496 



NATURE 



[Sept. 2 2, 1887 



Thus there are not a few articles, of which jute is a conspicuous 

 example, in which there has been an entirely new industry 

 established within a comparatively short period ; and, though 

 the percentage of increase may not in all be so great in the last 

 ten years as in the previous ten just because the industry is so 

 wholly new, yet the amount of the increase is as great or greater. 

 In other articles, such as soap and British spirits, there is a new 

 start in the last ten years after a decline in the previous periods. 

 Such cases as oil and floor cloth, paper other than hangings, and 

 plate glass are also specially noticeable as practically new trades. 

 The list I am satisfied could be considerably extended, but I am 

 giving it mainly by way of illustration. Finally, there is the item 

 of other articles not separately specified — an item which is always 

 changing in the statistical abstract because every few years one 

 or more articles grow into sufficient importance to require separate 

 mention, so that any extended comparison of this item for a long 

 series of years is impossible. Still it is ever growing, and what 

 we find in the last ten years is that, in spite of the fall of prices, 

 the growth is from ;^9, 700,000 to ;{^i 0,600, 000, or nearly 10 per 

 cent. Many of the articles referred to, it is plain, cannot run 

 into much money, but the indications of a tendency are none the 

 less clear. What is happening in the foreign trade is happening, 

 we may be sure, in the home trade as well, of which in another 

 way the increase in the imports of foreign manufactures, already 

 referred to in another connexion, is really a sign, as it implies 

 the growth of miscellaneous wants among the consumers. 



The census figures as to occupations tend, I believe, to confirm 

 this observation as to the special growth of miscellaneous in- 

 dustries, but the discussion of the figures would require more 

 preparation than I have had time for, and perhaps more space 

 than can well be spared. 



As to the growth of incorporeal functions, which is another 

 fact significant of the supposed change in the direction of the 

 employments of the people, I propose to appeal to the testimony 

 of the census figures. I need refer on this head only to the paper 

 read some time ago to the Statistical Society by Mr. Booth. 

 Among those classes of population whose numbers in England 

 and Wales in the last ten years have shown a disproportionate 

 growth are the following : — 



Numbers and Percentage of Self-stipporting Population employed. 



Following the indication of these figures, whatever qualification 

 they may be subject to, we are apparently justified in saying that 

 an increasing part of the population has been lately applied to 

 the creation of incorporeal products. Their employment is in- 

 dustrial all the same. The products are consumed as they are 

 produced, but the production is none the less real. If a nation 

 chooses to produce more largely in this form as it becomes more 

 prosperous, so that there is less development than was formerly 

 the case in what were known as staple industries, it need not be 

 becoming poorer for that reason ; all that is happening is that 

 its wealth and income are taking a different shape. 



It is quite conceivable, then, and is in truth not improbable, 

 that a check to the former rate of material growth in certain 

 directions may have taken place of late years without any 

 corresponding check to the rate of material growth generally, 

 which would seem to be inconsistent with such facts as the 

 growth of population, diminution of pauperism, increase of 

 houses, and the like. The truth would seem to be that with the 

 growth of staple industries, such as cotton, wool, coal, and iron, 

 up to a point, there being reasons for the remarkably quick 

 development of each for many years up to 1875, there comes a 



growth of new wants, the satisfaction of which drafts a portion 

 of the national energy in new directions. Just because certain 

 staples developed themselves greatly between 1855 and 1875 the 

 time was likely to arrive when they would grow not quite so fast. 

 For the same reason the rapid increase for a certain period in the 

 consumption per head of articles like sugar and tea was likely to 

 be followed by a less rapid increase, the wants of consumers taking 

 a new direction. Probably owing to the more and more mis- 

 cellaneous character of modern industry, it will become more 

 and more difficult to follow its development by dealing with 

 staple articles only, while changes in aggregate values are untrust- 

 worthy as indications of real changes owing to changes in prices. 

 Already there seems to be no doubt the staple articles are no 

 longer a sufficient indication. 



A supplementary explanation may be added which helps to 

 explain another difficulty in the matter by which people are 

 puzzled. I can imagine them saying that it is all very well to 

 pooh-pooh the non-increase or slower increase of the production 

 of staple articles and to assume that industry is becoming more 

 and more miscellaneous ; but other countries go on increasing 

 their production of these same staple articles. The increase of 

 the manufactures of cotton, wool, coal, and iron in Germany and 

 the United States, they will say, has in recent years been greater 

 in proportion than in England, which is undoubtedly true. The 

 explanation I have to suggest, however, is that the competition 

 with the leading manufacturing country, which England still is, 

 is naturally in the staple articles where manufacturing has been 

 reduced to a system, the newer and more difficult manufactures 

 and the newer developments of industry generally falling as a 

 rule to the older country. Even in foreign countries, however, 

 there are signs of slower growth of recent years in the staple 

 articles as compared with the period just before. In Germany, 

 for instance, the production of coal increased between i860 and 

 1866 (I take the years which I find available in Dr. Neumann 

 Spallart's " Uebersichten ") from 12,300,000 tons to 28,200,000, 

 or nearly 129 per cent. ; between 1866 and 1876 the increase 

 was from the figure stated to about 50,000,000 tons, or about 77 

 per cent, only ; between 1876 and 1885, another period of ten 

 years, from the figure stated to 74,000,000 tons, or less than 50 

 per cent. — a rapidly diminishing rate of increase. In the United 

 States of America the corresponding figures for coal are 15, 22, 

 50, and 103 million tons, showing a greater increase than in 

 Germany, but still a rather less rate of increase since 1876 than 

 in the ten years before. The experience as to the iron production 

 would seem to be difterent, the increase in the United States and 

 Germany having been enormously rapid in the last ten years ; 

 but I have not been able here to carry the figures far enough 

 back for comparison. Still the facts as to coal in Germany are 

 enough to show how rapidly the rate of increase of growth may 

 fall off when a certain point is reached, and that the experience of 

 the United Kingdom is by no means exceptional. As the staple 

 articles develop abroad the rate of increase in such articles will 

 diminish too, and foreign industry in turn will become more and 

 more miscellaneous. 



The conclusion would thus be that there is nothing unaccount- 

 able in the course of industry in the United Kingdom in the last ten 

 years. In certain staple industries the rate of increase has been 

 less than it was in the ten years just before, but there would seem 

 to have been no increase or little increase in the want of employ- 

 ment generally, while there is reason to believe that certain 

 miscellaneous industries have grown at a greater rate than the 

 staple industries, or have grown into wholly new being, and that 

 there has also been some diversion of industry in directions where 

 the products are incorporeal. These facts also correspond with 

 what is going on abroad, a tendency to decline in the rate of 

 increase of staple articles of production being general, and 

 industry everywhere following the law of becoming more mi^ 

 cellaneous. Abroad also, we may be sure, as nations increase ^m 

 wealth the diversion of industry in directions where the produ<^J| 

 are incorporeal will also take place. What the whole facts seem 

 to bring out, therefore, is a change in the direction of industry of 

 a most interesting kind. If we are to believe that the progress 

 of invention arid of the application of invention to human wants 

 continues and increases, no other explanation seems possible of 

 the apparent check to the rate of material growth which seems 

 to be so nearly demonstrated by some of the statistics most 

 commonly appealed to in such questions. 



At the same time I must apply the remark which I applied 

 the earlier stage to the opposite conclusion that there had been 

 real check to the rate of increase in our material growth. When 



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