328 The Plan of the Ages.
back where it was a century ago, and leave all the advan- tages of our day in the hands of capital It is this that we seek to avert.
This ultimate tendency of many real blessings to work injury, unless restrained by wise and equitable laws, was long since seen ; but the rapidity with which one invention has followed another, and the consequent increased demand for labor in providing this labor-saving machinery, has been so great that the ultimate result has been delayed, and in- stead, the world has had a "boom "an inflation of values, wages, wealth, credits (debts) and ideas from which the reaction is now commencing gradually to take place.
In the last few years there have been produced in vast quantities agricultural implements of every description which enable one man to accomplish as much as five could formerly. This has a two-fold effect : first, three times as many acres are worked, giving employment to three out of the five laborers, thus setting two adrift to compete for other labor ; secondly, the three who remain can, by the use of the machinery, pro- duce as great a crop as fifteen would have done without it. The same or greater changes are wrought in other depart- ments by similar agencies; for instance, in iron and steel making. Its growth has been so enormous that the number of employes has greatly increased, notwithstanding the fadl that machinery has enabled one man at present to accom- plish about as much as twelve did formerly. One of the results will be that very shortly the capacity of these ex- tensive works will more than meet the present enormous demands, and the demands, instead of continuing to in- crease, will probably decrease ; for the world is fast being supplied with railroads beyond present needs, and the yearly repairs on these could probably be supplied "by less than one-half the present number of establishments.
Thus we are brought in contact with the peculiar condi-
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