with the demand for large investments of capital, in every department of manufacture, to meet the intense competition arising from the rapid development of new and improved methods, and increased facilities in the means of transportation and distribution. In manufactures of all kinds the margin of profits has been reduced to an extent that is fatal to small establishments, and production can only succeed when on a sufficient scale to make an aggregate of the small items of profit an object worth seeking.
The subdivision of labor required in the specialization of manufactures on a large scale, where machinery, adapted to the particular purpose, is made use of in every process, tends to diminish the demand for skilled artisans, unless they are needed as superintendents of labor; and even then executive ability, general intelligence, and a knowledge of business methods, are of greater importance than mere technical skill.
The work done by a skillful mechanic, under former methods, is now performed by an unskilled workman and a machine, under proper supervision, and with greater economy and certainty in the results. Dexterity is required in only a single movement or operation, which is soon learned, and, when a machine is properly adjusted to perform its special function, a boy with its aid becomes the equal of the most skilled artisan in the routine of work he has to do. With the exception of localities with scattered population and remote from the lines of trade and distribution, we shall find that wagons, carriages, agricultural implements of all kinds, boots and shoes, tinware, clocks and watches, and, in fact, almost every product of the industrial arts, can be purchased at a lower price than the artisan can afford to make them under the old methods of his trade, and his skill as a workman is only in demand to repair the articles originally produced under a specialized system of manufacture.
Moreover, in many of the industries competition is so sharp, and the margin of profit so small, on the leading object of production, that the utilization of what had been waste products has been found to be essential to financial success. In response to this demand for the working up and utilization of residues, the applications of chemistry have produced remarkable results, and in many instances what had been rejected as a waste has assumed a dominant position in the industry, and the original article of manufacture has in its turn become the by-product and of secondary importance on the score of profit.
Large investments of capital, specialization in production, the use of machinery in every process, and the consequent subdivision of labor in particular lines in which the technical skill of the handicraftsman is not required, together with the utilization of
