On the contrary, wherever the helpless, isolated artisans and workers continue to remain at the mercy of the wholesale buyers, who always—since Adam Smith’s time—“openly or tacitly” agree to act as one man to bring down the prices almost to a starvation level—and such is the case for the immense number of the small and village industries—their condition is so bad that only the longing of the workers after a certain relative independence, and their knowledge of what awaits them in the factory, prevent them from joining the ranks of the factory hands. Knowing that in most cases the advent of the factory would mean no work at all for most men, and the taking of the children and girls to the factory, they do the utmost to prevent it from appearing at all in the village.
As to combinations in the villages, co-operation and the like, one must never forget how jealously the German, the French, the Russian and the Austrian Governments have hitherto prevented the workers, and especially the village workers, from entering into any sort of combination for economical purposes. In France the peasant syndicates were permitted only by the law of 1884. To keep the peasant at the lowest possible level, by means of taxation, serfdom, and the like, has been, and is still, the policy of most continental States. It was only in 1876 that some extension of the association rights was granted in Germany, and even now a mere co-operative association for the sale of the artisans’ work is soon reported as a “political association” and submitted as such to the usual limitations, such as the exclusion of women and the like.[174] A striking example of that policy as regards a village association was given by Prof. Issaieff, who also mentioned the severe measures taken by the wholesale buyers in the toy trade to prevent the workers from entering into direct intercourse with foreign buyers.
When one examines with more than a superficial attention the life of the small industries and their struggles for life, one sees that when they perish, they perish—not because “an economy can be realised by using a hundred horse-power motor, instead of a hundred small motors”—this inconveniency never fails to be mentioned, although it is easily obviated in Sheffield, in Paris, and many other places by hiring workshops with wheel-power, supplied by a central machine, and, still more, as was so truly observed by Prof. W. Unwin, by the electric transmission of power. They do not perish because a substantial economy can be realised in the factory production—in many more cases than is usually supposed, the fact is even the reverse—but because the capitalist who establishes a factory emancipates himself from the wholesale and retail dealers in raw materials; and especially, because he emancipates himself from the buyers of his produce and can deal directly with the wholesale buyer and exporter; or else he concentrates in one concern the different stages of fabrication of a given produce. The pages which Schulze-Gäwernitz gave to the organisation of the cotton industry in England, and to the difficulties which the German cotton-mill owners had to contend with, so long as they were dependent upon Liverpool for raw cotton, are most instructive in this direction. And what characterises the cotton trade prevails in all other industries as well.
If the Sheffield cutlers who now work in their tiny workshops, in one of the above-mentioned buildings supplied with wheel-power, were incorporated in one big factory, the chief advantage which would be realised in the factory would not be an economy in the costs of production, in comparison to the quality of the produce; with a shareholders’ company the costs might even increase. And yet the profits (including wages) probably would be greater than the aggregate earnings of the workers, in consequence of the reduced costs of purchase of iron and coal, and the facilities for the sale of the produce. The great concern would thus find its advantages not in such factors as are imposed by the technical necessities of the trade at the time being, but in such factors as could be eliminated by co-operative organisation. All these are elementary notions among practical men.
It hardly need be added that a further advantage which the factory owner has is, that he can find a sale even for produce of the most inferior quality, provided there is a considerable quantity of it to be sold. All those who are acquainted with commerce know, indeed, what an immense bulk of the world’s trade consists of “shoddy,” patraque, “Red Indians’ blankets,” and the like, shipped to distant countries. Whole cities—we just saw—produce nothing but “shoddy.”
Altogether, it may be taken as one of the fundamental facts of the economical life of Europe that the defeat of a number of small trades, artisan work and domestic industries, came through their being incapable of organising the sale of their produce—not from the production itself. The same thing recurs at every page of economical history. The incapacity of organising the sale, without being enslaved by the merchant, was the leading feature of the Mediæval cities, which gradually fell under the economical and political yoke of the Guild-Merchant, simply because they were not able to maintain the sale of their manufactures by the community as a whole, or to organise the sale of a new produce in the interest of the community. When the markets for such commodities came to be Asia on the one side, and the New World on the other side, such was fatally the case; since commerce had ceased to be communal, and had become individual, the cities became a prey for the rivalries of the chief merchant families.
Even nowadays, when we see the co-operative societies beginning to succeed in their productive workshops, while fifty years ago they invariably failed in their capacity of producers, we may conclude that the cause of their previous failures was not in their incapacity of properly and economically organising production, but in their inability of acting as sellers and exporters of the produce they had fabricated. Their present successes, on the contrary, are fully accounted for by the network of distributive societies which they have at their command. The sale has been simplified, and production has been rendered possible by first organising the market.
Such are a few conclusions which may be drawn from a study of the small industries in Germany and elsewhere. And it may be safely said, with regard to Germany, that if measures are not taken for driving the peasants from the land on the same scale as they have been taken in this country; if, on the contrary, the numbers of small landholders multiply, they necessarily will turn to various small trades, in addition to agriculture, as they have done, and are doing, in France. Every step that may be taken, either for awakening intellectual life in the villages, or for assuring the peasants’ or the country’s rights upon the land, will necessarily further the growth of industries in the villages.
In this light it is extremely interesting to see the figures as to the distribution of the German industries into a small, middle-sized, and great industry, which are given by three industrial censuses taken during the last thirty years. But for these figures I refer the reader to the Appendix.[175]