Science and Industry 



realised in the advanced manufactures, extends in 

 varying degrees of pressure throughout the whole 

 area of modern industry, and more than any other 

 cause abates the stimulus to apply the economies 

 of production which science everywhere suggests. 

 Even in agriculture no security exists that an 

 increased output, due to improved methods of 

 cultivation, will afford any corresponding benefit 

 to the producers, or can even find a market which 

 will cover costs of production. 



The widespread knowledge of this economic 

 weakness induces large bodies of organised wage- 

 earners to adopt a more or less avowed and con- 

 scious policy of restricting the output of their 

 labour-power. In every direction we find the full 

 utilisation of scientific methods of production 

 restrained by limits of market. Other immense 

 wastes of industrial power are direct results of this 

 tendency. One is the enormous and ever-increas- 

 ing proportion of energy devoted to the competitive 

 side of commerce, attested by the growth of agents 

 and travellers, and by the multiplication of retail 

 sellers out of all proportion to the growth of popula- 

 tion. Another result, still more costly in its direct 

 and indirect consequences, is the international 

 hostility arising directly from the limitation of pro- 

 fitable markets for trade and for investments. Most 

 modern wars are largely inspired by the growing 

 strain of the competition for foreign markets, as 

 outlets for an excess of products beyond the re- 

 quirements of the home market, and the greater 

 part of the expense of national armaments must 



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