Taking Mulhall’s figures for the other countries which he includes, as presented in a table on another page of this text, it will be seen that the chief growth in manufacturing during the 116 years covered by the table under consideration has occurred in the last third of the period. English manufactures, he says, grew from 177 million pounds sterling to 290 million in the 40-year period from 1780 to 1820; from 290 to 577 million in the next 40 years, from 1820 to 1860; and from 577 to 976 million in the 36 years from 1860 to 1896--a growth of 113 million pounds sterling in the first 40 years, of 287 million in the second 40 years, and of 400 million in the third period of 36 years. Germany showed a more rapid growth in the third period; the growth in the first 40-year period being from 50 million pounds sterling to 85 million; in the second 40-year period, from 85 to 310 million; and in the third period, of 36 years only, from 310 to 690 million. France has not made as rapid a gain as Germany, the figures showing her products in 1780, 147 million pounds sterling; in 1840, 220 million; in 1860, 380 million; and in 1896, 596 million.
The total of Mulhall’s table, including the somewhat over-estimated figures of the United States, and relating chiefly to the products of Europe and the United States, show total manufactures of all the countries named, in 1780, 480 million pounds sterling; in 1820, 865 million; in 1860, 2,404 million; and in 1896, 5,710 million, again indicating that the chief growth has occurred in the last third of the period under consideration, the period of transformation from the hand industries to those of machine production in conjunction with vast sums of capital and plentiful transportation facilities for collecting the raw material and distributing the finished product.
When we consider nations or groups of people and their use of modern 209 methods of manufacturing, we may properly say that the principal manufacturing sections of the world are western Europe and the United States, and that, as above indicated, the bulk of the world’s manufactures by the factory process are now produced in those two sections of the world. Manufacturing by machinery may perhaps be said to have originated in England, spreading thence to France, to Germany, and westward to the United States. More recently it has extended in a somewhat limited form into Canada in the west and India and Japan at the extreme east. India has utilized modern methods of manufacture, especially in cottons and certain other industries, for more than a score of years, while the one other country of the Orient which has as yet entered the field of machine manufacture, Japan, though somewhat later in adopting machine methods, has been more active and extended modern manufacturing to a much greater variety of industries than have the people of India.