Samuel Smiles：Thrift, Excerpt 482

There is no doubt about the "swiftness" of English Workmanship. But this is one of the merits of English mechanism. M. Jules Simon observes that heretofore the manual labourer has been an intelligent force, but by means of machinery he is converted into an intelligent director of force. It is by the speed of the English machinery, and the intelligent quickness of the workmen, that his master makes a profit, and himself such high wages as compared with continental workmen. In France, one person is employed to mind fourteen spindles; in Russia, one to twenty-eight; in Prussia, one to thirty-seven; and in Great Britain, one to seventy-four spindles. It is by means of the swiftness of our machinery that we are enabled to bring cotton from India, manufacture it in Manchester, return the manufactured article to the place from which it was taken, and sell it at a lower price than the native-made calico.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14418
Locator：Excerpt 482 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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