As large areas of Asia, South and Central Africa, Australia, and South America fall under the control of European commercial nations, are opened up by steamships, railways, telegraphs, and are made free receptacles for the increased quantity of capital which is unable to find a safe remunerative investment nearer home, we are brought nearer to a condition in which the whole surface of the world will be disposed for industrial purposes by these same forces which have long been confined in their direct and potent influence to a small portion of Western Europe and America. This vast expansion of the area of effective competition is beginning to specialise industry on the basis of a world-market, which was formerly specialised on the more confined basis of a national or provincial market. So in England, where the early specialisation of machine-industry was but slightly affected by outside competition, great changes are taking place. Portions of our textile and metal industries, which naturally settled in districts of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Staffordshire, while the area of competition was a national one,[118] seem likely to pass to India, to Germany, or elsewhere, now that a tolerably free competition on the basis of world-industry has set in. It is inevitable that with every expansion of the area of competition under which a locality falls the character of its specialisation will change. A piece of English ground which was devoted to corn-growing when the market was a district one centred in the county town, becomes the little factory town when competition is established on a national basis; it may become the pleasure-ground of a retired millionaire speculator if under the pressure of world-competition it has been found that the manufacture which now thrives there can be carried on more economically in Bombay or Nankin, where each unit of labour power can be bought at the cheapest rate, or where some slight saving in the transport of raw material may be effected.
§ 10. The question how industry would be located, assuming the whole surface of the globe was brought into a single market or area of competition, with an equal development of transport facilities in all its parts; or in other words, "What is the ideal disposition of industry in a world-society making its chief end the attainment of industrial wealth estimated at present values?" is one to which of course no very exact answer can be given. But since this ideal represents the goal of modern industrial progress, it is worth while to call attention to the chief determinants of the localisation of industries under free world-competition. The influences may be placed in three groups, which are, however, interrelated at many points.
(1) The first group may be called Climatic, the chief influences of which are astronomical position, surface contour, prevalent winds, ocean currents, etc. Climatic zones have their own flora and fauna, and so far as these enter into industry as agricultural and pastoral produce, as raw materials of manufacture, as sustenance of labour, they are natural determinants of the localisation of industry. In vegetable products the climatic zones are very clearly marked. "The boreal zone has its special vegetation of mosses, lichens, saxifrages, berries, oats, barley, and rye; the temperate zone its peas, beans, roots, hops, oats, barley, rye, and wheat; this zone, characterised by its extent of pastures, hop gardens, and barley fields, has also a distinctive title in the 'beer and butter region.' The warm temperate zone, or region of 'wine and oil,' is characterised by the growth of the vine, olive, orange, lemon, citron, pomegranate, tea, wheat, maize, and rice; the sub-tropical zone, by dates, figs, the vine, sugar-cane, wheat, and maize; the tropical zone is characterised by coffee, cocoa-nut, cocoa, sago, palm, figs, arrowroot, and spices; and the equatorial by bananas, plantains, cocoa-nut, etc."[119]
(2) The second group is geographical and geological. The shape and position of a country, its relation in space to other countries, the character of the soil and sub-soil, its water-supply, though closely related to climatic influences, have independent bearings. The character of the soil, which provides for crops their mineral food, has an important bearing upon the raw materials of industry. The shape and position of the land, especially the configuration of its coast, have a social as well as climatic significance, directing the intercourse with other lands and the migrations of people and civilisations which play so large a part in industrial history.
(3) Largely determined by the two groups of influences named above are the forces which represent the national character at any given time, the outcome of primitive race characteristics, food supply, speed and direction of industrial development, density of population, and the various other causes which enter in to determine efficiency of labour. The play of these natural and human forces in world-competition leads to such a settlement of different industries in different localities as yields the greatest net productiveness of labour in each part.
§ 11. But this world-competition, however free it may become, can lead to no finality, no settled appointment of industrial activity to the several parts of the earth. Setting aside all political and other non-economic motives, there are three reasons which render such local stability of industry impossible.
There is first the disturbance and actual loss sustained by nature in working up the mineral wealth of the soil, and the flora and fauna sustained by it, into commodities which are consumed, and an exact equivalent of which cannot be replaced. The working out of a coal-field, the destruction of forests which reacts upon the elementary climatic influences, are examples of this disturbance.
Secondly, there is the progress of industrial arts, new scientific discoveries applicable to industry. There is no reason to believe that human knowledge can reach any final goal: there is infinity alike in the resources of nature and in the capacity of the development of human skill.
Lastly, as human life continues, the art of living must continually change, and each change alters the value attached to the several forms of consumption, and so to the industrial processes engaged in the supply of different utilities. New wants stimulate new arts, new arts alter the disposition of productive industry, giving value to new portions of the earth. Ignoring those new material wants which require new kinds of raw material to be worked up for their satisfaction, the growing appreciation of certain kinds of sport, the love of fine scenery, a rising value set upon healthy atmosphere, are beginning to exercise a more and more perceptible influence upon the localisation of certain classes of population and industry in the more progressive nations of the world.
§ 12. The same laws and the same limitations which are operative in determining the character and degree of specialisation of countries or large areas are also seen to apply to smaller districts, towns, and streets. Industries engaged in producing valuable, durable material objects in wide demand are locally specialised; those engaged in providing bulky perishable non-material goods, or goods in narrow demand, are unspecialised. England, where internal intercourse has been most highly developed, and where internal competition has been freest and keenest, shows the most advanced specialisation in several of its staple industries. The concentration of cotton spinning in South Lancashire is an example, the full significance of which often escapes notice. From the beginning South Lancashire was the chief seat of the industry, but it is now far more concentrated than was the case a century ago. Several of the most valuable inventions in spinning were first applied in Derbyshire, in Nottingham, at Birmingham, and in Scotland. Scotland then competed closely in weaving with Lancashire. Now the Scotch industry is confined to certain specialities. In spite of the enormous growth of the manufacture, the local area it covers is even narrower than last century. Within Lancashire itself the actual area of production has shrunk to some 25 square miles in the extreme south, while the two great cities are further specialised—Liverpool as the market for cotton, Manchester for yarn and cotton cloths.