The new industrial revolution and wages

Cost of living in German towns

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1804651486

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-193069

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Lauck, William Jett http://d-nb.info/gnd/173237126

Title:: The new industrial revolution and wages

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: Funk & Wagnalls

Year of publication:: 1929

Scope:: ix, 308 S.; graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VI. Abandonment of the cost-of-living and supply-and-demand theories

Collection:: Economics Books

BOCHUM. Bochum is one of the largest towns in the Prussian province of Westphalia and is a principal seat of the coal and iron industry in North Germany. It is one of the many towns whose great expansion has taken place in the last thirty years. In 1871 its population but slightly exceeded 20,000 ; since then it has nearly quadrupled, and the incorporation in 1904 of several industrial suburbs— Hamme, Hofstede, Gramme, and Wiemelhausen—brought the population at the census of December, 1905, to 118,464. The incorporation increased the municipal area from 1,558 to 6,518 acres. Bochum is in the midst of a large number of coal mines, and itself rests upon land which has long been worked for minerals at all depths and in every direction. There are other industries,—chemical, cement, brewing and distilling, hardware, &c.,—but coal and iron dominate every other interest and give to the town and district, as to Westphalia generally, a distinctive and unmistakable character. For the purposes of the legislation governing the inspection of industries and trades the Bochum mining district is divided into a northern and a southern section ; the production of coal in North Bochum in 1905 was 3,807,337 tons and in South Bochum 2,088,358 tons, while the production of coke was 1,012,807 tons and 738,581 tons respec tively. The production of the entire Dortmund district, to which Bochum belongs, was 65,374,000 tons of coal, 11,277,000 tons of coke, and 2,158,000 tons of briquettes. Next in importance are the smelting and iron and steel works, the latter multifarious in output, though special attention is given to loco motives, machinery of the larger kinds, waggon building, rough and fine plate iron, pipes, smaller ordnance, and railway material generally. The following Table shows the population at the last seven censuses, and also the increase in population in each intercensal period :— Census Year. 1871 1875 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1905 Population. 21,193 28,368 33,440 40,767 47,601 53,812 65,551 118,464 Intercensal Increase. 7,175 5,072 7,327 6,834 6,241 11,709 52,913 Increase per cent. 33'9 17-9 219 16 8 13*1 217 80-7 The growth of Bochum during the past fifty years has involved the trans formation of an insignificant agricultural town into a busy centre of industry and commerce. Just over half a century has passed since the founding (November! 1854) of the well-known iron and steel works (with which "collieries and smelting works are combined) known by the collective name " Bochumer Verein ” and the history of this great undertaking is virtually the history of Bochum. Ihe pnncipal workshops of the Verein are still in the heart of the town, though, indeed, they may be said to form, with the extensive blocks of workmen’s dwellings adjacent to them, a distinct industrial settlement. When these works were established Bochum was in the main a community of peasants and small traders, whose. houses were of the type characteristic of rural West phalia to-day—half-timber-work (“ Fachwerk ” ) structures of one or two stories, with high roofs and diminutive windows, and rooms few and small. lf fy y ears a g° a whole street of such peasants houses stood where trafile is now busiest. Scattered throughout the town a hose of them still survive, a reminder of the time when Bochum was a rural commune and interested chiefiy in agriculture. Many of these old half-timber-work houses, strung together by stout oaken beams, stand on the street line, but others are hidden away behind modern buildings ; standing back with plenty of open space to spare,

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