Chapter XXV: Introduction

The production of manufactures for the requirements of the world’s population is conducted in a comparatively small section of its land surface. Just as the manager of a great estate devotes one section of his estate to the production of certain articles, and other sections to certain other articles, so the great business instinct which rules the business of the world carries on in its various sections the varied industries best suited to the physical, ethnological and financial conditions of its various sections.

The people of western Europe and eastern United States are, for various reasons better able to produce the manufactures required by the world than are those of South America, Africa or the Orient; while, on the other hand, the people of South America, the Orient, Australia, Canada, the western part of the United States or the eastern part of Europe are better able, for various reasons, to produce the raw materials of manufacturing and the food supplies required by those engaged in the manufacturing industry than are the people of western Europe or eastern United States. South America and Australia produce wool in large quantities; Africa and the Amazon Valley produce the chief supply of india rubber; the Malayan peninsula and adjacent islands produce the bulk of the world’s tin; India produces jute; the Philippines, Manila hemp; Mexico, sisal; China and 180 Japan, the bulk of the world’s silk; Egypt, India and the United States, the world’s cotton; Russia, Austria-Hungary, India, Australasia, South America, Canada, the central and western parts of the United States produce the bulk of the world’s wheat, corn and meats, at least the bulk of that in excess of the requirements for local consumption; Europe, the West Indies, the East Indies and the tropical sections of India, China and Central and South America produce the bulk of the world’s sugar.

The manufacturing industries of the world--confining this term for the moment to those industries in which the great proportion of the work is performed by machinery--are conducted chiefly in, it might almost be said confined to, western Europe and eastern United States. True, the exclusive application of the word “manufactures” to that portion of the world’s product of this character made by the use of machinery in conjunction with large sums of capital--the factory method--carries one beyond the original meaning of the word “manufactures,” which primarily meant, of course, made by the hand (from manus, the hand; and facere, to make); but the industrial habits of the world have also passed beyond that stage in which manufacturing for the masses is carried on by hand methods.

It must not be understood from this that all of the world’s manufactures are produced in western Europe and eastern United States, or produced by modern machine methods in conjunction with the investment of great sums of money--the factory system. On the contrary, large quantities of manufactures are still produced by hand in various parts of the world other than those in which manufactures by modern machine methods are a leading characteristic of the occupations of the people. Nor must it be assumed that the areas designated as the non-manufacturing sections are entirely dependent upon the manufacturing sections for their manufactures. On the contrary, large quantities of manufactures are still produced in the 181 Orient, in Africa, South America, Australia and the islands of the sea by those simple processes which prevailed in Europe and the United States prior to the development of the modern methods less than two centuries ago. The industrious population of China, of India, of Japan, the millions of people in Africa, in South America and in the islands of the sea produce by simple methods large quantities, and in many cases a large proportion, of the simple manufactures which they require for their daily life. The cloth with which they cover their bodies, the simple requirements of household life and of agriculture are, in many cases, largely of their own production and made in keeping with the original meaning of the word “manufacture”--made by hand.

But the statement is still true, that the great manufacturing areas of the world--the areas which give their chief attention, or the continuous attention of a large part of their population, to the production of those requirements of man other than the natural products and do this through the application of power, machinery and capital, and the operations thereof under the factory system, are western Europe and the eastern part of the United States, though the systems which prevail there are gradually extending to other parts of the world--eastern Europe, central, southern and western United States, Japan, India, Australia, Canada and South America.

As to the relative share of the world’s manufactures now produced by the use of machinery, power and capital--the factory method--and by the hand process, respectively, no exact statement can be made; nor are there facilities for even offering an intelligent estimate of the relative production by these two methods. There is reason to believe that two-thirds of the cotton cloth consumed in China is still made by the hand process, and if this be true it may be estimated that perhaps two-thirds of the other manufactures consumed in that country are 182 still made by hand; while in those other sections of the world in which railroads and the other methods which the people of the Occident are pleased to term “modern” do not yet prevail, a large proportion of the simple manufactures of the people, are still those produced by hand methods. The fact, however, that the sections which produce manufactures by modern methods are also supplied with modern facilities of transportation--the railroad and the steamship; and of communication--the telegraph, and also supplied with ample sums of capital and that other important quality born of long experience and the energy supplied by a temperate zone climate and the judicious admixture of the most energetic populations of the world--Europe and the United States--has enabled them to distribute their factory products in great quantities to those sections not producing by the factory method, and whose peoples are willing to exchange their natural products, food and raw materials, for the finished products of the factory.

This brings us to a consideration of the exchanges of the world--the exchanges of natural products for the products of the factory. This exchange, as already intimated, occurs chiefly in the requirements of the manufacturing section--raw materials and food--for manufactures. Western Europe, the great manufacturing section of that grand division, does not produce cotton, jute, or a sufficient supply of wool, silk, or hemp. For its india rubber, its tin, its copper and the numerous articles of tropical production required for manufacturing, it is dependent wholly or chiefly upon other parts of the world. The United States, while producing a large share of the world’s cotton and copper and iron, and a considerable supply of wool, must rely upon other parts of the world for its hemp and jute and sisal and india rubber and silk and many other of its tropical requirements. As a result the Orient exchanges its raw silk, its jute, its Manila hemp, its tin, and numerous less important articles, for the factory 183 products of Europe and the United States. Australia exchanges its wool, its meats and its gold for the products of the manufacturing sections. Africa sends its india rubber, its ostrich feathers, its gold and diamonds in exchange for factory products of those sections in which the manufacturing system has developed. South America offers as its exchangeable products wool, wheat, corn, meats, coffee and india rubber. Canada gives in exchange for her factory requirements timber, ores, wheat and other agricultural products.

Thus the business intelligence that rules the world, adapting one to another those various conditions which prevail in its varying sections, has built up in certain sections of its great area--Europe and the United States--a great factory system, operated by the great supplies of power (coal) which there exist in conjunction with the wealth, the intelligence, the climatic conditions and the quality of population, which system, besides supplying its own six hundred millions of people with their own requirements, sends to the other ten hundred millions of people in other parts of the world its surplus products and takes in exchange the natural products, the manufacturing material and food required by its own people and its own industries.

George J. Chisholm, in the Introduction to Bartholomew’s Atlas of the World’s Commerce, outlines the history of the development of manufactures and the relation thereof to commerce as follows:

“In the latter part of the eighteenth century there took place in
England a number of inventions which have brought about a change
in the conditions of manufacturing industry and of commerce, and
an acceleration of the rate of the economic development of the
world, to which all previous history presents no parallel or
approach to a parallel. It is a change that has affected the
entire world, bringing about an entirely new trade with the New
World and the antipodes, and completely altering the character 184
of the trade with the East, depriving spices of the peculiar
value which they held in commerce for so many centuries, and
developing a trade of incomparably greater magnitude with the
East than was at one time ever dreamt of, and largely in
commodities of a bulky character yielding comparatively little
profit on small quantities. The revolution was inaugurated by the
inventions in connection with the cotton industry between 1769
and 1785 and the concurrent improvements in the steam engine by
James Watt, who thereby first made this a generally serviceable
machine. These were followed by the introduction of steam
locomotion by land and water in the first quarter, and the rapid
extension of these modes of transport in the remainder of the
nineteenth century. The result of these inventions was to give a
new value to the stores of coal and iron in the United Kingdom,
and ultimately a new value to undeveloped land in new countries.
It was railways that first made it possible to fill great ships
with bulky produce like grain drawn from the far interior. The
remarkable expansion of commerce thus brought about greatly
increased the commercial advantages of Great Britain due to its
situation and local facilities for shipping. In so far, however,
as the unexampled development of British manufacturing industry
and commerce in the period immediately following the Industrial
Revolution was due not to geographical conditions but merely to
the fact that the great inventions originated there and
consequently the resources of Great Britain for carrying on
manufactures by the new methods were developed first, the
expansion of British manufactures and commerce was bound to be
affected by the development of similar resources elsewhere; and
the more rapid growth of manufactures in some rival countries
resulting from this cause, and partly, it may be, from other
causes, has been one of the marked features of recent economic
history.”