DIAGRAM (COMPARISON OF ENGLISH EMPLOYMENTS).
When we look at these figures there can be no doubt that one indirect result of the increased production due to the application of machinery has been increased employment in the distributing and transport industries. This increased employment in transport is by no means confined to the new services of steam locomotion by land and sea. The earlier apprehensions that railways would destroy road traffic is not justified by experience. Though employment on railways has of course grown very fast, road traffic has increased almost in the same ratio.
| Railways. | Roads. | |
| 1841 | .03 | .7 |
| 1851 | .3 | .9 |
| 1861 | .5 | 1.1 |
| 1871 | .8 | 1.2 |
| 1881 | 1.2 | 1.5 |
| 1891 | 1.4 | 2.8 |
The census returns for the United States show clearly that carts and horses have not been displaced by railways, or, more strictly speaking, that railways have made more cartage work than they have taken away. In 1850 the manufacture of carriages and waggons employed 15,590 men, in 1870 it employed 54,928. During the same period of railway growth the number of horses in the country increased from 4,336,717 to 7,145,370. In fact, while the population grew 66 per cent., the number of carriage and cart makers, in spite of the increased use of labour-saving machinery in their manufacture, grew more than 200 per cent.
It must, however, be clearly recognised that the direct effect of machinery upon the transport industries also is to cause a diminished proportionate employment of labour. A comparison of the two chief branches of steam locomotion will bring this home.
Machinery occupies a very different place in the railway from that which it occupies in steam transport by sea. The engine only indirectly determines and regulates the work of the majority of railway men. Most of them are not tenders of machinery. Engine-driver, stoker, and guard are alone in close direct association with the machine. To them must be added those engaged in construction and repair within the workshops. Pointsmen and certain station officials come next in proximity to the machine; shunters and porters are also "tending" machinery, though their work is more directly dominated by general business considerations. But are we to say that the army of platelayers, navvies, etc., engaged along the line is serving machinery instead of using tools?[184] The work of ticket clerks and collectors is only governed by the locomotive in a very indirect way. Though the steam-engine is the central factor in railway work, the bulk of the labour is skilled or unskilled work in remote relation to the machine. This explains why the growth of the railway industry, after the chief work of construction has been done, is not attended by a diminishing proportion of employment. On the contrary, we find that railway employment increases faster than mileage and railway capital. The following statistics of railways in the United Kingdom illustrate this fact:—
| Year. | Mileage. | Capital (paid up). | Operatives. |
| 1851 | ... | ... | 25,200 |
| 1861 | 10,865 | £362,327,338 | 53,400 |
| 1871 | 15,376 | £552,661,551 | 84,900 |
| 1881 | 18,175 | £745,528,162 | 139,500 |
| 1891 | 20,191 | £919,425,121 | 186,700 |
But when we turn to the shipping trade, where a much larger proportion of workers is directly concerned with the tending and direction of machinery, and trace the effect upon employment of the application of steam, the result is very different.
| Sailing Vessels (Tonnage). | Steamers (Tonnage). | Men on Sailing-ships. | Men on Steam-ships. | |
| 1850 | 3,396,359 | 168,474 | 142,730 | 8,700 |
| 1860 | 4,204,360 | 454,327 | 145,487 | 26,105 |
| 1870 | 4,577,855 | 1,112,934 | 147,207 | 48,755 |
| 1880 | 3,851,045 | 2,723,488 | 108,668 | 84,304 |
| 1890 | 2,907,405 | 5,037,666 | 84,008 | 129,366[185] |
If we take the period 1870-90, during which there is an absolute shrinkage of sailing tonnage, we find that this shrinkage is accompanied by a less than corresponding diminution of employment. On the other hand, the tonnage of steamships in this period increased more than fourfold, but brought with it an increase of employment which is less than threefold.