LECTURE VI.THE GREAT TOWNS, THEIR INDUSTRIES ANDCOMMERCE.
THE GREAT TOWNS, THEIR INDUSTRIES ANDCOMMERCE.
1.Group of Tin Miners.
2.Tin Mine Shaft.
3.Four Hundred Fathom Level, Dolcoath.
4.Tin Mine Boring Machine.
5.In a Tin Mine.
Fivehundred, six hundred, and seven hundred years ago Britain was what Australia is now. It supplied nearly the whole of Europe with wool. As we have seen in the last lecture, the agriculture and the pasture of Britain are still important, but now, of course, Britain’s fame is chiefly as a mining, an industrial, and a commercial country. Even in antiquity there was one part of the land which was important on account of its mines. The oldest mines of Britain are tin mines, and they are still worked, although the tin of the world is now mainly got in the Malay Peninsula, and the neighbouring islands. Singapore is now the great tin port of the world, but at no very distant time tin was obtained almost exclusively in Britain—in that part of it which forms the rocky peninsula of Cornwall stretching out into the western seas. The Cornish miners, though they no longer find much employment in Cornwall, are the most skilled miners of gold in South Africa. So we find within the British Empire three districts which are very closely related to one another by the bond of tin: Cornwall in England, the Malay Peninsula, and the gold mines of South Africa. Here is a group of Cornish miners, men from whose race have come not a few leaders in other parts of the Empire. These are two of them descending a shaft into the depths of the earth to work for tin. One of the deepest mines in the world is in Cornwall. And here is a passage in the depths of the earthwith rails laid for trolleys to run along, carrying the ore which is to be raised to the surface and there treated, so that from rock is obtained shining metallic tin. In this slide we see miners at work on the face of the rock, drilling holes in the hard stone into which explosives are inserted with the object of shattering the stone and splitting the ore into fragments that can be handled. Observe with how little clothing they work, for at these depths the temperature is high. Our final scene in a tin mine is comparatively near to the surface.
6.Map showing Coalfields of United Kingdom.
7.Map showing distribution of Population about the Coalfields.
But, although some tin is still got, tin mines are now relatively unimportant in the life of the country. There has developed in Britain in the last century and a-half a vast system of industries based, not merely on the use of human muscles, but on power derived from the burning of coal. Here is a map showing, in black, the coalfields of Britain. They lie chiefly in South Wales, in the Midlands, in the North of England, and in Central Scotland. Those of Ireland produce but little. Compare this map with the next, which shows, in red, all the districts of denser population. It is obvious that of all the larger areas coloured red, only the London district is devoid of coal, and coal can easily be brought to London by sea. These facts tell us at once that in their modern growth the activities of the British population are based chiefly upon coal. Three-quarters of all the people in Britain live within the areas coloured pink, which measure not more than about one-twentieth of the British Isles. In the main, therefore, Britain is a country of town and factory populations, and in lesser degree only of agricultural and fishing people. A hundred years ago the population of the whole British Islands was not more than 16 millions,and it was mainly agricultural. To-day it numbers 43 millions, and is mainly industrial.
8.A seam at Glasgow dissected to show the origin of Coal.
Coal is won from the depths of the earth, where it is laid in great sheets, which are known as coal seams, and these are underlaid and overlaid by the solid rock. Immediately under each coal seam there is usually a layer of clay, and if you examine that clay you will often find in it, here and there, threads of coal penetrating downward from the seam above. These are obviously the blackened roots of trees. Sometimes, in the coal itself, you will find complete stumps of trees preserved. For, in fact, the coal seams are nothing more than the buried, rotten forests of vastly ancient times. You know that in our great tropical forests when the wood rots it turns brown, and even black. Wherever wood grows old in the use of men it darkens. So we see that though the climate of Britain is cold, and though vegetation does not grow with the same colossal power as when driven by tropical rain and heat, yet buried deep in the rocks of Britain there is compensation in the shape of ancient timber called coal. The sunshine and rain of far-off times are thus the chief bases of British prosperity, just as the sunshine and rain of to-day are the chief bases of our prosperity in the tropics.
Most of the industries of Britain are in the North or North Midlands. In these parts, you will remember, we are mainly away from the better agricultural districts. The smiling fertile cornfields and rich lowland meadows are replaced by bleak uplands with stone walls and few trees.
9.Colliers’ houses.
Here is a row of cottages where dwell colliers of the north of England. What a contrast with the homes of the agricultural labourers which we saw in the last lecture! And yet the colliers who work in the coal mines are much better paid than the labourers on the farms.
10.View of Colliery above ground.
This is a coal mine, or, as it is called, a colliery. Here is the chimney of the pumping station which lifts water from the mine, lest it should be flooded by underground springs. The same engine is used to raise the coal to the surface.
11.The Pit-mouth.
Next we come into the yard of the colliery, to the pit-mouth itself. These colliers have done their spell of work, and have just come to the surface again, all blackened and grimy with coal dust. Each of them holds a small lamp of a special kind. It is so made that the flame cannot pass out, even though the lamp be upset. The object is to prevent explosions of the coal gas which is often disengaged in the mine. Occasionally the colliers are careless and open the lamps, and as a consequence we sometimes hear of a terrible explosion with great loss of life.
12.In the Cage.
13.At work on a four-foot Seam.
14.Levelling in a Coal Mine.
This is the cage ascending to the surface, bringing miners begrimed with coal dust, and each carrying his lamp and his can of liquid needed for drink in the depths of the earth, because the heat is there great, and there is much perspiration from labour. Next we see the actual working of the mine. The roof is supported by timbers, which are now brought to Britain from foreign countries in great quantity, because Britain is so populous that men cannot afford the space for the forests in which to grow the wood needed for the mines. Note the vertical thickness of the coal. It is to this that the towering forest of former times has been compressed in its ruin. Here with his lamp hung to one of the posts is the miner, stripped to his work, using his pickaxe to detach the lumps of coal. And here, finally, with the seam of coal more plainly visible than in the darker corner we have just left, are miners occupied in levelling, and so guiding the course of the tunnel. Thecoal is taken in trucks from the face where it is worked to the foot of the shaft, and thence raised to the surface.
We must now consider the uses to which the coal of England is put. We have already seen it exported to drive British ships in foreign seas. We have also noted the chimneys to the houses in Britain, which are warmed by coal fires. But the chief use is in the industries which give employment to so many millions of the British people.
15.Rope making.
Now, the industries are chiefly textile, or of iron and steel. Men require clothing, and this is mostly woven or textile; and they require tools with which to work, and these are chiefly of iron and steel. Here is the simplest form of textile industry—the manufacture of ropes and mats. All the textiles are made of fibres, which are mostly got either from the stalks and other fibrous parts of plants, or from the wool and hair of animals. In olden times men clothed themselves with skins, and still do in some barbarous lands; but in these days nearly all the world wears clothes that are woven, that is to say, that are made of fibres laid across one another and interlaced so that they form a sheet of material. The roughest fibres are fit for the making of rope. By the weaving of rope, mats of one sort or another are manufactured. Here we have a factory for rope and mat making. The fibres are being laid straight, and side by side, in the machinery. We notice that the machines are driven by endless straps, worked from a long shaft running through the top of the shed. The shaft is rotated by the action of a steam engine, which is, of course, driven by the burning of coal. Now, since the machinery was made with the help of coal-heat, it follows that coal has been utilised twice over in this process—for the making and also for the driving of the machinery. One other thing we notice, the number of women employed to control the machinery. Women used formerly to spin and weave cloth in their own homes. With the introduction of machinery and steam-power they now have to perform the same work in factories.
16.Linen Spinning Mill.
17.Dobbie Loom.
18.Jacquard Loom.
There are two essential processes in all textile manufacture—spinningand weaving. In its simplest form spinning is the making of rope, and weaving is the interlacing of rope in two directions for the purpose of making a mat. When the rope is a delicate thread we call it yarn, and when the mat is a fine cotton or linen fabric we call it cloth. Here we have a linen mill seen from outside, and here a loom for the weaving of the spun flax. A power loom driven by steam can do the work of very many pairs of hands. See the spindles on which the yarn is wound, and the cloth coming from the loom. In a hand loom there would be but a single spindle. So that you can imagine the immense multiplication of power due to machinery. Here is another kind of loom. Note, again, the endless straps and the overhead shafting connected with the engine.
19.A Bradford Mill.
20.Wool Spinning.
21.Cotton Spinning.
Let us glance for just a moment at this larger mill, at this wool-spinning room, and at this cotton-spinning room. They require no further description, for they merely differ in scale from those we have already studied.
22.Glass Blowing.
23.Glass Blowing.
And now we will turn from the making of textiles, which employs several millions of the inhabitants of Britain, and gives rise to perhaps the largest single trade of Britain, the cotton trade. Let us turn from that to consider the other great group of the industries, those which are based essentially on the melting of metals by the heat got from coal. One of the simplest and one of the oldest forms of this is the making and blowing of glass. It is true that glass is not a metal, but for industrial purposes it has many properties somewhat similar to those of metals. It can be melted, for instance, and worked while hot. Here we have a man engaged in blowing glass which has been melted by the use of coal. And here,when he has blown the bottle, he is shaping it with tools.
24.Pottery making.
25.Pottery making.
A somewhat similar industry, although not involving the melting of the material in the first instance, is the making of pottery. Pottery was formerly made in the homes of the people, and the potter’s wheel was worked by the foot, as it still is in the East. But nowadays the wheels upon which the pots are shaped are driven by steam. Here we have women at work upon pottery. And in the next slide are men engaged upon a similar process, but their tools are driven by the foot. The pottery that is being made in this instance is of the costly kind, which is produced in small quantity, and demands artistic labour. It requires so little power that it is not worth while to drive the machinery by steam. In large measure steam has not replaced human skill for the very finest work.
But the most important by far of the industries which are based on the use of coal for the melting of the raw material are those which deal with iron and steel.
26.Blast Furnace.
27.Rolling Steel.
Here we have a group of blast furnaces, where the iron ore is mixed with coal and burnt. The molten iron flows out from the bottom of the furnace and cools into long blocks known as “pigs.” It would be impossible to show all the processes through which the pig iron is passed in the manufacture of the many wares made of iron and steel. Let us glance at a very few. Here we have a man inserting a white-hot, thick, short block of metal into a machine. He will lift it from that plate with his pincers and will insert it under the roller. The roller, crushing it, will reduce it in thickness and will greatly elongate it to this hot flexible rope. When cold, a steel rod will be the result.
28.Making an Armour Plate.
Next we see a great sheet of steel coming out of the furnace, not melted but white hot. This is to be usedas an armour plate on a battleship. We see how that the men are clothed and masked for the purpose of standing the heat, and how that they are armed with tools appropriate for the handling of the hot metal.
29.Steam Hammer.
In this slide hot blocks of metal are being hammered under a steam hammer. Again we notice that the man is clothed and masked in order that the heat may not injure him. The hammer is descending rapidly with repeated blows upon these two pieces of white hot metal, and, striking them as a blacksmith will strike two pieces of iron on his anvil, it forces them together and welds them into a single piece. Now we must remember that coal is here used no less than four times. It heats the metal to be forged, it raises the hammer, and beforehand it was used in the smelting of the metal from its ore, and also in the making of the hammer.
30.Boring a large Gun.
31.Building an Ironclad.
32.S.S. “Oceanic” in Dock.
33.The launching of an Ironclad.
But the rolling of plates and bars of steel, and the hammering of blocks of hot metal together, are but the first and roughest processes in the highly complicated industries whereby from rocks of the earth are obtained those wonderful complicated tools of civilization which we call railways, and bridges, and locomotive engines, and mail steamers, and battleships, and guns, and—perhaps most delicate of all—the machine-tools used in factories for the making of machinery. Let us consider a few instances of these more advanced processes. Here we see one of the finest exhibitions of power—the boring of a steel gun while cold. Next we see the building of a battleship, also made of steel. Then follows the sight of the screws of a great ship. These screws are made of the most finely tempered metal, lest they should break under the constant strain to which they are exposed. Finally we have here the launching of a battleship—an occasion of rejoicing and holiday at theclose of a year’s task. As she floats she displaces perhaps 15,000 tons of water. The great ship is of steel from end to end. It is the product of the work of thousands of people—the colliers who got the coal from the colliery; the miners who got the iron ore from the mine; the makers of iron who smelted the iron from the ore; the makers of steel who converted the iron into steel; the rollers of bars and plates, the builders of the ship and the builders of the engines. Presently there will have to be added also the builders of the guns. Then we must not forget the people who made the machinery wherewith these people worked, and also the people who built the houses, and made the clothes, and grew the food, which they needed for their living. Thus a whole society of people is required to construct the ships which defend the Empire of the King.
Let us turn for a moment to consider the large towns in which the British industries are carried on. We have here a phase of the national life very different from the quiet existence of the little market towns which we saw in the last Lecture. Outside London, there are some twenty very large towns in the British Isles. There are three of them—Glasgow, Liverpool-Birkenhead, and Manchester-Salford, each of which has a million people.
34.Men Leaving Works.
35.A Hospital Interior.
36.A School Interior.
37.A Public Park.
38.The Municipal Buildings, Glasgow.
This is a crowd of workers, pouring out of a factory at the close of their work. Do you note the tall chimneys of the factory in the background? There are probably a hundred other factories in the neighbourhood. You may imagine the organisation that is needed to supply the wants of these great populations. Food must be gathered from the country districts and from distant parts of the world, and must be brought in daily to the crowded areas where millions of men live and little or no food is grown. And all the wants of the people must be attended to on a similar great scale. Here, for instance, is a hospital, in which the workers who chance to be injured in thepursuit of their daily duties are tended. Do you see the nurses moving about between the beds? This is a school where the children are taught. Every child is compelled by law to receive instruction. And this is a park such as have been provided for recreation in the great provincial towns—Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow, and others. Here, finally, we have the Town Hall in the centre of one of these towns, whence a million of people are governed, and where in these times even the generation of electricity for the supply of the factories is organized. Note the monuments erected to commemorate the services of those citizens, who either locally in the town, or in the Government in London, or in the parts of the Empire beyond the seas, have deserved well of people and King.
One thing more remains to be considered. We have seen something of the metropolis, something of the rural districts, the small country towns, the fishing ports, and the great industrial towns. But, in these days, the whole land of Britain is knit closely into a single community by the facts that the greater part of its food and raw material for manufacture must be distributed from the seaports, that modern means of communication have so reduced space within the islands that almost every village has a telegraph office, and that the extreme ends of the island are not more than 24 hours apart by express train. Let us look at a few aspects of these most recent developments.
39.Corn Mill, exterior.
40.Corn Mill, interior.
41.Packing Biscuits at Reading.
42.Locomotive Engine, Great Western Railway.
43.Four-line Track with London and North Western Express.
44.In a Travelling Post Office.
Here is a large corn mill, and here the interior of such a mill. The grain is lifted from the importing ship and carried on these straps, running on rollers, to the place where it is to be stored. And here is a scene of interest to all Britons who go to the remoter frontiers of the Empire. It represents the packing of biscuits in tin boxes for export.The food having been imported is carried into all the land by railways. The British railways are, of course, relatively short, but run through dense populations, and are probably the most efficient in the world. Here is a recent express engine capable of hauling a passenger train without stopping for 300 miles. Next we see such an express running on a four-line track and picking up water for its boiler from troughs laid between the rails. Time is very valuable in Britain. Here, as an instance, is the interior of a travelling post office, which runs on express trains. The letters are sorted on the road, and the mail bags thrown out and caught up at fixed points while the train runs.
45.The Forth Bridge.
Perhaps the grandest feat of engineering in connection with the British railways is the Forth Bridge. See how small the houses appear when compared with it.
46.Electric Power Station, Chelsea.
47.Electric Train on Metropolitan District Railway.
But another revolution in all the conditions of British life is now preparing. Electricity is being used to distribute power from great fixed engines, and locomotive steam engines have already been displaced on the shorter lines. Here is part of the interior of the largest power station in the world, where is generated the electricity for four railways which traverse London. This is the boiler house, with automatic stokers. And last we have an electric train. You note the absence of a locomotive.
Thus we see how the 43 million people of Britain co-operate in a single vast complex machine. But we must remember that it is not only the present generation which has made Britain such as we see it, but many millions in the past, the results of whose work we of to-day have inherited.