On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures

fat rises to the surface; this is put aside, and sold to the makers of yellow soap. 5. The liquid itself is used as a kind of glue, and is purchased by cloth dressers for stiffening. 6. The insoluble substance, which remains behind, is then sent to the mill, and, being ground down, is sold to the farmers for manure. 7. Besides these various purposes to which the different parts of the horn are applied, the clippings, which arise in comb making, are sold to the farmer for manure. In the first year after they are spread over the soil they have comparatively little effect, but during the next four or five their efficiency is considerable. The shavings which form the refuse of the lantern maker, are of a much thinner texture: some of them are cut into various figures and painted, and used as toys; for being hygrometric, they curl up when placed on the palm of a warm hand. But the greater part of these shavings also are sold for manure, and from their extremely thin and divided form, the full effect is produced upon the first crop. 271. Another event which has arisen, in one trade at least, from the employment of large capital, is, that a class of middlemen, formerly interposed between the maker and the merchant, now no longer exist. When calico was woven in the cottages of the workmen, there existed a class of persons who travelled about and purchased the pieces so made, in large numbers, for the purpose of selling them to the exporting merchant. But the middlemen were obliged to examine every piece, in order to know that it was perfect, and of full measure. The greater number of the workmen, it is true, might be depended upon, but the fraud of a few would render this examination indispensable: for any single cottager, though detected by one purchaser, might still hope that the fact would not become known to all the rest. The value of character, though great in all circumstances of life, can never be so fully experienced by persons possessed of small capital, as by those employing much larger sums: whilst these larger sums of money for which the merchant deals, render his character for punctuality more studied and known by others. Thus it happens that high character supplies the place of an additional portion of capital; and the merchant, in dealing with the great manufacturer, is saved from the expense of verification, by knowing that the loss, or even the impeachment, of the manufacturer's character, would be attended with greater injury to himself than any profit upon a single transaction could compensate. 272. The amount of well-grounded confidence, which exists in the character of its merchants and manufacturers, is one of the many advantages that an old manufacturing country always possesses over its rivals. To such an extent is this confidence in character carried in England, that, at one of our largest towns, sales and purchases on a very extensive scale are made daily in the course of business without any of the parties ever exchanging a written document. 273. A breach of confidence of this kind, which might have been attended with very serious embarrassment, occurred in the recent expedition to the mouth of the Niger. 'We brought with us from England,' Mr Lander states, 'nearly a hundred thousand needles of various sizes, and amongst them was a great quantity of Whitechapel sharps warranted superfine, and not to cut in the eye. Thus highly recommended, we imagined that these needles must have been excellent indeed; but what was our surprise, some time ago, when a number of them which we had disposed of were returned to us, with a complaint that they were all eyeless, thus redeeming with a vengeance the pledge of the manufacturer, "that they would not cut in the eye". On examination afterwards, we found the same fault with the remainder of the "Whitechapel sharps", so that to save our credit we have been obliged to throw them away.'(1*) 274. The influence of established character in producing confidence operated in a very remarkable manner at the time of the exclusion of British manufactures from the continent during the last war. One of our largest establishments had been in the habit of doing extensive business with a house in the centre of Germany; but, on the closing of the continental ports against our manufactures, heavy penalties were inflicted on all those who contravened the Berlin and Milan decrees. The English manufacturer continued, nevertheless, to receive orders, with directions how to consign them, and appointments for the time and mode of payment, in letters, the handwriting of which was known to him, but which were never signed, except by the christian name of one of the firm, and even in some instances they were without any signature at all. These orders were executed; and in no instance was there the least irregularity in the payments. 275. Another circumstance may be noticed, which to a small extent is more advantageous to large than to small factories. In the export of several articles of manufacture, a drawback is allowed by government, of a portion of the duty paid on the importation of the raw material. In such circumstances, certain forms must be gone through in order to protect the revenue from fraud; and a clerk, or one of the partners, must attend at the custom-house. The agent of the large establishment occupies nearly the same time in receiving a drawback of several thousands, as the smaller exporter does of a few shillings. But if the quantity exported is inconsiderable, the small manufacturer frequently does not find the drawback will repay him for the loss of time. 276. In many of the large establishments of our manufacturing districts, substances are employed which are the produce of remote countries, and which are, in several instances, almost peculiar to a few situations. The discovery of any new locality, where such articles exist in abundance, is a matter of great importance to any establishment which consumes them in large quantities; and it has been found, in some instances, that the expense of sending persons to great distances, purposely to discover and to collect such produce, has been amply repaid. Thus it has happened, that the snowy mountains of Sweden and Norway, as well as the warmer hills of Corsica, have been almost stripped of one of their vegetable productions, by agents sent expressly from one of our largest establishments for the dying of calicos. Owing to the same command of capital, and to the scale upon which the operations of large factories are carried on, their returns admit of the expense of sending out agents to examine into the wants and tastes of distant countries, as well as of trying experiments, which, although profitable to them, would be ruinous to smaller establishments possessing more limited resources. These opinions have been so well expressed in the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on the Woollen Trade, in 1806, that we shall close this chapter with an extract, in which the advantages of great factories are summed up. Your committee have the satisfaction of seeing, that the apprehensions entertained of factories are not only vicious in principle, but they are practically erroneous: to such a degree. that even the very opposite principles might be reasonably entertained. Nor would it be difficult to prove, that the factories, to a certain extent at least, and in the present day, seem absolutely necessary to the wellbeing of the domestic system: supplying those very particulars wherein the domestic system must be acknowledged to be inherently defective: for it is obvious, that the little master manufacturers cannot afford, like the man who possesses considerable capital, to try the experiments which are requisite, and incur the risks, and even losses, which almost always occur, in inventing and perfecting new articles of manufacture, or in carrying to a state of greater perfection articles already established. He cannot learn, by personal inspection, the wants and habits, the arts, manufactures, and improvements of foreign countries; diligence, economy, and prudence, are the requisites of his character, not invention, taste, and enterprise: nor would he be warranted in hazarding the loss of any part of his small capital. He walks in a sure road as long as he treads in the beaten track; but he must not deviate into the paths of speculation. The owner of a factory, on the contrary, being commonly possessed of a large capital, and having all his workmen employed under his own immediate superintendence, may make experiments, hazard speculation, invent shorter or better modes of performing old processes, may introduce new articles, and improve and perfect old ones, thus giving the range to his taste and fancy, and, thereby alone enabling our manufacturers to stand the competition with their commercial rivals in other countries. Meanwhile, as is well worthy of remark (and experience abundantly warrants the assertion), many of these new fabrics and inventions, when their success is once established, become general amongst the whole body of manufacturers: the domestic manufacturers themselves thus benefiting, in the end, from those very factories which had been at first the objects of their jealousy. The history of almost all our other manufactures, in which great improvements have been made of late years in some cases at an immense expense, and after numbers of unsuccessful experiments, strikingly illustrates and enforces the above remarks. It is besides an acknowledged fact, that the owners of factories are often amongst the most extensive purchasers at the halls, where they buy from the domestic clothier the established articles of manufacture, or are able at once to answer a great and sudden order; whilst, at home, and under their own superintendence, they make their fancy goods, and any articles of a newer, more costly, or more delicate quality, to which they are enabled by the domestic system to apply a much larger proportion of their capital. Thus, the two systems, instead of rivalling, are mutual aids to each other: each supplying the other's defects, and promoting the other's prosperity. Notes: 1. Lander's Journal of an Expedition to the Mouth of the Niger, vol. ii., p. 42.