Part 33 (1/2)

2. What were the lasting effects of the English Commonwealth?

3. What were the causes of liberal government in the Netherlands?

4. The reform acts in 1832 and in 1867 in England.

5. The chief causes of trouble between England and Ireland.

6. The growth of democracy in the United States.

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7. Enumerate the most important modern political reforms. What are some needed political reforms?

8. England's influence on American law and government.

9. Investigate the population in your community to determine the extent of human equality.

10. City government under the munic.i.p.al manager plan; also commission plan.

[1] Consider the commission form of city government and the munic.i.p.al manager plan.

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CHAPTER XXVII

INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS

_Industries Radiate from the Land as a Centre_.--In primitive civilizations industry was more or less incidental to life. The food quest, protection of the body from storm and sun by improvised habitation and the use of skins, furs, bark, and rushes for clothing, together with the idea of human a.s.sociation for the perpetuation of the species, are the fundamental notions regarding life. Under such conditions industry was fitful and uncertain. Hunting for vegetable products and for animals to sustain life, the protection of the life of individuals from the elements and, incidentally, from the predatory activities of human beings, were the objectives of primitive man.

As the land is the primary source of all economic life, systematic industry has always begun in its control and cultivation. Not until man settled more or less permanently with the idea of getting his sustenance from the soil did industrial activities become prominent.

In the development of civilization one must recognize the ever-present fact that the method of treatment of the land is a determining factor in its fundamental characteristics, for it must needs be always that the products that we utilize come from the action of man on nature and its reaction on him. While the land is the primary source of wealth, and its cultivation a primal industry, it does not include the whole category of industrial enterprises, for tools must be made, art developed, implements provided, and machinery constructed. Likewise, clothing and ornaments were manufactured, and habitations constructed, and eventually transportation begun to carry people and goods from one place to another. These all together make an enlarged group of activities, all radiating from the soil as a common centre.

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We have already referred to the cultivation of the valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile by systems of irrigation and the tilling of the soil in the valleys of Greece in the crude and semibarbarous methods introduced by the barbarians from the north. We have referred to the fact that the Romans were the first to develop systematic agriculture, and even the Teutonic people, the invaders of Rome, were rude cultivators of the soil.

Social organization is dependent to a large extent upon the method of attachment to the soil--whether people wander over a large area in the hunter-fisher and the nomadic stages, or whether they become attached to the soil permanently. Thus, the village community developed a united, neighborly community, built on the basis of mutual aid. The feudal system was built upon predatory tribal warfare, where possession was determined by might to have and to hold. In the mediaeval period the manorial system of landholding developed, whereby the lord and his retainers claimed the land by their right of occupation and the power to hold, whether this came through conquest, force of arms, or agreement.

This manorial system prevailed to a large extent in England, France, and parts of Germany. These early methods of landholding were brought about by people attempting to make their social adjustments, primarily in relation to survival, and subsequently in relation to the justice among individuals within the group, or in relation to the reactions between the groups themselves. After the breaking down of the Roman Empire, the well-established systems of landholding in the empire and the older nations of the Orient in the Middle Ages developed into the feudal system, which forced all society into groups or cla.s.ses, from the lord to the serf. Subsequently there sprang up the individual system of landholding, which again readjusted the relation of society to the land system and changed the social structure.

_The Early Mediaeval Methods of Industry_.--Outside of the tilling of the soil, the early industries were centred in the home, which gave rise to the well-known house system of {431} culture. ”Housework” has primary relation to goods which are created for the needs of the household. Much of the early manufacturing industry was carried on within the household. Gradually this has disappeared to a large extent through the multiplication of industries outside the home, power manufacture, and the organization of labor and capital.

In many instances house culture preceded that of systematic agriculture. The natural order was the house culture rising out of the pursuits of fis.h.i.+ng, hunting, and tending flocks and herds, and the incidental hoe culture which represented the first tilling of the soil about the tent or hut. The Indians of North America are good examples of the development of the house culture in the making of garments from the skins of animals or from weeds and rushes, the weaving of baskets, the making of pottery and of boats, and the tanning of hides. During all this period, agriculture was of slow growth, it being the incidental and tentative process of life, while the house culture represented the permanent industry.

Industries varied in different tribes, one being skilled in basket-making, another in stone implements for warfare and domestic use, another in pottery, another in boats, and still another in certain kinds of clothing--especially the ornaments made from precious stones or bone. This made it possible to spread the culture of one group to other groups, and later there developed the wandering peddler who went from tribe to tribe trading and swapping goods. This is somewhat a.n.a.logous to the first wage-work system of England, where the individual went from house to house to perform services for which he received pay in goods, or, as we say, in kind. Subsequently the wage-earner had his own shop, where raw material was sent to him for finis.h.i.+ng.

All through Europe these customs prevailed and, indeed, in some parts of America exist to the present day. We see survivals of these customs which formerly were permanent, in the people who go from house to house performing certain types of work or bringing certain kinds of goods for sale, and, {432} indeed, in the small shop of modern times where goods are repaired or manufactured. They represent customs which now are irregular, but which formerly were permanent methods. It was a simple system, requiring no capital, no undertaker or manager, no middleman.

Gradually these customs were replaced by many varied methods, such as the establishment of the laborer in his individual shop, who at first only made the raw material, which people brought him, into the finished product; later he was required to provide his own raw material, taking orders for certain cla.s.ses of goods.

After the handcraft system was well established, there was a division between the manufacturer of goods and those who produced the raw material, a marked distinction in the division of labor. The expansion of systems of industry developed the towns and town life, and as the manor had been self-sufficient in the manufacture of goods, so now the town becomes the unit of production, and independent town economy springs up. Later we find the towns beginning to trade with each other, and with this expanded industry the division of labor came about and the separation of laborers into cla.s.ses. First, the merchant and the manufacturer were united. It was common for the manufacturer of goods to have his shop in his own home and, after he had made the goods, to put them on the shelf until called for by customers. Later he had systems of distribution and trade with people in the immediate locality. Soon weavers, spinners, bricklayers, packers, tanners, and other cla.s.ses became distinctive. It was some time before manufacturers and traders, however, became separate groups, and a longer time before the manufacturer was separated from the merchant, because the manufacturer must market his own goods. Industries by degrees thus became specialized, and trades became clearly defined in their scope. This led, of course, to a distinct division of occupation, and later to a division of labor within the occupation.