AND ON THE CONTINENT.

83

selves for tlieir whole life to factory labour, and where the factoryowners, by means of the great training which is there developedin such a form for the tending of machinery, can manage, forinstance, 1,000 spindles with 3 to 4 operatives, whilst we need forthis number from G to 10” (34).

Centralised industry possesses a further extremely importantadvantage; it alone develops machine-making specially and solelyfor the cotton industry and its technical progress. This makespossible an important cheapening of establishment as well asworking costs compared with mills which introduce their machineryfrom afar and must keep special repairing shops with highly-paidmechanics, often not fully occupied. In England the erectionand repairing is done by neighbouring machinists, who at thesame time guarantee the possession of the most highly-developedskill. As in Alsace the concentration of the industry is moreextended than in Germany , it alone possesses also machine makersdevoted solely to cotton, which certainly are, however, by no meanscapable of supplying all Germany . The latter remains dependentin the first degree upon English machinery (35).

The advantages of dispersion are, in comparison, slight. Ex-tremely doubtful is the advantage of lower wages, which representsonly too often bad, and therefore dear, labour. This advantagebecomes so much weaker the more food becomes cheaper in thecentres of traffic than in remote country towns. More importantis the possession of water-power, on which the dispersion of theGerman industry is chiefly founded. But also in Germany thegradual going over to steam-power is developing itself (36).

But especially disadvantageous is the decentralisation in respectto the sale. Here also the German manufacturer stands under thesame disadvantages with which the English had to struggle in the“thirties.” The German manufacturer still seeks his customersthrough travellers and agents, and in many instances throughretail sellers, whose financial standing is often questionable, whosenecessity for credit is always certain. Hence the complaints about

34. Compare Beport of the “ Enquetekommission,” pp. 31 and 49 ; 11 Proto-kolle,” pp. 19, 36, 74, 296.

35. Compare Jannasch : 1! Die europiiische Baumwollindustrie ” (Berlin,1882), pp. 24 and 25.

36. Compare Beport of the Commission, p. 27 ; further, regarding thenecessity of going over to steam-power, Engel: “ Cotton-Spinning inSaxony ” (1851), p. 11.