 CHAPTER IX. INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION CONTINUED. DIVISION OF LABOR, THE INFLUENCE OF MACHINERY. The first condition of an efficient organization of industry is that it should keep everyone employed at such work as his abilities and training fit him to do well, and should equip him with the best machinery and other appliances for his work. We shall leave on one side for the present the distribution of work between those who carry out the details of production on the one hand, and those who manage its general arrangement and undertake its risk on the other, and confine ourselves to the division of labor between different classes of operatives, with special reference to the influence of machinery. In the following chapter we shall consider the reciprocal effects of the division of labor and the localization of industry, and in the third chapter we shall inquire how far the advantages of division of labor depend upon the aggregation of large capitals into the hands of single individuals or firms, or, as is commonly said, on production on a larger scale, and lastly we shall examine the growing specialization of the work of business management. Everyone is familiar with the fact that practice makes perfect, that it enables an operation which at first seemed difficult to be done after a time with comparatively little exertion, and yet much better than before, and physiology in some measure explains this fact, for it gives reasons for believing that the change is due to the gradual growth of new habits of more or less reflex or automatic action. Perfectly reflex actions, such as that of breathing during sleep, are performed by the responsibility of the local nerve centers without any reference to the supreme central authority of the thinking power which is supposed to reside in the cerebrum. But all deliberate movements require the attention of the chief central authority. It receives information from the nerve centers or local authorities, and perhaps in some cases direct from the sentient nerves, and sends back detailed and complex instructions to the local authorities, or in some cases direct to the muscular nerves, and so coordinates their action as to bring about the required results. The physiological basis of purely mental work is not yet well understood, but what little we do know of the growth of brain structure seems to indicate that practice, in any kind of thinking, develops new connections between different parts of the brain. Anyhow we know for a fact that practice will enable a person to solve quickly and without any considerable exertion questions which he could have dealt with but very imperfectly a little while before, even by the greatest effort. The mind of the merchant, the lawyer, the physician, and the man of science becomes gradually equipped with a store of knowledge and a faculty of intuition which can be obtained in no other way than by the continual application of the best efforts of a powerful thinker for many years together to one or more less narrow class of questions. Of course the mind cannot work hard for many hours a day in one direction, and a hard worked man will sometimes find recreation in work that does not belong to his business, but would be fatiguing enough to a person who had to do it all day long. Some social reformers have indeed maintained that those who do the most important brain work might do a fair share of manual work also without diminishing their power of acquiring knowledge or thinking out hard questions. But experience seems to show that the best relief from overstrain is in occupations taken up to suit the mood of the moment and stopped when the mood is past, that is, in what popular instinct classes as relaxation. Any occupation, which is so far business-like that a person must sometimes force himself by an effort of the will to go on with it, draws on his nervous force and is not perfect relaxation, and therefore it is not economical from the point of view of the community unless its value is sufficient to outweigh a considerable injury to his main work. It is a difficult and unsettled question how far specialization should be carried in the highest branches of work. In science it seems to be a sound rule that the area of study should be broad during youth and should gradually be narrowed as years go on. A medical man who has always given his attention exclusively to one class of diseases may perhaps give less wise advice even in his special subject than another who, having learned by wider experience to think of those diseases in relation to general health, gradually concentrates his study more and more on them, and accumulates a vast door of special experiences and subtle instincts. But there is no doubt that greatly increased efficiency can be attained through division of labor in those occupations in which there is much demand for mere manual skill. Adam Smith pointed out that a lad who had made nothing but nails all his life could make them twice as quickly as a first-rate Smith who only took to nail-making occasionally. Anyone who has to perform exactly the same set of operations day after day on things of exactly the same shape gradually learns to move his fingers exactly as they are wanted by almost automatic action and with greater rapidity than would be possible if every movement had to wait for a deliberate instruction of the will. Unfamiliar instance is seen in the tying of threads by children in a cotton mill. Again in a clothing or boot factory, a person who sews, whether by hand or machinery, just the same seam on a piece of leather or cloth of just the same size, hour after hour, day after day, is able to do it with far less effort and far more quickly than a worker with much greater quickness of eye and hand, and of a much higher order of general skill who is accustomed to make the whole of a coat or the whole of a boot. Again in the wood and in the metal industries, if a man has to perform exactly the same operations over and over again on the same piece of material, he gets into the habit of holding it exactly the way in which it is wanted, and of arranging the tools and other things which he has to handle in such positions that he is able to bring them to work on one another with the least possible loss of time and of force in the movements of his own body. Accustomed to find them always in the same position, and to take them in the same order, his hands work in harmony with one another almost automatically, and with increased practice his expenditure of nervous force diminishes even more rapidly than his expenditure of muscular force. But when the action has thus been reduced to routine, it has nearly arrived at the stage at which it can be taken over by machinery. The chief difficulty to be overcome is that of getting the machinery to hold the material firmly in exactly the position in which the machine tool can be brought to bear on it in the right way, and without wasting too much time in taking grip of it. But this can generally be contrived when it is worthwhile to spend some labor and expense on it, and then the whole operation can often be controlled by a worker who, sitting before a machine, takes with the left hand a piece of wood or metal from a heap and puts it in a socket, while with the right he draws down a lever or in some other way sets the machine tool at work. And finally, with his left hand throws on to another heap the material which has been cut or punched or drilled or planed exactly after a given pattern. It is in these industries especially that we find the reports of modern trades unions to be full of complaints that unskilled laborers and even their wives and children are put to do work which used to require the skill and judgment of a trained mechanic, but which has been reduced to mere routine by the improvement in machinery and the ever-increasing minuteness of the subdivision of labor. We are thus led to a general rule, the action of which is more prominent in some branches of manufacture than in others, but which applies to all. It is that any manufacturing operation that can be reduced to uniformity so that exactly the same thing has to be done over and over again in the same way is sure to be taken over sooner or later by machinery. There may be delays and difficulties, but if the work to be done by it is on a sufficient scale, money and inventive power will be spent without a stint on the task till it is achieved. Thus the two movements of the improvement of machinery and the growing subdivision of labor have gone together and are in some measure connected, but the connection is not so close as is generally supposed. It is the largeness of markets, the increased demand for great numbers of things of the same kind, and in some cases of things made with great accuracy, that leads to subdivision of labor. The chief effect of the improvement of machinery is to cheapen and make more accurate the work which would anyhow have been subdivided. For instance, in organizing the works at Soho, Bolton and Watt found it necessary to carry division of labor to the furthest practicable point. There were no slide lathes, planing machines, or boring tools, such as now render mechanical accuracy of construction almost a matter of certainty. Everything depended on the individual mechanics accuracy of hand and eye, yet mechanics generally were much less skilled then than they are now. The way in which Bolton and Watt contrived partially to get over the difficulty was to confine their workmen to special classes of work and make them as expert in them as possible. By continued practice in handling the same tools and fabricating the same articles they thus acquired a great individual proficiency. Thus machinery constantly supplants and renders unnecessary that purely manual skill, the attainment of which was, even up to Adam Smith's time, the chief advantage of division of labor. But this influence is more than counterveiled by its tendency to increase the scale of manufacturers and to make them more complex, and therefore to increase the opportunities for division of labor of all kinds and especially in the matter of business management. The powers of machinery to do work that requires too much accuracy to be done by hand are perhaps best seen in some branches of the metal industries in which the system of interchangeable parts is being rapidly developed. It is only after long training and with much care and labor that the hand can make one piece of metal accurately to resemble or fit into another, and after all the accuracy is not perfect. But this is just the work which a well-made machine can do most easily and most perfectly. For instance, if sewing and reaping machines had to be made by hand, their first cost would be very high, and when any part of them was broken it could be replaced only at a great cost by sending the machine back to the manufacturer or by bringing a highly skilled mechanic to the machine. But as it is, the manufacturer keeps in store many facsimiles of the broken part which were made by the same machinery and are therefore interchangeable with it. A farmer in the northwest of America, perhaps a hundred miles away from any good mechanic shop, can yet use complicated machinery with confidence. Since he knows that by telegraphing the number of the machine and the number of any part of it which he has broken, he will get by the next train a new piece which he himself can fit into its place. The importance of this principle of interchangeable parts has been but recently grasped. There are however many signs that it will do more than any other to extend the use of machine made machinery to every branch of production, including even domestic and agricultural work. The influences which machinery exerts over the character of modern industry are well illustrated in the manufacture of watches. Some years ago the chief seat of this business was in French Switzerland where the subdivision of labor was carried far, though a great part of the work was done by a more or less scattered population. There were about fifty distinct branches of trade, each of which did one small part of the work. In almost all of them a highly specialized manual skill was required, but very little judgment. The earnings were generally low, because the trade had been established too long for those in it to have anything like a monopoly, and there was no difficulty in bringing up to it any child with ordinary intelligence. But this industry is now yielding ground to the American system of making watches by machinery, which requires very little specialized manual skill. In fact the machinery is becoming every year more and more automatic, and is getting to require less and less assistance from the human hand. But the more delicate the machine's power, the greater is the judgment and carefulness which is called for from those who see after it. Like for instance a beautiful machine which feeds itself with steel wire at one end, and delivers at the other tiny screws of itsquisite form. It displaces a great many operatives who had indeed acquired a very high and specialized manual skill, but who lived sedentary lives, straining their eyesight through microscopes, and finding in their work very little scope for any faculty except a mere command over the use of their fingers. But the machine is intricate and costly, and the person who minds it must have an intelligence and an energetic sense of responsibility which go a long way towards making a fine character, and which, though more common than they were, are yet sufficiently rare to be able to earn a very high rate of pay. No doubt this is an extreme case, and the greater part of the work done in a watch factory is much simpler. But much of it requires higher faculties than the old system did, and those engaged in it earn the average higher wages. At the same time it has already brought the price of a trustworthy watch within the range of the poorest classes of the community, and it is showing signs of being able soon to accomplish the very highest class of work. Those who finish and put together the different parts of a watch must always have highly specialized skill, but most of the machines which are in use in a watch factory are not different in general character from those which are used in any other of the lighter metal trades. In fact many of them are mere modifications of the turning lays, and of the slotting, punching, drilling, planing, shaping, milling machines, and a few others which are familiar to all engineering trades. This is a good illustration of the fact that while there is a constantly increasing subdivision of labor, many of the lines of division between trades which are nominally distinct are becoming narrower and less difficult to be passed. In old times it would have been very small comfort to watchmakers who happened to be suffering from a diminished demand for their wares to be told that the gun-making trade was in want of extra hands, but most of the operatives in a watch factory would find machines very similar to those with which they were familiar if they strayed into a gun-making factory or sewing-machine factory or a factory for making textile machinery. A watch factory with those who worked in it could be converted without any overwhelming loss into a sewing-machine factory. Almost the only condition would be that in the new factory no one should be put to work which required a higher order of general intelligence than that to which he was already accustomed. The printing trade affords another instance of the way in which an improvement of machinery and an increase in the volume of production causes an elaborate division of labor. John is familiar with the pioneer newspaper editor of newly settled districts of America who sets up the type of his articles as he composes them and with the aid of a boy prints off his sheets and distributes them to his scattered neighbors. When however the mystery of printing was new the printer had to do all this for himself and in addition to make all his own appliances. These are now provided for him by separate subsidiary trades from whom even the printer in the backwoods can obtain everything that he wants to use. But in spite of the assistance which it thus gets from outside a large printing establishment has to find room for many different classes of workers within its walls. To say nothing of those who organize and superintend the business of those who do its office work and keep its stores of the skilled readers who correct any errors that may have crept into the proofs of its engineers and repairers of machinery of those who cast and who correct and prepare its stereotype plates of the warehouse men and the boys and girls who assist them and several other minor classes there are the two great groups of the compositors who set up the type and the machinists and pressmen who print impressions from them. Each of these two groups is divided into many smaller groups especially in the large centers of the printing trade. In London, for instance, a minder who was accustomed to one class of machine or a compositor who was accustomed to one class of work, if thrown out of employment, would not willingly abandon the advantage of his specialized skill and falling back on his general knowledge of the trade would seek work at another kind of machine or in another class of work. These barriers between minute subdivisions of a trade count for a great deal in many descriptions of the modern tendency towards specialization of industry and to some extent rightly, because though many of them are so slight that a man thrown out of work in one subdivision could pass into one of its neighbors without any great loss of efficiency, yet he does not do so until he is tried for a while to get employment in his old lines, and therefore the barriers are as effective as stronger ones would be, so far as the minor fluctuations of trade from week to week are concerned. Because they are of an altogether different kind from the deep and broad partitions which divided one group of medieval handicraftsmen from another, and which caused the lifelong suffering of the handloom weavers when their trade had left them. In the printing trades, as in the watch trade, we see mechanical and scientific appliances attaining results that would be impossible without them, at the same time that they persistently take over work that used to require manual skill and dexterity but not much judgment, while they leave for man's hand all those parts which do require the use of judgment, and open up all sorts of new occupations in which there is a great demand for it. Every improvement and cheapening of the printer's appliances increased the demand for the judgment and discretion and literary knowledge of the reader, for the skill and taste of those who know how to set up a good title-page or how to make ready a sheet on which an engraving is to be printed, so that light and shade will be distributed properly. It increases the demand for a gifted and highly trained artist who draw or engrave on wood and stone and metal, and for those who know how to give an accurate report in ten lines of the substance of a speech that occupied ten minutes, an intellectual feat the difficulty of which we underrate because it is so frequently performed. And again it tends to increase the work of photographers and electrotypers and stereotypers, of the makers of printer's machinery and many others who get a higher training and a higher income from their work, than did those layers on and takers off and those folders of newspapers who have found their work taken over by iron fingers and iron arms. We may now pause to consider the effects which machinery has in relieving that excessive muscular strain which a few generations ago was the common lot of more than half the working men even in such a country as England. The most marvelous instances of the power of machinery are seen in large ironworks, and especially in those for making armor plates, where the force to be exerted is so great that man's muscles count for nothing, and where every movement, whether horizontal or vertical, has to be effected by hydraulic or steam force, and man stands by ready to govern the machinery and clear away ashes, or perform some such secondary task. Machinery of this class has increased our command over nature, but it has not directly altered the character of man's work very much, for that which it does he could not have done without it. But in other trades machinery has lightened man's labors. The house-carpenters, for instance, make things of the same kind as those used by our forefathers, with much less toil for themselves. They now give themselves chiefly to those parts of the task which are most pleasant and most interesting, while in every country, town, and almost every village, there are found steam mills for sawing, planing, and molding, which relieve them of that grievous fatigue which not very long ago used to make them prematurely old. New machinery, when just invented, generally requires a great deal of care and attention. But the work of its attendant is always being sifted, that which is uniform and monotonous is gradually taken over by the machine, which thus becomes steadily more and more automatic and self-acting, till at last there is nothing for the hand to do but to supply the material at certain intervals and to take away the work when finished. There still remains the responsibility for seeing that the machinery is in good order and working smoothly. But even this task is often made light by the introduction of an automatic movement, which brings the machine to a stop the instant anything goes wrong. Nothing could be more narrow or monotonous than the occupation of a weaver of plain stuffs in the old times. But now one woman will manage four or more looms, each of which does many times as much work in the course of the day as the old handloom did, and her work is much less monotonous and calls for much more judgment than his did. So that for every hundred yards of cloth that are woven, the purely monotonous work done by human beings is probably not a twentieth part of what it was. Facts of this kind are to be found in the recent history of many trades, and they are of great importance when we are considering the way in which the modern organization of industry is tending to narrow the scope of each person's work, and thereby to render it monotonous. For those trades in which the work is most subdivided are those in which the chief muscular strain is most certain to be taken off by machinery, and thus the chief evil of monotonous work is much diminished. As Roscher says, it is monotony of life much more than monotony of work that is to be dreaded. Monotony of work is an evil of the first order only when it involves monotony of life. Now, when a person's employment requires much physical exertion, he is fit for nothing after his work. And unless his mental faculties are called forth in his work, they have little chance of being developed at all. But the nervous force is not very much exhausted in the ordinary work of a factory, at all events where there is not excessive noise and where the hours of labor are not too long. The social surroundings of factory life stimulate mental activity in and out of working hours, and many of those factory workers whose occupations are seemingly the most monotonous have considerable intelligence and mental resource. It is true that the American agriculturalist is an able man and that his children rise rapidly in the world. But partly because land is plentiful and he generally owns the farm that he cultivates, he has better social conditions than the English. He has always had to think for himself and has long had to use and to repair complex machines. The English agricultural laborer has had many great disadvantages to contend with. Till recently he had little education and he was in a great measure under semi-feudal rule, which was not without its advantages but which repressed enterprise and even in some degree self-respect. These narrowing causes are removed. He is now fairly well educated in youth. He learns how to handle various machinery. He is less dependent on the goodwill of any particular squire or group of farmers and since his work is more various and educates intelligence more than the lowest grades of town work do, he is tending to rise both absolutely and relatively. We must now proceed to consider what are the conditions under which the economies and production arising from division of labor can best be secured. It is obvious that the efficiency of specialized machinery or specialized skill is but one condition of its economic use. The other is that sufficient work should be found to keep it well employed. As Babbage pointed out, in a large factory, the master manufacturer, by dividing the work to be executed into different processes, each requiring different degrees of skill or force, can purchase exactly that precise quantity of both which is necessary for each process, whereas if the whole work were executed by one workman, that person must possess sufficient skill to reform the most difficult and sufficient strength to execute the most laborious of the operations into which the work is divided. The economy of production requires not only that each person should be employed constantly in a narrow range of work, but also that, when it is necessary for him to undertake different tasks, each of these tasks should be such as to call forth as much as possible of his skill and ability. Just in the same way the economy of machinery requires that a powerful tuning lathe, when specially arranged for one class of work, should be kept employed as long as possible on that work, and if there is occasion to employ it on other work, that should be such as to be worthy of the lathe, and not such as could have been done equally well by a much smaller machine. Here then, so far as the economy of production goes, men and machines stand on much the same footing, but while machinery is a mere implement of production, man's welfare is also its ultimate aim. We have already been occupied with the question whether the human race as a whole gains by carrying to an extreme that specialization of function which causes all the most difficult work to be done by a few people, but we have now to consider it more nearly with special reference to the work of business management. The main drift of the next three chapters is to inquire what are the causes which make different forms of business management the fittest to profit by their environment, and the most likely to prevail over others, but it is well that meanwhile we should have in our minds the question, how far they are severally fitted to benefit their environment. Many of these economies in the use of specialized skill and machinery which are commonly regarded as within the reach of very large establishments do not depend on the size of individual factories. Some depend on the aggregate volume of production of the kind in the neighborhood, while others again, especially those connected with the growth of knowledge and the progress of the arts, depend chiefly on the aggregate volume of production in the whole civilized world. And here we may introduce two technical terms. We may divide the economies arranging from an increase in the scale of production of any kind of goods into two classes. Firstly, those dependent on the general development of the industry, and secondly, those dependent on the resources of the individual houses of business engaged in it, on their organization and the efficiency of their management. We may call the former external economies and the latter internal economies. In the present chapter we have been chiefly discussing internal economies, but we now proceed to examine those very important external economies which can often be secured by the concentration of many small businesses of a similar character in particular localities, or, as is commonly said, by the localization of industry. CHAPTER X In an early stage of civilization every place had to depend on its own resources for most of the heavy wares which it consumed, unless indeed it happened to have special facilities for water carriage. But wants and customs changed slowly, and this made it easy for producers to meet the wants even of consumers with whom they had little communication, and it enabled comparatively poor people to buy few expensive goods from a distance in the security that they would add to the pleasure of festivals and holidays during a lifetime, or perhaps even during two or three lifetimes. Consequently, the lighter and more expensive articles of dress and personal adornment, together with spices and some kinds of metal implements used by all classes, and many other things for the special use of the rich, often came from astonishing distances. Some of these were produced only in a few places, or even only in one place, and they were diffused all over Europe partly by the agency of fares and professional peddlers, and partly by the producers themselves, who would vary their work by traveling on foot for many thousand miles to sell their goods and see the world. These sturdy travelers took on themselves the risks of their little businesses. They enabled the production of certain classes of goods to be kept on the right track for satisfying the needs of purchasers far away, and they created new wants among consumers by showing them at fares or at their own houses new goods from distant lands. An industry concentrated in certain localities is commonly, though perhaps not quite accurately, described as a localized industry. This elementary localization of industry gradually prepared the way for many of the modern developments of division of labor in the mechanical arts and in the task of business management. Even now we find industries of a primitive fashion localized in retired villages of Central Europe and sending their simple wares even to the busiest haunts of modern industry. In Russia, the expansion of a family group into a village has often been the cause of a localized industry, and there are an immense number of villages, each of which carries on only one branch of production or even only a part of one. Many various causes have led to the localization of industries, but the chief causes have been physical conditions, such as the character of the climate and the soil, the existence of mines and the quarries in the neighborhood, or within easy access by land or water. Thus metallic industries have generally been either near mines or in places where fuel was cheap. The iron industries in England first sought those districts in which charcoal was plentiful, and afterwards they went to the neighborhood of collaries. Staffordshire makes many kinds of pottery, all the materials of which are imported from a long distance, but she has cheap coal and excellent clay for making the heavy sagars or boxes in which the pottery is placed while being fired. Straw plating has its chief home in Bedfordshire, where straw has just the right proportion of silks to give strength without brittleness, and Buckinghamshire beaches have afforded the material for the Waikambi chairmaking. The Sheffield cutlery trade is due chiefly to the excellent grid of which the grindstones are made. Another chief cause has been the patronage of a court. The rich fold there assembled make a demand for goods of specially high quality, and this attracts skilled workmen from a distance, and educates those on the spot. When an eastern potentate changed his residence, and partly for sanitary reasons, this was constantly done. The deserted town was apt to take refuge in the development of specialized industry, which had owed its origin to the presence of the court, but very often the rulers deliberately invited artisans from a distance and settled them in a group together. Thus the mechanical faculty of Lancashire is said to be due to the influence of Norman Smiths, who were settled at Warrington by Hugo de Lupus in William the Conqueror's time, and the greater part of England's manufacturing industry, before the era of cotton and steam, had its course directed by settlements of Flemish and other artisans, many of which were made under the immediate direction of Plantagenet and Tudor Kings. These immigrants taught us how to weave woolen and worsen stuffs, though for a long time we sent our cloths to the Netherlands to be fold and dyed. They taught us how to cure herrings, how to manufacture silk, how to make lace, glass, and paper, and to provide for many other of our wants. But how did these immigrants learn their skill? Their ancestors had no doubt profited by the traditional arts of earlier civilizations on the shores of the Mediterranean and in the Far East. For nearly all important knowledge has long deep roots stretching downwards to distant times, and so widely spread have been these roots, so ready to send up shoots of vigorous life, that there is perhaps no part of the old world in which there might not long ago have flourished many beautiful and highly skilled industries, if their growth had been favored by the character of the people and by their social and political institutions. This accident or that may have determined whether any particular industry flourished in any one town. The industrial character of a whole country even may have been largely influenced by the richness of her soil and her minds, and her facilities for commerce. Such natural advantages may themselves have stimulated free industry and enterprise. But it is the existence of these last by whatever means they may have been promoted, which has been the supreme condition for the growth of noble forms of the arts of life. In sketching the history of free industry and enterprise, we have already incidentally traced the outlines of the causes which have localized the industrial leadership of the world now in this country and now in that. We have seen how physical nature acts on man's energies, how he is stimulated by an invigorating climate, and how he is encouraged to bold ventures by the opening out of rich fields for his work. But we have also seen how the use he makes of these advantages depends on his ideals of life, and how inextricably therefore the religious, political, and economic threads of the world's history are interwoven, while together they have been bent this way or that by great political events and the influence of the strong personalities of individuals. The causes which determine the economic progress of nations belong to the study of international trade and therefore lie outside of our present view. But for the present we must turn aside from these broader movements of the localization of industry and follow the fortunes of groups of skilled workers who are gathered within the narrow boundaries of a manufacturing town or a thickly peopled industrial district. When an industry has thus chosen a locality for itself, it is likely to stay there long. So great are the advantages which people following the same skilled trade get from near neighborhood to one another. The mysteries of the trade become no mysteries, but are as it were in the air, and children learn many of them unconsciously. Good work is rightly appreciated, inventions and improvements in machinery, in processes, and the general organization of the business have their merits promptly discussed. If one man starts a new idea, it is taken up by others and combined with suggestions of their own, and thus it becomes the source of further new ideas, and presently subsidiary trades grow up in the neighborhood, supplying it with implements and materials, organizing its traffic, and in many ways conducing to the economy of its material. Again, the economic use of expensive machinery can sometimes be attained in a very high degree in a district in which there is a large aggregate production of the same kind, even though no individual capital employed in the trade be very large. For subsidiary industries devoting themselves each to one small branch of the process of production, and working it for a great many of their neighbors, are able to keep in constant use machinery of the most highly specialized character, and to make it pay its expenses, though its original cost may have been high, and its rate of depreciation very rapid. Again, in all but the earliest stages of economic development, a localized industry gains a great advantage from the fact that it offers a constant market for skill. Employers are apt to resort to any place where they are likely to find a good choice of workers with the special skill which they require, while men seeking employment naturally go to places where there are many employers who need such skills as theirs, and where therefore it is likely to find a good market. The owner of an isolated factory, even if he has access to a plentiful supply of general labor, is often put to great shifts for want of some special skilled labor, and a skilled workman, when thrown out of employment in it, has no easy refuge. Social forces here cooperate with economic. There are often strong friendships between employers and employed, but neither side likes to feel that in case of any disagreeable incident happening between them, they must go on rubbing against one another. Both sides like to be able easily to break off old associations should they become irksome. These difficulties are still a great obstacle to the success of any business in which special skill is needed, but which is not in the neighborhood of others like it. They are, however, being diminished by the railway, the printing press, and the telegraph. On the other hand, a localized industry has some disadvantages as a market for labor if the work done in it is chiefly of one kind, such for instance as can be done only by strong men. In those iron districts in which there are no textile or other factories to give employment to women and children, wages are high and the cost of labor dear to the employer, while the average money earnings of each family are low. But the remedy for this evil is obvious, and is found in the growth in the same neighborhood of industries of supplementary character. Thus, textile industries are constantly found congregated in the neighborhood of mining and engineering industries, in some cases having been attracted by almost imperceptible steps. In others, as for instance at Barrow, having been started deliberately on a large scale in order to give variety of employment in a place where previously there had been but little demand for the work of women and children. The advantages of variety of employment are combined with those of localized industries in some of our manufacturing towns, and this is a chief cause of their continued growth. But on the other hand, the value which the central sites of a large town have for trading purposes enables them to command much higher ground rents than the situations are worth for factories, even when a count is taken of this combination of advantages, and there is a similar competition for dwelling space between the employees of the trading houses and the factory workers. The result is that factories now congregate in the outskirts of large towns and in manufacturing districts in their neighborhood, rather than in the towns themselves. A district which is dependent chiefly on one industry is liable to extreme depression in case of a falling off in the demand for its produce or of a failure in the supply of the raw material which it uses. This evil, again, is in a great measure avoided by those large towns or large industrial districts in which several distinct industries are strongly developed. If one of them fails for a time, the others are likely to support it indirectly, and they enable local shopkeepers to continue their assistance to work people in it. So far we have discussed localization from the point of view of the economy of production, but there is also the convenience of the customer to be considered. He will go to the nearest shop for a trifling purchase, but for an important purchase he will take the trouble of visiting any part of the town where he knows that there are specially good shops for his purpose. Consequently, shops which deal inexpensive and choice objects tend to congregate together, and those which supply ordinary domestic needs do not. Every cheapening of the means of communication, every new facility for the free interchange of ideas between distant places alters the action of the forces which tend to localize industries. Speaking generally, we must say that a lowering of tariffs or of freight for the transport of goods tends to make each locality buy more largely from a distance what it requires, and thus tends to concentrate particular industries in special localities. But on the other hand, everything that increases people's readiness to migrate from one place to another tends to bring skilled artisans to ply their crafts near to the consumers who will purchase their wares. These two opposing tendencies are well illustrated by the recent history of the English people. On the one hand, the steady cheapening of frates, the opening of railways from the agricultural districts of America and India to the seaboard, and the adoption by England of a free trade policy have led to a great increase in her importation of raw produce. But on the other hand, the growing cheapness, rapidity and comfort of foreign travel are inducing her trained businessmen and her skilled artisans to pioneer the way for new industries in other lands, and to help them to manufacture for themselves goods which they have been want to buy from England. English mechanics have taught people in almost every part of the world how to use English machinery and even how to make similar machinery, and English miners have opened out mines of ore which have diminished the foreign demand for many of England's products. One of the most striking movements towards the specialization of a country's industries, which history records, is the rapid increase of the non-agricultural population of England in recent times. The exact nature of this change is however liable to be misunderstood. And its interest is so great, both for its own sake, and on account of the illustrations that affords of the general principles which we have been discussing in the preceding chapter and in this, that we may, with advantage, pause here to consider it a little. In the first place, the real diminution of England's agricultural industries is not so great as at first sight appears. It is true that in the Middle Ages, three-fourths of the people were reckoned as agriculturists, that only one in nine was returned to the last census as engaged in agriculture, and that perhaps not more than one in twelve will be so returned at the next census. But it must be remembered that the so-called agricultural population of the Middle Ages were not exclusively occupied with agriculture. They did for themselves a great part of the work that is now done by brewers and bakers, by spinners and weavers, by bricklayers and carpenters, by dressmakers and tailors, and by many other trades. These self-sufficing habits died slowly, but most of them had nearly disappeared by the beginning of the last century. And it is probable that the labor spent on the land at this time was not much less part of the whole industry of the country than in the Middle Ages, for in spite of her ceasing to export wool and wheat, there was so great an increase in the produce forced from her soil that the rapid improvement in the arts of her agriculturists scarcely availed to hold in check the action of the law of diminishing return. But gradually a great deal of labor has been diverted from the fields to making expensive machinery for agricultural purposes. This change did not exert its full influence upon the numbers of those who were reckoned as agriculturists so long as the machinery was drawn by horses. For the work of tending them and supplying them with food was regarded as agricultural, but in recent years a rapid growth of the use of steam power in the fields has coincided with the increased importation of farm produce. The coal miners who supply these steam engines with fuel and the mechanics who make them and manage them in the fields are not reckoned as occupied on the land, though the ultimate aim of their labor is to promote its cultivation. The real diminution then of England's agriculture is not so great as at first sight appears, but there has been a change in its distribution. Many tasks which used once to be performed by agricultural laborers are now done by specialized workers who are classed as in the building or road making industries as carriers and so on. And partly for this reason the number of people who reside in purely agricultural districts has seldom diminished fast and has often increased even though the number of those engaged in agriculture has been diminishing rapidly. Attention has already been called to the influence which the importation of agricultural produce exerts in altering the relative values of different soils, those falling most in value which depended chiefly on their wheat crops and which were not naturally fertile, though they were capable of being made to yield fairly good crops by expensive methods of cultivation, products in which such soils predominate have contributed more than their share to the crowds of agricultural laborers who have migrated to the large towns, and thus the geographical distribution of industries within the country has been still further altered. A striking instance of the influence of the new means of transport is seen in those pastoral districts in the remote parts of the United Kingdom, which send dairy products by special express trains to London and other large towns, meanwhile drawing their own supplies of wheat from the further shores of the Atlantic or even the Pacific Ocean. But next the changes of recent years have not, as would at first sight appear probable, increased the proportion of the English people who are occupied in manufactures. The output of England's manufactures is certainly many times as great now as it was at the middle of the last century, but those occupied in manufacture of every kind were as large a percentage of the population in 1851 as in 1901. Although those who make the machinery and implements which do a great part of the work of the English agriculture swell the numbers of the manufacturers. The chief explanation of this result lies in the wonderful increase in recent years of the power of machinery. This has enabled us to produce ever-increasing supplies of manufacturers of almost every kind, both for our own use and for exportation, without requiring any considerable increase in the number of people who tend the machines. And therefore we have been able to devote this labor set free from agriculture chiefly to supplying those wants in regard to which the improvements of machinery help us but little. The efficiency of machinery has prevented the industries localized in England from becoming as exclusively mechanical as they otherwise would. Prominent among the occupations which have increased rapidly since 1851 in England at the expense of agriculture are the services of government, central and local, education of all grades, medical services, musical, theatrical and other entertainments besides mining, building, dealing and transport by road and railway. In none of these is very much direct help got from new inventions. Man's labor is not much more efficient in them now than it was a century ago, and therefore if the wants for which they make provision increase in proportion to our general wealth it is only to be expected that they should absorb a constantly growing proportion of the industrial population. Domestic servants increased rapidly for some years and the total amount of work which used to fall to them is now increasing faster than ever. But much of it is now done often with the aid of machinery by persons in the employment of clothiers of all kinds of hotel proprietors, confectioners and even by various messengers from grocers, fishmongers and others who call for orders unless they are sent by telephone. These changes have tended to increase the specialization and the localization of industries. Passing away from this illustration of the action of modern forces on the geographical distribution of industries we will resume our inquiry as to how far the full economies of division of labor can be obtained by the concentration of large numbers of small businesses of a similar kind in the same locality and how far they are attainable only by the aggregation of a large part of the business of the country into the hands of a comparatively small number of rich and powerful firms, or as is commonly said by production on a large scale, or in other words how far the economies of production on a large scale must needs be internal and how far they can be external. End of Chapter 10. Recorded by Timothy Butler, www.alanproductions.com, Somerset, Wisconsin, November 24, 2007. Book 4, Chapter 11 of Principles of Economics, by Alfred Marshall. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 11. Industrial Organization Continued. Production on a Large Scale. The advantages of production on a large scale are best shown in manufacture, under which head we may include all businesses engaged in working up material into forms in which it will be adapted for sale in distant markets. The characteristic of manufacturing industries, which makes them offer generally the best illustrations of the advantages of production on a large scale, is their power of choosing freely the locality in which they will do their work. They are thus contrasted on the one hand with agriculture and other extractive industries, mining, quarrying, fishing, et cetera. The geographical distribution of which is determined by nature. And on the other hand with industries that make or repair things to suit the special needs of individual consumers, from whom they cannot be far removed at all events without great loss. The chief advantages of production on a large scale are economy of skill, economy of machinery, and economy of materials. But the last of these is rapidly losing importance relatively to the other two. It is true that an isolated workman often throws away a number of small things which would have been collected and turned to good account in a factory. But waste of this kind can scarcely occur in localized manufacture, even if it is in the hands of small men. And there is not very much of it in any branch of industry in modern England, except agriculture and domestic cooking. No doubt many of the most important advances of recent years have been due to the utilizing of what had been a waste product. But this has been generally due to a distinct invention, either chemical or mechanical, the use of which has been indeed promoted by minute subdivision of labor, but has not been directly dependent on it. Again, it is true that when a hundred sets of furniture, or of clothing, have to be cut out on exactly the same pattern, it is worthwhile to spend great care on so planning the cutting out of the boards or the cloth, that only a few small pieces are wasted. But this is properly an economy of skill, one planning is made to suffice for many tasks, and therefore can be done well and carefully. We may pass then to the economy of machinery. In spite of the aid which subsidiary industries can give to small manufacturers, where many in the same branch of trade are collected in one neighborhood, they are still placed under a great disadvantage by the growing variety and expansiveness of machinery. For in a large establishment there are often many expensive machines each made specially for one small use. Each of them requires space in a good light, and thus stands for something considerable in the rent and general expenses of the factory. And independently of interest and the expense of keeping it in repair a heavy allowance must be made for depreciation and consequence of its being probably improved upon before long. A small manufacturer must therefore have many things done by hand or by imperfect machinery, though he knows how to have them done better and cheaper by special machinery, if only he could find constant employment for it. But he knows how to have them done better and cheaper by special machinery, if only he could find constant employment for it. But next a small manufacturer may not always be acquainted with the best machinery for his purpose. It is true that if the industry in which he is engaged has been long established on a large scale, his machinery will be well up to the mark, provided he can afford to buy the best in the market. In agriculture and the cotton industries, for instance, machines in machinery are devised almost exclusively by machine makers, and they are accessible to all, at any rate on the payment of a royalty for patent right. But this is not the case in industries that are as yet in an early stage of development or are rapidly changing their form, such as the chemical industries, the watchmaking industry, and some branches of the jute and silk manufacturers. And in a host of trades that are constantly springing up to supply some new want or to work up some new material. In all such trades new machinery and new processes are for the greater part devised by manufacturers for their own use. Each new departure is an experiment which may fail. Those which succeed must pay for themselves and for the failure of others, and though a small manufacturer may think he sees his way to an improvement, he must reckon on having to work it out tentatively at considerable risk and expense and with much interruption to his other work, and even if he should be able to perfect it, he is not likely to be able to make the most of it. For instance, he may have devised a new specialty which would get a large sale if it could be brought under general notice, but to do this would perhaps cost many thousand pounds, and if so he will probably have to turn his back on it, for it is almost impossible for him to discharge, what Rocher calls a characteristic task of the modern manufacturer, that of creating new wants by showing people something which they had never thought of having before, but which they want to have as soon as the notion is suggested to them. In the pottery trade, for example, the small manufacturer cannot afford even to make experiments with new patterns and designs except in a very tentative way. His chance is better with regard to an improvement in making things for which there is already a good market. But even here he cannot get the full benefit of his invention unless he patents it, and sells the right to use it, or borrows some capital and extends his business, or lastly changes the character of his business and devotes his capital to that particular stage of the manufacturer to which his improvement applies. But after all, such cases are exceptional. The growth of machinery in variety and expansiveness presses hard on the small manufacturer everywhere. It has already driven him completely out of some trades and is fast driving him out of others. There are, however, some trades in which the advantages which a large factory derives from the economy of machinery almost vanish as soon as a moderate size has been reached. For instance, in cotton spinning and calico weaving, a comparatively small factory will hold its own and give constant employment to the best-known machines for every process, so that a large factory is only several parallel smaller factories under one roof. And indeed some cotton spinners, when enlarging their works, think at best to add a weaving department. In such cases, the large business gains little or no economy in machinery, and even then it generally saves something in building, particularly as regards chimneys and in the economy of steam power and in the management and repairs of engines and machinery. Large soft goods factories have carpenters and mechanic shops, which diminish the cost of repairs and prevent delays from accidents to the plant. Akin to these last, there are a great many advantages which a large factory, or indeed a large business of almost any kind, nearly always has over a small one. A large business buys in great quantities and therefore cheaply. It pays low freight and saves on carriage in many ways, particularly if it has a railway siding. It often sells in large quantities and thus saves itself trouble, and yet at the same time it gets a good price, because it offers conveniences to the customer by having a large stock from which he can select and at once fill up a varied order, while its reputation gives him confidence. It can spend large sums on advertising by commercial travelers and in other ways. Its agents give it trustworthy information on trade and personal matters in distant places, and its own goods advertise one another. The economies of highly organized buying and selling are among the chief causes of the present tendency towards the fusion of many businesses in the same industry or trade into single huge aggregates, and also of trading federations of various kinds, including German cartels and centralized cooperative associations. They have also always promoted the concentration of business risks in the hands of large capitalists who put out the work to be done by smaller men. Next, with regard to the economy of skill. Everything that has been said with regard to the advantages which a large establishment has in being able to afford highly specialized machinery applies equally with regard to highly specialized skill. It can contrive to keep each of its employees constantly engaged in the most difficult work of which he is capable, and yet so to narrow the range of his work so that he can attain that facility and excellence which come from long continued practice. But enough has already been said on the advantage of division of labor, and we may pass to an important, though indirect, advantage which a manufacturer derives from having a great many men in his employment. The large manufacturer has a much better chance than a small one has of getting hold of men with exceptional natural abilities, to do the most difficult part of his work, that on which the reputation of his establishment chiefly depends. This is occasionally important as regards mere handiwork in trades which require much taste and originality, as, for instance, that of a house decorator, and in those which require exceptionally fine workmanship, as, for instance, that of a manufacturer of a delicate mechanism. But in most businesses its chief importance lies in the facilities which it gives to the employer for the selection of able and tried men, men whom he trusts and who trust him, to be his foreman and heads of departments. We are thus brought to the central problem of the modern organization of industry, namely that which relates to the advantages and disadvantages of the subdivision of work of business management. The head of a large business can reserve all his strength for the broadest and most fundamental problems of his trade. He must, indeed, assure himself that his managers, clerks, and foremen are the right men for their work, and are doing their work well. But beyond this he need not trouble himself much about details. He can keep his mind fresh and clear for thinking out the most difficult and vital problems of his business, for studying the broader movements of the markets, the yet undeveloped results of current events at home and abroad, and for contriving how to improve the organization of the internal and external relations of his business. For much of his work the small employer has not the time if he has the ability. He cannot take so broad a survey of his trade, or look so far ahead. He must often be content to follow the lead of others. And he must spend much of his time on work that is below him, for if he is to succeed at all, his mind must be in some respects of a high quality, and must have a good deal of originating and organizing force, and yet he must do much routine work. On the other hand the small employer has advantages of his own. The master's eye is everywhere. There is no shirking by his foreman or workman, no divided responsibility, no sending half-understood messages backwards and forwards from one department to another. He saves much of the bookkeeping and nearly all of the cumbers systems of checks that are necessary in the business of a large firm, and the gain from this source is of very great importance in trades which use the more valuable metals and other expensive materials. And though he must always remain at a great disadvantage in getting information and in making experiments, yet in this matter the general course of progress is on his side. For external economies are constantly growing in importance relatively to internal and in all matters of trade knowledge. Investors and trade and technical publications of all kinds are perpetually scouting for him and bringing him much of the knowledge he wants, knowledge which a little while ago would have been beyond the reach of anyone who could not afford to have well-paid agents in many distant places. Again it is to his interest also that the secrecy of business is on the whole diminishing, and that the most important improvements in method seldom remain secret for long after they have passed from the experimental stage. It is to his advantage that changes in manufacture depend less on mere rules of thumb and more on broad developments of scientific principle, and that many of these are made by students in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, and are promptly published in the general interest. Although therefore the small manufacturer can seldom be in the front of the race of progress, he need not be far from it if he has the time and the ability for availing himself of the modern facilities for obtaining knowledge. But it is true that he must be exceptionally strong if he can do this without neglecting the minor but necessary details of the business. In agriculture and other trades in which a man gains no very great new economies by increasing the scale of his production, it often happens that a business remains of about the same size for many years, if not for many generations. But it is otherwise in trades in which a large business can command very important advantages, which are beyond the reach of a small business. A new man, working his way up in such a trade, has to set his energy and flexibility, his industry and care for small details against the broader economies of his rivals with their larger capital, their higher specialization of machinery and labor, and their larger trade connection. If then he can double his production and sell at anything like his old rate, he will have more than doubled his profits. This will raise his credit with bankers and other shrewd lenders, and will enable him to increase his business further, and to attain yet further economies and yet higher profits. And this again will increase his business and so on. It seems at first that no point is marked out at which he need stop. And it is true that, as his business increased, his faculties adapted themselves to his larger sphere, as they had done to his smaller, if he retained his originality and versatility and power of initiative, his perseverance, his tact, and his good luck for many years together, he might then gather into his hands the whole volume of production in his branch of trade for his district. And if his goods were not very difficult of transport nor of marketing, he might extend this district very wide and attain something like a limited monopoly, that is, of a monopoly limited by the consideration that a very high price would bring rival producers into the field. But long before this end is reached, his progress is likely to be arrested by the decay, if not of his faculties, yet of his liking for energetic work. The rise of his firm may be prolonged if he can hand down his business to a successor almost as energetic as himself. But the continued, very rapid growth of his firm requires the presence of two conditions which are seldom combined in the same industry. There are many trades in which an individual producer could secure much-increased internal economies by a great increase of his output, and there are many in which he could market that output easily, yet there are few in which he could do both, and this is not an accidental but almost a necessary result. For in most of those trades in which the economies of production on a large scale are of first-rate importance, marketing is difficult. There are no doubt important exceptions. A producer may, for instance, obtain access to the whole of a large market in the case of goods which are so simple and uniform that they can be sold wholesale in vast quantities. But most goods of this kind are raw produce, and nearly all the rest are plain and common, such as steel rails or calico, and their production can be reduced to routine, for the very reason that they are plain and common. Therefore, in industries which produce them, no firm can hold its own at all unless equipped with expensive appliances of nearly the latest type for its main work, while subordinated operations can be performed by subsidiary industries. And in short, there remains no very great difference between the economies available by a large and by a very large firm. And the tendency of large firms to drive out small ones has already gone so far as to exhaust most of the strength of those forces by which it was originally promoted. But many commodities, with regard to which the tendency to increasingly return acts strongly are, more or less, specialties. Some of them aim at creating a new want, or at meeting an old want in a new way. Some of them are adapted to special tastes, and can never have a very large market. And some have merits that are not easily tested, and must win their way to general favour slowly. In all such cases, the sales of each business are limited, more or less, according to circumstances, to the particular market which it has slowly and expensively acquired. And though the production itself might be economically increased very fast, the sale could not. Lastly, the very conditions of an industry which enable a new firm to attain quickly command over new economies of production render that firm liable to be supplanted quickly by still younger firms with yet newer methods. Especially where the powerful economies of production on a large scale are associated with the use of new appliances and new methods. A firm which has lost the exceptional energy which enabled it to rise, is likely air long quickly to decay, and the full life of a large firm seldom lasts very long. The advantages which a large business has over a small one are conspicuous in manufacture, because, as we have noticed, it has special facilities for concentrating a great deal of work in a small area. But there is a strong tendency for large establishments to drive out small ones in many other industries. In particular, the retail trade is being transformed. The small shopkeeper is losing ground daily. Let us look at the advantages which a large retail shop or store has in competing with its smaller neighbors. To begin with, it can obviously buy on better terms. It can get its goods carried more cheaply, and can offer a large larger variety to meet the taste of customers. Next it has a great economy of skill. The small shopkeeper, like the small manufacturer, must spend much of his time in routine work that requires no judgment. Whereas the head of a large establishment, and even in some cases his chief assistants, spend their whole time in using their judgment. Until lately, these advantages have been generally outweighed by the greater facilities which the small shopkeeper has for bringing his goods to the door of his customers, for humoring their several tastes, for knowing enough of them individually to be able safely to lend them capital in the form of selling them goods on credit. But within recent years there have been many changes all telling on the side of large establishments. The habit of buying on credit is passing away, and the personal relations between shopkeeper and customer are becoming more distant. The first change is a great step forwards. The second is on some accounts to be regretted, but not on all, for it is partly due to the fact that the increase in true self-respect among the wealthier classes is making them no longer care for the subservient personal attentions they use to require. Again, the growing value of time makes people less willing than they were to spend several hours in shopping. They now often prefer to spend a few minutes in writing out a long list of orders from a varied and detailed price list, and this they are unable to do easily by the growing facilities for ordering and receiving parcels by post and in other ways. And when they do go shopping, tram cars and local trains are often at hand to take them easily and cheaply to the large central shops of a neighboring town. All these changes render it more difficult than it was for the small shopkeeper to hold his own even in the provision trade, and others in which no great variety of stock is required. But in many trades the ever-growing variety of commodities and those rapid changes of fashion which now extend their baneful influence through almost every rank of society, weight the balance even more heavily against the small dealer, for he cannot keep a sufficient stock to offer much variety of choice, and if he tries to follow any movement of fashion closely, a larger proportion of his stock will be left stranded by the receding tide than in the case of a large shopkeeper. Again in some branches of the clothing and furniture and other trades the increasing cheapness of machine-made goods is leading people to buy ready-made things from a large store instead of having them made to order by some small maker and dealer in their neighborhood. Again the large shopkeeper, not content with receiving travelers from the manufacturers, makes tours either himself or by his agent in the most important manufacturing districts at home and abroad, and he thus often dispenses with middlemen between him and the manufacturer. A tailor with moderate capital shows his customers specimens of many hundreds of the newest cloths, and perhaps orders by telegraph the selected cloth to be sent by parcels post. Again, ladies often buy their materials direct from the manufacturer and get them made up by dressmakers who have scarcely any capital. Small shopkeepers seem likely always to retain some hold of the minor repairing trades, and they keep their own fairly well in the sale of perishable food, especially to the working classes, especially in consequence of their being able to sell goods on credit and to collect small debts. In many trades, however, a firm with a large capital prefers having many small shops to one large one. Buying and whatever production is desirable is concentrated under a central management, and exceptional demands are met from a central reserve, so that each branch has large resources without the expense of keeping a large stock. The branch manager has nothing to divert his attention from his customers, and if an active man, with direct interest in the success of his branch, may prove himself a formidable rival to the small shopkeeper, as has been shown in many trades connected with clothing and food. We may next consider those industries whose geographical position is determined by the nature of their work. Country carriers and a few cabmen are almost the only survivals of small industry in the carrying trade. Railways and tramways are constantly increasing in size, and the capital required to work them is increasing at an even greater rate. The growing intricacy and variety of commerce is adding to the advantages which a large fleet of ships under one management derives from its power of delivering goods promptly and without breach of responsibility in many different ports. And as regards the vessels themselves, time is on the side of large ships, especially in the passenger trade. As a consequence, the arguments in favor of the state's undertaking business are stronger in some branches of the carrying trade than in any other, except the allied undertakings of carrying away refuse and bringing in water, gas, et cetera. The contest between large and small mines and quarries has not so clearly marked a tendency. The history of the state management of mines is full of very dark shadows. For the business of mining depends too much on the probity of its managers and their energy and judgment in matters of detail, as well as of general principle, to be well managed by state officials. And for the same reason, the small mine or quarry may fairly be expected, other things being equal, to hold its own against the large one. But in some cases the cost of deep shafts, of machinery, and of establishing means of communication are too great to be borne by any but a very large business. In agriculture there is not much division of labor, and there is no production on a very large scale. For a so-called large farm does not employ a 10th part of the labor which is collected in a factory of moderate dimensions. This is partly due to natural causes, to the changes of the seasons, and to the difficulty of concentrating a great deal of labor in any one place. But it is partly also due to causes connected with the varieties of land tenure. And it will be best to postpone discussion of all of them till we have come to study demand and supply in relation to land in the sixth book. End of chapter 11.