A Letter for The Legates Titled: Mechanical Loom

[Royal Winter]

[These letters are written on a cheap paper but written in a steady hand, it smells strongly of grease, copper, and ash, though it looks clean and unblemished]

Honored Legates,
I, Mark Miller, write to you and hope my reputation for my skills is a good one.  I hope my status as a Voiceless, at time of writing, will not prevent your attention from being given to this letter.  If I had a Voice I would have attempted to bring this information to your attention during Assembly but instead I write to you on a matter I know about, rather than shouting in ignorance before all the government like others did this week.

Further, I understand your time is restrained in normal circumstance, but more so given how last Assembly went.  With that in mind I write you rather than seeking you out in person so you may engage with this material on your own time.



To get to the matter of my writing you, I offer my technical and lived experience with labor, machinery, and being a refugee myself regarding the offer of establishing a Mechanical Loom industry within the Well.  To give you my credentials I was raised to be a smith by my father, a man of Ticker Square, who was raised in the craft by his father, also a Ticker man, and his father, so on.  My father also trained me in the art of mechanical work, often called engineering or tinkering.  Beyond this I've worked as a general laborer in construction, mining, and general busy work for as long as I have been physical able to.

I write in full support of this plan and will detail to you why that is so while also addressing common concerns raised at Assembly.



1) The worry that a factory will take up too much space in a refugee district.
If you run out of space to spread out you can just build up.  A factory can be made and (assuming it is not something like a metal refinery or other building that emits smoke, ash, or otherwise pollutes the air) have housing built atop it.  So long as the walls and foundation are secure this can be done with care paid to structural integrity.

2) The worry of economically displacing tailors in the Souk.
A loom produces fabric, a material for work, not the finished product of clothing and carpets.  A skilled tailor is still needed to take a synthetic material like cloth and turn it into a produced good, like clothes.  Mechanical looms will reduce the amount of labor and time spent on a common product, clothing, allowing specialists to focus on producing goods.

3) The worry that the mechanical loom will be economically exploitative.
This might be the strongest and most legitimate concern, however if the government acts with wisdom this can be avoided.  Standardized wages as well as rents for tenants in living nearby can foster economic fairness.  Establishing or expanding a Guild of weavers can help organize laborers.  Safety and labor standards can help prevent physical danger to workers.  Those that come offering us the technology and industry have already stated they will abide by any government laws.

4) The worry that this will, if not physically, politically get in the way of the refugee expansion.
This is the weakest of the concerns by far.  Refugees will need work, labor, wage, income, and investment to be anything other than desperate people living in a slum.  I am a firm believer in the value of labor as a means to an end, but also as an end itself.  If anything I would support more industry being established in the planned quarter.

5) The worry there is not enough raw material for the mechanical looms.
This is also a weak concern.  We already have the material available both from local supply and from import, we just need to utilize what is already there more efficiently.

Now I will present my own concern, one that was not raised in Assembly, at least not that I heard.

6) The worry that the workers will be exploited physically if not economically.
I've had good bosses, no bosses, and bad bosses and even when the pay is good a bad boss will always make the work not worth it.  If and when you approve the establishment of a mechanical loom factory please stipulate strict health and safety standards for the working class.  Given the proximity of machinery, dry cloth material, and the general heat of the desert, fire safety and fire escape is the most important safety standards in this sort of work place.  Ensure that workers can safely clean the machinery and escape the factory in event of a fire and this reduces the primary safety concern.  Also be concerned with workers being given shifts too long and too controlling, as a worker taxed to the brink by labor is unable to contribute in other ways to community and government.



I offer my expertise in matters of construction, labor, machinery, and metal work if and when you need it on this matter.  I heavily implore you to move forward on this proposal, though I'm sure you will hear many headache inducing whinges upon the bellows for going forward with it.  It is possible this mechanical loom is an unknown nightmare waiting to be unleashed as the critics say but I would say it is better to try and fail than do nothing at all while complaining.  This loom will not only provide paying labor to refugees once it is complete but the construction of its factory will provide paid labor in and of itself.

Please write a reply to me at the Krak when time and wisdom permits.

[Random_White_Guy]

Mark Miller,

Expertise is ever a welcome insight. While others have simply stated a few complaints you have given thorough and well reasoned considerations as to why this project may be worth considering forward.

Though tradition remains a concern I shall speak with Legate Akna, hear her thoughts, and we shall hopefully speak with you in due time.

A luxury of the waters of the Well - They flow. Fire may not be so much an issue but easily if we go in this direction perhaps water may be considered.

Honored Waterbearer Gausim al-Marain
Of The Great Temple of Baz'eel
Legate of the First Seat