INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 353 



our big factories are nothing else but agglomera- 

 tions under a common management, of several 

 distinct industries ; while others are mere 

 agglomerations of hundreds of copies of the 

 very same machine ; such are most of our 

 gigantic spinning and weaving establishments. 



The manufacture being a strictly private 

 enterprise, its owners find it advantageous to 

 have all the branches of a given industry under 

 their own management ; they thus cumulate 

 the profits of the successive transformations 

 of the raw material. And when several thou- 

 sand power-looms are combined in one factory, 

 the owner finds his advantage in being able to 

 hold the command of the market. But from 

 a technical point of view the advantages of such 

 an accumulation are trifling and often doubtful. 

 Even so centralised an industry as that of the 

 cottons does not suffer at all from the division 

 of production of one given sort of goods at 

 its different stages between several separate 

 factories : we see it at Manchester and its 

 neighbouring towns. As to the petty trades, no 

 inconvenience is experienced from a still greater 

 subdivision between the workshops in the watch 

 trade and very many others. 



We often hear that one horse-power costs 

 so much in a small engine, and so much less 

 in an engine ten times more powerful ; that 



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