Part 16

Principles of Economics, I, 315.

Industrial Efficiency, II, 451.

Schloss, Methods of Industrial Remuneration, 305.

Report, VII, 644.

Economics, 377.

Political Economy, 344, 345.

Economics, 133.

Bliss, Encyclopedia of Social Reform, art. Distribution, p. 501.

Economics, 360.

Stated technically, its marginal productivity is small and hence its reward is also small.

More truly, the marginal productivity theory.

J. R Commons, the Distribution of Wealth, 252.

More, Wage-earners’ Budgets, 269.

Today the loss is probably double this sum.

Gide, Political Economy, Rev. Ed., 663.

Seager, Introduction to Economics, 73.

Bullock, Introduction to Study of Economics, 106.

Socialism and Social Reform, 19.

Wages in the United Kingdom in the Nineteenth Century.

Acknowledgment should be made at this point of indebtedness to the excellent final chapter in Prof. H. R. Seager’s Introduction to Economics.

Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, 523.

MANUFACTURING. 179

BY O. P. AUSTIN.

INTRODUCTION.

The production of manufactures for the requirements of the world’s population is conducted in a comparatively small section of its land surface. Just as the manager of a great estate devotes one section of his estate to the production of certain articles, and other sections to certain other articles, so the great business instinct which rules the business of the world carries on in its various sections the varied industries best suited to the physical, ethnological and financial conditions of its various sections.

The people of western Europe and eastern United States are, for various reasons better able to produce the manufactures required by the world than are those of South America, Africa or the Orient; while, on the other hand, the people of South America, the Orient, Australia, Canada, the western part of the United States or the eastern part of Europe are better able, for various reasons, to produce the raw materials of manufacturing and the food supplies required by those engaged in the manufacturing industry than are the people of western Europe or eastern United States. South America and Australia produce wool in large quantities; Africa and the Amazon Valley produce the chief supply of india rubber; the Malayan peninsula and adjacent islands produce the bulk of the world’s tin; India produces jute; the Philippines, Manila hemp; Mexico, sisal; China and 180 Japan, the bulk of the world’s silk; Egypt, India and the United States, the world’s cotton; Russia, Austria-Hungary, India, Australasia, South America, Canada, the central and western parts of the United States produce the bulk of the world’s wheat, corn and meats, at least the bulk of that in excess of the requirements for local consumption; Europe, the West Indies, the East Indies and the tropical sections of India, China and Central and South America produce the bulk of the world’s sugar.

The manufacturing industries of the world--confining this term for the moment to those industries in which the great proportion of the work is performed by machinery--are conducted chiefly in, it might almost be said confined to, western Europe and eastern United States. True, the exclusive application of the word “manufactures” to that portion of the world’s product of this character made by the use of machinery in conjunction with large sums of capital--the factory method--carries one beyond the original meaning of the word “manufactures,” which primarily meant, of course, made by the hand (from manus, the hand; and facere, to make); but the industrial habits of the world have also passed beyond that stage in which manufacturing for the masses is carried on by hand methods.

It must not be understood from this that all of the world’s manufactures are produced in western Europe and eastern United States, or produced by modern machine methods in conjunction with the investment of great sums of money--the factory system. On the contrary, large quantities of manufactures are still produced by hand in various parts of the world other than those in which manufactures by modern machine methods are a leading characteristic of the occupations of the people. Nor must it be assumed that the areas designated as the non-manufacturing sections are entirely dependent upon the manufacturing sections for their manufactures. On the contrary, large quantities of manufactures are still produced in the 181 Orient, in Africa, South America, Australia and the islands of the sea by those simple processes which prevailed in Europe and the United States prior to the development of the modern methods less than two centuries ago. The industrious population of China, of India, of Japan, the millions of people in Africa, in South America and in the islands of the sea produce by simple methods large quantities, and in many cases a large proportion, of the simple manufactures which they require for their daily life. The cloth with which they cover their bodies, the simple requirements of household life and of agriculture are, in many cases, largely of their own production and made in keeping with the original meaning of the word “manufacture”--made by hand.