Pearling industry

“ In the second place, at the period we have now reached the towns devoted themselves far more to commerce than to industry. Few could be cited that appear thus early as manufacturing centres. The concentration of artisans within their walls is still incomplete. If their merchants export, along with the products of the soil, such as wine and grain, a quantity of manufactured products, such, for example, as cloth, it is more than probable that these were for the most part made in the country. ”

“ Thus, an association could load a car quickly, which few individual growers can do; pears are not now, but would be, graded and packed under one standard; more favorable transportation rates would be secured; and, most important of all, the pear crop would be distributed to the great markets of the country without the disastrous competition that attends individual marketing. If the pear industry is to grow in the State, pears must be largely marketed through the central packing associations that are now being rapidly organized to sell fruits. ”

“ The new industrial forces first applied to the cotton spinning of South Lancashire, and rapidly forcing their way into other branches of the textile manufactures, then more gradually transforming the industrial methods of the machinery, hardware, and other staple English manufactures, passed into the Western Continent of Europe and America, destroying the old domestic industry and establishing in every civilised country the reign of steam-driven machinery. ”

“ English weavers and spinners became very skilful and invented different mechanical aids for the production of yarn and cloth. These mechanical aids not only enabled one man to do twenty men’s work, but further utilization was made of water and steam power in place of manual labor. Then began the organization of the industry on a truly gigantic scale, combining capital and machinery and resulting in what is known as the factory system. ”

“ But you ought to remember," the Deputy Commissioner continued, "that the finding of an occasional pearl in an oyster or a mussel is of comparatively little importance, because it's an irregular sort of thing. The mother-of-pearl industry, however, is of big importance, it has an economic value to the country, and consequently it's our business to see that the natural resources are as wisely used as possible. We'll start a party out there on June fifteenth, so you can report here by that time." ”

“ And from these causes united, the mere separation of the occupation of the cultivator from that of the artificer has the effect of augmenting the productive powers of labor and with them the total mass of the produce or revenue of a country. In this single view of the subject, therefore, the utility of artificers or manufacturers toward promoting an increase of productive industry is apparent. ”

“ In the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Gulf of California, and the islands of the Pacific, where pearl-diving is a profession and a regular source of livelihood, the number of employees is fairly constant. But in the rivers and ponds of America, as well as of Europe and of Asia, where neither experience nor costly equipment is required for the industry, and pearls to the value of very many thousands of dollars are obtained by men, women, and even children, on pleasure bent, as well as in the widely fluctuating professional fisheries, the problem is far more difficult. ”

“ In 1890 Professor Marshall assigns a capital in plant amounting to about £200 or five years' wages for every man, woman, and child in a fully-equipped spinning mill. [105] In the typical modern industry, that of cotton-spinning and weaving, the increasing size is both continuous and rapid. The average number of spindles and looms to the single factory in 1850 and 1885 are as follows:—
Even these figures do not fully represent the facts, for they include considerable numbers of mills of the older sort, where spinning and weaving are carried on together. ”

“ Dredging is now quite common and is doing much to deplete the mussel-beds of the west. When one bed is completely divested of shells, the clammer moves on to another and repeats the process, so that the supply of fresh-water pearls is coming to depend on the constant discovery of new mussel-beds. Unless legislation regulates the industry the American supply will soon cease.
The cheapest fresh-water pearls in the market to-day are the finest. The pearlers along the streams of the west and south will no longer part with the pearls they find to the speculators at the old time prices. ”

“ Of the manufactured half-pearls there are, on an average, 20,528 to an ounce.
The half-pearl industry is largely carried on in Idar, on the Nahe 393River, and in Oberstein, in the Duchy of Oldenburg, Germany. The pearls are usually purchased from London or Paris houses in lots valued up to $12,000 or more, although some of the firms buy directly from India. In Idar about one hundred people are employed in this industry. Frequently it is pursued m the home of the manufacturer, who may employ from one to a dozen or more workers. ”

“ Not a month passes without seeing new manufactories of cement, carpets, soap, glass, umbrellas, hats, matches, watches, bicycles, smelting-works, electrical works, steel foundries, machine-shops of every sort. Nor is everything left to private enterprise; government steps in with liberal bounties. The silk industry, once confined to certain narrow districts, is fast spreading over the entire centre and south. ”

“ Even in the iron industry where could a line be drawn-at the end of mining the ore, the production of the pig-iron or steel ingots, when the rolling mill operation is completed, fabrication on order or at some stage of manufacture into standard merchandise? ”

“ Directly connected 372with the industry in localities where the fisheries are pursued are a sufficient number of persons to populate a city the size of Boston, and to these we may safely add an equal number as herein noted, aggregating about 1,000,000 people whose livelihood is directly dependent upon the production and traffic of the pearl industry, and who for lack of it would be forced to seek some other employment. ”

“ Beyond this, the demand for pearls, owing to the adoption of them as a fashion in the United States where a large proportion of the world's wealth is being created, has been stimulated to such a degree that the price of them has advanced in a greater ratio to the depreciation of gold and other forms of wealth than most commodities. ”

“ It is the seat of considerable manufactures, which throve amazingly under the imperial government, in consequence of the exclusion of the English commodities during the revolutionary wars. The linen manufacture is the staple branch of industry, and affords employment to the peasantry in their own houses, in every direction in the surrounding country, which is probably the cause of the thriving prosperous appearance by which they are distinguished. ”

“ In many localities the pursuit yields far less profit than pleasure, and many a man who spends a summer in pearling is in a fair way to spend the winter at the expense of some one else.
The pearls are collected for the trade by a score or more of buyers, who visit the fisheries at intervals and purchase of the individual fishermen by personal dickering and bargaining. The buyers endeavor to keep informed of all choice pearls discovered, and when an especially valuable find is reported each one endeavors to have the first chance to secure it. ”

“ Numerous mills, both large and small, manufacturing, principally, goods of a staple grade, which may either be of fine or coarse character, sell their entire product in the gray, or unfinished state, because they do not wish to burden themselves with the task of putting the goods through the various finishing treatments necessary to fit them for the market. This method of disposing of the product appeals to many for it reduces the manufacturing operations to the spinning of the yarn, and to the weaving of the cloth. ”

“ The public is quickly apprised of the valuable finds, but it does not hear of the time and labor lost by the hundreds who are unsuccessful. Pearling excitement has many of the features of a mining craze. While a few are benefited, hundreds are made poorer, and in many instances 277reduced to absolute want. Persons have given up their established business to devote their time to pearling, staking all on the aleatory profits, and have squandered days and months in the hope that one great, immense, all-rewarding find will be made. ”

“ A large number of choice pearls weighing over thirty grains each were found in the vicinity of Prairie du Chien and McGregor. Within a river length of one hundred miles in that region, the fishermen in 1904 gathered pearls which ultimately sold for $300,000. It is therefore apparent that the returns vary greatly in the different regions; nevertheless, even in the less productive localities fine pearls are sometimes found, which contribute to make the industry a profitable one. ”

“ Such are all the factories for woodwork, which have on the average only fifteen men per establishment, but represent a contingent of more than 100,000 workmen and more than 6,000 employers. The tanneries, the manufacture of all sorts of little things in ivory and bone, and even the brick-works and the potteries, representing a total of 260,000 workpeople and 11,200 employers, belong, with a very few exception, to the small industry. ”

“ Numbers of the people are constantly engaged in the pearl-fishery. The value, of each pearl, approximately reckoned by its size, is stamped upon it by the Government mint, and is exchangeable for a given amount of the less valuable money. ”

“ The number of good pearls which they generally get is small compared with the great toil of getting them. It follows that, on the average, they must receive a high price for what they do find, otherwise they would not have adequate wages for such work. But this alone is not a sufficient reason for the pearls being so valuable, otherwise the mother of pearl shells, in which the pearls are found, and brought up, would be as valuable as the pearls. ”

“ And these best possible conditions, as far as the employees are concerned, are also the best possible conditions from the manufacturing standpoint. One could not put a great plant on a little stream. One can put a small plant on a little stream, and the combination of little plants, each making a single part, will make the whole cheaper than a vast factory would. There are exceptions, as where casting has to be done. In such case, as at River Rouge, we want to combine the making of the metal and the casting of it and also we want to use all of the waste power. ”

“ The characteristic traits of this era are the handicraft industry and the petty trade which handled the output of that industry, with the trade gradually coming into a position of discretionary management, and even dominating the industry of the craftsmen to such an extent that by the date when the technology of handicraft begins to give way to the factory organisation and the machine industry the workmen are already somewhat fully under the control of the businessmen. ”

“ Again, if it were merely a question of labour, a diver might go down anywhere, and, bringing up the first stone or shell he found, insist on selling it for a high price, because he had dived for it. The truth is, that pearls are valuable because there are many ladies who have not got pearl necklaces, and who would like to have them; and those who have some pearls would like to get more and finer ones. ”

“ The cupidity of many of the American pearl finders and pearl dealers cannot be exceeded even by that of the foreign pearl finder in any other land, and this is shown by the variety of materials that from time to time are sold to the unsuspecting public, or that are sent to pearl dealers in the large cities. ”

“ And the great cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this,—that we manufacture everything there except men; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our estimate of advantages. ”

“ In those mills making the finest grades of paper, much of the process of thrashing, beating, dusting, and cleaning necessary in the ordinary mill is omitted. The cleanliness and brightness which are reached only at the "washer" and "beater" engines in the process of manufacturing the lower grades of paper from cheaper rags, prevail at every step in these higher grade mills. ”

“ Our returns do not represent the annual output of pearls in the values best known to gem buyers. The difference in price between pearls in the fisherman’s hands in the Persian Gulf or at the Pacific islands, and that for which they are exchanged over the counters in New York or Paris, is nearly as great as the difference in value of wool on the sheep’s back and of the same material woven into fashionable fabrics. ”

“ Sites for pear-orchards should be sought for in localities where there are pears enough grown for a central packing association; near a shipping center where the haul is short and over good roads; the freight service should be prompt, regular, and efficient, with low freight and good refrigerator service; labor should be abundant and not too expensive; and the markets should be several and so located that they are not controlled by growers in regions more advantageously situated. ”

“ Pearling has attractions of an unique character. Its rewards, though fluctuating, are generally profitable, and the Warden by industrious attention and energy converted a bare profit into a handsome remuneration. ”