Indeed, if we cannot get those
qualities, the days of industry are numbered. But we can get them. We
are getting them.
If a man cannot earn his keep without the aid of machinery, is it
benefiting him to withhold that machinery because attendance upon it may
be monotonous? And let him starve? Or is it better to put him in the way
of a good living? Is a man the happier for starving? If he is the
happier for using a machine to less than its capacity, is he happier for
producing less than he might and consequently getting less than his
share of the world's goods in exchange?
I have not been able to discover that repetitive labour injures a man in
any way. I have been told by parlour experts that repetitive labour is
soul--as well as body--destroying, but that has not been the result of
our investigations. There was one case of a man who all day long did
little but step on a treadle release. He thought that the motion was
making him one-sided; the medical examination did not show that he had
been affected but, of course, he was changed to another job that used a
different set of muscles.
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