1903 138s.
1904 141s.
1905 153s.
1906 173s.
1907 194s.
1908 171s.
1909 192s.
1910 201s.
[32] The International Federation of the Cotton Industry employers gave, on March 1, 1909, the following numbers of spindles in the different countries of the Old and New Worlds:—
| United Kingdom | 53,472,000 = | 41 | per cent. |
| United States | 27,846,000 = | 21 | ” |
| Germany | 9,881,000 = | 8 | ” |
| Russia | 7,829,000 = | 6 | ” |
| France | 6,750,000 = | 5 | ” |
| British India | 5,756,000 = | 4 | ” |
| Other nations | 19,262,000 = | 15 | ” |
| ————— | — | ||
| 130,796,000 = | 100 | ” |
[33] J. Stephen Jeans, The Iron Trade of Great Britain (London, Methuen), 1905, p. 46. The reader will find in this interesting little work valuable data concerning the growth and improvement of the iron industry in different countries.
CHAPTER III.
THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE.
The development of agriculture—Over-population prejudice—Can the soil of Great Britain feed its inhabitants?—British agriculture—Compared with agriculture in France; in Belgium; in Denmark—Market-gardening; its achievements—Is it profitable to grow wheat in Great Britain?—American agriculture: intensive culture in the States.
The industrial and commercial history of the world during the last fifty years has been a history of decentralisation of industry. It was not a mere shifting of the centre of gravity of commerce, such as Europe witnessed in the past, when the commercial hegemony migrated from Italy to Spain, to Holland, and finally to Britain: it had a much deeper meaning, as it excluded the very possibility of commercial or industrial hegemony. It has shown the growth of quite new conditions, and new conditions require new adaptations. To endeavour to revive the past would be useless: a new departure must be taken by civilised nations.
Of course, there will be plenty of voices to argue that the former supremacy of the pioneers must be maintained at any price: all pioneers are in the habit of saying so. It will be suggested that the pioneers must attain such a superiority of technical knowledge and organisation as to enable them to beat all their younger competitors; that force must be resorted to if necessary. But force is reciprocal; and if the god of war always sides with the strongest battalions, those battalions are strongest which fight for new rights against outgrown privileges. As to the honest longing for more technical education—surely let us all have as much of it as possible: it will be a boon for humanity; for humanity, of course—not for a single nation, because knowledge cannot be cultivated for home use only. Knowledge and invention, boldness of thought and enterprise, conquests of genius and improvements of social organisation have become international growths; and no kind of progress—intellectual, industrial or social—can be kept within political boundaries; it crosses the seas, it pierces the mountains; steppes are no obstacle to it. Knowledge and inventive powers are now so thoroughly international that if a simple newspaper paragraph announces to-morrow that the problem of storing force, of printing without inking, or of aerial navigation, has received a practical solution in one country of the world, we may feel sure that within a few weeks the same problem will be solved, almost in the same way, by several inventors of different nationalities.[34] Continually we learn that the same scientific discovery, or technical invention, has been made within a few days’ distance, in countries a thousand miles apart; as if there were a kind of atmosphere which favours the germination of a given idea at a given moment. And such an atmosphere exists: steam, print and the common stock of knowledge have created it.
Those who dream of monopolising technical genius are therefore fifty years behind the times. The world—the wide, wide world—is now the true domain of knowledge; and if each nation displays some special capacities in some special branch, the various capacities of different nations compensate one another, and the advantages which could be derived from them would be only temporary. The fine British workmanship in mechanical arts, the American boldness for gigantic enterprise, the French systematic mind, and the German pedagogy, are becoming international capacities. Sir William Armstrong, in his works established in Italy and Japan, has already communicated to Italians and Japanese those capacities for managing huge iron masses which have been nurtured on the Tyne; the uproarious American spirit of enterprise pervades the Old World; the French taste for harmony becomes European taste; and German pedagogy—improved, I dare say—is at home in Russia. So, instead of trying to keep life in the old channels, it would be better to see what the new conditions are, what duties they impose on our generation.
The characters of the new conditions are plain, and their consequences are easy to understand. As the manufacturing nations of West Europe are meeting with steadily growing difficulties in selling their manufactured goods abroad, and getting food in exchange, they will be compelled to grow their food at home; they will be bound to rely on home customers for their manufactures, and on home producers for their food. And the sooner they do so the better.