INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 810, 9 September 1887, Page 19

INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES.

ro THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND MAIL. Sir, — I am not surprised that some folks don’t like statistics, especially when the authority is good and the facts tell against them. Here is a fact, not generally known, on the authority of “ M. L. Groulund,” author of “The Co-operative Commonwealth”: —“In 1880 the whole agricultural class in the United States (7,600,000 persons) did not create more wealth than the manufacturing operatives alone (2,700,000 in number). ” It therefore appears that the labor in the United States devoted to manufactures produces a value nearly treble that devoted to agriculture, hut it must not be forgotten, when speaking of operatives or the laboring class, that this kind of labor simply means the ordinary exercise of such ordinary powers as every .man on the average can learn to use. In addition to this labor, there is that of the working bees, consisting of men of inventive genius, exceptional spirit of enterprise, the kind of imagination that understands and anticipates public taste ; exceptional elasticity, vigor, and determination of character, Ac., &c. Altogether the number of people engaged, directly and indirectly, in manufacturing industries, and their contribution to the wealth of the United States, form no insignificant factor in the progress of that country.—l am, &c., J. Dransfield.