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PREFACE.
PREFACE.
Fourteen years have passed since the first edition of this book was published, and in revising it for this new edition I found at my disposal an immense mass of new materials, statistical and descriptive, and a great number of new works dealing with the different subjects that are treated in this book. I have thus had an excellent opportunity to verify how far the previsions that I had formulated when I first wrote this book have been confirmed by the subsequent economical evolution of the diffe
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PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.
Under the name of profits, rent, interest upon capital, surplus value, and the like, economists have eagerly discussed the benefits which the owners of land or capital, or some privileged nations, can derive, either from the underpaid work of the wage-labourer, or from the inferior position of one class of the community towards another class, or from the inferior economical development of one nation towards another nation. These profits being shared in a very unequal proportion between the diffe
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The Small Industries in the United Kingdom.
The Small Industries in the United Kingdom.
We have not for the United Kingdom such statistical data as are obtained in France and Germany by periodical censuses of all the factories and workshops, and the numbers of the workpeople, foremen and clerks, employed on a given day in each industrial and commercial establishment. Consequently, up to the present time all the statements made by economists about the so-called “concentration” of the industry in this country, and the consequent “unavoidable” disappearance of the small industries, ha
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Petty Trades in France.
Petty Trades in France.
Small industries are met with in France in a very great variety, and they represent a most important feature of national economy. It is estimated, in fact, that while one-half of the population of France live upon agriculture, and one-third upon industry, this third part is equally distributed between the great industry and the small one. [138] This last occupies about 1,650,000 workers and supports from 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 persons. A considerable number of peasants who resort to small indust
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Petty Trades in Germany.
Petty Trades in Germany.
The various industries which still have retained in Germany the characters of petty and domestic trades have been the subject of many exhaustive explorations, especially by A. M. Thun and Prof. Issaieff, on behalf of the Russian Petty Trades Commission, Emanuel Hans Sax, Paul Voigt, and very many others. By this time the subject has a bulky literature, and such impressive and suggestive pictures have been drawn from life for different regions and trades that I felt tempted to sum up these life-t
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Petty Trades in other Countries.
Petty Trades in other Countries.
If it were worth extending our inquiry to other countries, we should find a vast field for most interesting observations in Switzerland. There we should see the same vitality in a variety of petty industries, and we could mention what has been done in the different cantons for maintaining the small trades by three different sets of measures: the extension of co-operation; a wide extension of technical education in the schools and the introduction of new branches of semi-artistic production in di
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Conclusions.
Conclusions.
The facts which we have briefly passed in review show, to some extent, the benefits which could be derived from a combination of agriculture with industry, if the latter could come to the village, not in its present shape of a capitalist factory, but in the shape of a socially organised industrial production, with the full aid of machinery and technical knowledge. In fact, the most prominent feature of the petty trades is that a relative well-being is found only where they are combined with agri
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A.—BRITISH INVESTMENTS ABROAD.
A.—BRITISH INVESTMENTS ABROAD.
The important question as to the amount of British capital invested in the colonies and in other countries has only quite lately received due attention. For the last ten years or so one could find in the “Reports of the Commissioner of Inland Revenue” a mention of the revenue derived from British capital invested in foreign loans to States and Municipalities and in railway companies; but these returns were still incomplete. Consequently, Mr. George Paish made in 1909 and 1911 an attempt at deter
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B.—FRENCH IMPORTS.
B.—FRENCH IMPORTS.
About one-tenth part of the cereals consumed in France is still imported; but, as will be seen in a subsequent chapter, the progress in agriculture has lately been so rapid that even without Algeria France will soon have a surplus of cereals. Wine is imported, but nearly as much is exported. So that coffee and oil-seeds remain the only food articles of durable importance for import. For coal and coke France is still tributary to Belgium, to this country, and to Germany; but it is chiefly the inf
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C.—GROWTH OF INDUSTRY IN RUSSIA.
C.—GROWTH OF INDUSTRY IN RUSSIA.
The growth of industry in Russia will be best seen from the following:— The recent growth of the coal and iron industries in South Russia (with the aid of Belgian capital) was very well illustrated at the Turin Exhibition of 1911. From less than 100,000 tons in 1860, the extraction of coal and anthracite rose to 16,840,460 metric tons in 1910. The extraction of iron ore rose from 377,000 tons in 1890 to 3,760,000 tons in 1909. The production of cast iron, which was only 29,270 tons in 1882, reac
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D.—IRON INDUSTRY IN GERMANY.
D.—IRON INDUSTRY IN GERMANY.
The following tables will give some idea of the growth of mining and metallurgy in Germany. The extraction of minerals in the German Empire, in metric tons, which are very little smaller than the English ton (0·984), was:— Since 1894 the iron industry has taken a formidable development, the production of pig-iron reaching 12,644,900 metric tons in 1909 (14,793,600 in 1910), and that of half-finished and finished iron and steel, 14,186,900 tons; while the exports of raw iron, which were valued at
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E.—MACHINERY IN GERMANY.
E.—MACHINERY IN GERMANY.
The rapid progress in the fabrication of machinery in Germany is best seen from the growth of the German exports as shown by the following table:— Three years later the first of these items had already reached £25,000,000, and the export of bicycles, motor-cars, and motor-buses, and parts thereof, was valued at £2,904,000. Everyone knows that German sewing-machines, motor-bus frames, and a considerable amount of tools find their way even into this country, and that German tools are plainly recom
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F.—COTTON INDUSTRY IN GERMANY.
F.—COTTON INDUSTRY IN GERMANY.
Dr. G. Schulze-Gaewernitz, in his excellent work, The Cotton Trade in England and on the Continent (English translation by Oscar S. Hall, London, 1895), called attention to the fact that Germany had certainly not yet attained, in her cotton industry, the high technical level of development attained by England; but he showed also the progress realised. The cost of each yard of plain cotton, notwithstanding low wages and long hours, was still greater in Germany than in England, as seen from the fo
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G.—MINING AND TEXTILES IN AUSTRIA.
G.—MINING AND TEXTILES IN AUSTRIA.
To give an idea of the development of industries in Austria-Hungary, it is sufficient to mention the growth of her mining industries and the present state of her textile industries. The value of the yearly extraction of coal and iron ore in Austria appears as follows:— At the present time the exports of coal entirely balance the imports. As to the textile industries, the imports of raw cotton into Austria-Hungary reached in 1907 the respectable value of £12,053,400. For raw wool and wool yarn th
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H.—COTTON MANUFACTURE IN INDIA.
H.—COTTON MANUFACTURE IN INDIA.
The views taken in the text about the industrial development of India are confirmed by a mass of evidence. One of them, coming from authorised quarters, deserves special attention. In an article on the progress of the Indian cotton manufacture, the Textile Recorder (15th October, 1888) wrote:— “No person connected with the cotton industry can be ignorant of the rapid progress of the cotton manufacture in India. Statistics of all kinds have recently been brought before the public, showing the inc
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I.—THE COTTON INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES.
I.—THE COTTON INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES.
A few years ago the cotton industry in the United States attracted the attention of the Manchester cotton manufacturers, and we have now two very interesting works written by persons who went specially to the States in order to study the rapid progress made there in spinning and weaving. [200] These two inquiries fully confirm what has been said in the text of this book about the rapid progress made in the American industry altogether, and especially in the development of a very fine cotton-weav
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J.—MR. GIFFEN’S AND MR. FLUX’S FIGURES CONCERNING THE POSITION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE.
J.—MR. GIFFEN’S AND MR. FLUX’S FIGURES CONCERNING THE POSITION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE.
A few remarks concerning these figures may be of some avail. When a sudden fall in the British and Irish exports took place in the years 1882-1886, and the alarmists took advantage of the bad times to raise the never-forgotten war-cry of protection, especially insisting on the damages made to British trade by “German competition,” Mr. Giffen analysed the figures of international trade in his “Finance Essays,” and in a report read in 1888 before the Board of Trade Commission. Subsequently, Mr. A.
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K.—MARKET-GARDENING IN BELGIUM.
K.—MARKET-GARDENING IN BELGIUM.
In 1885 the superficies given to market gardening in Belgium was 99,600 acres. In 1894 a Belgian professor of agriculture, who has kindly supplied me with notes on this subject, wrote:— “The area has considerably increased, and I believe it can be taken at 112,000 acres (45,000 hectares), if not more.” And further on: “Rents in the neighbourhood of the big towns, Antwerp, Liège, Ghent, and Brussels, attain as much as £5, 16s. and £8 per acre; the cost of instalment is from £13 to £25 per acre; t
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L.—THE CHANNEL ISLANDS—THE SCILLY ISLANDS.
L.—THE CHANNEL ISLANDS—THE SCILLY ISLANDS.
The excellent state of agriculture in Jersey and Guernsey has often been mentioned in the agricultural and general literature of this country, so I need only refer to the works of Mr. W. E. Bear ( Journal of the Agricultural Society , 1888; Quarterly Review , 1888; British Farmer , etc.) and to the exhaustive work of D. H. Ansted and R. G. Latham, The Channel Islands , third edition, revised by E. Toulmin Nicolle, London (Allen), 1893. Many English writers—certainly not those just named—are incl
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M.—IRRIGATED MEADOWS IN ITALY.
M.—IRRIGATED MEADOWS IN ITALY.
In the Journal de l’Agriculture (2nd Feb., 1889) the following was said about the marcites of Milan:— “On part of these meadows water runs constantly, on others it is left running for ten hours every week. The former give six crops every year; since February, eighty to 100 tons of grass, equivalent to twenty and twenty-five tons of dry hay, being obtained from the hectare (eight to ten tons per acre). Lower down, thirteen tons of dry hay per acre is the regular crop. Taking eighty acres placed i
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N.—PLANTED WHEAT.
N.—PLANTED WHEAT.
The Rothamsted Challenge. Sir A. Cotton delivered, in 1893, before the Balloon Society, a lecture on agriculture, in which lecture he warmly advocated deep cultivation and planting the seeds of wheat wide apart. He published it later on as a pamphlet ( Lecture on Agriculture , 2nd edition, with Appendix. Dorking, 1893). He obtained, for the best of his sort of wheat, an average of “fifty-five ears per plant, with three oz. of grain of fair quality—perhaps sixty-three lbs. per bushel” (p. 10). Th
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O.—REPLANTED WHEAT.
O.—REPLANTED WHEAT.
A few words on this method which now claims the attention of the experimental stations may perhaps not be useless. In Japan, rice is always treated in this way. It is treated as our gardeners treat lettuce and cabbage—that is, it is let first to germinate; then it is sown in special warm corners, well inundated with water and protected from the birds by strings drawn over the ground. Thirty-five to fifty-five days later, the young plants, now fully developed and possessed of a thick network of r
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P.—IMPORTS OF VEGETABLES TO THE UNITED KINGDOM.
P.—IMPORTS OF VEGETABLES TO THE UNITED KINGDOM.
That the land in this country is not sufficiently utilised for market-gardening, and that the largest portion of the vegetables which are imported from abroad could be grown in this country, has been said over and over again within the last twenty-five years. It is certain that considerable improvements have taken place lately—the area under market-gardens, and especially the area under glass for the growth of fruit and vegetables, having largely been increased of late. Thus, instead of 38,957 a
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Q.—FRUIT-CULTURE IN BELGIUM.
Q.—FRUIT-CULTURE IN BELGIUM.
It appears from the Annuaire statistique de la belgique that, out of a cultivated area of 6,443,500 acres, the following areas were given in Belgium, at the time of the last census, to fruit-growing, market-gardening, and culture under glass: Orchards, 117,600 acres; market-gardens, 103,460 acres; vineries, 173 acres (increased since); growing of trees for afforestation, gardens, and orchards, 7,475 acres; potatoes, 456,000 acres. Consequently, Belgium is able to export every year about £250,000
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R.—CULTURE UNDER GLASS IN HOLLAND.
R.—CULTURE UNDER GLASS IN HOLLAND.
Holland in its turn has introduced gardening in hothouses on a great scale. Here is a letter which I received in the summer of 1909 from a friend:— “Here is a picture-postcard which J. (a professor of botany in Belgium) has brought from Holland, and which he asks me to send you. [The postcard represents an immense space covered with frames and glass lights.] Similar establishments cover many square kilomètres between Rotterdam and the sea, in the north of Heuve. At the time when J. was there (Ju
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S.—PRICES OBTAINED IN LONDON FOR DESSERT GRAPES CULTIVATED UNDER GLASS.
S.—PRICES OBTAINED IN LONDON FOR DESSERT GRAPES CULTIVATED UNDER GLASS.
The Fruit and Market-Gardener gives every week the prices realised by horticultural and intensive gardening produce, as well as by flowers, at the great market of Covent Garden. The prices obtained for dessert grapes—Colmar and Hamburg—are very instructive. I took two years—1907-1908—which differ from ordinary years by the winters having been foggy, which made the garden produce to be somewhat late. In the first days of January the Colmar grapes arriving from the Belgian hothouses were still sol
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T.—THE USE OF ELECTRICITY IN AGRICULTURE.
T.—THE USE OF ELECTRICITY IN AGRICULTURE.
In the first editions of this book I did not venture to speak about the improvements that could be ob tained in agriculture with the aid of electricity, or by watering the soil with cultures of certain useful microbes. I preferred to mention only well-established facts of intensive culture; but now it would be impossible not to mention what has been done in these two directions. More than thirty years ago I mentioned in Nature the increase of the crops obtained by a Russian landlord who used to
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U.—PETTY TRADES IN THE LYONS REGION.
U.—PETTY TRADES IN THE LYONS REGION.
The neighbourhoods of St. Etienne are a great centre for all sorts of industries, and among them the petty trades occupy still an important place. Ironworks and coal-mines with their smoking chimneys, noisy factories, roads blackened with coal, and a poor vegetation give the country the well-known aspects of a “Black Country.” In certain towns, such as St. Chamond, one finds numbers of big factories in which thousands of women are employed in the fabrication of passementerie . But side by side w
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V.—SMALL INDUSTRIES AT PARIS.
V.—SMALL INDUSTRIES AT PARIS.
It would be impossible to enumerate here all the varieties of small industries which are carried on at Paris; nor would such an enumeration be complete, because every year new industries are brought into life. I therefore will mention only a few of the most important industries. A great number of them are connected, of course, with ladies’ dress. The confections —that is, the making of various parts of ladies’ dress—occupy no less than 22,000 operatives at Paris, and their production attains £3,
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W.—RESULTS OF THE CENSUS OF THE FRENCH INDUSTRIES IN 1896.
W.—RESULTS OF THE CENSUS OF THE FRENCH INDUSTRIES IN 1896.
If we consult the results of the census of 1896, that were published in 1901, in the fourth volume of Résultats statistiques du recensement des industries et des professions , preceded by an excellent summary written by M. Lucien March, we find that the general impression about the importance of the small industries in France conveyed in the text is fully confirmed by the numerical data of the census. It is only since 1896, M. March says in a paper read before the Statistical Society of Paris, t
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X.—THE SMALL INDUSTRIES IN GERMANY.
X.—THE SMALL INDUSTRIES IN GERMANY.
The literature of the small industries in Germany being very bulky, the chief works upon this subject may be found, either in full or reviewed, in Schmoller’s Jahrbücher , and in Conrad’s Sammlung national-ökonomischer und statistischer Abhandlungen . For a general review of the subject and rich bibliographical indications, Schönberg’s Volkwirthschaftslehre , vol. ii., which contains excellent remarks about the proper domain of small industries (p. 401 seq. ), as well as the above-mentioned publ
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Y.—THE DOMESTIC INDUSTRIES IN SWITZERLAND.
Y.—THE DOMESTIC INDUSTRIES IN SWITZERLAND.
We have most interesting monographs dealing with separate branches of the small industries of Switzerland, but we have not yet such comprehensive statistical data as those which have been mentioned in the text in speaking of Germany and France. It was only in the year 1901 that the first attempt was made to get the exact numbers of workpeople employed in what the Swiss statisticians describe as Hausindustrie , or “the domestic industries’ extension of the factory industries” ( der hausindustriel
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