Science and Industry 



alive by cheap labour and the "sweating system/' 

 ignore the more important causes making for the 

 persistence of small privately-ordered businesses. 

 One of these causes I have already indicated when 

 alluding to the limits set upon machine-production 

 by the circumstances of certain trades, involving 

 irregularity of material or artistic skill in work- 

 manship. Every great staple trade, itself organised 

 in some large capitalist form, is attended by a 

 swarm of small subsidiary businesses which under- 

 take the minor branches of the trade, executing 

 special orders or repairs. So far as business 

 organisation goes, the bonds between these small 

 businesses and the great companies is often 

 close ; but in the metal trades of such centres 

 as Birmingham and Sheffield a vast amount of 

 industry remains in the hands of small men. In 

 the higher departments of the furniture, the cloth- 

 ing, clock-making, jewellery, and indeed in most 

 "luxury" trades, the nature of the skill required 

 involves the maintenance of small arts and 

 handicrafts. 



But we may go further and point out how 

 certain centralising tendencies of science especi- 

 ally associated with the Industrial Revolution 

 which drove industry into large businesses show 

 signs of reversal. The economy of steam-driven 

 machinery for manufactures obliged the organisers 

 of industry to collect great masses of capital and 

 labour in close confined areas, and led to the 

 erection of industrial cities based, not upon con- 

 venience of living, but upon economy of working. 



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