[376] Until recently, in China the domestic industries were widely
practised even by the bourgeoisie and in such large and ancient towns as
Ningpo with its 300,000 inhabitants. 'Only a generation ago, the
family's shoes, hats, shirts, etc., were made by the women themselves.
At that time, it was practically unheard-of for a young woman to buy
from a merchant what she could have made with the labour of her own
hands' (Dr. Nyok-Ching Tsur, 'Forms of Industry in the Town of Ningpo'
(_Die gewerblichen Betriebsformen der Stadt Ningpo_), Tuebingen, 1909,
p. 51).
[377] Admittedly, this relation is reversed in the last stages of the
history of peasant economy when capitalist production has made its full
impact. Once the small peasants are ruined, the entire work of farming
frequently devolves on the women, old people and children, while the men
are made to work for their living for capitalist entrepreneurs in the
domestic industries or as wage-slaves in the factories. A typical
instance is the small peasant in Wuerttemberg.
[378] W. A. Peffer, _The Farmer's Side. His Troubles and Their Remedy_
(New York, 1891), Part ii, 'How We Got Here', chap. i, 'Changed
Conditions of the Farmer', pp. 56-7. Cf. also A. M. Simmons, _The
American Farmer_ (2nd edition, Chicago, 1906), pp. 74 ff.
[379] Report of the U.S.A. Commissioner of Agriculture for the year 1867
(Washington, 1868). Quoted by Lafargue: _Getreidebau und Getreidehandel
in den Vereinigten Staaten_ in _Die Neue Zeit_ (1885), p. 344. This
essay on grain cultivation and the grain trade in the U.S.A. was first
published in a Russian periodical in 1883.
[380] 'The three Revenue Acts of June 30, 1864, practically formed one
measure, and that probably the greatest measure of taxation which the
world has seen.... The Internal Revenue Act was arranged, as Mr. David
A. Wells has said, on the principle of the Irishman at Donnybrook Fair:
"whenever you see a head, hit it, whenever you see a commodity, tax it"'
(F. W. Taussig, _The Tariff History of the United States_ (New
York-London, 1888), pp. 163-4).
[381] Ibid., pp. 166-7.
[382] 'The necessity of the situation, the critical state of the
country, the urgent need of revenue, may have justified this haste,
which, it is safe to say, is unexampled in the history of civilised
countries' (Taussig, op. cit., p. 168).
[383] Peffer, op. cit., pp. 58 ff.
[384] Ibid., p. 6.
[385] 'Agricultural Competition in North America' (_Die
landwirtschaftliche Konkurrenz Nordamerikas_) Leipzig, 1887, p. 431.
[386] Lafargue, op. cit., p. 345.
[387] The Thirteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labour
(Washington, 1899) tables the advantages of machinery methods over hand
methods so far achieved as follows:
----------------------------------------------------------------
| _Labour time per unit_
|---------------------------
_Type of work_ | _Machine_ | _Hand_
|-------------+-------------
|_hrs._|_min._|_hrs._|_min._
------------------------------------+------+------+------+------
Planting small corn | -- | 32·7 | 10 | 55
Harvesting and threshing small corn | 1 | -- | 46 | 40
Planting corn | -- | 37·5 | 6 | 15
Cutting corn | 3 | 4·5 | 5 | --
Shelling corn | -- | 3·6 | 66 | 40
Planting cotton | 1 | 3 | 8 | 48
Cultivating cotton | 12 | 5 | 60 | --
Mowing grass (scythe _v._ mower) | 1 | 0·6 | 7 | 20
Harvesting and baling hay | 11 | 3·4 | 35 | 30
anting potatoes | 1 | 2·5 | 15 | --
anting tomatoes | 1 | 4 | 10 | --
Cultivating and harvesting tomatoes | 134 | 5·2 | 324 | 20
----------------------------------------------------------------
[388] Wheat exports from the Union to Europe:
_Year_ _Million bushels_ _Year_ _Million bushels_
1868-9 17·9 1885-6 57·7
1874-5 71·8 1890-1 55·1
1879-80 153·2 1899-1900 101·9
(Juraschek's _Uebersichten der Weltwirtschaft_, vol. vii, part i, p.
32).
Simultaneously, the price per bushel wheat _loco_ farm (in cents)
declined as follows:
1870-9 105 1896 73
1880-9 83 1897 81
1895 51 1898 58
Since 1899, when it had reached the low level of 58 cents per bushel,
the price is moving up again:
1900 62 1903 78
1901 62 1904 92
1902 63
(Ibid., p. 18).
According to the 'Monthly Returns on External Trade' (_Monatliche
Nachweise über den Auswärtigen Handel_), the price (in marks) per 1,000
_kg._, was in June 1912:
Berlin 227·82 London 170·96
New York 178·08 Odessa 173·94
Mannheim 247·93 Paris 243·69
[389] Peffer, op. cit., part i, 'Where We Are', chap, ii, 'Progress of
Agriculture', pp. 30-1.
[390] Ibid., p. 4.
[391] Sering, op. cit., p. 433.
[392] Peffer, op. cit., pp. 34 f.
[393] Quoted by Nikolayon, op. cit., p. 224.
[394] 49,199 people immigrated to Canada in 1902. In 1912, the number of
immigrants was more than 400,000--138,000 of them British, and 134,000
American. According to a report from Montreal, the influx of American
farmers continued into the spring of the present year [1912].
[395] 'Travelling in the West of Canada, I have visited only one farm of
less than a thousand acres. According to the census of the Dominion of
Canada, in 1881, when the census was taken, no more than 9,077 farmers
occupied 2,384,337 acres of land between them; accordingly, the share of
an individual (farmer) amounted to no less than 2,047 acres--in no state
of the Union is the average anywhere near that' (Sering, op. cit., p.
376). In the early eighties, farming on a large scale was admittedly not
very widely spread in Canada. But already in 1887, Sering describes the
'Bell Farm', owned by a limited company, which comprised no fewer than
56,700 acres, and was obviously modelled on the pattern of the Dalrymple
farm. In the eighties, Sering, who regarded the prospects of Canadian
competition with some scepticism, put the 'fertile belt' of Western
Canada at three-fifths of the entire acreage of Germany, and estimated
that actually only 38,400,000 acres of this were arable land, and no
more than 15,000,000 acres at best were prospective wheat land (Sering,
op. cit., pp. 337-8). The _Manitoba Free Press_ in June 1912, worked out
that in summer, 1912, 11,200,000 acres were sown with spring wheat in
Canada, as against 19,200,000 acres under spring wheat in the United
States. (Cf. _Berliner Tageblatt, Handelszeitung_, No. 305, June 18,
1912.)
[396] Sering, op. cit., pp. 361 ff.
[397] Ernst Schultze, '_Das Wirtschaftsleben der Vereinigten Staaten_',
_Jahrb. f. Gesetzg., Verw. u. Volkswirtschaft 1912_, no. 17, p. 1724.
[398] Article 9.
[399] 'Moshesh, the great Basuto leader, to whose courage and
statesmanship the Basutos owed their very existence as a people, was
still alive at the time, but constant war with the Boers of the Orange
Free State had brought him and his followers to the last stage of
distress. Two thousand Basuto warriors had been killed, cattle had been
carried off, native homes had been broken up and crops destroyed. The
tribe was reduced to the position of starving refugees, and nothing
could save them but the protection of the British government which they
had repeatedly implored' (C. P. Lucas, _A Historical Geography of the
British Colonies_, part ii, vol. iv (Geography of South and East
Africa), Oxford, 1904, p. 39).
[400] 'The Eastern section of the territory is Mashonaland where, with
the permission of King Lobengula, who claimed it, the British South
Africa Company first established themselves' (ibid., p. 72).
_CHAPTER XXX_