Meantime the world’s supply of money for investing in manufacturing, and the industries which contribute thereto, greatly increased. The world’s gold production in the decade ending with 1840 averaged but 13½ million dollars per annum. Then, owing to the gold discoveries in California and a little later in Australia, the production so much increased that the annual average in the decade ending with 1860 was 135 million dollars per annum, or ten times as much as on the average in the decade ending with 1840. For the next 35 years the production averaged about 125 million per annum. Then, suddenly, through the discoveries of great gold deposits in Africa and Alaska, the production began to exceed 200 million per annum, then 300 million, and in 1906, 1907, 1908 and 1909 averaged

more than 400 million per annum, or as much in a single year as in the 40 years from 1800 to 1840.

Gold, unlike most other productions prized by man, is not consumed. It has enduring qualities; and the facility with which it can be transformed without material loss from one form for use to any other required form enables man to retain and accumulate a large part of the products of a long period. The wheat produced in one year is eaten before the next year is ended. The cotton crop of one summer is turned into clothing and worn to rags by the time another crop is ready for the factory and workshop. But the gold is conserved and utilized as money or the basis of money, and the accumulations of the recurring years merely increase the stock of that generally accepted medium of exchange. To be sure a small share, perhaps one-fifth, is used in manufacturing and the arts, and a small percentage lost in various ways; but probably three-fourths of the gold product enters circulation in the form of money or its equivalent, and thus increases very rapidly the world’s money supply.

Meantime the systems built up in the business world by which business is performed with mere pieces of paper which represent the gold and silver accumulations have greatly multiplied the available stock of money; and the ease with which it may be transferred from place to place, from country to country, and from continent to continent also adds to its availability and frequency of use in the world’s transactions. The supply of that article which the manufacturing and business world terms “money,” whether in the form of gold, silver, paper, credits, instruments of exchange, or otherwise, has increased beyond accurate computation. The world’s stock of gold has, according to the estimates of experts, doubled in the last 25 years; and it is probable that the supplies of other forms of currency; which serve as money; have increased quite as rapidly.

All of this increase in the world’s supply of money has increased the amount available for investment in manufacturing, and the increased use of machinery meantime in that industry has required great increases in the investment. While there are no ways of accurately measuring the world’s investments in manufacturing, it is practicable to do so in the case of the United States, the only country which regularly takes a census of its manufacturing industries. Its figures for the census years from 1850 to 1905, as to number of establishments, persons employed, wages paid, capital invested and value of product, are as follows:

Census
year.		Establish-
ments,
number.		Capital,
million
dollars.		Wage-
earners,
number.		Wages
Paid,
million
dollars.		Cost of
Material,
million
dollars.		Value of
Product,
million
dollars.
1850123,025533957,0592375551,019
1860140,4331,0101,311,2463791,0321,886
1870252,1482,1182,053,9967762,4884,232
1880253,8522,7902,732,5959483,3975,370
1890355,4156,5254,251,6131,8915,1629,372
1900512,2549,8175,308,4062,3227,34513,004
1905533,76913,8726,157,7513,0179,49816,867
Census
year.		Establish-
ments,
number.		Capital,
million
dollars.		Wage-
earners,
number.
1850123,025533957,059
1860140,4331,0101,311,246
1870252,1482,1182,053,996
1880253,8522,7902,732,595
1890355,4156,5254,251,613
1900512,2549,8175,308,406
1905533,76913,8726,157,751
Census
year.		Wages
Paid,
million
dollars.		Cost of
Material,
million
dollars.		Value of
Product,
million
dollars.
18502375551,019
18603791,0321,886
18707762,4884,232
18809483,3975,370
18901,8915,1629,372
19002,3227,34513,004
19053,0179,49816,867

It will be seen from a study of this statement, which compares conditions in the manufacturing industries at each recurring census from 1850 to 1905, that while the number of establishments in 1905 was four and one-third times as many as in 1850 the number of wage-earners was six and one-half times as many, the wages paid twelve and one-third times as much, the value of the product sixteen and one-half times as much and the capital employed twenty-six times as much.

This gives at least a suggestion as to the growth of investment in manufacturing. So far as relates to the United States, the only country for which we have statistics on this subject, the enormous increase in the use of costly machinery in manufacturing has increased the sums required for carrying on the industry, and machinery has in a marked degree been substituted for man in the