ficiency in the foundational industries. In the
manufacture of agricultural implements the increase is put down at
from 50 to 70 per cent., in the manufacture of machines and machinery
from 25 to 40 per cent., while "in the production of metals and
metallic goods long-established firms testify that machinery has
decreased manual labour 33-1/3 per cent." The increase in the
productive power of cotton mills is far greater than this. From 1870
to 1884 the make of pig-iron rose 131 per cent. in Great Britain and
237 per cent. in the rest of the world.[151] "In building vessels an
approximate idea of the relative labour displacement is given as 4 or
5 to 1--that is, four or five times the amount of labour can be
performed to-day by the use of machinery in a given time that could be
done under old hand methods."[152]

In England the rise in productiveness of machinery is roughly
estimated at 40 per cent. in the period 1850 to 1885, and there is no
reason to suppose this is an excessive estimate. In the shipping
industry, where more exact statistics are available, the advance is
even greater. The diminution of manual labour required to do a given
quantity of work in 1884 as compared with 1870 is put down at no less
than 70 per cent., owing in large measure to the introduction and
increased application of steam-hoisting machines and grain elevators,
and the employment of steam power in steering, raising the sails and
anchors, pumping, and discharging cargoes.[153] In the construction of
ships enormous economies have taken place. A ship which in 1883 cost
L24,000 can now be built for L14,000. In the working of vessels the
economy of fuel, due to the introduction of compound-engines, has been
very large. A ton of wheat can now be hauled by sea at less than a
farthing per mile. Similarly with land haulage the economy of fuel has
made immense reductions in cost. "In an experiment lately made on the
London and North Western Railway, a compound locomotive dragged a ton
of goods for one mile by the combustion of two ounces of coal."[154]
The quickening of voyages by steam motor, and by the abandonment of
the old Cape route in favour of the Suez Canal, enormously facilitated
commerce. The last arrangement is calculated to have practically
destroyed a tonnage of two millions. The still greater facilitation of
intelligence by electricity did away with the vast system of
warehousing required by the conditions of former commerce. These
ec