For this document I have chosen to focus on the question “What is the storyline?”. Overall, Ure is arguing for the Industrialization of Britain because of the different groups that will overall benefit, and the groups that do not see how industrialization will benefit them will with time. Ure touches on different issues such as how the factory workers should respond, the benefits of slowly replacing specialty workers, how business owners are impacted, and the replacement of men for cheaper labor. I think that the first part of this document’s storyline is to convince factory workers that they should look on the bright side of things because this way is more efficient, even though the document is more focused on the opinion of the British business owners. For example, Ure speaks to the idea of the workers taking breaks often which would lead to things like wasted time whereas machines are more efficient in general. That can be true, but it is disregarding the perspective of the people that it most affects. Yes, it may be true that the workers will not be as fatigued after work, but they will also have a harder time finding a job in general. In this moment, workers are operating the machines but Ure can see a time when the workers turn into “mere overlookers of machines”. This statement can be very controversial because Ure tries appealing to the workers saying that things are not as bad as they seem, while saying that there will be very few people working once Industrialization is in full effect and even then those people will not be doing very difficult work because the machines will replace them completely: the workers will be babysitters.
This document is written after the “Leeds Woollen Workers Petition” and “Letter from Leeds Cloth Merchants” which both reinforced the idea that the controlling class does not care to get the input of the class actually being affected. The same is going on here: Ure thinks that there is a bonus to eliminating high skill workers. It was cheaper in the long run for business owners because specialty workers like a weaver would charge more for a specialty service versus a machine that can make a product of lower quality for a cheaper price. Business owners made more money with the introduction of more machines and factories. Finally, the idea of replacing men and trained workers for women, children, and ordinary laborers. For one point, it is cheaper. This industrialization is solely based around the idea of saving as much money as possible, despite the quality of the product. Ure explicitly says that machines will supersede human labor altogether. Cotton mills are being operated by 16 year old girls at the youngest. Females do not get paid as much as men and younger children do not get paid as much as adults so a young girl is the cheapest labor that a factory could have. Overall, Ure argues for industrialization not realizing that there are two sides to every story.