[345] 'If capital and the productivity of labour advance and the
standard of capitalist production in general is on a higher level of
development, then there is a correspondingly greater mass of commodities
passing through the market from production to individual and industrial
consumption, greater certainty that each particular capital will find
the conditions for its reproduction available in the market' (_Theorien_
..., vol. ii, part 2, p. 251).
[346] _Theorien_ ..., vol. ii, part 2, p. 250: _Akkumulation von Kapital
und Krisen_. (The Accumulation of Capital and the Crises.) Marx's
italics.
[347] The following figures plainly show the importance of the cotton
industry for English exports:
In 1893, cotton exports to the amount of £64,000,000 made up 23 per
cent, and iron and other metal exports not quite 17 per cent, of the
total export of manufactured goods, amounting to £277,000,000 in all.
In 1898, cotton exports to the amount of £65,000,000 made up 28 per
cent, and metal exports 22 per cent, of the total export of manufactured
goods, amounting to £233,400,000 in all.
In comparison, the figures for the German Empire show the following
result: In 1898, cotton exports to the amount of £11,595,000 made up
5·75 per cent of the total exports, amounting to £200,500,000.
5,250,000,000 yards of cotton bales were exported in 1898, 2,250,000,000
of them to India (E. Jaffé: _Die englische Baumwollindustrie und die
Organisation des Exporthandels_. Schmoller's Jahrbücher, vol. xxiv, p.
1033).
In 1908, British exports of cotton yarn alone amounted to £13,100,000
(_Statist. Jahrb. für das Deutsche Reich_, 1910).
[348] One-fifth of German aniline dyes, and one-half of her indigo, goes
to countries such as China, Japan, British India, Egypt, Asiatic Turkey,
Brazil, and Mexico.
[349] _Capital_, vol. i, pp. 615-16.
[350] The English Blue Book on the practices of the Peruvian Amazon
Company, Ltd., in Putumayo, has recently revealed that in the free
republic of Peru and without the political form of colonial supremacy,
international capital can, to all intents and purposes, enslave the
natives, so that it may appropriate the means of production of the
primitive countries by exploitation on the greatest scale. Since 1900,
this company, financed by English and foreign capitalists, has thrown
upon the London market approximately 4,000 tons of Putumayo rubber.
During this time, 30,000 natives were killed and most of the 10,000
survivors were crippled by beatings.
[351] _Capital_, vol. i, p. 594. Similarly in another passage: 'One part
of the surplus value, of the surplus means of subsistence produced, must
then be converted into variable capital for the purpose of purchasing
new labour. This can only be done if the number of workers grows or if
their working time is prolonged.... This, however, cannot be considered
a ready measure for accumulation. The working population can increase if
formerly unproductive workers are transformed into productive ones, or
if parts of the population who previously performed no work, such as
women, children and paupers, are drawn into the process of production.
Here, however, we shall ignore this aspect. Lastly, the working
population can increase through an absolute increase in population. If
accumulation is to proceed steadily and continuously, it must be
grounded in an absolute growth of the population, though this may
decline in comparison with the capital employed. An expanding population
appears as the basis of accumulation conceived as a steady process. An
indispensable condition for this is an average wage which is adequate
not only to the reproduction of the working population but permits its
continual increase' (_Theorien über den Mehrwert_, vol. ii, part 2, in
the chapter on 'Transformation of Revenue Into Capital' (_Verwandlung
von Revenue in Kapital_), p. 243).
[352] _Capital_, vol. i, pp. 642 ff.
[353] A table published in the United States shortly before the War of
Secession contained the following data about the value of the annual
production of the Slave States and the number of slaves employed--for
the greatest part on cotton plantations:
_Year_ _Cotton: _Slaves_
Dollars_
1800 5,200,000 893,041
1810 15,000,000 1,191,364
1820 26,300,000 1,543,688
1830 34,100,000 2,009,053
1840 74,600,000 2,487,255
1850 101,800,000 3,197,509
1851 137,300,000 3,200,000
(Simons, 'Class Struggles in American History'. Supplement to _Neue
Zeit_ (_Klassenkämpfe in der Geschichte Amerikas._ _Ergänzungsheft der
'Neuen Zeit'_), Nr. 7, p. 39.)
[354] Bryce, a former English Minister, describes a model pattern of
such hybrid forms in the South African diamond mines: 'The most striking
sight at Kimberley, and one unique in the world, is furnished by the two
so-called "compounds" in which the natives who work in the mines are
housed and confined. They are huge inclosures, unroofed, but covered
with a wire netting to prevent anything from being thrown out of them
over the walls, and with a subterranean entrance to the adjoining mine.
The mine is worked on the system of three eight-hour shifts, so that the
workman is never more than eight hours together underground. Round the
interior of the wall are built sheds or huts in which the natives live
and sleep when not working. A hospital is also provided within the
inclosure, as well as a school where the work-people can spend their
leisure in learning to read and write. No spirits are sold.... Every
entrance is strictly guarded, and no visitors, white or native, are
permitted, all supplies being obtained from the store within, kept by
the company. The De Beers mine compound contained at the time of my
visit 2,600 natives, belonging to a great variety of tribes, so that
here one could see specimens of the different native types from Natal
and Pondoland, in the south, to the shores of Lake Tanganyika in the far
north. They come from every quarter, attracted by the high wages,
usually eighteen to thirty shillings a week, and remain for three months
or more, and occasionally even for longer periods.... In the vast oblong
compound one sees Zulus from Natal, Fingos, Pondos, Tembus, Basutos,
Bechuanas, Gungunhana's subjects from the Portuguese territories, some
few Matabili and Makalaka; and plenty of Zambesi boys from the tribes on
both sides of that great river, a living ethnological collection such as
can be examined nowhere else in South Africa. Even Bushmen, or at least
natives with some Bushman blood in them, are not wanting. They live
peaceably together, and amuse themselves in their several ways during
their leisure hours. Besides games of chance, we saw a game resembling
"fox and geese" played with pebbles on a board; and music was being
discoursed on two rude native instruments, the so-called "Kaffir piano"
made of pieces of iron of unequal length fastened side by side in a
frame, and a still ruder contrivance of hard bits of wood, also of
unequal size, which when struck by a stick emit different notes, the
first beginning of a tune. A very few were reading or writing letters,
the rest busy with their cooking or talking to one another. Some tribes
are incessant talkers, and in this strange mixing-pot of black men one
may hear a dozen languages spoken as one passes from group to group'
(James Bryce, _Impressions of South Africa_, London, 1897, pp. 242 ff.).
After several months of work, the negro as a rule leaves the mine with
the wages he has saved up. He returns to his tribe, buying a wife with
his money, and lives again his traditional life. Cf. also in the same
book the most lively description of the methods used in South Africa to
solve the 'labour-problem'. Here we are told that the negroes are
compelled to work in the mines and plantations of Kimberley,
Witwatersrand, Natal, Matabeleland, by stripping them of all land and
cattle, i.e. depriving them of their means of existence, by making them
into proletarians and also demoralising them with alcohol. (Later, when
they are already within the 'enclosure' of capital, spirits, to which
they have just been accustomed, are strictly prohibited--the object of
exploitation must be kept fit for use.) Finally, they are simply pressed
into the wage system of capital by force, by imprisonment, and flogging.
[355] The relations between Germany and England provide a typical
example.
_CHAPTER XXVII_