3.Instances are the utilization of the waste from cotton, wool, silk and other textile materials; and of the by-products in the metallurgical industries, in the manufacture of soda and gas, and in the American mineral oil and meat packing industries.
4.See the preceding chapter, section 3.
5.The average time which a machine will last before being superseded is in many trades not more than fifteen years, while in some it is ten years or even less.There is often a loss on the use of a machine unless it earns every year twenty per cent.
on its cost; and when the operation performed by such a machine costing ?00 adds only a hundredth part to the value of the material that passes through it -- and this is not an extreme case -- there will be a loss on its use unless it can be applied in producing at least ?0,000 worth of goods annually.
6.In many businesses only a small percentage of improvements are patented.They consist of many small steps, which it would not be worth while to patent one at a time.Or their chief point lies in noticing that a certain thing ought to be done; and to patent one way of doing it, is only to set other people to work to find out other ways of doing it against which the patent cannot guard.If one patent is taken out, it is often necessary to "block" it, by patenting other methods of arriving at the same result; the patentee does not expect to use them himself, but he wants to prevent others from using them.All this involves worry and loss of time and money: and the large manufacturer prefers to keep his improvement to himself and get what benefit he can by using it.
While if the small manufacturer takes out a patent, he is likely to be harassed by infringements: and even though he may win "with costs" the actions in which he tries to defend himself, he is sure to be ruined by them if they are numerous.It is generally in the public interest that an improvement should be published, even though it is at the same time patented.But if it is patented in England and not in other countries, as is often the case, English manufacturers may not use it, even though they were just on the point of finding it out for themselves before it was patented; while foreign manufacturers learn all about it and can use it freely.
7.It is a remarkable fact that cotton and some other textile factories form an exception to the general rule that the capital required per head of the workers is generally greater in a large factory than in a small one.The reason is that in most other businesses the large factory has many things done by expensive machines which are done by hand in a small factory; so that while the wages bill is less in proportion to the output in a large factory than in a small one, the value of the machinery and the factory space occupied by the machinery is much greater.But in the simpler branches of the textile trades, small works have the same machinery as large works have; and since small steam-engines, etc.are proportionately more expensive than large ones, they require a greater fixed capital in proportion to their output than larger factories do; and they are likely to require a floating capital also rather greater in proportion.
8.See below IV, xii, section 3.
9.Thus Boulton writing in 1770 when he had 700 or 800 persons employed as metallic artists and workers in tortoiseshell, stones, glass, and enamel, says: "I have trained up many, and am training up more, plain country lads into good workmen; and wherever I find indications of skill and ability, I encourage them.I have likewise established correspondence with almost every mercantile town in Europe, and am thus regularly supplied with orders for the grosser articles in common demand, by which Iam enabled to employ such a number of hands as to provide me with an ample choice of artists for the finer branches of work: and Iam thus encouraged to erect and employ a more extensive apparatus than it would be prudent to employ for the production of the finer articles only." Smiles, Life of Boulton, p.128.
10.Means to this end and their practical limitations are discussed in the latter half of the following chapter.
11.A ship's carrying power varies as the cube of her dimensions, while the resistance offered by the water increases only a little faster than the square of her dimensions; so that a large ship requires less coal in proportion to its tonnage than a small one.
It also requires less labour, especially that of navigation:
while to passengers it offers greater safety and comfort, more choice of company and better professional attendance.In short, the small ship has no chance of competing with the large ship between ports which large ships can easily enter, and between which the traffic is sufficient to enable them to fill up quickly.
12.It is characteristic of the great economic change of the last hundred years that when the first railway bills were passed, provision was made for allowing private individuals to run their own conveyances on them, just as they do on a highway or a canal;and now we find it difficult to imagine how people could have expected, as they certainly did, that this plan would prove a practicable one.
