3. A Brief Sketch of the Catalonian Economy

Although it comprises no more than six percent of the total area of Spain, Catalonia is nonetheless, at least in terms of economics, the wealthiest and most important province of the peninsula.

Whereas economic activity in the rest of Spain is essentially oriented towards agriculture, industry is largely concentrated in Catalonia. As a result, Catalonia has a population density twice that of the median population density of the peninsula as a whole.

Besides the riches derived from below the surface of the ground, which can be found almost everywhere in Spain, Catalonia possesses a major share of the national wealth. One will therefore understand why the collective exploitation of enterprises, which is our topic, plays such a considerable role in the intensive development of Catalonian industry.

Thus, for example, the textile industry, the largest in Spain, is almost exclusively concentrated in Catalonia. Ninety-three percent of Spain’s spinning mill workers are employed in factories in Tarrasa and Sabadell, two small industrial towns in the province of Barcelona. These two towns are more central to Spanish industry than Lille, Roubaix and Tourcoing are to French industry. This cotton industry, around which all the other textile industries have developed, such as wool production, natural and artificial silks, clothing, dressmaking, etc., employs more than 200,000 workers. It has long been Spain’s leading importer, due to its demand for cotton, and has consistently been one of Spain’s leading exporters of manufactured products.

Vital industries are not yet very highly developed in Spain. Thus, with regard to this issue, Catalonia is the most advanced province in the country. It features a large metallurgical sector, and several major chemical plants transform part of our raw materials into finished commodities.

Today, however, as is the case throughout Spain, most of the minerals extracted from Spanish mines cross the borders in their natural state and are returned to us in the form of various kinds of machinery and other commodities.

To the above samples, other industrial sectors of greater or lesser degrees of development must be added. The production of leather and skins, various kinds of wood—a thriving industry—agricultural production, fisheries, etc., which have made a significant contribution to the overall rate of progress attained, are concentrated in this small region of Catalonia.

If Catalonia’s industry is more advanced today than it is in the rest of the peninsula, its opportunities for development in the future are even greater. Thanks to its abundant variety of important minerals (coal, lignite, iron, lead, zinc, potash, manganese, salt, bauxite, etc.) and thanks to an exceptional abundance of waterfalls and other opportunities for the exploitation of hydraulic energy resources, Catalonian industry will be in a position to rapidly multiply the volume of its production.

Spain as a whole is very close to meeting all the practical requirements of an ideal autarchy (its soil and subsurface resources provide almost everything required by industry and consumption). Catalonia itself seems to be very close to such a self-sufficient economy. Its agriculture, far from possessing the rich soils of Castile, Andalusia and Extremadura, therefore produces a wide variety of indispensable products. Even though the volume of this agricultural production is not sufficient to meet the needs of such a densely populated region, Catalonian agriculture supplies it with cereals, corn, beans and rice as easily as grapes and olives. The latter, planted for the most part along the Mediterranean coast, yield a harvest that exceeds the demand of domestic consumption and therefore constitutes an excellent product for export.

Alongside the cultivation of the land, the geologically diverse topography of Catalonia features grasslands suitable for grazing livestock of every kind, as well as forests containing a wide variety of trees.

Its proximity to Aragon, whose agriculture is even more highly developed, constitutes another food reserve for industrial Catalonia. The most important transport routes in Spain that also pass through Catalonia, and the Mediterranean shipping that arrives at the docks of the great port of Barcelona, assure the technical possibilities for further economic development on the basis of the initial steps taken during the first days of the exploitation of the factories by the workers.