Quite the same is also seen in the manufacture of all metallic goods (iron, steel, brass). Here, also, by the side of a few great works (seventeen works occupy each of them more than 1,000 workpeople and salaried employees; out of them five employ more than 2,000 persons, and one more than 5,000); and by the side of a great number of middle-sized works (440 establishments employing from 100 to 500 persons), we find more than 100,000 artisans who work single-handed, or with the aid of their families; and 72,600 works which have only from three to four workpeople.
In the india-rubber works, and those for the manufacture of paper, the middle-sized factories are still well represented (13 per cent. of all the establishments have more than fifty workmen each); but the remainder belongs to the small industry. It is the same in the chemical works. There is in this branch some ten factories employing more than 500 persons, and 100 which employ from 101 to 500 people; but the remainder is 1,000 of small works employing from ten to fifty people, and 3,800 of the very small works (less than ten workers).
In all other branches it is the small or the very small industry which dominates. Thus, in the manufacture of articles of food, there are only eight factories employing more than 500 people each, and 92,000 small establishments having less than ten workpeople each. In the printing industry the immense majority of establishments are very small, and employ from five to ten, or from ten to fifty workpeople.
As to the manufacture of clothing, it entirely belongs to the small industry. Only five factories employ more than 200 each; but the remainder represents 630,000 independent artisans, men and women; 9,500 workshops where the work is done by the family; and 132,000 workshops and factories occupying less than ten workpeople each.[212]
The different branches dealing with straw, feathers, hair, leather, gloves, again, belong to the small and the very small industry: 125,000 artisans and 43,000 small establishments employing from three to four persons each.
Shall I speak of the factories dealing with wood, furniture, brushes, and so on? True, there are in these branches two large factories employing nearly 2,000 persons; but there are also 214,260 independent artisans and 105,400 small factories and workshops employing less than ten persons each.
Needless to say that jewelry, the cutting of precious stones, and stone-cutting for masonry belong entirely to the small industry, no more than ten to twenty works employing more than 100 persons each. Only in ceramics and in brick-making do we find by the side of the very small works (8,930 establishments), and the small ones (1,277 establishments employing from ten to fifty workpeople), 334 middle-sized works (fifty to 200 workpeople), ninety-three of the great industry (201 to 1,000), and seven of the very great (more than 1,000 workpeople).[213]
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 Jahrbücher, and in Conrad’s Sammlung national-ökonomischer und statistischer Abhandlungen. For a general review of the subject and rich bibliographical indications, Schönberg’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. Bücher (Untersuchungen über die Lage des Handwerks in Deutschland), will be found most valuable. The work of O. Schwarz, Die Betriebsformen der modernen Grossindustrie (in Zeitschrift für 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 favour of the former: (1) economy in the cost of motive power; (2) division of labour and its harmonic organisation; and (3) the advantages offered for the sale of the produce. Of these three factors, the first is more and more eliminated every year by the progress achieved in the transmission of power; the second exists in small industries as well, and to the same extent, as in the great ones (watchmakers, toy-makers, and so on); so that only the third remains in full force; but this factor, as already mentioned in the text of this book, is a social factor which entirely depends upon the degree of development of the spirit of association amongst the producers.
A detailed industrial census having been taken in 1907, in addition to those of 1882 and 1895, most important and quite reliable data showing the importance and the resistance of the small industries were brought to light, and a series of most interesting monographs dealing with this subject have been published. Let me name, therefore, some of those which could be consulted with profit: Dr. Fr. Zahn, Wirtschaftliche Entwicklung, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Volkszählung, 1905, sowie der Berufs und Betriebszählung, 1907; Sonderabdruck aus der Annalen des Deutschen Reichs, München, 1910 and 1911; Dr. Josef Grunzel, System der Industriepolitik, Leipzig, 1905; and Der Sieg des Industrialismus, Leipzig, 1911; W. Sombart, “Verlagssystem (Hausindustrie)”, in Conrad, Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, 3te Auflage, Bd. VIII.; R. van der Borght, Beruf, Gesellschaftliche Gliederung und Betrieb im Deutschen Reiche, in Vorträge der Gehe-Stiftung, Bd. II., 1910; and Heinrich Koch, Die Deutsche Hausindustrie, M. Gladbach, 1905. Many other works will be found mentioned by these authors.