AND ON THE CONTINENT.

85

culties in individual cases. Without successors, especially on the Held of commercial organisation, competition in open markets ia apt to be impossible.

But the comparison with German conditions just shows how the English development, which we have followed, is nothing excep­tional, but is rather the consequential improvement of the exist­ence of centralised industry itself under the pressure of the world’s market. A concentrated industry with division in labour is, in the world’s mart, plainly supreme over one decentralised and split up.

As the first developing tendency of centralised industry, one can set up the following: Striving after concentration and division of labour (Integration and Differentiality).

II.—Replacement of Raw Materials and Labour b;j Capital.

A.—Spinning.

If we look at raw materials, labour, and capital as the most important producing elements, the progress of skill in every in­dustry develops itself first in that wherein the material element is eclipsed by labour and capital, as already described by JosiahTucker (1). This shows itself in several directions. On the one hand we learn to use inferior material, and then to produce the ob­ject desired with a less quantity of given material. Eor both of these assertions cotton spinning provides proofs. At the present time there are spun, on an average, qualities inferior to those spun in the “thirties,” notably East Indian cotton, whilst formerly only the better American was used. Especially was this tendency in­fluenced by the American Civil War, which also taught us how to treat shorter staple with success (2). We have also', in addition, made progress in the more minute using-up of the material. Thus in 1831 waste formed one-seventh of the raw material; to-day it only counts for one-tenth (3). Besides this, a great portion of the waste is now successfully utilised by mixing with better cotton, or

1. “ Four Tracts on Political ami Commercial Subjects.”

2. S. Andrew: “ Fifty Years’Cotton Trade,” p. G.

3. This is, of course, only a surmise based upon the particulars of Ure and Andrew ; as a matter of fact, the percentage varies considerably according to the class of cotton spun, the counts of yarn, etc. Germany appears to have rather more waBte. Compare Protokollc of the “ Iteichsonquete,” p. 9.