=340. Influences determining the local distribution of manufactures.=—A review of the contents of this chapter, with its discussion of the factors which have built up modern industry, should suggest to the reader the countries which have enjoyed exceptional advantages in the modern manufacturing period. Resources of coal and iron, clearly, are of great importance. That they are not decisive, however, is proved by the absence of modern manufactures in China, where there are abundant supplies of coal and iron, and their presence in districts like the North of Ireland, where, for instance, a great ship-building industry is fed with imported iron and coal. Factories can exist at a considerable distance from their source of supply if they are served by a transportation system which will fetch raw materials and carry finished products cheaply; efficient transportation is essential. Many other elements might be suggested as going to form the basis of national success in manufactures, but of them all I desire here to emphasize only two: good government and intelligent men. Manufactures cannot thrive in a country where unwise or corrupt methods of taxation rob the investor of his gains. Nor can they prosper, whatever other advantages a country may have, if it lacks intelligent and steady laborers, or clear-sighted and energetic leaders. The reader will have an opportunity, in later chapters, to test the truth of these statements; meanwhile, in anticipation, attention may be directed to the United States, England, and Germany, as those countries which have most signally proved their fitness for manufacturing. QUESTIONS AND TOPICS 1. Development of the science and art of agriculture in the nineteenth century. [Encyclopedia.] 2. Artificial fertilizers. [Peacock, in Cosmopolitan Magazine, Nov., 1895.] 3. A modern wheat farm. [Scribner’s Magazine, 1897, vol. 22, p. 531 ff.; Edgar, Story of a grain of wheat. Note that “bonanza” farms are not typical of modern agriculture in general.] 4. What use is coal without a steam-engine? What use is machinery without a steam-engine? What use is a steam-engine without coal or machinery? Which would the world give up most readily, coal, steam-engine, or machinery? 5. Character and advantages of machinery. [Hobson, Mod. cap., chap. 3, sects. 1-3.] 6. How much have women gained by being relieved of the necessity of making cloth for family use? [Read description of the labor of spinning, weaving, etc., in colonial times; see Alice M. Earle, Colonial dames and goodwives, Boston, 1895, or Syndey G. Fisher, Men, women and manners in colonial times. Philadelphia, 1898.] 7. Effect of the introduction of machinery on the demand for labor in different occupations. [Hobson, Mod. cap., chap. 8.] 8. The growth of factories. [Bourne, Romance, chap. 9.]