sure the new regime, as we have already seen, would, whenever poorly organized industry came in competition with the more perfect, strive to concentrate production in the well directed great industries. This could be easily attained, however, without the application of force by the simple raising of wages. But there will always be branches of industry in which the machine cannot compete successfully with hand labor, or, cannot accomplish what the latter can accomplish. It is highly significant that an investigation of the factory statistics of the German empire did not yield a single form of production in which the small industry still exclusively rules, with one insignificant exception (four plants each with one laborer). A few figures that, so far as I know, have never yet been published are here given. In the following branches of industry the small business rules almost exclusively, more than 97 per cent of all industries, while the great business with more than fifty laborers does not exist at all:
Number of Factories With | |||
1 to 5 | 6 to 50 | No. of | |
Workers | Workers | Motors. | |
Makers of whetstones | 77 | 2 | 52 |
Makers of violins | 1,037 | 24 | 5 |
Preparation of anatomical material | 126 | 3 | |
Scavengers | 971 | 2 | 11 |