THE DECENTRALIZATION OF INDUSTRY[10]
I
After the Napoleonic wars Britain had nearly succeeded in ruining the
main industries which had sprung up in France at the end of the
preceding century. She also became mistress of the seas and had no
rivals of importance. She took in the situation, and knew how to turn
its privileges and advantages to account. She established an industrial
monopoly, and, imposing upon her neighbours her prices for the goods she
alone could manufacture, accumulated riches upon riches.
But as the middle-class Revolution of the eighteenth century had
abolished serfdom and created a proletariat in France, French industry,
hampered for a time in its flight, soared again, and from the second
half of the nineteenth century France ceased to be a tributary of
England for manufactured goods. To-day she too has grown into a nation
with an export trade. She sells far more than sixty million pounds'
worth of manufactured goods, and two-thirds of these goods are fabrics.
The number of Frenchmen working for export or living by their foreign
trade, is estimated at three millions.
France is therefore no longer England's tributary. In her turn she has
striven to monopolize certain branches of foreign industry, such as
silks and ready-made clothes, and has reaped immense profits therefrom;
but she is on the point of losing this monopoly for ever, just as
England is on the point of losing the monopoly of cotton goods.
Travelling eastwards, industry has reached Germany. Fifty years ago
Germany was a tributary of England and France for most manufactured
commodities in the higher branches of industry. It is no longer so. In
the course of the last fifty years, and especially since the
Franco-German war, Germany has completely reorganized her industry. The
new factories are stocked with the best machinery; the latest creations
of industrial art in cotton goods from Manchester, or in silks from
Lyons, etc., are now realized in new German factories. It took two or
three generations of workers, at Lyons and Manchester, to construct the
modern machinery; but Germany adopted it in its perfected state.
Technical schools, adapted to the needs of industry, supply the
factories with an army of intelligent workmen--practical engineers, who
can work with both hand and brain. German industry starts at the point
which was only reached by Manchester and Lyons after fifty years of
groping in the dark, of exertion and experiments.
It follows that since Germany manufactures so well at home, she
diminishes her imports from France and England year by year. She has not
only become their rival in manufactured goods in Asia and in Africa, but
also in London and in Paris. Shortsighted people in France may cry out
against the Frankfort Treaty; English manufacturers may explain German
competition by little differences in railway tariffs; they may linger on
the petty side of questions, and neglect great historical facts. But it
is none the less certain that the main industries, formerly in the hands
of England and France, have progressed eastward, and in Germany they
have found a country, young, full of energy, possessing an intelligent
middle class, and eager in its turn to enrich itself by foreign trade.
While Germany has freed herself from subjection to France and England,
has manufactured her own cotton-cloth, and constructed her own
machines--in fact, manufactured all commodities--the main industries
have also taken root in Russia, where the development of manufacture is
the more instructive as it sprang up but yesterday.
At the time of the abolition of serfdom in 1861, Russia had hardly any
factories. Everything needed in the way of machines, rails,
railway-engines, fine dress materials, came from the West. Twenty years
later she possessed already 85,000 factories, and the value of the goods
manufactured in Russia had increased fourfold.
The old machinery was superseded, and now nearly all the steel in use in
Russia, three-quarters of the iron, two-thirds of the coal, all
railway-engines, railway-carriages, rails, nearly all steamers, are made
in Russia.
Russia, destined--so wrote economists--to remain an agricultural
territory, has rapidly developed into a manufacturing country. She
orders hardly anything from England, and very little from Germany.
Economists hold the customs responsible for these facts, and yet cottons
manufactured in Russia are sold at the same price as in London. Capital
taking no cognizance of father-lands, German and English capitalists,
accompanied by engineers and foremen of their own nationalities, have
introduced in Russia and in Poland manufactories whose goods compete in
excellence with the best from England. If customs were abolished
to-morrow, manufacture would only gain by it. Not long ago the British
manufacturers delivered another hard blow to the import of cloth and
woolens from the West. They set up in southern and middle Russia immense
wool factories, stocked with the most perfect machinery from Bradford,
and already now Russia imports only the highest sorts of cloth and
woolen fabrics from England, France and Austria. The remainder is
fabricated at home, both in factories and as domestic industries.
The main industries not only move eastward, they are spreading also to
the southern peninsulas. The Turin Exhibition of 1884 already
demonstrated the progress made in Italian manufactured produce; and, let
us not make any mistake about it, the mutual hatred of the French and
Italian middle classes has no other origin than their industrial
rivalry. Spain is also becoming an industrial country; while in the
East, Bohemia has suddenly sprung into importance as a new centre of
manufactures, provided with perfected machinery and applying the best
scientific methods.
We might also mention Hungary's rapid progress in the main industries,
but let us rather take Brazil as an example. Economists sentenced Brazil
to cultivate cotton forever, to export it in its raw state, and to
receive cotton-cloth from Europe in exchange. In fact, forty years ago
Brazil had only nine wretched little cotton factories with 385 spindles.
To-day there are 160 cotton-mills, possessing 1,500,000 spindles and
50,000 looms, which throw 500 million yards of textiles on the market
annually.
Even Mexico is now very successful in manufacturing cotton-cloth,
instead of importing it from Europe. As to the United States they have
quite freed themselves from European tutelage, and have triumphantly
developed their manufacturing powers to an enormous extent.
But it was India which gave the most striking proof against the
specialization of national industry.
We all know the theory: the great European nations need colonies, for
colonies send raw material--cotton fibre, unwashed wool, spices, etc.,
to the mother-land. And the mother-land, under pretense of sending them
manufactured wares, gets rid of her damaged stuffs, her machine
scrap-iron and everything which she no longer has any use for. It costs
her little or nothing, and none the less the articles are sold at
exorbitant prices.
Such was the theory--such was the practice for a long time. In London
and Manchester fortunes were made, while India was being ruined. In the
India Museum in London unheard of riches, collected in Calcutta and
Bombay by English merchants, are to be seen.
But other English merchants and capitalists conceived the very simple
idea that it would be more expedient to exploit the natives of India by
making cotton-cloth in India itself, than to import from twenty to
twenty-four million pounds' worth of goods annually.
At first a series of experiments ended in failure. Indian
weavers--artists and experts in their own craft--could not inure
themselves to factory life; the machinery sent from Liverpool was bad;
the climate had to be taken into account; and merchants had to adapt
themselves to new conditions, now fully mastered, before British India
could become the menacing rival of the Mother-land she is to-day.
She now possesses more than 200 cotton-mills which employ about 230,000
workmen, and contain more than 6,000,000 spindles and 80,000 looms, and
40 jute-mills, with 400,000 spindles. She exports annually to China, to
the Dutch Indies, and to Africa, nearly eight million pounds' worth of
the same white cotton-cloth, said to be England's specialty. And while
English workmen are often unemployed and in great want, Indian women
weave cotton by machinery, for the Far East at wages of six-pence a day.
In short, the intelligent manufacturers are fully aware that the day is
not far off when they will not know what to do with the "factory hands"
who formerly wove cotton-cloth for export from England. Besides which it
is becoming more and more evident that India will no import a single ton
of iron from England. The initial difficulties in using the coal and the
iron-ore obtained in India have been overcome; and foundries, rivalling
those in England, have been built on the shores of the Indian Ocean.
Colonies competing with the mother-land in its production of
manufactured goods, such is the factor which will regulate economy in
the twentieth century.
And why should India not manufacture? What should be the hindrance?
Capital?--But capital goes wherever there are men, poor enough to be
exploited. Knowledge? But knowledge recognizes no national barriers.
Technical skill of the worker?--No. Are, then, Hindoo workmen inferior
to the hundreds of thousands of boys and girls, not eighteen years old,
at present working in the English textile factories?
II
After having glanced at national industries it would be very interesting
to turn to some special branches.
Let us take silk, for example, an eminently French produce in the first
half of the nineteenth century. We all know how Lyons became the
emporium of the silk trade. At first raw silk was gathered in southern
France, till little by little they ordered it from Italy, from Spain,
from Austria, from the Caucasus, and from Japan, for the manufacture of
their silk fabrics. In 1875, out of five million kilos of raw silk
converted into stuffs in the vicinity of Lyons, there were only four
hundred thousand kilos of French silk. But if Lyons manufactured
imported silk, why should not Switzerland, Germany, Russia, do as much?
Consequently, silk-weaving began to develop in the villages round
Zurich. Bâle became a great centre of the silk trade. The Caucasian
Administration engaged women from Marseilles and workmen from Lyons to
teach Georgians the perfected rearing of silk-worms, and the art of
converting silk into fabrics to the Caucasian peasants. Austria
followed. Then Germany, with the help of Lyons workmen, built great silk
factories. The United States did likewise at Paterson.
And to-day the silk trade is no longer a French monopoly. Silks are made
in Germany, in Austria, in the United States, and in England, and it is
now reckoned that one-third of the silk stuffs used in France are
imported. In winter, Caucasian peasants weave silk handkerchiefs at a
wage that would mean starvation to the silk-weavers of Lyons. Italy and
Germany send silks to France; and Lyons, which in 1870-4 exported 460
million francs' worth of silk fabrics, exports now only one-half of that
amount. In fact, the time is not far off when Lyons will only send
higher class goods and a few novelties as patterns to Germany, Russia
and Japan.
And so it is in all industries. Belgium has no longer the cloth
monopoly; cloth is made in Germany, in Russia, in Austria, in the United
States. Switzerland and the French Jura have no longer a clockwork
monopoly; watches are made everywhere. Scotland no longer refines sugar
for Russia: refined Russian sugar is imported into England. Italy,
although neither possessing coal nor iron, makes her own iron-clads and
engines for her steamers. Chemical industry is no longer an English
monopoly; sulphuric acid and soda are made even in the Urals.
Steam-engines, made at Winterthur, have acquired everywhere a wide
reputation, and at the present moment, Switzerland, which has neither
coal nor iron, and no sea-ports to import them--nothing but excellent
technical schools--makes machinery better and cheaper than England. So
ends the theory of Exchange.
The tendency of trade, as for all else, is toward decentralization.
Every nation finds it advantageous to combine agriculture with the
greatest possible variety of factories. The specialization, of which
economists spoke so highly, certainly has enriched a number of
capitalists, but is now no longer of any use. On the contrary, it is to
the advantage of every region, every nation, to grow their own wheat,
their own vegetables, and to manufacture at home most of the produce
they consume. This diversity is the surest pledge of the complete
development of production by mutual co-operation, and the moving cause
of progress, while specialization is now a hindrance to progress.
Agriculture can only prosper in proximity to factories. And no sooner
does a single factory appear than an infinite variety of other factories
_must_ spring up around, so that, mutually supporting and stimulating
one another by their inventions, they increase their productivity.
III
It is foolish indeed to export wheat and to import flour, to export wool
and import cloth, to export iron and import machinery; not only because
transportation is a waste of time and money, but, above all, because a
country with no developed industry inevitably remains behind the times
in agriculture; because a country with no large factories to bring steel
to a finished condition is doomed to be backward in all other
industries; and lastly, because the industrial and technical capacities
of the nation remain undeveloped, if they are not exercised in a variety
of industries.
Nowadays everything holds together in the world of production.
Cultivation of the soil is no longer possible without machinery, without
great irrigation works, without railways, without manure factories. And
to adapt this machinery, these railways, these irrigation engines, etc.,
to local conditions, a certain spirit of invention, and a certain amount
of technical skill must be developed, while they necessarily lie dormant
so long as spades and ploughshares are the only implements of
cultivation.
If fields are to be properly cultivated, if they are to yield the
abundant harvests that man has the right to expect, it is essential that
workshops, foundries, and factories develop within the reach of the
fields. A variety of occupations, and a variety of skill arising
therefrom, both working together for a common aim--these are the true
forces of progress.
And now let us imagine the inhabitants of a city or a territory--whether
vast or small--stepping for the first time on to the path of the Social
Revolution.
We are sometimes told that "nothing will have changed": that the mines,
the factories, etc., will be expropriated, and proclaimed national or
communal property, that every man will go back to his usual work, and
that the Revolution will then be accomplished.
But this is a mere dream: the Social Revolution cannot take place so
simply.
We have already mentioned that should the Revolution break out to-morrow
in Paris, Lyons, or any other city--should the workers lay hands on
factories, houses, and banks, present production would be completely
revolutionized by this simple fact.
International commerce will come to a standstill; so also will the
importation of foreign bread-stuffs; the circulation of commodities and
of provisions will be paralyzed. And then, the city or territory in
revolt will be compelled to provide for itself, and to reorganize its
production, so as to satisfy its own needs. If it fails to do so, it is
death. If it succeeds, it will revolutionize the economic life of the
country.
The quantity of imported provisions having decreased, consumption having
increased, one million Parisians working for exportation purposes having
been thrown out of work, a great number of things imported to-day from
distant or neighbouring countries not reaching their destination,
fancy-trade being temporarily at a standstill,--What will the
inhabitants have to eat six months after the Revolution?
We think that when the stores containing food-stuffs are empty, the
masses will seek to obtain their food from the land. They will see the
necessity of cultivating the soil, of combining agricultural production
with industrial production in the suburbs of Paris itself and its
environs. They will have to abandon the merely ornamental trades and
consider their most urgent need--bread.
A great number of the inhabitants of the cities will have to become
agriculturists. Not in the same manner as the present peasants who wear
themselves out, ploughing for a wage that barely provides them with
sufficient food for the year, but by following the principles of the
intensive agriculture, of the market gardeners, applied on a large scale
by means of the best machinery that man has invented or can invent. They
will till the land--not, however, like the country beast of burden: a
Paris jeweller would object to that. They will organize cultivation on
better principles; and not in the future, but at once, during the
revolutionary struggles, from fear of being worsted by the enemy.
Agriculture will have to be carried out on intelligent lines, by men and
women availing themselves of the experience of the present time,
organizing themselves in joyous gangs for pleasant work, like those who,
a hundred years ago, worked in the Champ de Mars for the Feast of the
Federation--a work of delight, when not carried to excess, when
scientifically organized, when man invents and improves his tools and is
conscious of being a useful member of the community.
Of course, they will not only cultivate wheat and oats--they will also
produce those things which they formerly used to order from foreign
parts. And let us not forget that for the inhabitants of a revolted
territory, "foreign parts" may include all districts that have not
joined in the revolutionary movement. During the Revolutions of 1793 and
1871 Paris was made to feel that "foreign parts" meant even the country
district at her very gates. The speculator in grains at Troyes starved
in 1793 and 1794 the sansculottes of Paris as badly, and even worse,
than the German armies brought on to French soil by the Versailles
conspirators. The revolted city will be compelled to do without these
"foreigners," and why not? France invented beet-root sugar when
sugar-cane ran short during the continental blockade. Parisians
discovered saltpetre in their cellars when they no longer received any
from abroad. Shall we be inferior to our grandfathers, who hardly lisped
the first words of science?
A revolution is more than a mere change of the prevailing political
system. It implies the awakening of human intelligence, the increasing
of the inventive spirit tenfold, a hundredfold; it is the dawn of a new
science--the science of men like Laplace, Lamarck, Lavoisier. It is a
revolution in the minds of men, as deep, and deeper still, than in their
institutions.
And there are still economists, who tell us that once the "revolution is
made," everyone will return to his workshop, as if passing through a
revolution were going home after a walk in the Epping forest!
To begin with, the sole fact of having laid hands on middle-class
property will imply the necessity of completely reorganizing the whole
of economic life in the workshops, the dockyards, the factories.
And the revolution surely will not fail to act in this direction. Should
Paris, during the social revolution, be cut off from the world for a
year or two by the supporters of middle-class rule, its millions of
intellects, not yet depressed by factory life--that City of little
trades which stimulate the spirit of invention--will show the world what
man's brain can accomplish without asking for help from without, but the
motor force of the sun that gives light, the power of the wind that
sweeps away impurities, and the silent life-forces at work in the earth
we tread on.
We shall see then what a variety of trades, mutually cooperating on a
spot of the globe and animated by a revolution, can do to feed, clothe,
house, and supply with all manner of luxuries millions of intelligent
men.
We need write no fiction to prove this. What we are sure of, what has
already been experimented upon, and recognized as practical, would
suffice to carry it into effect, if the attempt were fertilized,
vivified by the daring inspiration of the Revolution and the spontaneous
impulse of the masses.
FOOTNOTE:
[10] A fuller development of these ideas will be found in my book,
_Fields, Factories, and Workshops_, published by Messrs. Thomas Nelson
and Sons in their popular series in 1912.