also there are close
economic relations subsisting between the development of machinery and
motor, and between the improvements in manufacture and in the
transport industry. But in order to understand the nature of the
irregularity which is discernible in the history of the development of
machinery, it is essential to consider these factors both separately
and in the historical and economic relation they stand to each other.
For this purpose we will examine two large staple industries, the
textile and the iron industries of England, in order that we may trace
in the chief steps of their progress the laws of the evolution of
modern machinery.

The textile industry offers special facilities to such a study. The
strongest and most widespread of English manufactures, it furnishes in
the early eighteenth century the clearest examples of the several
forms of industry. To the several branches of this industry the
earliest among the great inventions were applied. This start in
industrial development has been maintained, so that the most advanced
forms of the modern factory are found in textile industry. Moreover,
the close attention which has been given to, and the careful records
which have been kept of certain branches of this work, in particular
the Lancashire cotton industry, enable us to trace the operation of
the new industrial forces here with greater precision than is the case
with any other industry. As Schulze-Gaevernitz, in his masterly study,
says of the cotton industry--"The English cotton industry is not only
the oldest, but is in many respects that modern industry which
manifests most clearly the characteristics of modern industrial
methods, both in their economic and their social relations."[68]

The iron industry has been selected on the ground of its close
connection with the application of steam-driven machinery to the
several industries. It is in a sense the most fundamental industry of
modern times, inasmuch as it furnishes the material environment of the
great modern economic forces. Moreover, we have the advantage of
tracing the growth of the iron manufacture _ab ovo_, for, as we have
seen, before the industrial revolution it played a most insignificant
part in English commerce.

Lastly, a study of the relations between the growth of the iron and
the textile industries will be of special service in assisting us to
realise the character of the interaction of the several manufactures
under the growing i