[8] The output was, in 1910, 24,146,000 tons in European Russia, and 1,065,000 tons in Siberia.
[9] See [Appendix C].
[10] Here are the figures obtained by the official census of 1908. In all the cotton industry, only 220,563 men (including boys), 262,245 women, and 90,061 girls less than eighteen years old were employed. They produced 6,417,798,000 yards of unbleached gray, and 611,824,000 yards of bleached white and coloured cottons—that is, 160 yards per head of population—and 1,507,381,000 lb. of yarn, valued £96,000,000. We have thus 12,271 yards of cotton, and 2,631 lb. of yarn per person of workpeople employed. For woollens and worsted there were 112,438 men and boys, 111,492 women, and 34,087 girls under eighteen. The value (incomplete) of the woven goods was about £40,250,000, and that of the yarn about £21,000,000. These figures are most instructive, as they show how much man can produce with the present machinery. Unfortunately, the real productivity in a modern factory is not yet understood by the economists. Thus, we saw lately Russian economists very seriously maintaining that it was necessary to “proletarize” the peasants (about 100,000,000) in order to create a great industry. We see now that if one-fourth, or even one-fifth, part only of the yearly increase of the population took to industry (as it has done in Germany), Russian factories would soon produce such quantities of all sorts of manufactured goods, that they would be able to supply with them 400 or 500 million people, in addition to the population of the Russian Empire.
[11] Many facts in point have also been collected in a little book, Made in Germany, by E. E. Williams. Unhappily, the facts relative to the recent industrial development of Germany are so often used in a partisan spirit in order to promote protection that their real importance is often misunderstood.
[12] Francke, Die neueste Entwickelung der Textil-Industrie in Deutschland.
[13] Cf. Schulze Gäwernitz, Der Grossbetrieb, etc.—See [Appendixes D], [E], [F].
[14] The imports of German woollen stuffs into this country have steadily grown from £607,444 in 1890 to £907,569 in 1894, and £1,822,514 in 1910. The British exports to Germany (of woollen stuffs and yarns) have also grown, but not in the same proportion. They were valued at £2,769,392 in 1890, £3,017,163 in 1894, and £4,638,000 in 1906-1910 (a five years’ average).
CHAPTER II.
THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES—(continued).
Italy and Spain—India—Japan—The United States—The cotton, woollen, and silk trades—The growing necessity for each country to rely chiefly upon home consumers.
The flow of industrial growths spreads, however, not only east; it moves also south-east and south. Austria and Hungary are rapidly gaining ground in the race for industrial importance. The Triple Alliance has already been menaced by the growing tendency of Austrian manufacturers to protect themselves against German competition; and even the dual monarchy has seen its two sister nations quarrelling about customs duties. Austrian industries are a modern growth, and still they already give occupation to more than 4,000,000 workpeople.[15] Bohemia, in a few decades, has grown to be an industrial country of considerable importance; and the excellence and originality of the machinery used in the newly reformed flour-mills of Hungary show that the young industry of Hungary is on the right road, not only to become a competitor to her elder sisters, but also to add her share to our knowledge as to the use of the forces of nature. Let me add, by the way, that the same is true to some extent with regard to Finland. Figures are wanting as to the present state of the aggregate industries of Austria-Hungary; but the relatively low imports of manufactured goods are worthy of note. For British manufacturers Austria-Hungary is, in fact, no customer worth speaking of; but even with regard to Germany she is rapidly emancipating herself from her former dependence. (See [Appendix G].)