ucts as clothing, men's furnishings, women's apparel, leather goods, jewelry and ornaments, linen and wash articles are favored, while in rural, woodland and mountainous districts, as in middle and southwest Germany, household articles are produced such as wooden articles, knit goods, brushes, toys, embroideries, clocks, violins and the like. Manufactured farm, meat and dairy products are also largely produced in the rural districts rather than in packing establishments. The drift to the cities has been affected by and has affected the industrial situa tion. The invention of labor-saving agricul tural machinery and processes of cultivation have increased the productivity of the farms at a saving of labor, though the increased demand for food by reason of the growing population has somewhat offset the freeing of agricultural laborers for other pursuits by reason of such improvements.
The industrial censuses of 1882, 1895 and 1907 show the extent of the drift to the cities. The total number of persons employed in agri culture, industry, trade and transportation was as follows: This indicates an increase in the propor tion of persons employed in these activities, which may be accounted for by the fact that the size of families has decreased while the population has increased, there being fewer de pendent members of the family in the later years than in the earlier years, compared with the whole population.
The decrease in the proportion of depend ents of those engaged in agricultural pursuits while the proportion of dependents in Industry and trade, however, as shown by the following table, is due more to the fact that Germany has enjoyed a considerable immigration of adult farm laborers and to the fact that much of the agricultural labor is performed by a float ing class of adults, workers who drift into other occupations during dull seasons of the agricultural year. The following table shows the distribution of workers among the main branches of industry.
ural growth of the population into a source of increasing wealth. The prosperity and activity of German industry has caused the earnings of workers to be increased materially until in actual amounts, as well as in purchasing power, the German industrial worker is the best paid worker of his class in Europe.
Germany's great progress brings more and more completely into effect the signal charac teristic of modern industry, that of the division of labor and the association of labor. Division
of labor is the giving to each worker of a single form of work in which he becomes highly profi cient while association of labor is the bringing together of workers, each performing his own special task, into a group which produces a finished product in the most efficient manner through the economies effected by the division of the several operations and the combination of their results. The tendency of the associa tion of labor is toward larger and larger groups. Thus certain factories own their own mines and transportation facilities so that from the time the ore is taken from the earth until the finished mechanism or product into which it is transformed by the successive operations to which it is subjected is delivered to the pur chaser, the whole procedure is carried out by the one concern.
It appears, therefore, that of all persons en gaged in gainful employments in 1882, 59 per cent were employed in small concerns, 18.5 per cent were employed in medium and 22.5 per cent in large concerns. In 1907, on the other hand, only 37.3 per cent were employed in small concerns, 25.7 per cent in the medium concerns and 37 per cent in the large concerns. Whereas, therefore, more than two and one-half times In connection with this readjustment the displacement as between the population of coun try and city is to be noted. In 1885, 8,600,000 persons or 18.4 per cent of the whole population lived in cities of more than 20,000 inhabitants, while in 1910 22,400,000 persons or 34.5 per cent of the whole population lived in such cities. The number of inhabitants in the large cities of more than 100,000 population, of which there were 21 in 1885 and 48 in 1910, amounted in 1885 to 4,400,000 persons or 9.4 per cent of the whole population and in 1910 to 13,800, 000 persons or 21.1 per cent of the whole popu lation. While there are certain drawbacks to this shifting of the population, it has been the factor which has made it possible to give labor and sustenance on German soil to the vastly increased population and to transform the nat as many persons were employed in small con cerns in 1882 as there were in large ones, the two classes had almost reached an exact equal ity by 1907. From 1882 to 1907 the number of persons engaged in small undertakings increased not quite one-fourth, whereas the number in the great concerns increased more than threefold, and those in the very largest concerns four and one-half fold.