(e) Ease or simplicity of labour involved.—Where abundance of cheap labour adequate to the work can be obtained, and particularly in trades where women and children are largely engaged, the development of machinery has been generally slower. This condition often unites with (b) or (c) to retain an industry in the "domestic" class. A large mass of essentially "irregular" work requiring a certain delicacy of manipulation, which by reason of its narrowness of scope is yet easily attained, and which makes but slight demands upon muscular force or intelligence, has remained outside machine-production. Important industries containing several processes of this nature have been slower to fall into the complete form of the factory system. The slow progress of the power-loom in cotton and wool until after 1830 is explained by these considerations. The stocking-frame held out against machinery still longer, and hand work still plays an important part in several processes of silk manufacture. Even now, in the very centre of the factory system, Bolton, the old hand-weaving is represented by a few belated survivors.[82]
(f) Skilled Workmanship.—High skill in manipulation or treatment of material, the element of art infused into handicraft, gives the latter an advantage over the most skilful machinery, or over such machinery as can economically be brought into competition with it. In some of the metal trades, in pottery and glass-making there are many processes which have not been able to dispense with human skill. In these manufactures, moreover, more progress is attributable to specific inventions than to the adoption of the common machinery and motor-power which are not largely available in the most important processes.
From these considerations it will appear that where an industry is large and regular in character, it falls more readily and completely under the control of machinery, where it is small and irregular it conforms more slowly and partially to the new methods. Most of the extractive industries of agriculture, stock-raising, fishing, mining, hunting, are irregular by reason of the nature of their material and its subjection to influences, geological, chemical, climatic, and others which are but slightly under calculation or human control. The final processes by which commodities are adapted to the use of individual consumers necessarily partake of the irregularity or variety of human tastes and desires. We shall therefore find most regularity in the intermediate processes where the raw materials, having been extracted from nature, are being endowed with those qualities of shape, position, etc., which are required to enable them to satisfy human wants. The manufacturing stages where machinery finds fullest application are in nearly all cases intermediate stages of production. Even where machine-production seems directly to satisfy some human want, there are commonly some final processes required which involve individual skill. Almost all products which satisfy the desires of man pass through a large number of productive processes which may be classed as extractive, transport, manufacturing, and distributive. These are, of course, not in all cases clearly distinguishable. Mixed with the extractive processes of mining and wheat-raising are several processes of transport and manufacture: the various stages of manufacture may be broken by stages of transport: a final process of manipulation or manufacture may precede the final act of distribution, as in the sale of drugs to the consumer. But, generally speaking, these four kinds of productive processes mark four historic stages in the passage from raw material to finished commodity.
The two middle stages of transport and manufacture have fallen far more fully under the control of steam-driven machinery than the others, and it is in the elaboration of older manufacturing and transport processes and the addition of new processes that we trace the largest effects of the evolution of modern industrial methods.
The following list of the divisions under which workers engaged in the production of material wealth are classified for purposes of the census may serve to bring out more clearly this proportionate development of machinery. The figures appended give the numbers engaged in the several occupations in 1891, and serve to approximately indicate the relative importance of the several principal branches of industry:—
| Agriculture | 1,311,720 |
| Fishing | 25,225 |
| Mining | 561,637 |
| Stone, clay, road-making | 209,972 |
| Transport— | |
| (a) Railways | 186,774 |
| (b) Roads | 366,605 |
| (c) Canals, rivers, seas | 208,443 |
| (d) Messages and porterage | 194,044 |
| Houses, furniture, and decorations | 820,582 |
| Food and lodgings | 797,989 |
| Iron and steel | 380,193 |
| Other metals | 146,550 |
| Ships and boats | 170,517 |
| Carriages and harness | 108,780 |
| Machines and implements | 342,231 |
| Textiles | 1,128,589 |
| Dress | 1,099,833 |
| Earthenware and glass | 90,007 |
| Chemicals and compounds | 56,047 |
| Books | 135,616 |
| Animal substances (manufacture) | 76,566 |
| Vegetable substances (paper, etc.) | 196,889 |
| General mechanics and labourers | 805,105 |
| Commercial— | |
| (a) Merchants and agents | 363,037 |
| (b) Dealers in money | 21,891 |
| (c) Insurance | 31,437 |
| Engineers and surveyors | 15,441 |
In glancing down this list of the chief industries engaged in the production of commercial wealth, it will be recognised at once that the manufacturing and transport industries are those to which steam-power and the economies of large production have been especially applied. Though, historically, the first industrial use of steam-power was in coal-mining, it remains true that the extensive application of modern machinery to agriculture and the other extractive industries is of comparatively recent growth, while the work of retail distribution has hitherto made but trifling use of machinery and steam-power. Only within the last few years have a few gigantic retail distributive businesses shown a tendency to apply steam and electricity to mechanical contrivances for purposes of distribution.
§ 10. The new industrial forces first applied to the cotton spinning of South Lancashire, and rapidly forcing their way into other branches of the textile manufactures, then more gradually transforming the industrial methods of the machinery, hardware, and other staple English manufactures, passed into the Western Continent of Europe and America, destroying the old domestic industry and establishing in every civilised country the reign of steam-driven machinery. The factors determining the order and pace of the new movement in the several countries are numerous and complex. In considering the order of machine-development, it must be remembered that the different nations did not start from an equal footing at the opening of the age of great inventions. By the beginning of the eighteenth century England had established a certain supremacy in commerce. The growth of her colonial possessions since the Revolution and the drastic and successful character of her maritime policy had enabled her to outstrip Holland. In 1729 by far the greater part of the Swedish iron exported from Gothenburg went to England for shipbuilding purposes.[83] At the close of the seventeenth century Gregory King placed England, Holland, and France at the head of the industrial nations with regard to the productivity of their labour.[84] Italy and Germany were little behind in the exercise of manufacturing arts, though the naval superiority and foreign possessions of the above-named nations gave them the commercial superiority. By 1760 England had strengthened her position as regards foreign commerce, and her woollen industry was the largest and most highly-developed industry in the world. But so far as the arts of manufacture themselves were concerned there was no such superiority in England as to justify the expectation of the position she held at the opening of the nineteenth century. In many branches of the textile arts, especially in silk spinning and in dyeing, in pottery, printing, and other manufactures, more inventive genius and more skill were shown on the Continent, and there seemed à priori no reason why England should outstrip so signally her competitors.
The chief factors in determining the order of the development of modern industrial methods in the several countries may be classified as natural, political, economic.
Natural. (1) The structure and position of the several countries.—The insular character of Great Britain, her natural facilities for procuring raw materials of manufacture and supplies of foreign food to enable her population to specialise in manufacture, the number and variety of easily accessible markets for her manufactures, gave her an immense advantage. Add to this a temperate climate, excellent internal communication by river (or canal), and an absence of mountain barriers between the several districts. These advantages were of greater relative importance before steam transport, but they played a large part in facilitating the establishment of effective steam transport in England. Extent of sea-board and good harbourage have in no small measure directed the course of modern industry, giving to England, Holland, France, Italy an advantage which the levelling tendency of modern machinery has not yet been able to counteract. The slow progress of Germany until recent years, and the still slow progress of Russia, is attributable more to these physical barriers of free communication, internal and external, than to any other single cause that can be adduced. Inherent resources of the soil, quality of land for agriculture, the proximity of large supplies of coal and iron and other requisites of the production of machinery and power rank as important determinants of progress. The machine development of France in particular has been retarded by the slow discovery of her natural areas of manufacture, the districts where coal and iron lie near to one another in easily accessible supply. The same remark applies to Germany and to the United States. At the close of last century, when the iron trade of England was rapidly advancing, the iron trade of France were quite insignificant, and during the earlier years of the nineteenth century the progress was extremely slight.[85]