Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/66

 54 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

industrial purposes in 1871 amounted to 791,389 tons; in 1899 it had risen to almost 5,000,000 tons. Metallurgy, the basis of modern industry, was in a primitive condition in Italy some thirty years ago. Today it has developed to such a degree as to emancipate the country entirely from foreign production in the two typical lines of naval and railway construction. We have the splendid dockyards of Ansaldo at Sestri Levante, of Orlando at Leghorn, of Armstrong at Pozzuoli. They not only supply the material for our navy, but do a large exportation business. Their armor plates and artillery supplies have won quite a repu- tation abroad. As for the railroad industry, Terni and Savona furnish the rails, while the great factories of Meda in Milan, Diotto in Turin, and those belonging to the Mediterranean Rail- road Co. furnish the locomotives and the cars. The wonderful development of these two great industries has acted as a power- ful ferment of activity in other directions. We cannot mention in detail the different industries that have grown up during the last twenty years. Among the most important we might recall the chemical industries, the manufacture of paper, that of sugar. The growth of the textile industries has been altogether remark- able. There is a steady increase in the importation of raw material, while, at the same time, the exportation of the manu- factured article has greatly exceeded the importation. The sur- plus of exportation of silk dress and piece goods was 141,000 kilos in 1894; it had reached 746,000 in 1900. Together with the growth of the various industries goes the development of the merchant marine. In 1890 the tonnage of steam vessels of our marine was 186,000; in 1899 it had risen to 315,000. The ton- nage of Italian vessels entered and cleared at Italian ports in 1896 was over 6,000,000; in 1900 it had risen to 20,000,000. In the same year the tonnage of Italian vessels entered and cleared at American ports was 864,483, which exceeds the French tonnage for the same period by 89,08s. 1

1 There are, of course, other signs of the economic development of Italy, such as the increase in the number of steam engines employed in industry, the increase in the number of hydraulic and hydro-electric plants, the increase in the importation of machineries, the increase in the number of commercial corporations, etc. We cannot give a detailed statement of figures. The reader desirous of obtaining fuller informa-