Coal, iron and war; by Eckel Edwin Clarence 1875-

Author:Eckel, Edwin Clarence, 1875- [from old catalog]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Industries, Iron industry and trade. [from old catalog], Coal. [from old catalog]
Publisher: New York, H. Holt and company
Published: 1920-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

to be idle, or to be destructive. That is the real basal objection to both war and syndicalism — that they reduce productive effort, which we can not yet afford to relax.

On the other hand, so long as population increases and works, there is a steady increase in demand for most commodities, and the minimum rate of increase for any industry will tend to be fixed by the rate of increase of population. If we find that, over a series of years, our output of some special commodity is not increasing at least as fast as the population, there is something wrong about that industry — either its raw material supplies are deficient, or it is being replaced by some other product.

We may therefore accept the rate of population increase as the minimum at which we may expect an industry to grow, and it will be of interest to see what that means in figures.

It is convenient to use the term normal growth, for it conveys a sufficiently exact idea of what we have in mind — i.e. the increase in population of any country due merely to births and immigration, and disregarding such exceptional influences as wars, natural catastrophes, or annexations. Taken in this broad sense it is a serviceable term, even though it is subject to criticism in detail. For as soon as we come to examine the facts we see that there is no such thing as a normal rate of growth for population, but that on the contrary the prevailing rate varies from year to year, from century to century, from class to class, and from country to country.

As regards the facts, we have fairly accurate figures for later years, and very doubtful estimates for world population in earlier years, covering the past century or so. These are tabulated on page 195, for convenience in discussion.

As soon as we glance at these figures, one aspect of the situation presents itself — the rapid growth of American population relative to that of the world in general. This was in part due to the fact that the United States was a new

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THE FACTORS OF INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION 195

Year World population

1790

1800 640,000,000

1810

1820 780,000,000

1830 847,000,000

1840 950,000,000

1850 1,075,000,000

1860 1,205,000,000

1870 1,310,000,000

1880 1,439,000,000

1890 1,488,000,000

1900 1,543,000,000

1910 1,616,000,000

and unoccupied country, so that its entire growth took place during the nineteenth century. But it was in part due to industrialism, which not only permitted but encouraged this growth. The influence of the industrial factor, as distinct from that of normal growth, is shown also when we consider older countries, such as England and Germany. We find that they too showed higher rates of growth than the rest of the world, though lower than that of the United States.

England, for example, whose population had increased only fifteen per cent, in the entire century between 1651 and 1751, showed an increase of almost two hundred per cent, in the century which succeeded; her population increased as fast every ten years as during an entire earlier century; and her industrial activities permitted their maintenance in more comfort than had ever been seen before.

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