We have seen how machinery does away with co-operation
 based on handicrafts, and with manufacture based on the division of handicraft
 labour. An example of the first sort is the mowing-machine; it replaces
 co-operation between mowers. A striking example of the second kind, is
 the needle-making machine. According to Adam Smith, 10 men, in his day,
 made in co-operation, over 48,000 needles a-day. On the other hand, a single
 needle-machine makes 145,000 in a working-day of 11 hours. One woman or
 one girl superintends four such machines, and so produces near upon 600,000
 needles in a day, and upwards of 3,000,000 in a week. [167] A single machine, when it takes the place of co-433operation or of manufacture, may itself serve as the basis of an industry of a handicraft character. Still, such a return to handicrafts is but a transition to the factory
 system, which, as a rule, makes its appearance so soon as the human muscles
 are replaced, for the purpose of driving the machines, by a mechanical
 motive power, such as steam or water. Here and there, but in any case only
 for a time, an industry may be carried on, on a small scale, by means of
 mechanical power. This is effected by hiring steam-power, as is done in
 some of the Birmingham trades, or by the use of small caloric-engines,
 as in some branches of weaving. [168] In the Coventry silk weaving industry the experiment of “cottage factories” was tried. In the centre of a square surrounded by rows of cottages, an engine-house
 was built and the engine connected by shafts with the looms in the cottages.
 In all cases the power was hired at so much per loom. The rent was payable
 weekly, whether the looms worked or not. Each cottage held from 2 to 6
 looms; some belonged to the weaver, some were bought on credit, some were
 hired. The struggle between these cottage factories and the factory proper,
 lasted over 12 years. It ended with the complete ruin of the 300 cottage
 factories. [169] Wherever the nature of the process
 did not involve production on a large scale, the new industries that have
 sprung up in the last few decades, such as envelope making, steel-pen making,
 &c., have, as a general rule, first passed through the handicraft stage,
 and then the manufacturing stage, as short phases of transition to the
 factory stage. The transition is very difficult in those cases where the
 production of the article by manufacture consists, not of a series of graduated
 processes, but of a great number of disconnected ones. This circumstance
 formed a great hindrance to the establishment of steel-pen factories. Nevertheless,
 about 15 years ago, a machine was invented that automatically performed
 6 separate operations at once. The first steel-pens were supplied by the
 handicraft system, in the year 1820, at £7 4s. the gross; in 1830
 they-were supplied by manufacture at 8s., and today the factory system
 supplies them to the trade at from 2 to 6d. the gross. [170]