4G
Modern Business Geography
What is true of England in Europe is true of New England in the
United States. Being the first to start industries, she still maintains
her supremacy in many lines, although other places are equally advan-
tageous so far as other conditions are concerned. Manufactures of
cotton, woolen, linen, and jute goods, brass ware, and boots and shoes
are lines in which New England is still preéminent, and in many of
which her cities have persistently maintained the lead: for example,
Lynn and Brockton in the shoe industry; Lawrence in the woolen
industry ; Fall River, New Bedford, and Lowell in the cotton indus-
try; and Waterbury in brass ware.
The cobperation of many factors in manufacturing. The location
of most manufacturing industries is influenced by nearly all the eight
conditions described in this chapter. When the silk industry of Pat-
erson, for instance, is used to illustrate the influence of a cheap labor
supply, it is merely because that condition exerts the greatest influence.
Paterson is not far from the coal mines, it has excellent transportation
facilities, it is near the great New York market, and it is able to avail
itself of abundant capital. But so far as the silk industry is concerned,
the labor factor is the most important.
When a business man establishes a manufacturing plant, he must
take into account the ability and energy of the people, the climate,
the supply of fuel or water power, the nature of the raw material, the
transportation facilities, the location and character of his market,
the labor supply, and the possibility of obtaining capital. Many men
avoid the necessity of thinking about all these conditions by starting
business or factories where a given line of business has already been
successful ; but they run the risk of failing, for conditions keep chang-
ing.
THE GREAT MANUFACTURING REGIONS OF THE WORLD
The conditions described in the preceding pages have much to do
with the distribution of manufacturing, as shown in Figure 162. Areas
of highly intensive manufacturing, where nearly half the workers and
more than a fifth of all the inhabitants are engaged in industrial work,
are limited to a small area in northwestern Europe near the North
Sea, and a still smaller area in the United States. Areas where more
than five per cent of the total population are engaged in manufacturing,
the lightly shaded areas in Figure 162, are found only around the more
intensive areas, and in the Pacific states, Japan, southeastern Aus-
tralia, and Argentina. When we remember that practically everyone
uses manufactured goods, and that iron for machinery, coal for fuel,
