THE ORDER OF DEVELOPMENT OF MACHINE INDUSTRY.
Sec. 1. _A Machine differentiated from a Tool._
Sec. 2. _Machinery in Relation to the Character of Human Labour._
Sec. 3. _Contributions of Machinery to Productive Power._
Sec. 4. _Main Factors in Development of Machine Industry._
Sec. 5. _Importance of Cotton-trade in Machine Development._
Sec. 6. _History refutes the "Heroic" Theory of Invention._
Sec. 7. _Application of Machinery to other Textile Work._
Sec. 8. _Reverse order of Development in Iron Trades._
Sec. 9. _Leading Determinants in the General Application of
Machinery and Steam-Motor._
Sec. 10. _Order of Development of modern Industrial Methods in the
several Countries--Natural, Racial, Political, Economic._
Sec. 1. It appears that in the earlier eighteenth century, while there
existed examples of various types of industrial structure, the
domestic system in its several phases may be regarded as the
representative industrial form. The object of this chapter is to
examine the nature of those changes in the mechanical arts which
brought about the substitution of machine-industry conducted in
factories or large workshops for the handicrafts conducted within the
home or in small workshops, with the view of discovering the economic
bearing of these changes.
A full inductive treatment would perhaps require this inquiry to be
prefaced by a full history of the inventions which in the several
industries mark the rise of the factory system and the adoption of
capitalist methods. This, however, is beyond the scope of the present
work, nor does it strictly belong to our scientific purpose, which is
not to write the narrative of the industrial revolution, but to bring
such analysis to bear upon the records of industrial changes as shall
enable us to clearly discern the laws of those changes.
The central position occupied by machinery as the chief material
factor in the modern evolution of industry requires that a distinct
answer should be given to the question, What is machinery?
In distinguishing a machine from a mere tool or handicraft implement
it is desirable to pay special attention to two points, complexity of
structure and the activity of man in relation to the machine. Modern
machinery in its most developed shape consists, as Karl Marx points
out, of three parts, which, though mechanically connected, are
essentially distinct, the motor mechanism, the transmitting mechanism,
and the tool or working machine.
"The motor mechanism is that which puts the whole in motion. It either
generates its own motive power, like the steam-engine, the caloric
engine, the electro-magnetic machine, etc., or it receives its impulse
from some already existing natural force, like the water-wheel from a
head of water, the windmill from wind, etc. The transmitting
mechanism, composed of fly-wheels, shafting, toothed wheels, pullies,
straps, ropes, bands, pinions, and gearing of the most varied kind,
regulates the motion, changes its form where necessary, as, for
instance, from linear to circular, and divides and distributes it
among the working machines. These two first parts of the whole
mechanism are there solely for putting the working machines in motion,
by means of which motion the subject of labour is seized upon and
modified as desired."[58]
Although the development of modern machinery is largely concerned with
motor and transmitting mechanisms, it is to the working machine we
must look in order to get a clear idea of the differences between
machines and tools. A tool may be quite simple in form and action as a
knife, a needle, a saw, a roller, a hammer, or it may embody more
complex thought in its construction, more variety in its movement, and
call for the play of higher human skill. Such tools or implements are
the hand-loom, the lathe, the potter's-wheel. To these tools man
stands in a double relation. He is handicraftsman in that he guides
and directs them by his skill within the scope of activity to which
they are designed. He also furnishes by his muscular activity the
motive force with which the tool is worked. It is the former of these
two relations which differentiates the tool from the machine. When the
tool is removed from the direct and individual guidance of the
handicraftsman and placed in a mechanism which governs its action by
the prearranged motion of some other tool or mechanical implement, it
ceases to be a tool and becomes part of a machine. The economic
advantage of the early machines consisted chiefly in the economy of
working in combined action a number of similar tools by the agency of
a single motor. In the early machine the former tool takes its place
as a central part, but its movements are no longer regulated by the
human touch.[59] The more highly evolved modern machinery generally
represents an orderly sequence of processes by which mechanical unity
is given to the labour once performed by a number of separate
individuals, or groups of individuals with different sorts of tools.
But the economy of the earlier machines was generally of a different
character. For the most part it consisted not in the harmonious
relation of a number of different processes, but rather in a
multiplication of the same process raised sometimes to a higher size
and speed by mechanical contrivances. So the chief economic value of
the earlier machinery applied to spinning consisted in the fact that
it enabled each spinner to work an increased number of spindles,
performing with each the same simple process as that which he formerly
performed with one. In other cases, however, the element of
multiplication was not present, and the prime economy of the machine
consisted in the superior skill, regularity, pace, or economy of power
obtained by substituting mechanical direction of the tool for close
and constant human direction. In modern machinery the sewing-machine
illustrates the latter, as the knife-cleaning machine illustrates the
former.
The machine is inherently a more complex structure than the tool,
because it must contain within itself the mechanical means for working
a tool, or even for the combined working of many tools, which formerly
received their direction from man. In using a tool man is the direct
agent, in using a working machine the transmitting mechanism is the
direct agent, so far as the character of the several acts of
production is not stamped upon the form of the working machine itself.
The man placed in charge of a machine determines whether it shall act,
but only within very narrow limits how it shall act. The two
characteristics here brought out in the machine, complexity of action
and self-direction or automatic character, are in reality the
objective and subjective expression of the same factor--namely, the
changed relation of man towards the work in which he co-operates.
Some of the directing or mental effort, skill, art, thought, must be
taken over, that is to say, some of the processes must be guided not
directly by man but by other processes, in order to constitute a
machine. A machine thus becomes a complex tool in which some of the
processes are relatively fixed, and are not the direct expression of
human activity. A machinist who feeds a machine with material may be
considered to have some control over the pace and character of the
first process, but only indirectly over the later processes, which are
regulated by fixed laws of their construction which make them
absolutely dependent on the earlier processes. A machine is in the
nature of its work largely independent of the individual control of
the "tender," because it is in its construction the expression of the
individual control and skill of the inventor. A machine, then, may be
described as a complex tool with a fixed relation of processes
performed by its parts. Even here we cannot profess to have reached a
definition which enables us in all cases to nicely discriminate
machine from tool. It is easy to admit that a spade is a tool and not
a machine, but if a pair of scissors, a lever, or a crane are tools,
and are considered as performing single simple processes, and not a
number of organically relative processes, we may by a skilfully
arranged gradation be led on to include the whole of machinery under
tools. This difficulty is of course one which besets all work of
definition.
But while it is not easy by attention to complexity of structure
always to distinguish a tool from a machine, nothing is gained by
making the differentia of a machine to consist in the use of a steam
or other non-human motor.
A vast amount of modern machinery is of course directed not to
combining tools or series of productive processes upon which the
productive skill of man is closely engaged, but to substituting other
motors for the muscular power of man. But though certain tools as well
as certain forms of human effort are here replaced by machines, these
tools are not commonly embodied in the machinery for generating and
transmitting the new force, so that the mere consideration of the
different part played by the worker in generating productive force
does not assist us to distinguish a machine from a tool. A
type-writer, a piano, which receive their impulse from the human
muscles, must evidently be included among machines. It is indeed true
that these, like others of the same order, are exceptional machines,
not merely in that the motive power is derived more essentially from
human muscles, but in that the _raison d'etre_ of the mechanism has
been to provide scope for human skill and not to destroy it. But
though it is true that a high degree of skill may be imparted to the
first process of the working of a piano or type-writer, it is none the
less true that the "tool," the implement which strikes the sound or
makes the written mark, is not under immediate control of human touch.
The skill is confined to an early process, and the mechanism as a
whole must be classed under machinery. Nothing would indeed be gained
in logical distinctness if we were to abandon our earlier differentia
of the machine and confine that term to such mechanical appliances as
derived their power from non-human sources--the fact which commonly
marks off modern from earlier forms of machine production. For we
should find that this substitution of non-human for human power was
also a matter of degree, and that the most complex steam-driven
machinery of to-day cannot entirely dispense with some directing
impulse of human muscular activity, such as the shovelling of coal
into a furnace, though the tendency is ever to reduce the human effort
to a minimum in the attainment of a given output.
This consideration of the difficulties attending exact definitions of
machinery is not idle, for it leads to a clearer recognition of the
nicely graded evolution which has changed the character of modern
industry, not by a catastrophic substitution of radically different
methods, but by the continuous steady development of certain elements,
common to all sorts of industrial activity, and a corresponding
continuous degeneration of certain other elements.
Sec. 2. The growth of machine-industry then may be measured by the
increased number and complexity of the processes related to one
another in the mechanical unit or machine, and by a corresponding
shrinkage of the dependence of the product upon the skill and volition
of the human being who tends or co-operates with the machine. Every
product made by tool or machine is _qua_ industrial product or
commodity the expression of the thought and will of man; but as
machine-production becomes more highly developed, more and more of the
thought and will of the inventor, less and less of that of the
immediate human agent or machine-tender is expressed in the product.
But it is evidently not enough to say that the labour-saving machine
has merely substituted the stored and concentrated effort of the
inventor for that labour of the handicraftsman which is saved. This
would be to ignore the saving of muscular power due to the
substitution of forces of nature--water, steam, electricity, etc., for
the painful effort of man. It is the thought of the inventor, plus the
action of various mechanical and other physical forces, which has
saved the labour of man in the production of a commodity. The further
question--how far this saving of labour in respect of a given
commodity is compensated by the increased number of commodities to
which human labour is applied--is a consideration which belongs to a
later chapter.
In tracing the effect of the application of modern machinery to
English industry there appear two prominent factors, which for certain
purposes require separate treatment--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 extensive scale of non-human motor powers manifested itself
then for the first time.
One important external effect and indication of the momentous
character of these changes is to be found in the quickening of that
operation, the beginning of which was observable before the great
inventions, the substitution of the Factory System for the Domestic
System.
The peculiar relation of Machinery to the Factory System consists in
the fact that the size, expensiveness, and complexity of machinery on
the one hand, and the use of non-human power on the other hand, were
forces which united to drive labour from the home workshop to the
large specialised workshop--the Factory.
"The water frame, the carding engine, and the other machines which
Arkwright brought out in a finished state, required both more space
than could be found in a cottage, and more power than could be applied
by the human arm. Their weight also rendered it necessary to place
them in strongly-built walls, and they also 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
labour, and therefore a greater co-operation was requisite to bring
all the processes of production into harmony and under a central
superintendence."[60] Hence the growth of machine-production is to a
large extent synonymous with the growth of the modern Factory System.
Sec. 3. Man does his work by moving matter. Hence machinery can only aid
him by increasing the motive power at his disposal.
(1) Machinery enables forces of man or nature to be more effectively
applied by various mechanical contrivances composed of levers,
pulleys, wedges, screws, etc.
(2) Machinery enables man to obtain the use of various motor forces
outside his body--wind, water, steam, electricity, chemical action,
etc.[61]
Thus by the provision of new productive forces, and by the more
economical application of all productive forces, machinery improves
the industrial arts.
Machinery can increase the scope of man's productive ability in two
ways. The difficulty of concentrating a large mass of human force upon
a given point at the same time provides certain quantitative limits to
the productive efficiency of the human body. The steam-hammer can
perform certain work which is quantitatively outside the limit of the
physical power of any number of men working with simple tools and
drawing their motor power from their own bodies. The other limit to
the productive power of man arises from the imperfect continuity of
human effort and the imperfect command of its direction. The
difficulty of maintaining a small, even, accurate pressure, or a
precise repetition of the same movement, is rather a qualitative than
a purely quantitative limit. The superior certainty and regularity of
machinery enables certain work to be done which man alone could not do
or could do less perfectly. The work of the printing machine could not
be achieved by man. Machinery has improved the texture and quality of
certain woollen goods;[62] recent improvements in milling result in
improved quality of flour and so on. Machinery can also do work which
is too fine or delicate for human fingers, or which would require
abnormal skill if executed by hand. Economy of time, which Babbage[63]
accounts a separate economy, is rightly included in the economies just
named. The greater rapidity with which certain manufacturing
processes--_e.g._, dyeing--can be achieved arises from the superior
concentration and continuity of force possible under machinery. All
advantages arising from rapid transport are assignable to the same
causes.
The continuity and regularity of machine work are also reflected in
certain economies of measurement. The faculty of self-registering,
which belongs potentially to all machinery, and which is more utilised
every day, performs several services which may be summed up by saying
that they enable us to know exactly what is going on. When to
self-registration is applied the faculty of self-regulation, within
certain limits a new economy of force and knowledge is added. But
machinery can also register and regulate the expenditure of human
power. Babbage well says:--"One of the most singular advantages we
derive from machinery is in the check which it affords against the
inattention, the idleness, or the knavery of human agents."[64] This
control of the machine over man has certain results which belong to
another aspect of machine economy.[65]
These are the sources of all the improvements of economies imputed to
machine-production. All improvements in machinery, as applied to
industrial arts, take therefore one of the following forms:--
(1) Re-arrangement or improvement of machinery so as to utilise more
fully the productive power of nature or man. Improvements enabling one
man to tend more spindles, or enabling the same engine at the same
boiler-pressure to turn more wheels, belong to this order of
improvement.
(2) Economies in the source of power. These will fall under four
heads--
1. Substitution of cheaper for dearer kinds of human power.
Displacement of men's labour by women's or children's.
2. Substitution of mechanical power for human power. Most
great improvements in the "labour-saving" character of
machinery properly come under this head.
3. Economies in fuel or in steam. The most momentous
illustration is the adoption of the hot blast and the
substitution of raw coal for coke in the iron trade.[66]
4. The substitution of a new mechanical motor for an old one
derived from the same or from different stores of
energy--_e.g._, steam for water power, natural gas for
steam.
(3) Extended application of machinery. New industrial arts owing their
origin to scientific inventions and their practice to machinery arise
for utilising waste products. Under "waste products" we may include
(_a_) natural materials, the services of which were not recognised or
could not be utilised without machinery--_e.g._, nitrates and other
"waste" products of the soil; (_b_) the refuse of manufacturing
processes which figured as "waste" until some unsuspected use was
found for it. Conspicuous examples of this economy are found in many
trades. During the interval between great new inventions in machinery
or in the application of power many of the principal improvements are
of this order. Gas tar, formerly thrown into rivers so as to pollute
them, or mixed with coal and burnt as fuel, is now "raw material for
producing beautiful dyes, some of our most valued medicines, a
saccharine substance three hundred times sweeter than sugar, and the
best disinfectants for the destruction of germs of disease." "The
whole of the great industries of dyeing and calico-printing have been
revolutionised by the new colouring matters obtained from the old
waste material gas tar."[67] These economies both in fuel and in the
utilisation of waste material are largely due to the increased scale
of production which comes with the development of machine industry.
Many waste products can only be utilised where they exist in large
quantities.
Sec. 4. If we trace historically the growth of modern capitalist
economies in the several industries we shall find that they fall
generally into three periods--
1. The period of earlier mechanical inventions, marking the
displacement of domestic by factory industry.
2. The evolution of the new motor in manufacture. The
application of steam to the manufacturing processes.
3. The evolution of steam locomotion, with its bearing on
industry.
As these periods are not materially exclusive, so also there are close
economic relations subsisting between the development of machinery and
motor, and between the improvements in manufacture and in the
transport industry. But in order to understand the nature of the
irregularity which is discernible in the history of the development of
machinery, it is essential to consider these factors both separately
and in the historical and economic relation they stand to each other.
For this purpose we will examine two large staple industries, the
textile and the iron industries of England, in order that we may trace
in the chief steps of their progress the laws of the evolution of
modern machinery.
The textile industry offers special facilities to such a study. The
strongest and most widespread of English manufactures, it furnishes in
the early eighteenth century the clearest examples of the several
forms of industry. To the several branches of this industry the
earliest among the great inventions were applied. This start in
industrial development has been maintained, so that the most advanced
forms of the modern factory are found in textile industry. Moreover,
the close attention which has been given to, and the careful records
which have been kept of certain branches of this work, in particular
the Lancashire cotton industry, enable us to trace the operation of
the new industrial forces here with greater precision than is the case
with any other industry. As Schulze-Gaevernitz, in his masterly study,
says of the cotton industry--"The English cotton industry is not only
the oldest, but is in many respects that modern industry which
manifests most clearly the characteristics of modern industrial
methods, both in their economic and their social relations."[68]
The iron industry has been selected on the ground of its close
connection with the application of steam-driven machinery to the
several industries. It is in a sense the most fundamental industry of
modern times, inasmuch as it furnishes the material environment of the
great modern economic forces. Moreover, we have the advantage of
tracing the growth of the iron manufacture _ab ovo_, for, as we have
seen, before the industrial revolution it played a most insignificant
part in English commerce.
Lastly, a study of the relations between the growth of the iron and
the textile industries will be of special service in assisting us to
realise the character of the interaction of the several manufactures
under the growing integration of modern industry.[69]
Sec. 5. In observing the order of inventions applied to textile
industries, the first point of significance is that cotton, a small
industry confined to a part of Lancashire, and up to 1768 dependent
upon linen in order to furnish a complete cloth, should take the lead.
The woollen trades, in the first half of the eighteenth century, as
we saw, engaged the attention of a vastly larger number of persons,
and played a much more important part in our commerce. The silk trade
had received new life from the flow of intelligent French workers, and
the first modern factory with elaborate machinery was that set up for
silk throwing by Lombe. Yet by far the larger number of the important
textile inventions of the eighteenth century were either applied in
the first instance to the cotton manufacture and transferred,
sometimes after a lapse of many years, to the woollen, worsted, and
other textile trades, or being invented for woollen trades, proved
unsuccessful until applied to cotton.[70]
Although the origin and application of inventive genius is largely
independent of known laws, and may provisionally be relegated to the
domain of "accident," there are certain reasons which favoured the
cotton industry in the industrial race. Its concentration in South
Lancashire and Staffordshire, as compared with the wide diffusion of
the woollen industries, facilitated the rapid acceptance of new
methods and discoveries. Moreover, the cotton industry being of later
origin, and settling itself in unimportant villages and towns, had
escaped the influence of official regulations and customs which
prevailed in the woollen centres and proved serious obstacles to the
introduction of new industrial methods.[71] Even in Lancashire itself
official inspectors regulated the woollen trade at Manchester,
Rochdale, Blackburn, and Bury.[72]
The cotton industry had from the beginning been free from all these
fetters. The shrewd, practical business character which marks
Lancashire to-day is probably a cause as well as a result of the great
industrial development of the last hundred years.
Moreover, it was recognised, even before the birth of the great
inventions, that cotton goods, when brought into free competition with
woollen goods, could easily undersell them and supplant them in
popular consumption. This knowledge held out a prospect of untold
fortune to inventors who should, by the application of machinery,
break through the limitations imposed upon production by the
restricted number of efficient workers in some of the processes
through which the cotton yarn must pass.
But the stimulus which one invention afforded to another gave an
accumulative power to the application of new methods. This is
especially seen in the alternation of inventions in the two chief
processes of spinning and weaving.
Even before the invention of John Kay's Fly Shuttle, which doubled the
quantity of work a weaver could do in a day, we found that spinners
had great difficulties in supplying sufficient yarn to the weavers.
This seems to have applied both to the Lancashire cotton and to the
Yorkshire woollen manufactures. After the fly-shuttle had come into
common use this pressure of demand upon the spinners was obviously
increased, and the most skilful organisation of middleman-clothiers
was unable to supply sufficient quantities of yarn. This economic
consideration directed more and more attention to experiments in
spinning machinery, and so we find that, long before the invention of
the jenny and the water-frame, ingenious men like John Kay of Bury,
Wyatt, Paul, and others had tried many patents for improved spinning.
The great inventions of Hargreaves and Arkwright and Crompton enabled
spinning to overtake and outstrip weaving and when, about 1790, steam
began to be applied to considerable numbers of spinning mills, it was
no longer spinning but weaving that was the limiting process in the
manufacture of woollen and cotton cloths.
This strain upon weaving, which had been tightening through the period
of the great spinning improvements, acted as a special incentive to
Cartwright, Horrocks, and others to perfect the power-loom in its
application, first to woollen, then to cotton industries. Not until
well into the nineteenth century, when steam power had been fully
applied by many minor improvements, were the arts of spinning and
weaving brought fully into line. The complete factory, where the
several processes of carding, spinning, weaving (and even dyeing and
finishing), are conducted under the same roof and worked in
correspondence with one another, marks the full transition from the
earlier form of domestic industry, where the family performed with
simple tools their several processes under the domestic roof.[73]
Sec. 6. The history of these textile inventions does a good deal to
dispel the "heroic" theory of invention--that of an idea flashing
suddenly from the brain of a single genius and effecting a rapid
revolution in a trade. No one of the inventions which were greatest in
their effect, the jenny, the water-frame, the mule, the power-loom,
was in the main attributable to the effort or ability of a single man;
each represented in its successful shape the addition of many
successive increments of discovery; in most cases the successful
invention was the slightly superior survivor of many similar attempts.
"The present spinning machinery which we now use is supposed to be a
compound of about eight hundred inventions. The present carding
machinery is a compound of about sixty patents."[74] This is the
history of most inventions. The pressure of industrial circumstances
direct the intelligence of many minds towards the comprehension of
some single central point of difficulty, the common knowledge of the
age induces many to reach similar solutions: that solution which is
slightly better adapted to the facts or "grasps the skirts of happy
chance" comes out victorious, and the inventor, purveyor, or, in some
cases, the robber is crowned as a great inventive genius. It is the
neglect of these considerations which gives a false interpretation to
the annals of industrial invention by giving an irregular and
catastrophic appearance to the working of a force which is in its
inner pressure much more regular than in its outward expression. The
earlier increments of a great industrial invention make no figure in
the annals of history because they do not pay, and the final increment
which reaches the paying-point gets all the credit, though the
inherent importance and the inventive genius of the earlier attempts
may have been as great or greater.
There is nothing fortuitous or mysterious in inventive energy.
Necessity is its mother, which simply means that it moves along the
line of least resistance. Men like Kay, Hargreaves, Arkwright,
Cartwright, set their intelligence and industry to meet the several
difficulties as they arose. Nearly all the great textile inventors
were practical men, most of them operatives immersed in the details of
their craft, brought face to face continually with some definite
difficulty to be overcome, some particular economy desirable to make.
Brooding upon these concrete facts, trying first one thing then
another, learning from the attempts and failures made by other
practical men, and improving upon these attempts, they have at length
hit upon some contrivance that will get over the definite difficulty
and secure the particular economy. If we take any definite invention
and closely investigate it, we shall find in nearly every case it has
thus grown by small increments towards feasibility. Scientific men,
strictly so-called, have had very little to do with these great
discoveries. Among the great textile inventors, Cartwright alone was a
man leading a life of thought.[75] When the spinning machinery was
crippled in its efficiency by the crude methods of carding, Lees and
Arkwright set themselves to apply improvements suggested by
common-sense and experience; when Cartwright's power-loom had been
successfully applied to wool, Horrocks and his friends thought out
precisely those improvements which would render it remunerative in the
cotton trade.
Thus in a given trade where there are several important processes, an
improvement in one process which places it in front of the others
stimulates invention in the latter, and each in its turn draws such
inventive intelligence as is required to bring it into line with the
most highly-developed process. Since the later inventions, with new
knowledge and new power behind them, often overshoot the earlier ones,
we have a certain law of oscillation in the several processes which
maintains progress by means of the stimulus constantly applied by the
most advanced process which "makes the pace." There is nothing
mysterious in this. If one process remains behind in development each
increment of inventive effort successfully applied there brings a
higher remuneration than if applied to any of the more forward
processes. So the movement is amenable to the ordinary law of "Supply
and Demand" enforced by the usual economic motives. As the invention
of the fly-shuttle gave weaving the advantage, more and more attention
was concentrated upon the spinning processes and the jenny was
evolved; the deficiency of the jenny in spinning warp evolved the
water-frame, which for the first time liberated the cotton industry
from dependence upon linen warp: the demand for finer and more uniform
yarns stimulated the invention of the mule. These notable improvements
in spinning machinery, with their minor appendages, placed spinning
ahead of weaving, and stimulated the series of inventions embodied in
the power-loom. The power-loom was found to be of comparatively little
service until the earlier processes of dressing and sizing had been
placed on a level of machine development by the efforts of Horrocks
and others. Not until after 1841 was an equilibrium reached in the
development of the leading processes. So likewise each notable advance
in the machinery for the main processes has had the effect of bringing
an increase of inventive energy to bear upon the minor and the
subsidiary processes--bleaching, dyeing, printing, etc. Even now the
early process of "ginning" has not been brought fully into line in
spite of the prodigious efforts, made especially in the United States,
to overcome the difficulties involved in this preparatory stage of the
cotton industry.
The following schedule will serve to show the relation of the growth
of the cotton industry as measured by consumption of raw cotton to the
leading improvements of machinery.
Cotton Imported. Inventions &c.
lbs.
1730 1,545,472 1730 Wyatt's roller-spinning (patented
1738).
1738 Kay's fly-shuttle.
1741 1,645,031 1748 Paul's carding-machine (useless until
improved by Lees, Arkwright,
Wood, 1772-74).
1764 3,870,392 1764 Hargreave's spinning-jenny (patented
1770), for weft only.
1764 Calico-printing introduced into
Lancashire.
1768 Arkwright perfects Wyatt's
spinning-frame (patented 1769),
liberating cotton from dependence on
linen warp.
1771 }
to } 4,764,589 1771 Arkwright's mill built at Cromford.
1775 }
1775 Arkwright takes patents for carding,
drawing, roving, spinning.
1779 Crompton's mule completed (combining
jenny and water-frame, producing finer
and more even yarn).
1781 5,198,775
1785 18,400,384 1785 Cartwright's power-loom.
Watt and Boulton's first engine for
cotton-mills.
1792 34,907,497 1792 Whitney's saw-gin.
1813 51,000,000 1813 Horrocks' dressing-machine.
1830 261,200,000 1830 The "Throstle" (almost exclusively
used in England for spinning warp).
1832 287,800,000 1832 Roberts' self-acting mule perfected.
1841 489,900,000 1841 Bullough's improved power-loom.
Ring spinning (largely used in U.S.A.,
recently introduced into Lancashire).
From this schedule it is evident that the history of this trade may be
divided with tolerable accuracy into four periods.
(1) The preparatory period of experimental inventions of Wyatt, Paul,
etc., to the year 1770.
(2) 1770 to 1792 (_circa_), the age of the great mechanical
inventions.
(3) 1792 to 1830, the application of steam power to manufacture and
improvements of the great inventions.
(4) 1830 onward, the effect of steam locomotion upon the industry
(1830, the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester railway).
If we measure the operation of these several industrial forces within
these several periods, as they are reflected on the growing size of
the cotton industry, we shall realise the accumulative character of
the great industrial movement, and form some approximately accurate
conception of the relative importance of the development of mechanical
inventions and of the new motor-power.
Sec. 7. The history of the cotton industry is in its main outlines also
the history of other textile industries. We do not possess the same
means of measuring statistically the growth of the woollen industries
in the period of revolution; but since, on the one hand, many of the
spinning and weaving inventions were speedily adapted into the woollen
from the cotton industry, while the application of steam to
manufacture and the effects of steam locomotion were shared by the
older manufacture, the growth of the trade in the main conforms to the
same divisions of time. The figures of imported wool are not so
valuable a register as in the case of cotton, because no account is
taken of home-produce, but the following statistics of foreign and
colonial wool imported into England serve to throw light upon the
growth of our woollen manufactures.
STATISTICS OF WOOL IMPORTED INTO ENGLAND.
lbs. lbs.
1766 1,926,000 | 1830 32,305,000
1771 1,829,000 | 1840 49,436,000
1780 323,000 | 1850 74,326,000
1790 2,582,000 | 1860 151,218,000
1800 8,609,000 | 1870 263,250,000
1810 10,914,000 | 1880 463,309,000
1820 9,775,000 | 1892 743,046,104
In the silk industry the influence of machinery is complicated by
several considerations especially affecting this manufacture. Although
the ingenuity and enterprise of the Lombes had introduced complex
machinery into silk throwing many years before it was successfully
applied to any other branch of textile industry, the trade did not
grow as might have been expected, and the successive increments of
great mechanical invention were slowly and slightly applied to the
silk industry. There are special reasons for this, some of them
connected with the intrinsic value of the commodity, others with the
social regulation of the trade.
The inherent delicacy of many of the processes, the capricious
character of the market for the commodities, the expensive production
of which renders them a luxury and especially amenable to the shifts
of taste and fashion, have preserved for artistic handicraft the
production of many of the finer silk fabrics, or have permitted the
application of machinery in a far less degree than in the cotton and
woollen industries.
Moreover, the heavy duties imposed upon raw and thrown silk, which
accompanied the strict prohibition of the importation of manufactured
silk goods in 1765, by aggravating the expenses of production and
limiting the market at the very epoch of the great mechanical
inventions, prevented any notable expansion of consumption of silk
goods, and rendered them quite unable to resist the competition of the
younger and more enterprising cotton industry, which, after the
introduction of colour-printing early in the nineteenth century, was
enabled to out-compete silk in many markets.
Even in the coarser silk fabrics where weaving machinery was
successfully applied at an early date, the slow progress in "throwing"
greatly retarded the expansion of the trade, and after the repeal of
the duty on imported silk in 1826 the number of throwing mills was
still quite inadequate to keep pace with the demands of the
weavers.[76] Subsequent improvements in throwing mills, and the
application of the ingenious weaving machinery of Jacquard and later
improvers, have given a great expansion to many branches of the trade
in the last fifty years.
But the following statistics of the consumption of raw and thrown silk
from 1765 to 1844 indicate how slight and irregular was the expansion
of the trade in England during the era of the great inventions and the
application of the steam-motor, and how disastrously the duties upon
raw and thrown silks weighed upon this branch of manufacture.
AVERAGE IMPORTATION.[77]
lbs. lbs.
1765 } | 1823 2,468,121
1766 } 715,000 | 1824 4,011,048[78]
1767 } | 1825 3,604,058
1785 } | 1826 2,253,513
1786 } 881,000 | 1827 4,213,153
1787 } | 1828 4,547,812
1801 } | 1829 2,892,201
to } 1,110,000 | 1830 4,693,517
1812 } | 1831 4,312,330
1814 2,119,974 | 1832 4,373,247
1815 1,475,389 | 1833 4,761,543
1816 1,088,334 | 1834 4,522,451
1817 1,686,659 | 1835 5,788,458
1818 1,922,987 | 1836 6,058,423
1819 1,848,553 | 1837 4,598,859
1820 2,027,635 | 1838 4,790,256
1821 2,329,808 | 1839 4,665,944
1822 2,441,563 | 1840 4,819,262
In the linen industry the artificial encouragement given to the Irish
trade, which, bounty-fed and endowed with a monopoly of the British
markets, was naturally slow to adopt new methods of production, and
the uncertain condition of the English trade, owing to the strong
rivalry of cotton, prevented the early adoption of the new machine
methods. Although Adam Smith regarded linen as a promising industry,
it was still in a primitive condition. Not until the very end of the
eighteenth century were flax spinning mills established in England and
Scotland, and not until after 1830 was power-loom weaving introduced,
while the introduction of spinning machinery into Ireland upon a scale
adequate to supply the looms of that country took place a good deal
later.
We see that the early experimental period in the cotton industry
produced no very palpable effect upon the volume of the trade. Between
1700 and 1750 the manufacture was stagnant.[79] The woollen
manufacture, owing largely to the stimulus of the fly-shuttle, showed
considerable expansion. The great increase of cotton production in
1770-90 measures the force of the mechanical inventions without the
aid of the new motor. The full effects of the introduction of steam
power were retarded by the strain of the French war. Though 1800 marks
the beginning of a large continuous expansion in both cotton and
woollen manufactures, it was not until about 1817, when the new motor
had established itself generally in the large centres of industry and
the energy of the nation was called back to the arts of peace, that
the new forces began to fully manifest their power. The period 1840
onwards marks the effect of the revolution in commerce due to the
application of the new motor to transport purposes, the consequent
cheapening of raw material, especially of cotton, the opening up of
new markets for the purchase of raw material and for the sale of
manufactured goods. The effect of this diminished cost of production
and increased demand for manufactured goods upon the textile trades is
measured by the rapid pace of the expansion which followed the opening
of the early English railways and the first establishment of
steam-ship traffic.
Sec. 8. The development of the textile trades, and that of cotton in
particular, arose from the invention of new machinery. This machinery
was quickened and rendered effective by the new motor. The iron trade
in its development presents the reverse order. The discovery of a new
motor was the force which first gave it importance. The mechanical
inventions applied to producing iron were stimulated by the
requirements of the new motor.
In 1740 the difficulty of obtaining adequate supplies of timber, and
the failure of attempts to utilise pit-coal, had brought the iron
trade to a very low condition. According to Scrivener, at this time
"the iron trade seemed dwindling into insignificance and
contempt."[80]
The earlier steps in its rise from this degradation are measured by
the increased application of pit-coal and the diminished use of
charcoal.
The progress may be marked as follows:--
(1) The application of Watt's earlier improvements upon Newcomen's
engines, patented 1769, was followed by a rise in the average output
for furnaces worked with charcoal. The average output of 294 tons in
1750 was increased to 545 tons in 1788.
(2) The substitution of coke for charcoal proceeding _pari passu_ with
improved methods of smelting yielded an average output for coke-fed
furnaces of 903 tons in 1788. To this epoch belong also Cort's
inventions for puddling and rolling (patented 1783-84), which
revolutionised the production of bar-iron.
(3) The introduction of Watt's double-power engine in 1788-90. In 1796
the production of pig-iron was double that of 1788, and the average
output per furnace raised to 1048 tons.
(4) The substitution of hot for cold blast in 1829, effecting an
economy of coal to the extent of 2 tons 18 cwt. per ton of cast-iron.
(5) The adoption of raw coal instead of coke in 1833, effecting a
further reduction of expenditure of coal from 5 tons 3-1/2 cwt. to 2
tons 5-1/4 cwt. in producing a ton of cast-iron.
These were the leading events in the establishment of the iron
industry of this country. The following table indicates the growth of
the production of English iron from 1740 to 1840:--
Year. No. of Furnaces. Average Output. Total Produce.
Tons. Tons.
1740 59 294 17,350
1788 77 909 coke } 61,300
545 charcoal}
1796 121 1048 125,079
1806 133 1546 258,206
1825 364 2228 703,184
(261 in blast)
1828 365 2530
(277 in blast)
1839 378 3592 1,347,790
Here we see that economy of power rather than improved machinery is
the efficient cause of the development of industry, or more properly,
that economy of power precedes and stimulates the several steps in
improvement of machinery.
The substitution of coke for charcoal and the application of steam
power not merely increased enormously the volume of the trade, but
materially affected its localisation. Sussex and Gloucester, two of
the chief iron-producing counties when timber was the source of power,
had shrunk into insignificance by 1796, when facilities of obtaining
coal were a chief determinant. By 1796, it is noteworthy that the four
districts of Stafford, Yorkshire, South Wales, and Salop were to the
front.
The discovery of the hot blast and substitution of raw coal for coke
occurring contemporaneously with the opening of railway enterprise
mark the new interdependence of industries in the age of machinery.
Iron has become a foundation upon which every machine-industry alike
is built. The metal manufactures, so small in the eighteenth century,
attained an unprecedented growth and a paramount importance in the
nineteenth.
The application of machinery to the metal industries has led to an
output of inventive genius not less remarkable in this century than
the textile inventions of the eighteenth century.
"In textile manufacture it was improved machinery that first called
for a new motor; in metal manufacture it was the new motor which
rendered necessary improved machinery.... For all modern purposes the
old handicraft implements were clearly obsolete. The immediate result
of this requirement was the bringing to the front a number of
remarkable men, Brindley, Smeaton, Maudsley, Clements, Bramah,
Nasmyth, etc., to supply mechanism of a proportionate capacity and
nicety for the new motive-power to act upon and with, and the ultimate
result was the adoption of the modern factory system in the larger
tool-making and engineering workshops, as well as in metal
manufactories proper. Thus there gradually grew up," says Jevons, "a
system of machine-tool labour, the substitution of iron hands for
human hands, without which the execution of engines and machines in
their present perfection would be impossible."[81]
In the later era of machine development an accumulative importance is
attached to the improvements in the machine-making industries. The
great inventions associated with the names of Maudsley and Nasmyth,
the cheapening of steel by the Bessemer process, and the various steps
by which machines are substituted for hands in the making of
machinery, have indirect but rapid and important effects upon each and
every machine-industry engaged in producing commodities directly
adapted to human use. The economy of effort for industrial purposes
requires that a larger and larger proportion of inventive genius and
enterprise shall be directed to an interminable displacement of
handicraft by machinery in the construction of machinery, and a
smaller proportion to the relatively unimportant work of perfecting
manufacturing machinery in the detailed processes of each manufacture
engaged in the direct satisfaction of some human want.
A general survey of the growth of new industrial methods in the
textile and iron industries marks out three periods of abnormal
activity in the evolution of modern industry. The first is 1780 to
1795, when the fruits of early inventions are ripened by the effective
application of steam to the machine-industries. The second is 1830 to
1845, when industry, reviving after the European strife, utilised more
widely the new inventions, and expanded under the new stimulus of
steam locomotion. The third is 1856 to 1866 (_circa_), when the
construction of machinery by machinery became the settled rule of
industry.
Sec. 9. Bearing in mind how the invention of new specific forms of
machinery in the several processes of manufacture proceeds
simultaneously with the application of the new motor-power, we find
ourselves quite unable to measure the amount of industrial progress
due to each respectively. But seeing that the whole of modern industry
has thus been set upon a new foundation of coal and iron, it is
obvious that the bonds connecting such industries as the textile and
the iron must be continually growing closer and stronger. In earlier
times the interdependency of trades was slight and indirect, and the
progress in any given trade was almost wholly derived from
improvements in specific skill or in the application of specific
mechanical invention. The earlier eighteenth century did indeed
display an abnormal activity in these specific forms of invention. For
examples of these it is only necessary to allude to Lombe's silk mill
at Derby, the pin factory made famous by Adam Smith, Boulton's
hardware factory at Soho, and the renowned discoveries of Wedgwood.
But all increased productivity due to these specific improvements was
but slight compared with that which followed the discovery of steam as
a motor and the mechanical inventions rendering it generally
applicable, which marked the period 1790 to 1840. By this means the
several specific industries were drawn into closer unity, and found a
common basis or foundation in the arts of mining, iron-working, and
engineering which they lacked before.
From these considerations it will follow that the order in which the
several industries has fallen under the sway of modern industrial
methods will largely depend upon the facility they afford to the
application of steam-driven machinery. The following are some of the
principal characteristics of an industry which determine the order,
extent, and pace of its progress as a machine industry:--
(_a_) _Size and complexity of Structure._--The importance of the
several leading textile manufactures, the fact that some of them were
highly centralised and already falling under a factory system, the
control of wealthy and intelligent employers, were among the chief
causes which enabled the new machinery and the new motor to be more
quickly and successfully applied than in smaller, more scattered, and
less developed industries.
(_b_) _Fixity in quantity and character of demand._--Perfection of
routine-work is the special faculty of machine-production. Where there
is a steady demand for the same class of goods, machinery can be
profitably applied. Where fashion fluctuates, or the individual taste
of the consumer is a potent factor, machinery cannot so readily
undertake the work. In the textile industries there are many
departments which machinery has not successfully invaded. Much
lace-making, embroidery, certain finer weaving is still done by human
power, with or without the aid of complex machinery. In the more
skilled branches of tailoring, shoe-making, and other clothing trades,
the individual character of the demand--_i.e._, the element of
irregularity--has limited the use of machinery. A similar cause
retains human motor-power in certain cases to co-operate with and
control complex machinery, as in the use of the sewing-machine.
(_c_) _Uniformity of material and of the processes of
production._--Inherent irregularity in the material of labour is
adverse to machinery. For this reason the agricultural processes have
been slow to pass under steam-power, especially those directly
concerned with work on the soil, and even where steam-driven machines
are applied their economy, as compared with hand labour, is less
marked than in manufacturing processes. To the getting of coal and
other minerals steam and other extra-human power has been more slowly
and less effectively applied than in dealing with the matter when it
is detached from the earth.
(_d_) _Durability of valuable properties._--The production of quickly
perishable articles being of necessity local and immediate demands a
large amount of human service which cannot economically be replaced or
largely aided by machinery. The work of the butcher and the baker have
been slow to pass under machinery. Where butchering has become a
machine-industry to some extent, the direct cause has been the
discovery of preservative processes which have diminished the
perishability of meat. So with other food industries, the facility of
modern means of transport has alone enabled them gradually to pass
under the control of machinery. Until quite recently cakes and the
finer forms of bakery were a purely local and handicraft product.
(_e_) _Ease or simplicity of labour involved._--Where abundance of
cheap labour adequate to the work can be obtained, and particularly in
trades where women and children are largely engaged, the development of
machinery has been generally slower. This condition often unites with
(_b_) or (_c_) to retain an industry in the "domestic" class. A large
mass of essentially "irregular" work requiring a certain delicacy of
manipulation, which by reason of its narrowness of scope is yet easily
attained, and which makes but slight demands upon muscular force or
intelligence, has remained outside machine-production. Important
industries containing several processes of this nature have been slower
to fall into the complete form of the factory system. The slow progress
of the power-loom in cotton and wool until after 1830 is explained by
these considerations. The stocking-frame held out against machinery
still longer, and hand work still plays an important part in several
processes of silk manufacture. Even now, in the very centre of the
factory system, Bolton, the old hand-weaving is represented by a few
belated survivors.[82]
(_f_) _Skilled Workmanship._--High skill in manipulation or treatment
of material, the element of art infused into handicraft, gives the
latter an advantage over the most skilful machinery, or over such
machinery as can economically be brought into competition with it. In
some of the metal trades, in pottery and glass-making there are many
processes which have not been able to dispense with human skill. In
these manufactures, moreover, more progress is attributable to
specific inventions than to the adoption of the common machinery and
motor-power which are not largely available in the most important
processes.
From these considerations it will appear that where an industry is
large and regular in character, it falls more readily and completely
under the control of machinery, where it is small and irregular it
conforms more slowly and partially to the new methods. Most of the
extractive industries of agriculture, stock-raising, fishing, mining,
hunting, are irregular by reason of the nature of their material and
its subjection to influences, geological, chemical, climatic, and
others which are but slightly under calculation or human control. The
final processes by which commodities are adapted to the use of
individual consumers necessarily partake of the irregularity or
variety of human tastes and desires. We shall therefore find most
regularity in the intermediate processes where the raw materials,
having been extracted from nature, are being endowed with those
qualities of shape, position, etc., which are required to enable them
to satisfy human wants. The manufacturing stages where machinery finds
fullest application are in nearly all cases intermediate stages of
production. Even where machine-production seems directly to satisfy
some human want, there are commonly some final processes required
which involve individual skill. Almost all products which satisfy the
desires of man pass through a large number of productive processes
which may be classed as extractive, transport, manufacturing, and
distributive. These are, of course, not in all cases clearly
distinguishable. Mixed with the extractive processes of mining and
wheat-raising are several processes of transport and manufacture: the
various stages of manufacture may be broken by stages of transport: a
final process of manipulation or manufacture may precede the final act
of distribution, as in the sale of drugs to the consumer. But,
generally speaking, these four kinds of productive processes mark four
historic stages in the passage from raw material to finished
commodity.
The two middle stages of transport and manufacture have fallen far
more fully under the control of steam-driven machinery than the
others, and it is in the elaboration of older manufacturing and
transport processes and the addition of new processes that we trace
the largest effects of the evolution of modern industrial methods.
The following list of the divisions under which workers engaged in the
production of material wealth are classified for purposes of the
census may serve to bring out more clearly this proportionate
development of machinery. The figures appended give the numbers
engaged in the several occupations in 1891, and serve to approximately
indicate the relative importance of the several principal branches of
industry:--
Agriculture 1,311,720
Fishing 25,225
Mining 561,637
Stone, clay, road-making 209,972
Transport--
(_a_) Railways 186,774
(_b_) Roads 366,605
(_c_) Canals, rivers, seas 208,443
(_d_) Messages and porterage 194,044
Houses, furniture, and decorations 820,582
Food and lodgings 797,989
Iron and steel 380,193
Other metals 146,550
Ships and boats 170,517
Carriages and harness 108,780
Machines and implements 342,231
Textiles 1,128,589
Dress 1,099,833
Earthenware and glass 90,007
Chemicals and compounds 56,047
Books 135,616
Animal substances (manufacture) 76,566
Vegetable substances (paper, etc.) 196,889
General mechanics and labourers 805,105
Commercial--
(_a_) Merchants and agents 363,037
(_b_) Dealers in money 21,891
(_c_) Insurance 31,437
Engineers and surveyors 15,441
In glancing down this list of the chief industries engaged in the
production of commercial wealth, it will be recognised at once that
the manufacturing and transport industries are those to which
steam-power and the economies of large production have been especially
applied. Though, historically, the first industrial use of steam-power
was in coal-mining, it remains true that the extensive application of
modern machinery to agriculture and the other extractive industries is
of comparatively recent growth, while the work of retail distribution
has hitherto made but trifling use of machinery and steam-power. Only
within the last few years have a few gigantic retail distributive
businesses shown a tendency to apply steam and electricity to
mechanical contrivances for purposes of distribution.
Sec. 10. The new industrial forces first applied to the cotton spinning
of South Lancashire, and rapidly forcing their way into other branches
of the textile manufactures, then more gradually transforming the
industrial methods of the machinery, hardware, and other staple
English manufactures, passed into the Western Continent of Europe and
America, destroying the old domestic industry and establishing in
every civilised country the reign of steam-driven machinery. The
factors determining the order and pace of the new movement in the
several countries are numerous and complex. In considering the order
of machine-development, it must be remembered that the different
nations did not start from an equal footing at the opening of the age
of great inventions. By the beginning of the eighteenth century
England had established a certain supremacy in commerce. The growth of
her colonial possessions since the Revolution and the drastic and
successful character of her maritime policy had enabled her to
outstrip Holland. In 1729 by far the greater part of the Swedish iron
exported from Gothenburg went to England for shipbuilding
purposes.[83] At the close of the seventeenth century Gregory King
placed England, Holland, and France at the head of the industrial
nations with regard to the productivity of their labour.[84] Italy
and Germany were little behind in the exercise of manufacturing arts,
though the naval superiority and foreign possessions of the
above-named nations gave them the commercial superiority. By 1760
England had strengthened her position as regards foreign commerce, and
her woollen industry was the largest and most highly-developed
industry in the world. But so far as the arts of manufacture
themselves were concerned there was no such superiority in England as
to justify the expectation of the position she held at the opening of
the nineteenth century. In many branches of the textile arts,
especially in silk spinning and in dyeing, in pottery, printing, and
other manufactures, more inventive genius and more skill were shown on
the Continent, and there seemed _a priori_ no reason why England
should outstrip so signally her competitors.
The chief factors in determining the order of the development of
modern industrial methods in the several countries may be classified
as natural, political, economic.
NATURAL. (1) _The structure and position of the several
countries._--The insular character of Great Britain, her natural
facilities for procuring raw materials of manufacture and supplies of
foreign food to enable her population to specialise in manufacture,
the number and variety of easily accessible markets for her
manufactures, gave her an immense advantage. Add to this a temperate
climate, excellent internal communication by river (or canal), and an
absence of mountain barriers between the several districts. These
advantages were of greater relative importance before steam transport,
but they played a large part in facilitating the establishment of
effective steam transport in England. Extent of sea-board and good
harbourage have in no small measure directed the course of modern
industry, giving to England, Holland, France, Italy an advantage which
the levelling tendency of modern machinery has not yet been able to
counteract. The slow progress of Germany until recent years, and the
still slow progress of Russia, is attributable more to these physical
barriers of free communication, internal and external, than to any
other single cause that can be adduced. Inherent resources of the
soil, quality of land for agriculture, the proximity of large supplies
of coal and iron and other requisites of the production of machinery
and power rank as important determinants of progress. The machine
development of France in particular has been retarded by the slow
discovery of her natural areas of manufacture, the districts where
coal and iron lie near to one another in easily accessible supply. The
same remark applies to Germany and to the United States. At the close
of last century, when the iron trade of England was rapidly advancing,
the iron trade of France were quite insignificant, and during the
earlier years of the nineteenth century the progress was extremely
slight.[85]
(2) _Race and National Character._--Closely related to climate and
soil, these qualities of race are a powerful directing influence in
industry. Muscular strength and endurance, yielding in a temperate
climate an even continuity of vigorous effort; keen zest of material
comfort stimulating invention and enterprise; acquisitiveness, and the
love of external display; the moral capacities of industry, truth,
orderly co-operation; all these are leading factors determining the
ability and inclination of the several nations to adopt new industrial
methods. Moral qualities in English workmanship have indisputably
played a large part in securing her supremacy. "A British trade-mark
was accepted as a guarantee of excellence, while the products of other
countries were viewed with a suspicion justified by experience of
their comparative inferiority."[86] The more highly civilised nations
have thus gained by this civilisation, and have widened the distance
which separates them from the less civilised. England, France,
Germany, Holland, and the United States are in wealth and in
industrial methods far more widely removed from Spain and Russia than
was the case a hundred years ago.
(_b_) POLITICAL.--Statecraft has played an important part in
determining the order and pace of industrial progress. The possession
of numerous colonies and other political attachments in different
parts of the world, comprising a large variety of material resources,
gave to England, and in a less measure to France, Holland, Spain, a
great advantage. The tyrannical use these nations made of their
colonies for the purpose of building up home manufactures enabled
them to specialise more widely and safely in those industries to which
the new methods of production were first applied. Even after the North
American colonies broke loose, the policy of repression England had
applied to their budding manufactures enabled her to retain to a large
extent the markets thus created for her manufactured goods.
The large annexations England made during the eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries gave her a monopoly of many of the finest markets
for the purchase of raw materials and for the sale of manufactured
goods. The large demand thus established for her textile and metal
wares served not only to stimulate fresh inventions, but enabled her
to utilise many improvements which could only be profitably applied in
the case of large industries with secure and expanding markets.
But the most important factor determining the priority of England was
the political condition of continental Europe at the very period when
the new machinery and motor-power were beginning to establish
confidence in the new industrial order. When Crompton's mule,
Cartwright's power-loom, Watt's engines were transforming the industry
of England, her continental rivals had all their energies absorbed in
wars and political revolutions. The United States and Sweden were the
only commercial nations of any significance who, being neutral,
obtained a large direct gain from the European strife. Yet England, in
spite of the immense drain of blood and money she sustained, under the
momentum of the new motor-power far outstripped the rivalry of such
states. Though she had to pay a heavy price for her immunity from
invasion, she thereby secured an immense start in the race of modern
machine-production. Until 1820 she had the game in her own hands. In
European trade she had a practical monopoly of the rapidly advancing
cotton industry. It was this monopoly which, ruthlessly applied to
maintain prices at a highly remunerative rate, and to keep down wages
to starvation point, built up, in an age of supreme and almost
universal misery for the masses, the rapid and colossal fortunes of
the cotton kings. Not until peace was established did the textile and
other factories begin to take shape upon the Continent, and many
years elapsed before they were able to compete effectively with
England. Switzerland was the first continental country to actively
adopt the new methods. The large supply of water-power stood her in
good stead, and the people took more willingly to the factory system
than in other countries.[87] France was slower in her development, in
spite of the strong protective system by which she strove, though not
very successfully, to exclude English cotton goods. The fall of
English prices and profits in the cotton trade between 1820 and 1830
marks clearly the breakdown of the English monopoly before the cheap
labour of Alsace and the cheap raw material of the United States, now
organised in the factory system with the new machinery.[88] In this,
the most advanced trade, the world-competition which now is operative
in a thousand different industries, measuring and levelling economic
advantages, first clearly shows itself, and in 1836 Ure finds the
continental nations and America competing successfully with England in
markets which had hitherto been entirely her own.
(_c_) ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.--The transformation of English agriculture,
the growth of large farms, drove great numbers of English peasants
into the towns, and furnished a large supply of cheap labour for the
new machinery.
This movement was accelerated by the vices of our land tenure. In
France and Germany, where the agricultural workers had a stronger
interest and property in their land, they were less easily detached
for factory purposes. But in England, where the labourer had no
property in the land, reformed methods of agriculture and the
operation of the Poor Law combined to incite the large proprietors and
farmers to rid themselves of all superfluous population in the rural
parts and accelerated the migration into the towns. Here the
population bred with a rapidity hitherto unknown. The increase of
population in England and Wales during the thirty years from 1770 to
1800 is placed at 1,959,590, or 27-1/10 per cent., while during the
next thirty years, 1800 to 1830, it amounted to 5,024,207, or 56-3/5
per cent.[89] This large supply of cheap labour in the towns enabled
the Lancashire and Yorkshire factories to grow with startling
rapidity. The exhaustion left by the Napoleonic wars, the political
disorder and insecurity which prevailed on the Continent, retarded
until much later the effective competition of other European nations
who were behind England in skill, knowledge, and the possession of
markets. The American manufactures which had sprung up after the
revolution had made considerable strides, but the conquest and
settlement of vast new areas of land, and the immense facilities
afforded for the production of raw material, retarded their rate of
growth until long after the opening of this century. It was, indeed,
not until about 1845 that the cotton manufacture made rapid strides in
the United States. During the twenty years previous the progress had
been very slight, but between 1845 and 1859 a very substantial and,
making allowance for fluctuations in the cotton crops, a very steady
growth took place.[90]
Another great economic advantage which assisted England was the fact
that she, more than any other European nation, had broken down the old
industrial order, with its guilds, its elaborate restrictions, and
conservative methods. Personal freedom, security of property, liberty
to work and live where and how one liked, existed in England to an
extent unknown on the Continent before the French Revolution. The
following account of the condition of the cotton manufacture in
Germany in the eighteenth century will serve to indicate the obstacles
to the reformed methods of industry:--"Everything was done by rule.
Spinning came under public inspection, and the yarn was collected by
officials. The privilege of weaving was confined to the confraternity
of the guild. Methods of production were strictly prescribed; public
inspectors exercised control. Defects in weaving were visited with
punishment. Moreover, the right of dealing in cotton goods was
confined to the confraternity of the merchant guild: to be a
master-weaver had almost the significance of a public office. Besides
other qualifications, there was the condition of a formal examination.
The sale also was under strict supervision; for a long time a fixed
price prevailed, and a maximum sale was officially prescribed for each
dealer. The dealer had to dispose of his wares to the weaver, because
the latter had guaranteed to him a monopoly of the export trade."[91]
Under such conditions the new machine-industry could make little
advance. Excepting in the case of the woollen industries, England had
for the most part already shaken off the old regulations before 1770.
In particular, the cotton trade, which was in the vanguard of the
movement, being of recent growth and settling outside the guild towns,
had never known such restrictions, and therefore lent itself to the
new order with a far greater facility than the older trades. Moreover,
England was free from the innumerable and vexatious local taxes and
restrictions prevalent in France and in the petty governments of
Germany. Although the major part of these foolish and pernicious
regulations has been long swept away from Germany and other
continental nations, the retarding influence they exercised, in common
with the wider national system of protection which still survives,
kept back the cotton industry, so that in Germany it still stands half
a century behind its place in England.[92]
The following figures show how substantial was the lead held by
England in the cotton manufacture a little before the middle of the
century.
NUMBER OF SPINDLES WORKING IN COTTON MILLS IN 1846.[93]
Spindles.
England and Wales 15,554,619
Scotland 1,727,871
Ireland 215,503
Austria and Italy 1,500,000
France 3,500,000
Belgium 420,000
Switzerland 650,000
Russia 7,585,000
United States 3,500,000
States of the Zollverein 815,000
----------
35,467,993
The development of the cotton industry in 1888 in the chief industrial
countries, as indicated by the consumption of raw cotton, is expressed
in the accompanying diagram.
Lastly, the national trade policy of England was of signal advantage
in her machine development. Her early protective system had, by the
enlargement of her carrying trade and the increase of her colonial
possessions, laid the foundation of a large complex trade with the
more distant parts of the world, though for a time it crippled our
European commerce. While we doubtless sacrificed other interests by
this course of policy, it must be generally admitted that "English
industries would not have advanced so rapidly without Protection."[94]
But as we built up our manufacturing industries by Protection, so we
undoubtedly conserved and strengthened them by Free Trade--first, by
the remission of tariffs upon the raw materials of manufacture and
machine-making, and later on by the free admission of food stuffs,
which were a prime essential to a nation destined to specialise in
manufacture. France, our chief national competitor, weakened her
position by a double protective policy, not merely refusing admittance
to foreign manufactures in her markets, but retaining heavy duties
upon the importation of foreign coal and iron, the foundational
constituents of machine-production. This protective policy, adopted by
nations whose skill, industry, and natural resources would have
rendered them formidable competitors to English manufacturers, has
hindered considerably the operation of those economic forces which
impel old and thickly-peopled countries to specialise in manufacture
and trade, and so has retarded the general development of modern
machine-production. But while protective tariffs indisputably operate
in this way, it is not possible to determine the extent of their
influence. In a large country of rich resources a high degree of
specialisation in manufacture is possible in spite of a protective
policy. The pressure of high wages is an economic force more
powerfully operative than any other in stimulating the adoption of
elaborate machinery.[95] Both in the textile and the iron industries
the United States present examples of factory development more
advanced even than those of England. Certain processes of warping and
winding are done by machinery in America which are still done by hand
labour in England.[96] The chain and nail-making trades, which employ
large numbers of women in South Staffordshire and Worcestershire, are
made more cheaply by machinery in America.[97] Moreover, the high
standard of living and the greater skill of the American operatives
enables them to tend more machines. In German factories a weaver tends
two, or rarely three looms; in Lancashire women weavers undertake
four, and in Massachusetts often six looms, and sometimes eight.[98]
[Illustration: CONSUMPTION OF RAW COTTON, 1887-88. (Millions
of lbs.)]
Thus we see how the new industrial forces were determined in the order
of their operation by the character and conditions of the several
countries, their geographical position and physical resources, the
elements of racial character, political and industrial institutions,
deliberate economic policies, and, above all, by the absorbing nature
of the military and political events contemporary with the outburst of
inventive ingenuity. The composition of these forces determined the
several lines of less resistance along which the new industry moved.
The exact measurement of so multiform a force is impossible. The
appended tables and diagrams may, however, serve to indicate the
progress of the several industrial nations as measured by (i.)
development of railway and merchant shipping; (ii.) consumption of
coal and iron; (iii.) application of steam-power; (iv.) estimated
annual value of manufactures:--
I. COMPARATIVE MILEAGE OF RAILWAYS, 1840 TO 1890.
1840. 1850. 1860. 1870. 1880. 1890.
United Kingdom 800 6,600 10,400 15,500 17,900 19,800
Continent of Europe 800 7,800 21,400 47,800 83,800 110,200
United States 2,800 9,000 30,600 53,400 93,600 156,000
India -- -- 800 4,800 9,300 16,000
Australia -- -- 200 1,200 5,400 10,100
Rest of the World -- -- 2,800 5,500 18,400 42,300
RAILWAY MILEAGE IN RELATION TO AREA AND POPULATION.
Density of Railway
Population per Mileage
Square Square Mile (1888).
Area. Miles. (1890).
United Kingdom 120,849 320 19,810
France 204,092 184 20,900
Germany 208,738 233 24,270
Russia 1,902,227 42 17,700
Austria 240,942 166 15,610
Italy 110,623 260 7,830
Spain 197,670 86 5,930
Portugal 34,038 136 1,190
Sweden 170,979 28 4,670
Norway 124,495 16 970
Denmark 15,289 133 1,220
Holland 12,648 350 1,700
Belgium 11,373 530 2,760
Switzerland 15,976 190 1,870
Greece 25,041 88 370
Turkey 65,909 73 900
U.S.A. (excluding
Alaska and Indian
territory) 1,175,550 21 156,080
Japan 145,655 274 910
India 964,992 229 15,250
Australia 3,030,771 1.20 10,140
Canada 3,315,647 1.45 12,700
Egypt (cultiv. area) 12,976 638 1,260
[Illustration: TONNAGE OF MERCHANT SHIPPING.]
[Illustration: COMPARATIVE TABLE OF CONSUMPTION OF COAL AND
IRON PER INHABITANT IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES.]
[Illustration: STEAM POWER OF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.]
[Illustration: STEAM AND OTHER POWER IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES.]
[Illustration: ESTIMATED ANNUAL VALUE OF MANUFACTURES.]
FOOTNOTES:
[58] Karl Marx, _Capital_, p. 367.
[59] Marx points out how in many of the most highly evolved machines
the original tool survives, illustrating this from the original
power-loom. (_Capital_, p. 368.)
[60] Cooke Taylor, _History of the Factory System_, p. 422.
[61] Cf. Babbage, p. 15.
[62] Burnley, _Wool and Wool-combing_, p. 417.
[63] _Economy of Machinery_, p. 6.
[64] _Economy of Machinery_, p. 39.
[65] _Vide infra_, p. 249.
[66] Scrivener, _History of the Iron Trade_, pp. 296, 297.
[67] Sir Lyon Playfair, _North American Review_, Nov. 1892.
[68] _Der Grossbetrieb_, p. 85.
[69] The important part which the cotton and iron industries play in
the export trade of England entitles them to special consideration as
representatives of world-industry. Out of L263,530,585 value of
English exports in 1890, cotton comprised L74,430,749; iron and steel,
L31,565,337.
[70] Cunningham, chap. ii. p. 450.
[71] Schulze-Gaevernitz, _Der Grossbetrieb_, p. 34.
[72] Ure, _The Cotton Manufacture_, p. 187.
[73] Modern economy now favours the specialisation of a factory and
often of a business in a single group of processes--_e.g._, spinning
or weaving or dyeing, both in the cotton and woollen industries. This,
however, is applicable chiefly to the main branches of textile work.
In minor branches, such as cotton thread, the tendency is still
towards an aggregation of all the different processes under a single
roof, both in England and in the United States.
[74] P.R. Hodge, civil engineer--evidence before House of Lords
Committee in 1857.
In Germany a spinning-wheel had been long in use for flax-spinning,
which in effect was an anticipation of the throstle (cf. Karmarch,
_Technologie_, vol. ii. p. 844, quoted Schulze-Gaevernitz, p. 30), and
machine-weaving is said to have been discovered in Danzig as early as
1579.
[75] Cf. Brentano, _Uber die Ursachen der heutigen socialen Noth; Der
Grossbetrieb_, p. 30.
[76] Porter, _Progress of the Nation_, p. 219.
[77] Selected from Porter, p. 218.
[78] In 1824 Mr. Huskisson introduced the principle of free trade,
securing a reduction of the duties on raw and thrown silks, and in
1825, 1826, considerable further reductions were made. (Cf. Ure,
_Philosophy of Manufactures_, p. 454, etc.) But protection of English
silk manufactured goods was maintained until the French Treaty of
1860.
[79] Cf. Ure, _History of the Cotton Manufacture_, vol. i. p. 223.
[80] Scrivener, _History of the Iron Trade_, p. 56.
[81] Cooke Taylor, _Modern Factory System_, p. 164; cf. also Karl
Marx, _Capital_, p. 381.
[82] Schulze-Gaevernitz, p. 140.
[83] Yeats, _The Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce_, p. 284.
[84] The average income for England in 1688 he puts at L7 18s; for
Holland, L8 1s. 4d.; France, L6--p. 47. Such an estimate, however, has
little value.
[85]
In 1810 the total produce was 140,000 tons.
" 1818 " " " 114,000 "
" 1824 " " " 164,000 "
(Scrivener, _History of the Iron Trade_, p. 153.)
[86] Yeats, _Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce_, p. 285.
[87] Schulze-Gaevernitz, _Der Grossbetrieb_, p. 48.
[88] Ellison, _History of the Cotton Trade_, presents the following
interesting table (yarn, 40 hanks to the lb.):--
1779. 1784. 1799. 1812. 1830. 1882.
s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d.
Selling price 16 0 10 11 7 6 2 6 1 2-1/2 0 10-1/2
Cost of Cotton
(18 oz.) 2 0 2 0 3 4 1 6 0 7-3/4 0 7-1/8
----- ----- ---- ---- -------- ---------
Labour & Capital 14 0 8 11 4 2 1 0 0 6-3/4 0 3-3/8
[89] Porter, _Progress of the Nation_, p. 13. Eighteenth century
figures are, however, not trustworthy. The first census was in 1801.
[90] Ure, _Philosophy of Manufactures_, p. 531.
[91] Schulze-Gaevernitz, _Der Grossbetrieb_, p. 34.
[92] In 1882 42 per cent. of the German textile industry was still
conducted in the home or domestic workshop, while only 38 per cent.
was carried on in factories employing more than 50 persons. More
weavers were still engaged with hand-looms than with power-looms, and
the latter was so little developed that the hand-loom could still hold
its own in many articles. Knitting, lace-making, and other minor
textile industries are still in the main home industries.--(_Social
Peace_, p. 113.) "While in England in 1885 each spinning or weaving
mill had an average of 191 operatives, each spinning mill in Germany
in 1882 employed an average of 10 persons only."--(Brentano, _Hours,
Wages, and Production_, p. 64.)
[93] Ure, _Philosophy of Manufactures_, p. 515.
[94] Toynbee, _Industrial Revolution_, p. 79.
[95] The highly elaborate American machine industry of watch-making is
a striking example of this influence of high wages. Cf.
Schulze-Gaevernitz, _Social Peace_, p. 125.
[96] Schoenhof, _Economy of High Wages_, p. 279.
[97] _Ibid._, pp. 225, 226.
[98] Schulze-Gaevernitz, p. 66 (note). This six and eight-loom weaving
is, however, at a lower speed.