How may the economic advantages of concentration be elucidated from the above tables? "This table shows the steady and rapid movement toward the concentration of the textile industries in fewer establishments. In the case of the manufacture of cotton goods, the number of establishments was 189 less in 1890 than in 1850, a decrease of 17 per cent, while in the meantime the number of employes has increased 151 per cent and the value of the product 333 per cent. As a result the average number of employes per establishment has steadily increased, being 84.4 in 1850; 111.8 in 1860, 141.6 in 1870, 184.5 in 1880 and 244.8 in 1890. "Concentration in the woolen industry has progressed with equal rapidity. In this case, however, the number of establishments increased until 1870, when there were 3,456 mills in operation, after which each decade witnessed a steady diminution in number, there being but 2,689 in 1880, or 767 less than in 1870, and but 2,489 in 1890, a still further loss of 200. The number of employes, on the other hand, has steadily increased. The average number of employes per establishment has thus increased in successive decades from 27.1 in 1850 to 35.6 in 1860; 34.7 in 1870; 60.1 in 1880, and 88.0 in 1890. In some particular branches of the woolen industry this concentration has proceeded at an extremely rapid rate. Thus, for example, the number of carpet mills, which in 1870 was 215, decreased in 1880 to 195, and in 1890 to 173. In spite of this decrease in the number of mills the number of employes increased from 12,098 in 1870 to 20,371 in 1880, and 29,121 in 1890. The average number of employes per establishment thus rose from 56.3 in 1870 to 104.5 in 1880, and 168.3 in 1890, a tripling in the average size of establishments during the period. "In the manufacture of silk, and in dyeing and finishing, though the number of establishments has in general increased, the increase has not kept pace with the increase in the number of employes. In both industries, therefore, there is shown a concentration of work in larger establishments, the average number of employes per establishment in the silk industry increasing from 26.0 in 1850 to 107.9 in 1880, and in the dyeing and finishing industry from 49.1 in 1850 to 81.7 in 1890. "Combining the four branches of the textile trade, it is seen that while the number of establishments increased during the "The only way in which the United States can extend and hold its position in the world's markets for manufactured goods is by securing the advantages of highly developed machinery, which is only possible through centralized manufacture and aggregated capital. Subsidy seekers claim that 'trade follows the flag;' merchants know that trade follows the price and the flag follows the trade."-From address in Boston, May 25, 1899, by Charles R. Flint. forty years considered but 36 per cent, the number of employes increased 248 per cent, and the value of the product 465 per cent. The average number of employes per establishment has thus steadily risen from 48.5 in 1850 to 64.1 in 1860; 57.4 in 1870; 95.1 in 1880, and 124.4 in 1890." How do great industries tend to localize? Localization, like concentration, has also been going on. Wool is now chiefly manufactured in Philadelphia, Pa.; cotton in Fall River, Mass.; silk in Paterson, N. J., and hosiery and knit goods in Cohoes, N. Y. "The enormous growth in the wool manufacturing trade during the last twenty years has been entirely confined to eight states in the East, while in the remaining states there has been an actual loss of 45 per cent. What did concentration do in ten years of iron and steel? "The transformation in the methods of the manufacture of iron and steel, and the great variety of the products, prevents us from tracing the evolution of this industry in as complete a way as was done for the textiles. The following table shows the movement in the more important branches from 1880 to 1890: Iron and steel Year. 1880. 1890. Establishments. Employes. Product. Iron and steel, bolts, nuts, washers and rivets 1880. 1890. Iron and steel, doors and shutters— -Per establishment- 140.3 $295,082 236.5 668,146 Iron and steel, nails and spikes, cut and wrought, including wire nails Iron and steel, pipe, wrought 1880. 1890. Total 1880. 1890. 1,299 157,595 121.3 332,519,505 255,981 524,592,775 196.7 533.123 From the above it is seen that the number of iron and steel mills proper has decreased from 1,005 in 1880 to 645 in 1890, while the number of employes has increased 11,557. In all classes of iron and steel works there was a decrease of 315 establishments and an increase of 35,972 employes. The average number of employes per establishment thus increased from 121.3 to 196.7, and the average value of the product from $255,981 to $533,123. In Where are the country grist and saw mills of a generation ago? In the milling industry concentration has been marked. 1840 there were 23,661 grist mills and 31,650 saw mills. In 1880, with the settled area nearly twice that of 1840, and the value of its manufactured product seven or eight times as great, there were 24,338 grist mills and but 25,700 saw mills. The concentration in the decade from 1880 to 1890 was as follows: Who is making the farmer's tools? Concentration in tool manufacture is shown as follows: Agricultural implements -Per establishment Year. Establishments. Employes. Product. Employes. Product. In shipbuilding in 1880 there were 2,188 establishments, in 1890 but 1,006, though the employes increased from 21,345 to 23,266. In the production of malt liquors the number of establishments in 1880 were 2,191; in 1890, 1,248. The average number of employes increased from 26,220 to 34,800, and per establishment from 12 to 28. In the same decade the number of distilleries fell from 844 to 440, the average number of employes per establishment rising 50 per cent. In the manufacture of boots and shoes the number of establishments increased 6.28 per cent, and the number of employes 25.35 per cent. How are concentration and stability of employment related? Some years ago William F. Willoughby, author of the above data, had occasion to study labor problems at two of the centers of intense industrial concentration in Europe—the vast iron works of Krupp, at Essen, Germany, and the great colliery at Anzin. With more than 25,000 men concentrated at Essen, 21 per cent were found to have been continually employed over fifteen years, 23 per cent more than five years, but less than fifteen, and 44 per cent had been with the concern more than five years. In the Anzin colliery 12.32 per cent had been employed for thirty years, 27.83 per cent for twenty years, and 59.82 per cent for ten years or over. THE TARIFF AND THE TRUSTS. XX. Having shown in the tables of the section on "The Concentration of Industries in the United States," the effect of concentration upon production and employment, can we not also show what capital and labor have done with their earnings, what use these vast products have been in tending to make of us an export and creditor nation, and what our standing in the nations is with respect to the possession of the two arms of dominion and prosperity, coal and iron? Yes, we can show these things and more from the following table submitted by United States Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, of Rhode Island, at the fourth annual meeting of the American This section offers authentic data by which to estimate the value of industrial concentration as an economic movement furthered by a protective tariff; at least an economic movement showing greatest results during the existence of a protective tariff. This section, also, contains an argument by a tariff reformer, that more potent than a protective tariff in building up our industries has been the multiplication of trusts and combinations of capital; and that only by a reduced tariff on raw materials will the American manufacturer eventually be able to get his share in the world's markets. The argument, therefore, is not to eradicate the trusts, but to deprive them of such tariff advantages as now gives them monopoly power. Both the McKinley law of 1890 and the Wilson law of 1894, recognized that trusts must be dealt with more particularly than by customs rates, and each had special trust clauses. The act of 1894, touching import trade only, repealed the law of 1890, which prohibits trusts in interstate trade.—“American Economist," April 28, 1899. At a dinner in New York, March 1, 1900, Charles R. Flint, a director in nineteen corporations, conspicuous in trade and shipping circles, a prime mover for commercial pan-Americanism, chairman of the Rubber Goods Manufacturing Company and treasurer of the United States Rubber Company, responded to the toast "The Open Door From an Industrial Point of View.' In part he said: "The best evidence of the high wages paid in the United States is that the wage earners have at their command more cash than the so-called capitalists. The manufacturer owns bricks, mortar and machinery; the railroad magnate has rails and rolling stock; the landed proprietor has acres of timber and farm lands; the miner has mines; but the wage earners of the United States have on deposit in the savings banks, subject to their call, two billions, two hundred and thirty millions of dol |