GREAT BRITAIN 



2.-)S4 



GREAT BRITAIN 



it is worthy of special note here. No other 

 country in all the world has produced anything 

 like so large a total of minerals. To-day, to 

 be sure, the United States far exceeds Great 

 Britain in its coal production, but less than a 

 century ago Great Britain mined each year two 

 and one-half times as much coal as all the 

 rest of the world together, and three-quarters 

 of a century ago it was producing more than 

 half the world's output of iron. The amount 

 of coal produced in the island is constantly 

 increasing, but iron production seems at a 

 standstill, and larger and larger quantities are 

 being imported. If all the people who work 

 in the coal mines of Great Britain could be 

 brought together they would constitute a city 

 larger than any in the island except London, 

 for there are no fewer than 800,000 of them. 



Manufactures. The history of the growth of 

 manufactures in Great Britain has been one 

 of absorbing interest. In early times the people 

 of Holland, of France and of Flanders far sur 7 

 passed the English in industrial skill and in the 

 amount of manufactured products, and not 

 until after the union of England and Scotland 

 did British supremacy in manufacturing really 

 begin. There were many causes which con- 

 tributed to this the abundance of iron and 

 coal, as noted in the article ENGLAND; the 

 growing commerce of the country, which made 

 possible easy distribution, and the peculiar 

 British inventive genius which gave to the 

 country its labor-saving machines. It was in 

 connection with the installation of machinery 

 in the various factories that there occurred 

 some of the most interesting events in all 

 industrial history. Fear lest machinery would 

 take from them their means of livelihood 

 united with superstition to make the factory 

 people hate the machines, and seldom was one 

 set up without a riot. An excellent idea of 

 this turbulent condition is given in John Hali- 

 fax, Gentleman, which describes the difficulties 

 its hero met in trying to introduce machinery. 



For over a century after the factories were 

 reorganized on the new mechanical basis, 

 Great Britain produced more manufactured 

 articles than any other country in the world, 

 but in the latter part of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury the United States had a very remarkable 

 industrial development and menaced, if it did 

 not quite take away, Great Britain's suprem- 

 acy. 



Transportation and Communkation. Great 

 Britain has, for its size, a large number of 

 navigable rivers, and before the invention of 



railway transportation much was done to im- 

 prove these. The country was crossed and 

 recrossed by a network of canals, but since the 

 coming of the railroads these have been in a 

 large measure neglected. Certain of them, as 



COMPARATIVE AREAS 



England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland have a 

 combined area of 121,331 square miles less than 

 4,000 square miles greater in extent than the 

 three states of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. Nev- 

 ertheless, Britain's power is almost without limits. 



the Manchester Ship Canal (which see), how- 

 ever, which is wide enough to admit of the 

 passage of two huge seagoing vessels, are still 

 of great importance. The roads are excellent, 

 and while the old coaching days with their 

 changes of horses at the wayside taverns are 

 over, the highways have been a great boon to 

 automobilists. 



The railroads are the island's chief means of 

 transportation, and Great Britain has the honor 

 of having possessed the first railway of any 

 importance, that which was opened in 1830 and 

 ran from Liverpool to Manchester. Railroads 

 increased rapidly and to-day the island has over 

 20,000 miles of track. Street railways are not 

 nearly so numerous or so important as in the 

 United States, there being in all less than 3,000 

 miles. 



The outbreak of the War of the Nations in 

 1914 had a great influence on the railroads of 

 Great Britain. Most of these were immedi- 

 ately taken over by the government, and 

 though the general managers were left in con- 

 trol, they were made responsible to the gov- 

 ernment rather than to the stockholders. The 

 prime consideration demanded was prompt and 

 effective movement of troops, food and muni- 



