The redistribution of mankind / by H.N. Dickson.

  • Dickson, H. N. (Henry Newton), 1866-1922.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The redistribution of mankind / by H.N. Dickson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    northern Italy into one of the world’s great industrial regions. Chis- holm gives an estimate of a possible supply of power amounting to 3,000,000 horsepower, and says that of this about one-tenth was already being utilized in the year 1900. But assuming again, with Sir William Ramsay, that coal must con- tinue to be the chief source of energy, it is clear that the question of accessibility now wears an entirely different aspect. It is not alto- gether beyond reason to imagine that the necessity for mining, as such, might entirely disappear, the coal being burnt in situ and energy converted directly into electricity. In this way some coal fields might conceivably be exhausted to their last pound without serious increase in the cost of getting. But for the present it is enough to note that, however inaccessible any coal field may be from supplies of raw material, it is only necessary to establish generating stations at the pit’s mouth and transport the energy to where it can be used. One may imagine, for example, vast manufactures carried on in what are now the immense agricultural regions of China, worked by power supplied from the great coal deposits of Shansi. There is, however, another peculiarity of electrical power which will exercise increasing influence upon the geographical distribution of industries. The small electric motor is a much more efficient ap- paratus than the small steam engine. We are, accordingly, already becoming familiar with the great factory in which, instead of all tools being huddled together to save loss through shafting and belting, and all kept running all the time, whether busy or not (because the main engine must be run), each tool stands by itself and is worked by its own motor, and that only when it is wanted. Another of the causes of concentration of manufacturing industry is therefore re- duced in importance. We may expect to see the effects of this be- coming more and more marked as time goes on, and other forces working toward uniform distribution make themselves more felt. • The points to be emphasized so far, then, are, first, that the time when the available areas whence food supply, as represented by wheat, is derived are likely to be taxed to their full capacity within a period of about the same length as that during which the modern colonial system has been developing in the past; secondly, that cheap supplies of energy may continue for a longer time, although eventu- ally they must greatly diminish; and, thirdly, there must begin in the near future a great equalization in the distribution of population. This equalization must arise from a number of causes. More intensive cultivation will increase the amount of labor required in agriculture, and there will be less difference in the cost of production and yield due to differences of soil and climate. Manufacturing industries will be more uniformly distributed, because energy, obtained from a larger number of sources in the less accessible places, will be distrib-
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