On making
the trial, it was found to succeed perfectly; a great reduction
of human labour was effected by the process, and the workmen who
had acquired peculiar skill in performing it ceased to derive any
advantage from their dexterity.
363. It is somewhat singular that another and a still more
remarkable instance of the effect of combination amongst workmen,
should have occurred but a few years since in the very same
trade. The process of welding the skelps, so as to convert them
into gun barrels, required much skill, and after the termination
of the war, the demand for muskets having greatly diminished, the
number of persons employed in making them was very much reduced.
This circumstance rendered combination more easy; and upon one
occasion, when a contract had been entered into for a
considerable supply to be delivered on a fixed day, the men all
struck for such an advance of wages as would have caused the
completion of the contract to be attended with a very heavy loss.
In this difficulty, the contractors resorted to a mode of
welding the gun barrel, for which a patent had been taken out by
one of themselves some years before this event.
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