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was replaced by American cotton thread. In the words of Professor Fite:

Cotton thread continued to be used, with the more or less complete substitution of American-made for the Englishmade product, which had been almost the only thread sold before the war. Through the influence of the heavy war tariff three-fourths of the market came to be supplied from home. The advance in the price of Coats,' which finally reached four times its old value, created a chance for American manufacturers, which was readily seized upon, and a vast new industry sprang up; the Willimantic Company, with a new plant worth $1,000,000, Green & Daniels, and other firms appeared. At Newark, New Jersey, an English firm built a very large plant to manufacture their product on this side of the tariff wall and thus reap its advantages.

The huge modern meat-packing industry of Chicago also was greatly stimulated, if not created, by the war. Professor Fite wrote:

Progress in hog-packing was centred chiefly in Chicago. The industry here had been progressing slowly for almost thirty years, when suddenly, as the result of the unusual transportation conditions arising out of the closing of the Mississippi River, the yearly output rose from 270,000 hogs in 1860, the largest number packed in any one year before the war, to 900,000.

Many other industries, too numerous to mention, owed their creation, or their powerful expansion, to the war.

Industrial efficiency and productiveness are increased not only by improved labour-saving machinery but by an improved organisation as well. Industrial co-operation and the division of labour can be carried to the greatest perfection only by a concentration of energy and direction, by manufacturing on a large scale, by eliminating unnecessary and therefore wasteful competition. Owing to the pressure

of the war a powerful tendency towards industrial consolidation arose. Professor Fite has told us:

As soon as expansion set in it was evident that the existing industrial machinery was inadequate to the tasks imposed upon it. Industrial enterprises in the past under a system of free competition had been very numerous, and each had been conducted on a small scale; there was no unity of effort in allied lines and over large areas of territory, while in some cases unwise laws had created inequalities. This lack of unity needed to be corrected, more harmony among common interests introduced, and unequal privileges swept away, if business was to be transacted on an increased scale. This was the fundamental reason for the sudden and pronounced tendency towards consolidation that characterised the world of capital as soon as the war began, although other factors doubtless contributed to the same end, such as internal taxes, large fortunes, the progress of inventions, peculiar transportation conditions, the tariff, high prices, and the assaults of the labouring classes. . .

When once started, concentration of manufacturing went on swiftly. Soon after the war was over the special commissioner of the revenue noted a rapid concentration of the business of manufacturing into single vast establishments and an utter annihilation of thousands of little separate industries, the existence of which was formerly a characteristic of the older sections of the country. . .

Never in the history of the country up to that time had there been such a strong tendency towards united and harmonious action on the part of the employing classes, whether this resulted in a complete merging of one company into another or looser and more temporary organisations to consider the subject of prices, internal taxes, the tariff, or wages; never had there been such an incentive to consolidation and union. Combination in every line was the tendency of the hour. A determination was growing to merge small, isolated units, often hostile to each other, into larger and more harmonious groups; big corporations supplanted smaller ones; things were done on a more extensive scale than had ever before been attempted. Although

the new spirit appeared suddenly, it did its work thoroughly, and while it was not carried as far as at the present time, it must still be recognised that its advent created a new epoch in industrial and commercial life, the foundation for all that has come later. There was a definite turning away from the independent self-reliant localism and small units of the past, a decided right-about toward centralisation. . .

Another element entering into the situation was the peculiar effects of internal taxes. There was a tax on the sales of most industrial products, placed finally at 6 per cent. ad valorem, which bore heavily on manufacturers, inasmuch as most products represented more than one process of manufacture.

The manufacturer with little capital, who could afford only a small establishment, was discriminated against in favour of the rich man; if the cotton manufacturer could afford not only to spin but also to weave, he escaped one tax; if he could have his own dyeworks, he escaped another tax. Such a man, after enlarging his plant, could undersell his poor neighbour. Concentration in manufacturing, therefore, came to be the rule, for the more nearly complete and comprehensive the plant, the less was the tax.

During the Civil War the American manufacturing industries expanded with almost incredible vigour. Professor Fite briefly summed up the principal causes of their expansion in the following words:

For this progress of manufacturing there were many reasons. First, the ordinary needs of the country were greater than usual. . .

Then the paper money régime was in full swing, and money was plenty and prices soaring. There was, too, the incentive of the tariff, not a session of Congress passing without some raising of these bars to foreigners. Every manufacturer, great and small, was conscious of more buoyancy and freedom as he realised that under the cloak of the supposed needs of revenue with which to wage the war he was rapidly dispensing with foreign competition with all its attendant risks; examples of industries benefited in this way were sugar, thread, iron, steel rail, and woollen

manufacturing. But greatest of all incentives were Government contracts, which generally have a way of bringing higher prices than ordinary sales, and which at this time became more and more lucrative as foreigners were effectually barred from competition. Fortunate the manufacturer who had such contracts, and small the number who did not have them. Contemporary opinion plainly inclined to the view that a Government contract was the manufacturer's greatest opportunity.

The best and the most imposing picture of the progress of the American manufacturing industries during the decade in which the Civil War occurred is furnished by the dry statistics of the American Censuses of 1860 and 1870. While Professor Fite in his excellent account describes to us the causes, the Censuses merely give the facts. They confirm the views expressed by Professor Fite and they show the following remarkable and almost unbelievable progress during a period of war:

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Between 1860 and 1870 the number of manufacturing establishments increased by 80 per cent. and their capital was more than doubled. The number of hands employed increased by 55 per cent., and the wages paid to them and the value of products turned out increased each by more than 100 per cent. That is truly a wonderful record. The figures given prove conclusively that the Civil War, notwithstanding its destructiveness and huge cost, did not ruin the American industries but caused their rise and prosperity.

As the table given treats summarily the American

industries as a whole, their progress can perhaps more correctly be gauged by a more detailed comparison of their output according to the Censuses:

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Comparison of the figures given shows that between 1860 and 1870 the production of agricultural implements, bricks and tiles, indiarubber goods, pig iron, cast iron, machinery, sewing machines, cigars and woollen goods increased threefold, that the production of rolled iron and forged iron increased fourfold, and that the output of steel and worsted goods increased no less than sixfold. These figures, which have not been picked in order to make a case, but which are all those given in the American Censuses, prove that the war enormously benefited the American manufacturing industries, that the great struggle between the North and the South brought about the rapid expansion of American manufacturing which carried the United States to the first rank among industrial nations.

Nations are born in war and die in peace. Peace creates

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