On his eye, his
judgment of materials, his nerve, and his dexterity of hand depend
precious lives. For three thousand miles those vast masses of
machinery must force a huge hull through huge seas; the mighty and
shapely fabrics of metal must work with the ease of a child's toy
locomotive, and they must bear a strain that is never relaxed though
all the most tremendous forces of Nature may threaten. What a charge
for a man! His earnings could hardly be raised high enough if we
consider the momentous nature of the duty he fulfils; he is an
aristocrat of labour, and we do not know that there is not something
grotesque in measuring and arguing over the money-payment made to him.
Then there are the specially skilled hands who in their monkish
seclusion work at the instruments wherewith scientific wonders are
wrought. The rewards of their toil would have seemed fabulous to such
men as Harrison the watchmaker; but they also form an aristocracy, and
they win the aristocrat's guerdon without practising his idleness. The
mathematician who makes the calculations for a machine is not so well
paid as the man who finishes it; the observatory calculator who
calculates the time of occulation for a planet cannot earn so much as
the one who grinds a reflector.
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