or for the gratification of pleasure-seekers. A reduction to the tenth part of the carrying work now performed will reduce the present number of 174,600,000 working-days to 17,460,000, or, in round numbers, to 17,000,000 working-days, which, if divided among 12,000,000 workers, will be but one and a half day per individual. CHAPTER XXXII.-MINING LABOUR, AND OTHER HEAVY WORK. THIS THIS kind of labour is likewise to be classed amongst the series of those fit for equal distribution, not only because there does not exist any real difficulty in learning the work of the pitman, but because it is heavy, uncomfortable, and dangerous work. The number of persons engaged in mines and other similar heavy work are the following: Coal-mining Lead Iron To these may be added those employed, As coal-heavers In stone quarries In slate quarries . As navvies. As general labourers employs " 17,000 9,000 43,000 300,000 820,000 Total This grand total multiplied by 300 working-days for each individual gives 246,000,000 working-days, to which nearly the half falls to the lot of the pitman. This enormous burden of labour will, however, in the future social state, be at once lessened by one half of its ponderous weight, which now crushes about 1,000 persons annually; for no time will be lost, and no obstacles encountered, in the introduction and universal application of the coal-cutting apparatus,-an ingenious inachine of recent invention, which is already at work in several collieries, but whose great success has not yet made any perceptible impression on the apathy, prejudice, or ignorance of the present coal-owners. This machine is said to cut, in eight hours' time, 350 feet of coal, yielding from seventy to seventy-five tons in weight-a production that represents the work of forty men for the same period. Three or at most four men are required to tend the machine, and its general adoption would, according to a calculation in the Times of Jan. 6th, 1873, render it possible to dispense with the labour of 300,000 of the 360,000 men now employed in the coal-mines of the country.* The labour in the coal-mines, although so enormously reduced by machinery, will, in the future social state, be further lessened by the great decrease in the consumption of coal on account of the diminution of all manufactures, by the large reduction in the consumption of gas, and by the great saving of fuel in the Associated Homes. One-tenth of the above number of 246,000,000 working-days will probably suffice for this class of work; and if 24,000,000 working-days are shared by 7,000,000 males (for females never ought nor never will have to participate in this heavy kind of work), it will only allot a fraction more than three days per annum to each man of the 7,000,000 of the adult male population. Some of the coal-cutting machines now working at West Ardsly have been in constant use three or four years, and by their employment the equivalent of a man's power exerted for the whole day in cutting coal can be obtained at a cost in fuel of only 34d. The daily work done by one of these machines is about equal to the day's work of twelve average men, and the persons employed to work the machine are one man, one youth, and one boy. CHAPTER XXXIII.-SKILLED LABOUR. THIS HIS class of labour is performed by that great army of working-men and women who, in the exercise of their trades, have to employ special operations of intellect and skillfulness of manipulations, to which the appellation "handicraft" is most happily applied. The following list contains, in round numbers, the principal trades of this kind, with the omission of those miscellaneous employments and small trades numbering less than 1,000 persons: 1,000 4,000 2,000 14,000 5,000 2,000 54,000 3,000 9,000 2,000 5,000 1,000 108,000 2,000 2,000 13,000 6,000 11,000 250,000 3,000 1,000 16,000 2,000 79,000 39,000 3,000 11,000 Builders Burnishers (undefined) Cap-makers Carvers (wood) . Case-makers (packing) Cellarmen Cement, plaster manufacturers Chair-makers Chimney-sweepers Cigar, tobacco manufacturers Civil engineers Clock and watch-makers Clog and patten-makers Comb-makers Coopers Cord, rope-makers Cork-cutters Cutlers Dressmakers Embroiderers Engine and machine-makers Engine-drivers (railway) Engine-drivers (undefined). Engravers . Envelope-makers Farriers Fellmongers File-makers Fishermen. French-polishers. Furriers Gasfitters Glass manufacturers Glaziers, painters, plumbers Glovers 15,000 1,000 68,000 6,000 177,000 5,000 2,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 8,000 6,000 5,000 4,000 20,000 5,000 18,000 1,000 18,000 2,000 13,000 2,000 6,600 287,000 2,000 60,000 10,000 10,000 5,000 1,000 7,000 2,000 8,000 17,000 6,000 3,000 5,000 15,000 74,000 25,000 |
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