Fields, Factories, and Workshops

Appendix Y : The Domestic Industries in Switzerland
We have most interesting monographs dealing with separate branches of the small industries of Switzerland, but we have not yet such comprehensive statistical data as those which have been mentioned in the text in speaking of Germany and France. It was only in the year 1901 that the first attempt was made to get the exact numbers of work people employed in what the Swiss statisticians describe as Hausindustrie, or "the domestic industries' extension of the factory industries "(der hausindustrielle Anhang der Fabrikindustrie). Up till then these numbers remained "an absolutely unknown quantity." For many it was, therefore, a revelation when a first rough estimate, made by the factory inspectors, gave the figure of 52,291 work people belonging to this category, as against 243,200 persons employed in all the factories, large and small, of the same branches. A few years later, Schuler, in Zeitung für Schweizerische Statistik, 1904 (reprinted since as... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Appendix X : The Small Industries in Germany
The literature of the small industries in Germany being very bulky, the chief works upon this subject may be found, either in full or reviewed, in Schmoller’s Jahrbucher, and in Conrad’s Sammlung national-okonomischer und statistischer Abhandlungen. For a general review of the subject and rich bibliographical indications, Schonberg’s Volkwirthschaftslehre, vol. ii., which contains excellent remarks about the proper domain of small industries (p. 401 seq.) as well as the above-mentioned publication of K. Bucher (Untersuchungen uber dies Lage des Handwerks in Deutschland), will be found most valuable. The work of O. Schwarz, Die Betriebsformen der modernen Grossindustrie (in Zeitschrift fur Staatswissenschaft, vol. xxv., p. 535), is interesting by its analysis of the respective advantages of both the great and the small industries, which brings the author to formulate the following three factors in favor of the... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Appendix W : Results of the Census of the French Industries in 1896
If we consult the results of the census of 1896, that were published in 1901, in the fourth volume of Resultats statistiques du recensement des industries et des professions, preceded by an excellent summary written by M. Lucien March, we find that the general impression about the importance of the small industries in France conveyed in the text is fully confirmed by the numerical data of the census. It is only since 1896, M. March says in a paper read before the Statistical Society of Paris, that a detailed classification of the workshops and factories according to the number of their operatives became possible; Journal de la Societe de Statistique de Paris, June 1901, pp. 189-192, and “Resultats Generaux,” in vol. iv. Of the above-mentioned publication. and he gives us in this paper, in a series of very elaborate tables, a most instructive picture of the present state of industry in France. For the industries pro... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Appendix V : Small Industries at Paris
It would be impossible to enumerate here all the varieties of small industries which are carried on at Paris; nor would such an enumeration be complete because every year new industries are brought into life. I therefore will mention only a few of the most important industries. A great number of them are connected, of course, with ladies’ dress. The confections-that is, the making of various parts of ladies’ dress – occupy no less than 22,000 operatives at Paris, and their production attains £3,000,000 every year, while annual production is valued at £2,400,000. Linen, shoes, gloves, and so on, are as many important branches of the petty trades and the Paris domestic industries, while one-fourth part of the stays which are sewn in France (£500,000 out of £2,000,000) are made in Paris. Engraving, book-binding, and all kinds of fancy stationery, as well as the manufacture of musical and mathematical instruments,... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Appendix U : Petty Trades in the Lyons Region
The neighborhoods of St. Etienne are a great center for all sorts of industries, and among them the petty trades occupy still an important place. Ironworks and coal-mines with their smoking chimney, noisy factories, roads blackened with coal, and a poor vegetation give the country the well-known aspects of a “Black Country.” In certain towns, such as St. Chamond, one finds numbers of big factories in which thousands of women are employed in the fabrication of passementerie. But side by side with the great industry the petty trades also maintain a high development. Thus we have first the fabrication of silk ribbons, in which no less than 50,000 men and women were employed in the year 1885. Only 3,000 or 4,000 looms were located then in the factories; while the remainder- that is, from 1,200 to 1,400 looms- belonged to the workers themselves, both at St. Etienne and in the surrounding country. I am indebted for the following information to M.V. E... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Conclusion
Readers who have had the patience to follow the facts accumulated in this book, especially those who have given them thoughtful attention, will probably feel convinced of the immense powers over the productive forces of Nature that man has acquired within the last half a century. Comparing the achievements indicated in this book with the present state of production, some will, I hope, also ask themselves the question which will be ere long, let us hope, the main object of a scientific political economy: Are the means now in use for satisfying human needs, under the present system of permanent division of functions and production for profits, really economical? Do they really lead to economy in the expenditure of human forces ? Or, are they ... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Mr. Giffen's And Mr. Flux's Figures Concerning The Position Of The United Kingdom In International Trade
A few remarks concerning these figures may be of some avail. When a sudden fall in the British and Irish exports took place in the years 1882-1886, and the alarmists took advantage of the bad times to raise the never-forgotten war-cry of protection, especially insisting on the damages made to British trade by “German competition,” Mr. Giffen analyzed the figures of international trade in his “Finance Essays,” and in a report read in 1888 before the Board of Trade Commission. Subsequently, Mr. A. W. Flux analyzed again the same figures, extending them to a later period. He confirmed Mr. Giffen’s conclusions and endeavored to prove that the famous “German competition” is a fallacy. Mr. Giffen’s conclusi... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

The Cotton Industry in the States
A few years ago the cotton industry in the United States attracted the attention of the Manchester cotton manufacturers, and we have now two very interesting works written by persons who went specially to the States in order to study the rapid progress made there in spinning and weaving. T.M. Young, The American Cotton Industry. Introduction by Elijah Helm, Secretary to the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, London 1902; and T.W. Uttley, Cotton Spinning and Manufacturing in the United States: A report . . . of a tour of the American cotton manufacturing centers made in 1903 and 1904. Publications of Manchester University, Economic Series, No. II., Manchester, 1905. These two inquiries fully confirm what has been said in the text of this book a... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Prices Obtained in London for Dessert Grapes Cultivated Under Glass
The Fruit and Market-Gardener gives every week the prices realized by horticultural and intensive gardening produce, as well as by flowers, at the great market of Covent Garden. The prices obtained for dessert grapes- Colmar and Hamburg- are very instructive. I took two years- 1907-1908- which differ from ordinary years by the winters having been foggy, which made the garden produce somewhat late. In the first days of January the Colmar grapes arriving from the Belgium hothouses were still sold at relatively low prices- from 6d. to 10d. the pound. But the prices slowly rose in January and February; the Hamburg grapes were late that year, and therefore in the middle of March and later on in April the Colmars fetched from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. T... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

The Use of Electricity in Agriculture
In the first editions of this book I did not venture to speak about the improvements that could be obtained in agriculture with the aid of electricity, or by watering the soil with cultures of certain useful microbes. I preferred to mention only well-established facts of intensive culture; but now it would be impossible not to mention what has been done in these two directions. More than thirty years ago I mentioned in Nature the increase of the crops obtained by a Russian landlord who used to place at a certain height above his experimental field telegraph wires, through which an electric current was passed. A few years ago, in 1908, Sir Oliver Lodge gave in the Daily Chronicle of July 15 the results of similar experiments made in a farm n... (From : Anarchy Archives.)