Under the present conditions of division into capitalists and labourers, into property-holders and masses living on uncertain wages, the spreading of industries over new fields is accompanied by the very same horrible facts of pitiless oppression, massacre of children, pauperism, and insecurity of life. The Russian Fabrics Inspectors’ Reports, the Reports of the Plauen Handelskammer, the Italian inquests, and the reports about the growing industries of India and Japan are full of the same revelations as the Reports of the Parliamentary Commissions of 1840 to 1842, or the modern revelations with regard to the “sweating system” at Whitechapel and Glasgow, London pauperism, and York unemployment. The Capital and Labour problem is thus universalised; but, at the same time, it is also simplified. To return to a state of affairs where corn is grown, and manufactured goods are fabricated, _for the use of those very people who grow and produce them_--such will be, no doubt, the problem to be solved during the next coming years of European history. Each region will become its own producer and its own consumer of manufactured goods. But that unavoidably implies that, at the same time, it will be its own producer and consumer of agricultural produce; and that is precisely what I am going to discuss next. FOOTNOTES: [15] During the census of 1902, there were in Austria 1,408,000 industrial establishments, with 1,787,000 horse-power, giving occupation to 4,049,300 workpeople; 1,128,000 workpeople were engaged in manufactures in Hungary. [16] The net imports of raw cotton reached 1,180,000 cwts. in 1885, and 4,120,000 cwts. in 1908; the number of spindles grew from 880,000 in 1877 to 3,800,000 in 1907. The whole industry has grown up since 1859. In 1910 no less than 358,200 tons of pig-iron and 671,000 tons of steel were produced in Italy. The exports of textiles reached the following values in 1905-1910: Silks, from £17,800,000 to £24,794,000; cottons, £4,430,000 to £5,040,000; woollens, from £440,000 to £1,429,000. [17] _Times_, August 27, 1912. [18] _The Economist_, 12th May, 1894, p. 9: “A few years ago the Orizaba mills used entirely imported raw cotton; but now they use home-grown and home-spun cotton as much as possible.” [19] _Annuario Estadistico_, 1911. They consumed 34,700 tons of raw cotton, and produced 13,936,300 pieces of cotton goods, and 554,000 cwts. of yarn. [20] Schulze Gäwernitz, _The Cotton Trade_, etc., p. 123. [21] In 1882 they had 5,633 looms and 95,937 spindles. Thirteen years later these figures were already doubled--there being 10,600 looms and 216,000 spindles. Now, or rather in 1909-1910, we find 60 jute mills, with 31,420 looms, 645,700 spindles, and 204,000 workpeople. The progress realised in the machinery is best seen from these figures. The exports of jute stuffs from India, which were only £1,543,870 in 1884-1885, reached £11,333,000 in 1910-1911. (See Appendix H.) [22] _Textile Recorder_, 15th October, 1888.