Science in Public Affairs 



Even under the steam economy certain decen- 

 tralising forces began to express themselves : the 

 expense of maintaining large central premises for 

 factories, and of paying wages sufficient to cover 

 high rents for working-class dwellings, has long 

 been effectual in driving large manufactures away 

 from the centres of large cities, and has often 

 led to a re-establishment of industrial villages. 

 Far more important consequences attend the 

 substitution for steam of some other power cap- 

 able of retail employment at a smaller rate of 

 waste. The cheap generation of industrial power 

 upon a small scale, or the cheap distribution for 

 industrial purposes of industrial energy generated 

 from given centres upon a large scale, is perhaps 

 the most far-reaching industrial reform within 

 sight. The earliest waves of this new industrial 

 tide consisted in the invention of small-power 

 engines worked by gas or oil, enabling small 

 businesses to compete more effectively than be- 

 fore with large businesses. But the near future, 

 by presenting a combination of highly-centralised 

 production with cheap and effective distribution of 

 power, may give an enormous impetus to the 

 decentralising tendency in manufacture. This is 

 the great electric problem which confronts civilised 

 nations. If a cheap production of electric energy, 

 owned or controlled by the public, can be cheaply 

 distributed in small quantities over large areas for 

 industrial purposes, a counter-revolution will be 

 set on foot which will profoundly modify the 

 entire fabric of modern capitalism, re-establishing 



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