148
We will follow this as regards the cotton industry. In spinningas well as weaving the cost of a mill is cheaper in England thananywhere else in the world. This depends on two facts. One isthat, in consequence of technical progress and commercial organisa-tion, almost all the requisites for putting up and working a millare cheaper in England than in the remaining industrial countries.Then remains the fact that the English capitalist, when building orestablishing a business, thinks mostly of turning to good accounta momentary favourable opportunity rather than of a. permanentinvestment. He therefore saves fixed capital, in order to have asmuch untied money as possible at his disposal for carrying on thebusiness. The lifetime of a spinning-mill, for instance, is usuallyassumed to be not longer than 20 years.
Then, besides this principle we have shown, it must be notedthat land in England for industrial purposes is in most instancesnot bought outright, but only taken at a rental for a certain termof years. Under such conditions all luxurious additions which arenot essential for the object of the undertaking are more or lesseschewed from the mind. Although we cannot assert, as well,that land for industrial buildings is cheaper, England in thisrespect has also certainly an advantage. German factories aresituated either in the midst of traffic communications, where theground is extraordinarily dear, or are dispersed in the country,where the cheaper price of land is counterbalanced by higher costsof maintenance. In this respect English industry has the ad-vantage of its collectiveness and its division of labour. Thefactories of Lancashire enjoy all the advantages of extreme cen-tralisation ; but as they leave commercial centres and establishthemselves in smaller industrial places, and in the vicinity, theyenjoy almost agricultural prices of land.
A second consideration is the cost of buildings. Ericks andstone are cheaper in England than on the Continent, a consequenceof the technically further advanced and larger proportions of thebrick industry which are made possible by the steady demand ofan exceedingly great industry (1). But still more important is thedifference in price of iron equipments, which in new mills play acontinually increasing part. Iron prices differ from those on theContinent by about the amount of duty and carriage added to-
1. Compare “ Protokolle,” p. 80. In England 1,000 bricks cost 14s. to15s. ; in Stuttgart, 27s.