Читать книгу Fields, Factories, and Workshops. Or, Industry Combined with Agriculture and Brain Work with Manual Work онлайн

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But all this has grown almost entirely within the last thirty or forty years—whole industries having been created entirely since 1860.ssss1 What will, then, American industry be twenty years, hence, aided as it is by a wonderful development of technical skill, by excellent schools, a scientific education which goes hand in hand with technical education, and a spirit of enterprise which is unrivalled in Europe?

Volumes have been written about the crisis of 1886-1887, a crisis which, to use the words of the Parliamentary Commission, lasted since 1875, with but “a short period of prosperity enjoyed by certain branches of trade in the years 1880 to 1883,” and a crisis, I shall add, which extended over all the chief manufacturing countries of the world. All possible causes of the crisis have been examined; but, whatever the cacophony of conclusions arrived at, all unanimously agreed upon one, namely, that of the Parliamentary Commission, which could be summed up as follows: “The manufacturing countries do not find such customers as would enable them to realise high profits.” Profits being the basis of capitalist industry, low profits explain all ulterior consequences.