Part 17

But the statement is still true, that the great manufacturing areas of the world--the areas which give their chief attention, or the continuous attention of a large part of their population, to the production of those requirements of man other than the natural products and do this through the application of power, machinery and capital, and the operations thereof under the factory system, are western Europe and the eastern part of the United States, though the systems which prevail there are gradually extending to other parts of the world--eastern Europe, central, southern and western United States, Japan, India, Australia, Canada and South America.

As to the relative share of the world’s manufactures now produced by the use of machinery, power and capital--the factory method--and by the hand process, respectively, no exact statement can be made; nor are there facilities for even offering an intelligent estimate of the relative production by these two methods. There is reason to believe that two-thirds of the cotton cloth consumed in China is still made by the hand process, and if this be true it may be estimated that perhaps two-thirds of the other manufactures consumed in that country are 182 still made by hand; while in those other sections of the world in which railroads and the other methods which the people of the Occident are pleased to term “modern” do not yet prevail, a large proportion of the simple manufactures of the people, are still those produced by hand methods. The fact, however, that the sections which produce manufactures by modern methods are also supplied with modern facilities of transportation--the railroad and the steamship; and of communication--the telegraph, and also supplied with ample sums of capital and that other important quality born of long experience and the energy supplied by a temperate zone climate and the judicious admixture of the most energetic populations of the world--Europe and the United States--has enabled them to distribute their factory products in great quantities to those sections not producing by the factory method, and whose peoples are willing to exchange their natural products, food and raw materials, for the finished products of the factory.

This brings us to a consideration of the exchanges of the world--the exchanges of natural products for the products of the factory. This exchange, as already intimated, occurs chiefly in the requirements of the manufacturing section--raw materials and food--for manufactures. Western Europe, the great manufacturing section of that grand division, does not produce cotton, jute, or a sufficient supply of wool, silk, or hemp. For its india rubber, its tin, its copper and the numerous articles of tropical production required for manufacturing, it is dependent wholly or chiefly upon other parts of the world. The United States, while producing a large share of the world’s cotton and copper and iron, and a considerable supply of wool, must rely upon other parts of the world for its hemp and jute and sisal and india rubber and silk and many other of its tropical requirements. As a result the Orient exchanges its raw silk, its jute, its Manila hemp, its tin, and numerous less important articles, for the factory 183 products of Europe and the United States. Australia exchanges its wool, its meats and its gold for the products of the manufacturing sections. Africa sends its india rubber, its ostrich feathers, its gold and diamonds in exchange for factory products of those sections in which the manufacturing system has developed. South America offers as its exchangeable products wool, wheat, corn, meats, coffee and india rubber. Canada gives in exchange for her factory requirements timber, ores, wheat and other agricultural products.

Thus the business intelligence that rules the world, adapting one to another those various conditions which prevail in its varying sections, has built up in certain sections of its great area--Europe and the United States--a great factory system, operated by the great supplies of power (coal) which there exist in conjunction with the wealth, the intelligence, the climatic conditions and the quality of population, which system, besides supplying its own six hundred millions of people with their own requirements, sends to the other ten hundred millions of people in other parts of the world its surplus products and takes in exchange the natural products, the manufacturing material and food required by its own people and its own industries.

George J. Chisholm, in the Introduction to Bartholomew’s Atlas of the World’s Commerce, outlines the history of the development of manufactures and the relation thereof to commerce as follows:

“In the latter part of the eighteenth century there took place in England a number of inventions which have brought about a change in the conditions of manufacturing industry and of commerce, and an acceleration of the rate of the economic development of the world, to which all previous history presents no parallel or approach to a parallel. It is a change that has affected the entire world, bringing about an entirely new trade with the New World and the antipodes, and completely altering the character 184 of the trade with the East, depriving spices of the peculiar value which they held in commerce for so many centuries, and developing a trade of incomparably greater magnitude with the East than was at one time ever dreamt of, and largely in commodities of a bulky character yielding comparatively little profit on small quantities. The revolution was inaugurated by the inventions in connection with the cotton industry between 1769 and 1785 and the concurrent improvements in the steam engine by James Watt, who thereby first made this a generally serviceable machine. These were followed by the introduction of steam locomotion by land and water in the first quarter, and the rapid extension of these modes of transport in the remainder of the nineteenth century. The result of these inventions was to give a new value to the stores of coal and iron in the United Kingdom, and ultimately a new value to undeveloped land in new countries. It was railways that first made it possible to fill great ships with bulky produce like grain drawn from the far interior. The remarkable expansion of commerce thus brought about greatly increased the commercial advantages of Great Britain due to its situation and local facilities for shipping. In so far, however, as the unexampled development of British manufacturing industry and commerce in the period immediately following the Industrial Revolution was due not to geographical conditions but merely to the fact that the great inventions originated there and consequently the resources of Great Britain for carrying on manufactures by the new methods were developed first, the expansion of British manufactures and commerce was bound to be affected by the development of similar resources elsewhere; and the more rapid growth of manufactures in some rival countries resulting from this cause, and partly, it may be, from other causes, has been one of the marked features of recent economic history.”

I. MODERN MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD. 185

The manufacturing systems of the world have developed from mere hand and household industries to those of the machine and factory in less than two centuries. For thousands of years the simple requirements of men--of clothing, of domestic life, of agriculture and of transportation--were met with articles produced by hand labor, performed for the greatest part in the household or in simple workshops adjacent thereto. Then, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, man discovered that he could harness the power of the waterfall and, by making the wheels which it turned turn other wheels, could utilize that power in performing many tasks which he had hitherto performed laboriously by hand. The turning wheels twisted the wool and flax and cotton into threads stronger and finer and better than his wife had been accustomed to twist with the spinning wheel and distaff, and produced in a single day as much of this yarn as a hundred industrious women could produce in a week or a fortnight. By gearing the wheels to operate a loom he could weave the yarn into cloth with a small fraction of the labor and time which had been required to weave it by the hand loom and obtain better results.

Thus arose the custom of manufacturing by machinery operated by the power of the waterfall the cloth which had hitherto been manufactured by hand labor in the household; this was the beginning of the modern manufacturing industry.

To do this, however, it was necessary to plant the machines beside the waterfall and bring to them the raw material and the persons necessary to operate them, for the machine was unable to perform its task unless assisted by the intelligent labor and guidance of experienced men and women. Thus arose the system of performing in a single workshop, with 186 the aid of a considerable number of people and machines, the manufacturing which had been hitherto performed by many people in many households and with many machines of simpler form and operated by human power--the factory system.

This new system developed new occupations. The buildings in which the work was carried on must be constructed. The machinery required for operating the factory must be made and kept in repair, and new machines made to take the place of those worn out. So there came occupation for mechanics and skilled machinists in manufacturing and repairing the machines, and for others skilled in operating them. The material used in manufacturing the cloth must be transported to the factory, instead of being used at the place where it was grown as formerly; and the cloth must again be transported to the consumer; and thus there were new occupations for man and beast in transportation and in constructing and maintaining the roads over which the material was transported. Still another, and equally important, industry developed was that of supplying the food and other requirements of the men and women engaged in the factory, and this gave new activity to the agricultural industries near the factory and further occupation to those engaged in transportation.

To supply the wants of those employed in the factories, who were so busily engaged that they could not find time to grow their own food, or make their own clothing, other enterprising men and women established themselves near the factory to sell the required food and household supplies, to supply the fuel with which they cooked their daily food, to buy small portions of the cloth made in the factory and turn it into clothing to sell to the operatives, to shave their rough beards and occasionally trim their hair--and thus arose the factory town.

So the factory system, which at first threatened to take away the 187 occupation of thousands who had formerly devoted their time to making yarn and cloth by hand labor, developed new occupations and new industries, and brought portions of the hitherto scattered people into groups, and these groups in time developed better accommodations for themselves and their families in homes, in comforts of life, in educational facilities, and in hours of labor; and in doing this they also supplied the masses with cloth at a less cost of labor than they had formerly expended in obtaining it.

Meantime man was learning another important lesson, one which was to develop even more rapidly the art of manufacturing. He found through a long series of experiments that power could be generated by heating water until it turned into an expansive vapor which he called steam, and that this expansive force could be controlled in such manner as to put in operation a machine which he called the steam engine, which could in turn transmit its power to that machinery formerly operated exclusively by the power of the waterfall.

This discovery again revolutionized the manufacturing industry, which had hitherto been limited in the scope of its operations by the supply of water power so located that the raw material could be transported to it and the finished products in turn transported thence to market. With this new force, steam, by which the manufacturing machinery could be made entirely independent of the waterfall, the factories were located at points convenient to the natural supply of fuel and manufacturing material or to the market for the finished products. Where this was not practicable the factories were located at places to which the materials could be readily and cheaply carried by water transportation, either on some navigable stream or the sea-coast.

Another important contribution made by steam power to the development 188 of the manufacturing industry was the decrease in cost of transportation. Before the development of the railway and the steamship the material of manufacture, unless produced within a short distance of some navigable water, canals, rivers, lakes or oceans, was of comparatively little value. It was not always practicable to plant the factory in the section which most readily produced the wool or cotton or flax or hemp or silk, or to place it alongside the iron or copper mine; and even if this were done the manufactured material was valueless unless it could be transported to those requiring it. Even the lighter articles of manufacture, such as wool or cotton or fibers or silk, could not be transported any considerable distance without greatly increasing the cost to the manufacturer, and thus proportionately advancing the cost of the manufactured article. But when, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the railways began to penetrate the continents and the steamships began to cross the ocean and extend their tours to the commercially undeveloped sections of the world, the manufacturers found new sources of supply open to them and quantities of raw material reaching them from distant lands at such comparatively low cost as to enable them to enlarge their output, increase the variety of their productions and reduce the cost of both the necessities and conveniences and luxuries which they were offering to the public. The railways of the world grew from 25,000 miles in 1850 to 500,000 miles in 1900 and 600,000 in 1909. The tonnage of steam vessels on the navigable waters of the world grew from less than one million tons in 1850 to 24 million in 1909; and the carrying power of the sail and steam vessels of the world, measured in sail tons, grew from 15 million tons in 1850 to 100 million in 1909. The general reduction in freight rates meantime is illustrated by the fact that the price of transporting wheat from Chicago to New York by rail 189 fell from 33½ cents per bushel in 1872 to 10 cents per bushel in 1900, and the charge for transporting wheat from New York to Liverpool fell from 17 cents per bushel in 1875 to 3 cents per bushel in 1905; and similar reductions were made in the charges for transporting manufacturers’ materials.

Thus the application of steam to manufacturing and transportation multiplied the power of production. The area over which it could be performed was greatly enlarged, the cost of materials was reduced through cheaper transportation, new devices and processes were developed as a result of the competition, cheaper raw material was obtained from countries where plentiful supplies and cheap labor give low prices, and the opportunity of locating the factory near the place of production or at some convenient meeting point between the various places of production--all these contributed to reduction of cost and increase of supplies of material of manufacture. The great iron and steel works of western Pennsylvania, and northern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, for example, are located not at the iron mines or the coal fields, but at places between these two fields to which these materials can be cheaply carried from their respective places of production. The iron ore is chiefly produced in the Lake Superior region and carried at a very low cost by vessels especially constructed for this purpose to the southern shores of Lake Erie. The coal is chiefly produced in western Pennsylvania and central Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The cost of transporting the coal from the mine to the lake shore, or the ore from the lake shore to the mine, or both coal and ore to some mutually convenient meeting point by river or canal or railroads constructed for this purpose across a comparatively level country, is extremely small, less in many cases than that of carrying material to the waterfall which is not infrequently located at places difficult of access. The vessels carrying the manufactures of the United States or the manufacturing countries of Europe to 190 South America, Africa and the Orient, bring back at a very low cost the india rubber, the tin, the fibers, the wool, the silk, the Egyptian cotton of those distant countries; and the manufacturer who a century ago was limited in his supply of raw materials to the immediate vicinity of his factory may now bring his material from all parts of the world, while the area in which he may sell his products has been correspondingly enlarged.

One very recent contribution to the convenience and cheapness of manufacture is found in the transmission of power in the form of electricity. Formerly the machines of the factory were operated by power obtained from the steam engine or the water wheel through lines of shafting, gearing, belts, friction pulleys, etc. This made it necessary that the factory operated by water power be placed alongside the waterfall, or at least within a comparatively short distance of the source of power. Recent inventions have made it possible to transform power into electricity, carry that electricity hundreds of miles on a wire, and transform it back into power for the operation of the machinery of the factory or the transportation of the raw material or the finished product. This has increased greatly the value of the world’s water power in its relation to manufacturing. Formerly only a small part of the waterfalls of the world were used at all, largely because of their comparative inaccessibility and the cost of transporting the raw material to them and the finished product from them. Now that power, generated at any point, however inaccessible for freight handling, may be transmitted in the form of electricity on a simple piece of wire to any convenient point within a hundred or even two hundred miles of the place of production, and by a simple process applied to the operations of machines small or large, simple or complex, the possibilities of the waterfall in supplying power for the manufacturer are greatly enlarged.

Not only is this true of the waterfalls now in existence but of those 191 which may be brought into existence, for now that man has found a way to use the power thus generated he may readily increase the number of waterfalls by constructing dams at many places, and using the water over and over again in its flow from the place of origin to the ocean level. The great quantities of water stored up in the form of snow and ice in the mountain ranges of the world, and gradually liberated by melting may supply almost untold quantities of power as they flow down the mountain sides used not merely once but many times. The manufacturing power of Italy, Switzerland and southern France is now being greatly augmented by this process.

Another possibility of the use of this new distributor of power, electricity, is the multiplying of workshops and the return in some instances and certain articles to household or small shop manufacture. It is now so easy to introduce the electric wire and a small electric motor into the household or the shop adjoining the household and to so operate small machines for the various processes in many of the manufacturing industries, that this new use of electricity for the transmission of power is already making visible changes in the factory systems of the world, and promises still greater changes. In many lines of manufacture in which the machinery occupies small space and requires little power and the quantity of material handled is not great, such as watch and clock making, the manufacture of clothing, boots and shoes, toys, etc., a part or all of the work can now be performed in the household or small shop through the power generated miles away and brought into the workman’s home on a simple piece of wire.

On the other hand the use of electricity in the great factory or manufacturing establishment is equally important. Instead of transmitting the power of the engine to the various classes of machinery by belts, shafting and gearing, much of it is now 192 transmitted and applied in the form of electricity. Great cranes which handle many tons of material are operated by the electric motor without the intervention of the costly shafting, belting and gearing; and the great magnet, made such by electricity, picks up its ton of steel rails with the same ease that the toy magnet picks up the needle, and is managed with no greater physical exertion than the other.

Cassier’s Magazine, an accepted authority on engineering matters, publishes with favorable editorial comment, in its issue of September, 1909, a statement by Sylvester Stewart that “we could take out in regions where water power is needed at least a hundred times as much water power as is now employed, furnishing a safer and cleaner power than steam, at a lower cost, and thus prolong the existence of our coal fields. * * * A running stream may be compared to an endless driving belt only awaiting connection to the machinery it is capable of driving, but it has not been appreciated because we have become so familiar with it; if it had suddenly been discovered, doubtless it would have been harnessed immediately. Coal is passing away, but water flows continuously. A hundred thousand horsepower may be taken from a river and its place is still filled, but the coal vein once emptied is emptied forever.” Mr. Stewart adds that probably not one-thousandth part of the water power of the world is now utilized, and that while the greater part of this power is not at present available, because of its existence in out-of-the-way places, or in rivers so deep and sluggish that the energy obtainable from them would cost more than steam power, at least a hundred times as much water power as is now used could be, under present conditions, utilized in a manner to supply it at less than the cost of coal at present prices.

II. THE USE OF MACHINERY IN MANUFACTURING. 193

The statements made in this discussion that the great expansion in the production of manufactures came with the adoption of machinery for manufacturing must not be understood as meaning that no machinery was used in manufacturing prior to the period of expansion. Machines have been used in manufacturing for many centuries.

The spinning wheel, used many hundred years ago, was a machine, and so was the hand loom, by which the threads spun by the wheel were woven into cloth. Flax and wool were originally turned into thread by the use of the distaff, a stick to which the spinner attached a small portion of the fiber, and by revolving the stick against his body twisted the fibers into a thread. Then by letting the end of the stick drop downward he drew out the thread, and with another roll of the stick against his body again twisted the fibers and lengthened the thread, which he then wound around the distaff. After many years of this process it occurred to somebody that by setting the distaff in a frame and passing a cord or a piece of rawhide around it and also around a large wheel and turning the wheel he could get a much more rapid and regular revolution of the distaff. This was the beginning of the use of the “machine” in the making of yarn, for the spinning wheel was a machine, of a crude type, to be sure, but a machine. This served many generations of men and women for the manufacture of thread and yarn, from flax, from wool and from cotton.

To turn this thread or yarn into cloth another “machine” was used, the loom, which, by fixing the thread on certain frames and passing other threads back and forth as the frames were raised or lowered, formed the cloth. But this “machine,” the loom, was operated by human power, as was that other machine, the spinning wheel. The women and children spun the thread or yarn, the father and sons operated the loom, 194 chiefly in the winter months in which they had no occupation in the fields. If a man chose to give his time to weaving and became a weaver by trade he lightened his heavy labors at times by attention to the garden surrounding his workshop, performing the necessary work for the production of his food supply. “The workshop of the weaver,” says Ure in his History of the Cotton Manufactures, “was a rural cottage from which, when he was tired of the sedentary labor, he could sally forth into his little garden and with the spade or hoe attend to his culinary products. The cotton which was to form his weft was picked clean by the fingers of his younger children and was carded and spun by the older girls assisted by his wife, and the yarn was woven by himself assisted by his sons.” In the manufacture of woolen goods conditions were similar. “The work,” says James in his History of the Worsted Manufactures, “was entirely domestic, and its different branches widely scattered over the country. The manufacturer had to travel on horseback to purchase his wool among the farmers or at the great fairs or markets, and the wool, after being sorted and combed, was distributed among the peasantry and received back as yarn. The machine used by them was still the old one-thread spinning wheel, and in summer weather on many a village green might be seen the housewives plying their busy trade. Returning with his yarn the manufacturer had to seek out his weavers, who ultimately delivered to him his camelets or russells or calimancoes ready for sale to the merchant or delivery to the dyer.”

These are pictures of the manufacturing industry in England as late as 1770. “Machines” were in use, but of the simplest type, and all operated by the power of the man or woman using them, or at the best by human or animal power, and in most cases the work was performed in the household or a small shop adjoining the household.

The transformation to the “machine method” or factory system began 195 when some power greater than that of man or beast was applied to the operation of the machines, and the machines themselves were so enlarged as to multiply their producing power. “In tracing the effect of the application of modern machinery to English industry,” says Hobson in his Evolution of Modern Capitalism, “there appear two prominent factors, the growth of improved mechanical apparatus, and the evolution of extra-human motor power. We speak of the industry which has prevailed since the middle of the eighteenth century as ‘machine production’ not because there were no machines before that time but, firstly, because a vast acceleration in the invention of complex machinery applied to almost all industrial arts dates from that period, and secondly, because the application upon an extended scale of non-human motor powers manifested itself then for the first time.” “The water frame, the carding engine, and the other machines which Arkwright brought out, in a finished state,” says Cooke Taylor in his History of the Factory System, “required both more space than could be found in a cottage and more power than could be applied by the human arm. Their weight required them to be placed in strongly built walls, and they could not be advantageously turned by any power then known but that of water. Further, the use of machinery was accompanied by a greater division of labor, and therefore a greater co-operation was necessary to bring all the processes under a central supervision.”