Chapter 38 Part II Results Chapter 9 Towards the Industrial World 2

2 No historian of the period, whatever his specific field of interest, can ignore the turning point of 1830.More importantly, after this turning point, the speed of economic and social change accelerated significantly and rapidly.Outside of Britain, the French Revolution and the period of war it produced produced little immediate progress relative to the rapid change of 1830.With the exception of the United States, which made great strides after the War of Independence, by 1810 its arable land had doubled, its fleet sevenfold in tonnage, and overall it had shown its future potential. (America's advances during this period were not only the cotton gin, but the steamboat and the early development of the assembly line—Oliver Evans built a flour mill with a conveyor belt. ) In Europe under the rule of Napoleon, most of the foundations of future industry have been laid, especially heavy industry, but most of these foundations have disappeared by the end of the war, which has brought crisis to all countries.On the whole, the period from 1815 to 1830 was a period of setbacks, and at best it was only a period of slow recovery.Countries were putting their finances in order, usually by severely deflationary measures (Russia was the last country to do so in 1841).Under the double blow of domestic crisis and foreign competition, various industrial sectors were on the verge of collapse, and the American cotton textile industry was hit particularly hard.Urbanization is progressing slowly.Until 1828, the French rural population was growing at a rate comparable to that of the urban population.Agriculture faltered and stagnated, especially in Germany.Looking at economic growth over this period, even outside the strongly expanding UK, no one would be inclined to be pessimistic, but few would argue that any country other than the UK and possibly the US has started Make an industrial revolution.Take, for example, an apparent index of a new industry: the number and horsepower of engines in the rest of the world, outside of England, America, and France, could scarcely have attracted the attention of any statistician in the 1820s.

Things changed rapidly after 1830 (or thereabouts); so much so that by 1840 the social problems specific to the industrial system—the emerging proletariat, the danger of runaway urbanization—had become serious problems in Western Europe. A common problem of discussion and a nightmare for politicians and administrators. Between 1830 and 1838, the number of engines in Belgium doubled and horsepower tripled: from 354 engines (11,000 hp) to 712 (30,000 hp).By 1850, this small but highly industrialized country had nearly 2,300 engines, 660,000 horsepower, and nearly 6 million tons of coal production (almost three times the output in 1830).In 1830 there were no joint-stock companies in the Belgian mining industry, but by 1841 almost half of the coal production came from such joint-stock companies.

In these 20 years, France, the German states, Austria or other countries and regions that laid the foundation of modern industry have similar data for reference.For example, the Krupps in Germany installed the first engine in 1835; in 1837, the first mines were dug in the huge Ruhr coalfield; Vitkovice set up the first coke furnaces; 1839-1840 Lombardy had the first rolling mill at Falck.It would be tedious to enumerate all these similar materials one by one.Since the period of really large-scale industrialization did not begin until after 1848, the enumeration of these sources is all the more tedious, with the exception of Belgium and possibly France. The period 1830-1848 marks the birth of the industrial districts and the industrial centers and enterprises that are still famous today, but it is hardly yet their adolescence, let alone their maturity.Looking back to the 1830s, we can understand what it meant to be excited about technological experimentation and an entrepreneurial spirit that was not content to innovate.It signifies the development of the American Midwest; however, McCormick's first mechanical harvester (1834) and the first 78 bushels of wheat shipped east from Chicago in 1838 only because they led to the Only those things that happened were able to go down in history. In 1846, the factory that took the risk of producing 100 harvesting machines should still be praised for its audacity today. Venture business is really difficult, and it is also quite difficult to persuade farmers to use harvesters or to approve of this new invention.”At the same time it meant the planned construction of European railways and heavy industry, and, as it happened, a revolution in investment techniques.But if the Pereire brothers had not been the great adventurers of industrial finance after 1851, the plan they had in vain to present to the new French government in 1830—“a government department responsible for lending”— Here the industrialist can borrow money on the most favorable terms from all who possess capital, secured by the intermediary of the wealthiest bankers—and hardly attracts our attention.

In Britain, it was consumer products (often textiles, but sometimes food) that led to the breakthrough in industrialization; however, capital industries (iron, steel, coal, etc.) were much more important at this time than the British Industrial Revolution: In 1846, 17% of Belgian industrial employees were employed in capital industries, compared with 8%-9% in Great Britain.By 1850, three-quarters of Belgium's industrial steam power was used in mining and metallurgy.As in England, most new industrial establishments (factories, ironworks, or mines) were small and operated by large groups of unsophisticated laborers, mostly cheap, old-skilled home workers, or working on raw materials. Processing and subcontracting workers.This kind of labor is born with the needs of the factory and the market, and will eventually be destroyed by both.In Belgium (1846) the average number of workers in woolen, linen and cotton mills was only 30, 35 and 43 respectively; in Sweden (1838) the average number of workers per textile "factory" was only six or seven .On the other hand, industrialization at this time has a much greater concentration than in England, and in places which, as one might expect, will later become industrial areas, sometimes like small territories surrounded by agricultural land, people are using pioneering based on the experience of more highly developed technologies and often enjoys strong and planned support from the government.In Bohemia (1841) three-quarters of the cotton spinners were employed in factories with more than 100 workers, and almost half of them were employed in 15 factories with more than 200 workers. (On the other hand, virtually all weaving work was still done on hand looms before the 1850s.) This was certainly the case in heavy industry, which by this time was prominent: Belgian foundry Factories (1838) averaged 80 workmen, Belgian coal mines about 150 (1846), and industrial giants like Cockeril in Seraing (which employed 2,000 workers), not to mention.

Such an industrial scene resembles a lake dotted with islands.If we regard the country as a whole as a lake, the islands in the lake are industrial cities, industrial districts, or village complexes (such as the network of manufacturing villages common in central Germany and in the mountains of Bohemia): in France there are such Textile towns like Mulhiouse, Lille and Rouen, Elberfeld-Barmen and Krefeld in Prussia, southern Belgium and Saxony .If we think of lakes as the lakes are the multitude of independent artisans, farmers who make their wares for sale in winter, and home workers or laborers who process raw materials, then the islands are factories, mines, and foundries large and small.Much of this landscape is still water; or—to use a slightly more realistic metaphor—the reed grass that surrounds industrial and commercial centers in small-scale or dependent production.Domestic and other industries, established earlier as appendages to the feudal system, also survived.Most of these - such as the linen industry in Silesia - were in tragically rapid decline.The large cities were hardly industrialized, although there were large labor and artisan populations in the cities to meet the needs of consumption, transportation and various service industries.Among the cities in the world with more than 100,000 inhabitants, apart from Lyon in France, the only cities in Britain and the United States clearly include industrial centers.Take Milan as an example. In 1841, there were only two small steam engines in the city.In fact, the typical industrial center (in both continental Europe and the UK) is just a complex of small to medium-sized cities or villages.

However, in one important respect, the industrialization of the European continent—and to some extent the United States—is different from that of the British. Generally beneficial.Britain, as we know it, after about 200 years of slow preparation, had no real shortages of any factors of production, and indeed no institutional obstacles to the full development of capitalism.In other countries, this is not the case.Germany, for example, has a marked capital shortage.The very austere way of life of the German middle class shows this shortage.Nevertheless, this austere way of life is perfectly translated into Biedermayer style, an interior design that is both charming and poised.It is often forgotten that Goethe was indeed a very wealthy man by the German standards of the time.His house in Weimar was more than adequate (but not much better) than the comforts of a thrifty banker in Clapham, England.In Berlin in the 1820s, court ladies and even princesses wore simple percale dresses all year round.If they had a silk outfit, it was usually reserved for special occasions.The traditional guild system of masters, journeymen, and apprentices still hindered the growth of business enterprise, the movement of skilled labor, and virtually all economic change.Prussia abolished in 1811 the obligation of artisans to belong to guilds, but not the guilds themselves, and guild membership was politically strengthened by the urban legislation of the period.Until the 1830s and 1840s, the production mode of the guilds remained almost unchanged and untouched.Therefore, the full introduction of "free industry" had to wait until the 1850s.

A large number of small states with controlling power and vested interests prevented the rational development of industrialization.The only victory was the establishment of a comprehensive customs union.This alliance does not include Austria.Prussia succeeded in establishing the alliance in its own interest, using the strategic position it had held between 1818 and 1834.Every government, whether mercantilist or patriarchal, promulgates a flood of regulations and administrative regulations to humble subjects for the sake of social stability, but at the same time irritating private entrepreneurs.The Prussian government controlled the quality and prices of handicraft production, the activities of the Silesian household linen weavers, and the mining operations on the right bank of the Rhine.People must obtain permission from the government to start a mine, and the permission may be withdrawn after the operation is opened.

Clearly, under these circumstances (and similarly in many other countries), industrial development had to be carried out differently than in England.All over the Continent, therefore, the government intervened to a considerable extent in the development of industry, not only because it was accustomed to it, but because it had to. In 1822, King William I of the United Provinces of the Netherlands founded the "Netherlands National Association for the Promotion of Industry". He not only donated state land, but also subscribed for about 40% of the stock, and guaranteed a 5% dividend to other subscribers.The Prussian government continues to operate a significant portion of the country's mines.New rail systems were invariably planned, if not actually built by the government, encouraged by providing favorable land tenure and guaranteeing investment.In fact, up to this time, only the railways in Britain were built entirely by private enterprises taking risks and seeking profits. Investors and entrepreneurs did not receive government subsidies and guarantees.The earliest and best designed rail network was in Belgium, where it was planned in the early 1830s to separate the newly independent nation from the Dutch-based transportation system (mainly waterways). In 1833, the French Parliament decided to build the French railway network. However, political difficulties and the reluctance of the big bourgeoisie to exchange safe investment for speculative investment delayed the systematic construction of the railway network. In 1842, the Austrian government decided to build a railway network, and Prussia had similar plans, but both were delayed due to lack of resources.

For similar reasons, business on the Continent is far more dependent than British business on sufficiently modern industrial, commercial and banking legislation, and financial institutions.In fact, the French Revolution has produced both of these. "Code Napoleon", with its emphasis on legally guaranteed freedom of contract, recognition of bills of exchange and other commercial instruments, and regulations on joint stock companies (such as joint stock companies and joint ventures, adopted throughout Europe, except in the United Kingdom and Scandinavia) Arrangement processing, and become a universal model of the world.Moreover, various inventions in finance were popular abroad, born of the imaginative minds of the revolutionary young Saint-Simonists and the Pierre brothers.Their greatest victories would not be achieved until the age of world prosperity in the 1850s; but as early as the 1830s the Belgian Societe General had begun to bring the This type of investment banking was put into practice, and Dutch financiers (although most industrialists had not yet heard of them) adopted the ideas of the Saint-Simonians.In essence, these propositions aim to mobilize various sources of domestic capital.Such capital would not flow spontaneously to industrial development through banks or investment trust companies, and even if the owners of capital wanted to invest, they would not know where to invest it. After 1850, the big banks in continental Europe (particularly in Germany) dominated industry and contributed to its early concentration, given the unique phenomenon in continental Europe (especially in Germany) of being both bankers and investors.