OF LARGE FACTORIES.

191

“ the market. Any violence used by the workmen against“ the property of their masters, and any unreasonable com-“ bination on their part, is almost sure thus to be injurious“ to themselves.”*

(224.) These removals become of serious conse-quence when the factories have been long established,because a population commensurate with their wantsinvariably grows up around them. The combinations,in Nottinghamshire , of persons under the name ofLuddites, drove a great number of lace-frames fromthat district, and caused establishments to be formedin Devonshire. We ought also to observe, that theresult of driving any establishment into a new dis-trict, where similar ones have not previously existed,is not merely to place it out of the reach of such com-binations ; but, after a few years, the example of itssuccess will most probably induce other capitalists inthe new district to engage in the same manufacture:and thus, although only one establishment should bedriven away, the workmen, through whose combina-tion its removal was effected, will not merely sufferby the withdrawing of that portion of demand fortheir labour which the factory caused; but the valueof that labour itself will be reduced by the competi-tion of a new field of production.

(225.) Another circumstance which has its influ-ence on this question, is the nature of the machinery.Heavy machinery, ( such as stamping-mills, steam-engines, &c., cannot readily be moved, and must

* This passage is not printed in Italics'in the original; butit has been thus marked in the above extract, from its im-portance, and from the conviction that the most extended dis-cussion will afford additional evidence of its truth.