On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures - Charles Babbage (interesting books to read in english .TXT) 📗

which is taken to

prevent the absolute waste of any part of the raw material. An

attention to this circumstance sometimes causes the union of two

trades in one factory, which otherwise might have been separated.

 

An enumeration of the arts to which the horns of cattle are

applicable, will furnish a striking example of this kind of

economy. The tanner who has purchased the raw hides, separates

the horns, and sells them to the makers of combs and lanterns.

The horn consists of two parts, an outward horny case, and an

inward conical substance, somewhat intermediate between indurated

hair and bone. The first process consists in separating these two

parts, by means of a blow against a block of wood. The horny

exterior is then cut into three portions with a frame-saw.

 

1. The lowest of these, next the root of the horn, after

undergoing several processes, by which it is flattened, is made

into combs.

 

2. The middle of the horn, after being flattened by heat, and

having its transparency improved by oil, is split into thin

layers, and forms a substitute for glass, in lanterns of the

commonest kind.

 

3. The tip of the horn is used by the makers of knife

handles, and of the tops of whips, and for other similar

purposes.

 

4. The interior, or core of the horn, is boiled down in

water. A large quantity of 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.