The higher the skill required of the workman in any one
process of a manufacture, and the smaller the time during which
it is employed, so much the greater will be the advantage of
separating that process from the rest, and devoting one person's
attention entirely to it. Had we selected the art of
needle-making as our illustration, the economy arising from the
division of labour would have been still more striking; for the
process of tempering the needles requires great skill, attention,
and experience, and although from three to four thousand are
tempered at once, the workman is paid a very high rate of wages.
In another process of the same manufacture, dry-pointing, which
also is executed with great rapidity, the wages earned by the
workman reach from 7s. to 12s., 15s., and even, in some
instances, to 20s. per day; whilst other processes are carried on
by children paid at the rate of 6d. per day.
239. Some further reflections suggested by the preceding
analysis, will be reserved until we have placed before the reader
a brief description of a machine for making pins, invented by an
American.
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