These opinions have been so well expressed in the Report of
the Committee of the House of Commons on the Woollen Trade, in
1806, that we shall close this chapter with an extract, in which
the advantages of great factories are summed up.
Your committee have the satisfaction of seeing, that the
apprehensions entertained of factories are not only vicious in
principle, but they are practically erroneous: to such a degree.
that even the very opposite principles might be reasonably
entertained. Nor would it be difficult to prove, that the
factories, to a certain extent at least, and in the present day,
seem absolutely necessary to the wellbeing of the domestic
system: supplying those very particulars wherein the domestic
system must be acknowledged to be inherently defective: for it is
obvious, that the little master manufacturers cannot afford, like
the man who possesses considerable capital, to try the
experiments which are requisite, and incur the risks, and even
losses, which almost always occur, in inventing and perfecting
new articles of manufacture, or in carrying to a state of greater
perfection articles already established.
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