OCR Text |
Show INDUSTRIES WILL DRIFT TO SMALL CENTERS That there will be in the future a drift of manufacturing industry in-dustry to the smaller cities and towns of the conntry is the opinion expressed by the National Republic, Washington, which says: "It seems possible that the movement for consolidation of industry in-dustry has reached its peak and that from now on there will be a tendency toward the division of industry into smaller units. The Iron Age prints figures showing that the average return on stock-, holders' investments in large steel plants comprising 67 per cent of the country's ingot capacity, was 5.9 per cent. Investment return is not largest in the largest companies. Average return on invest- . ment in the country's six largest companies was 6.89 per cent. By contrast seven small companies of the major group earned 1 7. 1 6 per cent last year. Well-managed small companies seem to have a larger earning capacity than the huge companies, in which, however, how-ever, there is doubtless better stabiliation of earning power. It is interesting to note that the breaking up of the shoe industry into smaller units has already taken place. Massachusetts made forty-one forty-one per cent of the shoes manufactured in the United States in 1915. Now that state produces from 22 to 25 per cent of American Amer-ican shoes. During the same period shoe production in New York rose from 13 to 2 1 per cent and in Missouri from 8 to 1 7 per cent. The drop in shoe production in New Hampshire has been four million mil-lion pairs a year, while the increase in Illinois has been eight million mil-lion pairs a year. Shoe manufacturing plants have sprung up in all parts of the country during the past dozen years." |