Articles by Engels in the Labour Standard 1881

Cotton and Iron


Cotton and iron are the two most important raw
materials of our time. Whichever nation is the leading one in the manufacture
of cotton and iron articles, that nation heads the list of manufacturing
nations generally. And because and as long as this is the case with England,
therefore and so long will England be the first manufacturing nation of
the world.

It might, then, be expected that the workers in cotton and iron
should be remarkably well off in England; that, as England commands in
the market, trade in these articles should be always good, and that at
least in these two branches of industry the millennium of plenty, promised
at the time of the Free Trade agitation, [1] should be
realised. Alas! we all know that this is far from being the case, and that
here, as in other trades, if the condition of the workpeople has not become
worse, and in some instances even better, it is due exclusively to their
own efforts -- to strong organisation and hard-fought strikes. We know
that after a few short years of prosperity about and after 1874 there was
a complete collapse of the cotton and iron trades [2];
factories were closed, furnaces blown out, and where production was continued
short time was the rule. Such periods of collapse had been known before;
they recur, on an average, once in every ten years; they last their time,
to be relieved by a new period of prosperity, and so on.

But what distinguishes the present period of depression especially
in cotton and iron is this, that it has now for some years outlasted its
usual duration. There have been several attempts at a revival, several
spurts; but in vain. If the epoch of actual collapse has been overcome,
trade remains in a languid state, and the markets continue incapable to
absorb the whole production.

The cause of this is that with our present system of using machinery
to produce not only manufactured goods, but machines themselves, production
can be increased with incredible rapidity. There would be no difficulty,
if manufacturers were so minded, during the single period of prosperity
to increase the plant for spinning and weaving, bleaching and printing
cotton, so as to be able to produce fifty per cent more goods, and to double
the whole production of pig-iron and iron articles of every description.
The actual increase has not come up to that. But still it has been out
of all proportion to what it was in former periods of expansion, and the
consequence is -- chronic over-production, chronic depression of trade.
The masters can afford to look on, at least for a considerable time, but
the workpeople have to suffer, for to them it means chronic misery and
a constant prospect of the workhouse. [3]

This, then, is the outcome of the glorious system of unlimited
competition, this the realisation of the millennium promised by the Cobdens,
Brights, and Co.! This is what the workpeople have to go through if, as
they have done for the last twenty-five years, they leave the management
of the economical policy of the empire to their "natural leaders", to those
"captains of industry" who, according to Thomas Carlyle, were called upon
to command the industrial army of the country. Captains of industry indeed!
Louis Napoleon's generals in 1870 were geniuses compared to them. Everyone
of these pretended captains of industry fights against every other, acts
entirely on his own account, increases his plant irrespective of what his
neighbours do, and then at the end they all find, to their great surprise,
that overtrading has been the result. They cannot unite to regulate production;
they can unite for one purpose only: to keep down the wages of their
workpeople. And it thus, by recklessly expanding the productive power
of the country far beyond the power of absorption of the markets, they
rob their workpeople of the comparative ease which a period of moderate
prosperity would give them, and which they are entitled to after the long
period of collapse, in order to bring up their incomes to the average standard.
Will it not yet be understood that the manufacturers, as a class, have
become incapable any longer to direct the great economical interests of
the country, nay, even the process of production itself? And is it not
an absurdity -- though a fact -- that the greatest enemy to the working
people of England is the ever-increasing productivity of their own hands?

But there is another fact to be taken into consideration. It is
not the English manufacturers alone who increase their productive powers.
The same takes place in other countries. Statistics will not allow us to
compare separately the cotton and iron industries of the various leading
countries. But, taking the whole of the textile, mining, and metal-working
industries, we can draw up a comparative table with the materials furnished
by the chief of the Prussian Statistical Bureau, Dr. Engel, in his book,
"Des Zeitalter des Dampfs" (The Age of Steam, Berlin, 1881). According
to his computation, there are employed in the above industries in the countries
stated below steam-engines of the following total horse-power (one horse-power
equal to a force lifting 75 kilogrammes to the height of one metre in one
second), viz:

Textile Mining and Industries Metal Works

England, 1871 515,800 1,077,000 h.p.

Germany, 1875 128,125 456,436 h.p.

France about 100,000 185,000 h.p.

United States about 93,000 370,000 h.p

Thus we see that the total steam power employed by the three nations who
are England's chief competitors amounts to three-fifths of the English
steam power in the textile manufactures, and nearly equals it in mines
and metal works. And as their manufactures progress at a far more rapid
rate than those of this country, there can be scarcely a doubt that the
combined produce of the former will soon surpass that of the latter.

Look, again, at this table, giving the steam horse-power employed
in production, exclusive of locomotives and ships' engines: --

Horsepower

Great Britain About 2,000,000

United States About 1,987,000

Germany About 1,321,000

France About 492,000

This still more clearly shows how little there is left of the monopoly
of England in steam manufactures, and how little Free Trade has succeeded
in securing England's industrial superiority. And let it not be said that
this progress of foreign industry is artificial, is due to protection.
The whole of the immense expansion of the German manufactures has been
accomplished under a most liberal Free Trade régime, and
if America, owing to an absurd system of internal excise [4]
more than anything else, is compelled to have recourse to a protection
more apparent than real, the repeal of these excise laws would be sufficient
to allow her to compete in the open market.

This, then, is the position in which twenty-five years of an almost
absolute reign of Manchester School [5] doctrines have
left the country. We think these results are such as to call for a speedy
abdication of the Manchester and Birmingham gentlemen, so as to give the
working classes a turn for the next twenty-five years. Surely they could
not manage worse.