to increase the supply of raw material in the same way, for example, as the cotton gin augmented the production of cotton.[1] On the other hand, the cheapness of the articles produced by machinery, and the improved means of transport and communication furnish the weapons for conquering foreign markets. By ruining handicraft production in other countries, machinery forcibly converts them into fields for the supply of its raw material. In this way East India was compelled to produce cotton, wool, hemp, jute, and indigo for Great Britain.[2] By constantly making a part of the hands “supernumerary,” modern industry, in all countries where it has taken root, gives a spur to emigration and to the colonization of foreign lands, which are thereby converted into settlements for growing the raw material of the mother country; just as Australia, for example, was converted into a colony for growing wool.[3] A new and international division of labour, a division suited to the requirements of the chief centres of modern industry springs up, and converts one part of the globe into a chiefly agricultural field of production, for supplying the other part which remains a chiefly industrial field. This evolution hangs together with radical changes in agriculture which we need not here further inquire into.[4]
- ↑ Other ways in which machinery affects the production of raw material will be mentioned in the third book.
- ↑ EXPORT OF COTTON FROM INDIA TO GREAT BRITAIN.
1846.—34,540,143 lbs., 1860.—204,141,168 lbs. 1865,—445,947,600 lbs.
- ↑ EXPORT OF WOOL FROM INDIA TO GREAT BRITAIN.
1846.—4,570,681 lbs. 1860.—20,214,173 lbs. 1865.—20,679,111 lbs.
EXPORT OF WOOL FROM THE CAPE TO GREAT BRITAIN.2,958,457 lbs. 1860,—16,674,345 lbs. 1865.—29,920,623 lbs.
EXPORT OF WOOL FROM AUSTRALIA TO GREAT BRITAIN.1846.—21,789,346 lbs, 1860.—69,166,616 lbs, 1865.—109,734,261 lbs.
- ↑ The economical development of the United States is itself a product of European, more especially of English modern industry. In their present form (1866) the States must still be considered a European colony. [Note to the 4th German edition.—Since then the United States has developed into the second industrial country of the world, without thereby losing its colonial character entirely. F. E.]
EXPORT OF COTTON FROM THE UNITED STATES TO GREAT BRITAIN.
1846.—401,949,398 lbs. 1852.—765,630,643 lbs. 1859.—961,707,264 lbs. 1860,—1,116,890,608 lbs.
