[1] It is related that in the year 1784 William Rathbone, an American
merchant resident in Liverpool, received from one of his
correspondents in the southern states a consignment of eight bags of
cotton, which on its arrival in Liverpool was seized by the
custom-house officers, on the allegation that it could not have been
grown in the United States, and that it was liable to seizure under
the Shipping Acts, as not being imported in a vessel belonging to the
country of its growth. When afterwards released, it lay for many
months unsold, in consequence of the spinners doubting whether it
could be profitably worked up.
[2] Taken with some modifications from the _Agricultural News_ (1907),
vi. p. 38.
[3] Cotton Production 1906, _U.S.A. Bureau of the Census_, Bulletin
No. 76.
[4] _Cotton Culture and the Cotton Trade_, p. 298.
[5] _The Cotton Trade of Great Britain_, by Thomas Ellison, p. 186.
[6] See article on "Dealings in Futures in the Cotton Market," in the
_Journal of the Royal Statistical Society_, vol. lxix, p. 325.
[7] Journal of the Statistical Society, 1906.
[8] See paper in the Journal of the Statistical Society for June 1906.
[9] Attempts to explain them were made in an article in the _Economic
Journal_ in December 1904, and in the paper already referred to read
to the Royal Statistical Society.
[10] See the paper already mentioned in the _Journal of the Royal
Statistical Society_ for June 1906, where the several points noticed
briefly above are fully discussed.
[11] The Association published a weekly paper known as The Cotton
Supply Reporter.
COTTON MANUFACTURE. The antiquity of the cotton industry has hitherto
proved unfathomable, as can readily be understood from the difficulty of
proving a universal negative, especially from such scanty material as we
possess of remote ages. That in the 5th century B.C. cotton fabrics were
unknown or quite uncommon in Europe may be inferred from Herodotus'
mention of the cotton clothing of the Indians. Ultimately the cotton
industry was imported into Europe, and by the middle of the 13th century
we find it flourishing in Spain. In the New World it would seem to have
originated spontaneously, since on the discovery of America the wearing
apparel in use included cotton fabrics. After the collapse of Spanish
prosperity before the Moors in the 14th century the Netherlands assumed
a leadership in this branch of the textile industries as they did also
in other branches. It has been surmised that the cotton manufacture was
carried from the Netherlands to England by refugees during the Spanish
persecution of the second half of the 16th century; but no absolute
proof of this statement has been forthcoming, and although workers in
cotton may have been among the Flemish weavers who fled to England about
that time, and some of whom are said to have settled in and about
Manchester, it is quite conceivable that cotton fabrics were made on an
insignificant scale in England years before, and there is some evidence
to show that the industry was not noticeable till many years later. If
England did derive her cotton manufacture from the Netherlands she was
unwillingly compelled to repay the loan with interest more than two
hundred years later when the machine industry was conveyed to the
continent through the ingenuity of Lievin Bauwens, despite the
precautions taken to preserve it for the British Isles. About the same
time English colonists transported it to the United States. Since, as
transformed in England, the cotton industry, particularly spinning, has
spread throughout the civilized and semi-civilized world, though its
most important seat still remains the land of its greatest development.
Early history in England.
As early as the 13th century cotton-wool was used in England for
candle-wicks.[1] The importation of the cotton from the Levant in the
16th century is mentioned by Hakluyt,[2] and according to Macpherson it
was brought over from Antwerp in 1560. Reference to the manufacture of
cottons in England long before the second half of the 16th century are
numerous, but the "cottons" spoken of were not cottons proper as Defoe
would seem to have mistakenly imagined. Thus, for example, there is a
passage by William Camden (writing in 1590) quoted below, in which
Manchester cottons are specifically described as woollens, and there is
a notice in the act of 33 Henry VIII. (c. xv.) of the Manchester linen
and woollen industries, and of cottons--which are clearly woollens since
their "dressyng and frisyng" is noted, and the latter process, which
consists in raising and curling the nap, was not applicable to cotton
textiles. John Leland, after his visit to Manchester about 1538, used
these words--"Bolton-upon-Moore market standeth most by cottons; divers
villages in the Moores about Bolton do make cottons." Leland, it is
true, might conceivably be referring to manufactures from the vegetable
fibre, but it is exceedingly unlikely, since the term "cottons" would
seem to have been current with a perfectly definite meaning. The goods
were probably an English imitation in wool of continental cotton
fustians--which would explain the name. Again we may quote from the act
of 5 and 6 Edward VI., "all the cottons called _Manchester_, Lancashire
and Cheshire _cottons_, full wrought to the sale, shall be in length
twenty-two yards and contain in breadth three-quarters of a yard in the
water and shall weigh thirty pounds in the piece at least"; and from the
act 8 Elizabeth c. xi., "every of the said cottons being sufficiently
milled or thicked, clean scoured, well-wrought and full-dried, shall
weigh 21 lb. at the least."[3] These are evidently the weights of woollen
goods: further, it may be observed that milling is not applicable to
cotton goods. The earliest reference to a cotton manufacture in England
which may reasonably be regarded as pointing to the fabrication of
textiles from cotton proper, is in the will of James Billston (a not
un-English name), who is described as a "cotton manufacturer," proved at
Chester in 1578.[4] It may plausibly be contended that James Billston
was a worker in the vegetable fibre, since otherwise "manufacturer of
cottons" would have been a more natural designation. But the proof of
the will of one cotton manufacturer establishes very little.
The next earliest known reference to the cotton industry proper occurs
in a petition to the earl of Salisbury, made presumably in 1610, asking
for the continuance of a grant for reforming frauds committed in the
manufacture of "bambazine cotton such as groweth in the land of Persia
being no kind of wool."[5] But a far more valuable piece of evidence,
discovered by W. H. Price, is a petition of "Merchants and citizens of
London that use buying and selling of fustians made in England, as of
the makers of the same fustians."[6] Its probable date is 1621, and it
contains the following important passages:--
"About twenty years past, divers people in this kingdom, but chiefly
in the county of Lancaster, have found out the trade of making of
other fustians, made of a kind of bombast or down, being a fruit of
the earth growing upon little shrubs or bushes, brought into this
kingdom by the Turkey merchants, from Smyrna, Cyprus, Acra and Sydon,
but commonly called cotton wool; and also of linen yarn most part
brought out of Scotland, and othersome made in England, and no part of
the same fustians of any wool at all, for which said bombast and yarn
imported, his majesty has a great yearly sum of money for the custom
and subsidy thereof.
"There is at the least 40 thousand pieces of fustian of this kind
yearly made in England, the subsidy to his majesty of the materials
for making of every piece coming to between 8d. and 10d. the piece;
and thousands of poor people set on working of these fustians.
"The right honourable duke of Lennox in 11 of Jacobus 1613 procured a
patent from his majesty, of alnager of new draperies for 60 years,
upon pretence that wool was converted into other sorts of commodities
to the loss of customs and subsidies for wool transported beyond seas;
and therein is inserted into his patent, searching and sealing; and
subsidy for 80 several stuffs; and among the rest these fustians or
other stuffs of this kind of cotton wool, and subsidy and a fee for
the same, and forfeiture of 20s. for putting any to sale unsealed, the
moiety of the same forfeiture to the said duke, and power thereby
given to the duke or his deputies, to enter any man's house to search
for any such stuffs, and seize them till the forfeiture be paid; and
if any resist such search, to forfeit L10 and power thereby given to
the lord treasurer or chancellor of the exchequer, to make new
ordinances or grant commissions for the aid of the duke and his
officers in execution of their office."
Here the date of the appearance of the cotton industry on an appreciable
scale--it is questionable whether any importance should be attached to
the expression "found out"--is given by those who would be speaking of
facts within the memory of themselves or their friends as "about twenty
years past" from 1621, and the annual output of the industry in 1621 is
mentioned. Moreover, it is established by this document that for a time
at least the cotton manufacture was "regulated" like the other textile
trades. The date assigned by the petitioners for the first attraction of
attention by the English cotton industry may be supported on negative
grounds.
Baines assures us that William Camden, who wrote in 1590, devoted not a
sentence to the cotton industry, though Manchester figures among his
descriptions: "This town," he says, "excels the towns immediately around
it in handsomeness, populousness, woollen manufacture, market place,
church and college; but did much more excel them in the last age, as
well by the glory of its woollen cloths (_laneorum pannorum honore_),
which they call Manchester cottons, as by the privilege of sanctuary,
which the authority of parliament under Henry VIII. transferred to
Chester."[7] It is significant too that in the Elizabethan poor law of
1601 (43 Elizabeth), neither cotton-wool nor yarn is included among the
fabrics to be provided by the overseers to set the poor to work upon;
though, of course, it might be argued that so short-stapled a fibre
needed for its working, when machinery was rough, a skill in the
operative which would be above that of the average person unable to find
employment. However, a proposal was made in 1626 to employ the poor in
the spinning of cotton and weaving wool.[8]
Prior to Mr Price's discovery of the petition mentioned above, the
earliest known notice of the existence in England of a cotton industry
of any magnitude was the oft-quoted passage from Lewes Roberts's
_Treasure of Traffic_ (1641), which runs: "The town of Manchester, in
Lancashire, must be also herein remembered, and worthily for their
encouragement commended, who buy the yarne of the Irish in great
quantity, and weaving it, return the same again into Ireland to sell:
Neither doth their industry rest here, for they buy cotton-wool in
London that comes first from Cyprus and Smyrna, and at home work the
same, and perfect it into fustians, vermillions, dimities and other such
stuffs, and then return it to London, where the same is vented and sold,
and not seldom sent into foreign parts."[9]
Despite Lewes Roberts's flattering reference, the trade of Manchester
about that time consisted chiefly in woollen frizes, fustians,
sackcloths, mingled stuffs, caps, inkles, tapes, points, &c., according
to "A Description of the Towns of Manchester and Salford," 1650,[10] and
woollens for a long time held the first place. But before another
century had run its course cottons proper had pushed into the first
rank, though the woollen industry continued to be of unquestionable
importance. In 1727 Daniel Defoe could write, "the grand manufacture
which has so much raised this town is that of cotton in all its
varieties,"[11] and he did not mean the woollen "cottons," as he made
plain by other references to the industry in the same connexion; but it
was not until some fifty years later that the ousting of the woollen
industry from what is now peculiarly the cotton district became
unmistakable.[12] As a rule the woollen weavers were driven farther and
farther east--Bury lay just outside the cotton area when Defoe
wrote--and finally many of them settled in the West Riding. Edwin
Butterworth even tells of woollen weavers who migrated from Oldham to
the distant town of Bradford in Wiltshire because of the decline of
their trade before the victorious cotton industry. Much the same fate
was being shared by the linen industry in Lancashire, which was forced
out of the county westwards and northwards. The explanation of the three
centralizations, namely of the woollen industry, the cotton industry and
the linen industry, is not far to seek. The popularity of the fabrics
produced by the rising cotton industry enabled it to pay high wages,
which, indeed, were essential to bring about its expansion. This a
priori diagnosis is supported by contemporary analysis: thus "the rapid
progress of that business (cotton spinning) and the higher wages which
it afford, have so far distressed the makers of worsted goods in that
county (Lancashire), that they have found themselves obliged to offer
their few remaining spinners larger premiums than the state of their
trade would allow."[13] The best operatives of Lancashire were attracted
sooner or later to assist the triumphs of art over the vegetable wool.
At the same time the scattered woollen and linen workers of Lancashire
were suffering from the competition of rivals enjoying elsewhere the
economies of some centralization, and the demand for woollen and linen
warps in the cotton industry ceased after the introduction of
Arkwright's water-twist. When the factory became common the economies of
centralization (which arise from the wide range of specialism laid open
to a large local industry) increased; moreover they were reinforced by
the diminution of social friction and the intensification of business
sensitiveness which marked the development of the 19th century. Once
begun, the centralizing movement proceeded naturally with accelerating
speed. The contrast beneath is an instructive statistical comment:--
_Distribution of Cotton Operatives in 1838 and 1898-1899 (from Returns
of Factory Inspectors)._
+--------------------------+--------------+---------------+
| | 1838. | 1898-1899. |
+--------------------------+--------------+---------------+
| Cheshire | 36,400 | 34,300 |
| Cumberland | 2,000 | 700 |
| Derbyshire | 10,500 | 10,500 |
| Lancashire | 152,200 | 398,100 |
| Nottinghamshire | 1,500 | 1,600 |
| Staffordshire | 2,000 | 2,300 |
| Yorkshire | 12,400 | 35,200 |
| +--------------+---------------+
| England and Wales[14] | 219,100 | 496,200 |
| Scotland | 35,600 | 29,000 |
| Ireland | 4,600 | 800 |
| +--------------+---------------+
| United Kingdom | 259,300 | 526,000 |
+--------------------------+--------------+---------------+
The distribution of the industry has varied greatly in the two periods.
If it had remained constant Lancashire would only have contained 300,000
operatives in 1899, instead of the actual 400,000. Scotland, on the
other hand, only contained 30,000 instead of 70,000, and in Ireland the
numbers were one-tenth of what they should have been. The percentage of
operatives in Lancashire in 1838 was 58.5, but this increased to 75.7 in
1898.
Lancashire advantages.
Why, we may naturally inquire, did not the cotton industry localize in
the West Riding or Cheshire and the woollen industry maintain its
position in Lancashire? Accident no doubt partly explains why the cotton
industry is carried on where it is in the various parts of the globe,
but apart from accident, as regards Lancashire, it is sufficient answer
to point to the peculiarly suitable congeries of conditions to be found
there. There is firstly the climate, which for the purpose of cotton
spinning is unsurpassed elsewhere, and which became of the first order
of importance when fine spinning was developed. In the Lancashire
atmosphere in certain districts just about the right humidity is
contained on a great number of days for spinning to be done with the
least degree of difficulty. Some dampness is essential to make the
fibres cling, but excessive moisture is a disadvantage. Over the county
of Lancashire the prevailing west wind carries comparatively continuous
currents of humidified air. These currents vary in temperature according
to their elevation. Hot and cold layers mix when they reach the hills,
and the mixture of the two is nearer to the saturation point than either
of its components. The degree of moisture is measured by the ratio of
the actual amount of moisture to the moisture of the saturation point
for that particular temperature. Owing to the sudden elevation the air
is rarefied, its temperature being thereby lowered, and in consequence
condensation tends to be produced. In several places in England and
abroad, where there is a scarcity of moisture, artificial humidifiers
have been tried, but no cheap and satisfactory one has hitherto been
discovered. To the advantages of the Lancashire climate for cotton
spinning must be added--especially as regards the early days of the
cotton industry--its disadvantages for other callings. The
unpleasantness of the weather renders an indoor occupation desirable,
and the scanty sunshine, combined with the unfruitful nature of much of
the soil, prevents the absorption of the population in agricultural
pursuits. In later years the port of Liverpool and the presence of coal
supplemented the attractions which were holding the cotton industry in
Lancashire. All the raw material must come from abroad, and an enormous
proportion of English cotton products figures as exports. The proximity
of Liverpool has aided materially in making the cotton industry a great
exporting industry.
Early system of manufacture and organisation.
Before the localization of the separate parts of the industry can be
treated the differentiation of the industry must be described. We pass
then, at this stage, to consider the manufacture in its earliest form
and the lines of its development. First, and somewhat incidentally, we
notice the early connexion between the conduct of the cotton
manufacture, when it was a domestic industry in its primitive form, and
the performance of agricultural operations. A few short extracts will
place before us all the evidence that it is here needful to adduce.
First Radcliffe, an eye-witness, writing of the period about 1770, says
"the land in our township (Mellor) was occupied by between fifty and
sixty farmers ... and out of these fifty or sixty farmers there were
only six or seven who raised their rents directly from the produce of
their farms, all the rest got their rent partly in some branch of trade,
such as spinning and weaving woollen, linen or cotton. The cottagers
were employed entirely in this matter, except for a few weeks in the
harvest."[15] Next we may cite Edwin Butterworth who, though not an
eyewitness (he was not born till 1812), proved himself by his researches
to be a careful and trustworthy investigator. In the parish of Oldham,
he recorded, there were "a number of master (cotton-linen fustian)[16]
manufacturers, as well as many weavers who worked for manufacturers, and
at the same time were holders of land or farmers.... The number of
fustian farmers who were cottagers working for manufacturers, without
holding land, were few; but there were a considerable number of weavers
who worked on their own account, and held at the same time small pieces
of land."[17] Other passages might be quoted, but these two will
suffice. Weaving was not exactly a by-employment of farm labourers, but
many weavers made agriculture a by-employment to some extent, (a) by
working small parcels of land, which varied from the size of allotments
to farms of a very few acres, and (b) by lending aid in gathering in the
harvest when their other work enabled them to do so. The association of
manufacturing and weaving survived beyond the first quarter of the 19th
century. Of the weavers in many districts and "more especially in
Lancashire" we read in the report of the committee on emigration, "it
appears that persons of this description for many years past, have been
occupiers of small farms of a few acres, which they have held at high
rents, and combining the business of the hand-loom weaver with that of a
working farmer have assisted to raise the rent of their land from the
profits of their loom."[18] One of the first lines of specialism to
appear was the severing of the connexion described above, and the
concentration of the weavers in hamlets and towns. Finer fabrics and
more complicated fabrics were introduced, and the weaver soon learnt
that such rough work as farming unfitted his hands for the delicate
tasks required of them. Again, really to prosper a weaver found it
necessary to perfect himself by close application. The days of the rough
fabrics that anybody could make with moderate success were closing in.
As a consequence the dispersion of the weavers becomes less and less.
They no longer wanted allotments or farms; and their looms having become
more complicated, the mechanic proved himself a convenient neighbour.
Finding spinners too was an easier task in the hamlet or town than in
the remote country parts. But there is no reason to suppose that
agriculture and the processes of the domestic cotton manufacturer had
ever been universally twin callings. There never was a time, probably,
when weavers who did nothing but weave were not a significant
proportion, if not the major part, of the class of weavers. All again
were not independent and all were not employees. Some were simply
journeymen in small domestic workshops; others were engaged by fustian
masters or Manchester merchants and paid by the piece for what they made
out of material supplied them; others again bought their warps and
cotton and sold to the merchants their fabrics, which were their own
property. The last class was swept away soon after the industry became
large, when by the organization of men of capital consumers and
producers were more and more kept in touch. In early days most weavers
owned their looms, the great part of which they had frequently
constructed themselves: later, however, a large number hired looms, and
it was as usual in certain quarters for lodgings to be let with a loom
as it is to-day for them to be provided with a piano. When it became
customary for weavers to undertake a variety of work, the masters
usually provided reeds (which had to vary in fineness with the fineness
of the warp), healds, and other changeable parts, and sometimes they
employed the gaiters to fit the new work in the looms.
Until the success of the water-frame, cotton could not be spun
economically of sufficient strength and fineness for warps, and the
warps were therefore invariably made of either linen or wool. Some were
manufactured locally, others were imported from Germany, Ireland and
Scotland. The weaver prepared them for his loom by the system of
peg-warping,[19] but after the introduction of the warping-mill he
received them as a rule all ready for insertion into the loom from the
Manchester merchant or local fustian master.
"It did not pay the individual weaver to keep a warping-mill for
occasional use only, and frequently the contracted space of his
workroom precluded even the possibility of his doing so. The invention
of the warping-mill necessitated specialism in warping, and it was
essential that warping should be done to order, since at that time,
the state of the industrial world being what it was, no person could
ordinarily have been found to adventure capital in producing warps
ready made in anticipation of demand for the great variety of fabrics
which was even then produced. Moreover, had the weaver himself placed
the orders for his warps, any occasional delay in the execution of his
commissions might have stopped his work entirely until the warps were
ready; for warps cannot be delivered partially, like weft, in
quantities sufficient for each day's work. To ensure continuous
working in the industry, therefore, it was almost inevitable that the
merchant should himself prepare the warps for such fabrics as he
required, or possibly have them prepared. To the system of the
merchant delegating the preparation of warps there was less objection
than to the system of the weaver doing so, since the merchant, dealing
in large quantities, was more likely to get pressing orders completed
to time. Further, the merchant knew first what kind of warps would be
needed. The first solution, however, that of the merchant undertaking
the warping himself, was the surer, and there was no doubt as to its
being the one destined for selection in a period when a tendency to
centralize organization, responsibility and all that could be easily
centralized, was steadily gaining in strength."[20]
Guest says the system by which the weaver was supplied with warps and
other material was substituted for the purchase of warps and cotton-wool
by the weaver about 1740. No doubt the change was very gradual,
especially as Aikin mentions the use of warping-mills in the 17th
century. The weaver as a rule received his weft material in the form of
cotton-wool and was required to arrange himself for its cleaning and
spinning. According to Aikin,[21] dealers tried the experiment of giving
out weft instead of cotton-wool, but "the custom grew into disuse as
there was no detecting the knavery of the spinners till a piece came in
woven." As it was impossible to unwrap the yarn and test it throughout
its length, defects were hidden until it came to be used, and the
complaints of weavers were not conclusive as to the inferiority of the
yarn, since their own bad workmanship might have had something to do
with its having proved unsatisfactory. It was therefore found best to
saddle the weaver with full responsibility for both the spinning and
weaving. Women and children cleaned, carded and spun the cotton-wool in
their homes. The cotton had to be more thoroughly cleaned after its
arrival in this country. The ordinary process of cleaning was known as
"willowing," because the cotton was beaten with willow switches after it
had been laid out on a tight hammock of cords. The cotton used for fine
spinning was also carefully washed; and even when it was not washed it
was soaked with water and partially dried so that the fibres might be
made to cling together.[22] Most of the weaving was done by men, and
until the invention of the fly-shuttle they cast the shuttle from hand
to hand in the manner of their remotest ancestors. For the making of the
broader fabrics two weavers were required when the width was greater
than the easy stretch of a man's arms. Sometimes cloths were woven wide
and then split into two or more: hence the term "splits." This became a
common practice when the hand-loom workers were groaning under the
pressure of competition from the power-loom.
The invention of machinery.
We now reach the era of the great inventions. In order to ensure
clearness it will be desirable to consider separately the branches of
spinning and weaving: to pass from the one to the other, and follow the
chronological order, might cause confusion. First emphasis must be laid
upon the point that it was not mechanical change alone which constituted
the industrial revolution. No doubt small hand-looms factories would have
become the rule, and more and more control over production would have
devolved upon the factory master, and the work to be done would have been
increasingly assigned by merchants, had the steam-engine remained but the
dream of Watt, and semi-automatic machinery not been invented. The spirit
of the times was centralizing management before any mechanical changes of
a revolutionizing character had been devised. Loom-shops, in which
several journeymen were employed, were not uncommon: thus "in the latter
part of the last (18th) and the beginning of the present (19th) century,"
says Butterworth, describing the state of affairs in Oldham and the
neighbourhood, "a large number of weavers ... possessed spacious
loom-shops, where they not only employed many journeymen weavers, but a
considerable proportion of apprentice children." It is true that both the
fly-shuttle and drop-box had been invented by that time, but the loom was
still worked by human power. Specialism, however, was on the increase,
the capitalist was assuming more control, and the operative was being
transformed more and more into the mere executive agent. Further, as
creative of enterprise, an atmosphere of freedom and a general economic
restlessness, consequent upon the reaction against mercantilism, were
noticeable. Great changes, no doubt, would soon have swept over
Lancashire had a new source of power and big factories not been rendered
essential by inventions in spinning.
Spinning and preparatory machinery.
The chief inventors were Lewis Paul and John Wyatt, James Hargreaves and
Samuel Crompton. The two first originated the principle of spinning by
rollers. Their patent was taken out in 1738, but no good came of it
immediately, though many trials were made and moderately large sums of
money were lost. Ultimately Richard Arkwright brought forward the same
plan improved:[23] his first patent was dated 1769. Over the real
authorship of the fundamental idea there has been much controversy, and
it has not been absolutely proved that the second inventor, whether
Thomas Highs, Arkwright or John Kay (a clockmaker of Warrington who
assisted Arkwright to construct his machine and is said by some to have
told him of an invention by Highs), did not hit upon the device afresh
in ignorance of the work already done. Even as between Paul and Wyatt it
is not easy to award due measure of praise. Probably the invention, as a
working machine, resulted from real collaboration, each having an
appreciable share in it. Robert Cole, in his paper to the British
Association in 1858 (reprinted as an appendix to the 1st ed. of French's
_Life of Crompton_), championed the claims of Paul, but Mantoux, in his
_La Revolution industrielle au XVIII^e siecle_, after studying the
Wyatt MSS., inclines to attribute to Wyatt a far more important
position, though he dissents from the view of Baines, who ascribes
little or nothing to Paul.
Arkwright's prospects of financial success were much greater than those
of his predecessors, because, first, there was more need in his time of
mechanical aids, and secondly, he was highly talented as a business man.
In 1775 he followed up his patent of 1769 with another relating to
machinery for carding, drawing and roving. The latter patent was widely
infringed, and Arkwright was compelled to institute nine actions in 1781
to defend his rights. An association of Lancashire spinners was formed
to defend them, and by the one that came to trial the patent was set
aside on the ground of obscurity in the specifications. Arkwright again
attempted to recover his patent rights in 1785, after the first patent
had been in abeyance for two years. Before making this further trial of
the courts he had thought of proceeding by petition to parliament, and
had actually drawn up his "case," which he was ultimately dissuaded from
presenting. In it he prayed not only that the decision of 1781 should be
set aside, but that both patents should be continued to him for the
unexpired period of the second patent, i.e. until 1789. In his "case"
(i.e. the petition mentioned above) Arkwright stated that he had sold to
numbers of adventurers residing in the different counties of Derby,
Leicester, Nottingham, Worcester, Stafford, York, Hertford and
Lancaster, many of his patent machines, and continued: "Upon a moderate
computation, the money expended in consequence of such grants (before
1782) amounted to at least L60,000. Mr Arkwright and his partners also
expended in large buildings in Derbyshire and elsewhere upwards of
L30,000, and Mr Arkwright also erected a very large and extensive
building in Manchester at the expense of upwards of L4000. Thus a
business had been formed which already (he calculated) employed upwards
of five thousand persons, and a capital on the whole of not less than
L200,000."[24] It is impossible to discover exactly the rights of the
matter. Certainly Arkwright had been intentionally obscure in his
specifications, as he admitted, and for his defence, namely that it was
to preserve the secret for his countrymen, there was only his word. He
may have hoped to keep the secret for himself; and as to the originality
of both inventions there were grave doubts. But Arkwright has received
little sympathy, because his claims were regarded as grasping in view of
the large fortune which he had already won. He began work with his first
partners at Nottingham (when power was derived from horses) and started
at Cromford in 1771 (where the force of water was used). Soon he was
involved in numerous undertakings, and he remained active till his death
in 1792. He had met throughout with a good deal of opposition, which
possibly to a man of his temperament was stimulating. Even in the matter
of getting protective legislation reframed to give scope to the
application of the water-frame, a powerful section of Lancashire
employers worked against him. This protective legislation must here be
shortly reviewed.
In 1700 an act had been passed (11 & 12 William III. c. 10) prohibiting
the importation of the printed calicoes of India, Persia and China. In
1721 the act 7 George I. c. 7 prohibited the use of any "printed,
painted, stained or dyed calico," excepting only calicoes dyed all blue
and muslins, neckcloths and fustians. This act was modified by the act 9
George II. c. 4 (allowing British calicoes with linen warps). Thus the
matter stood as regards prints when Arkwright had demonstrated that
stout cotton warps could be spun in England, and at the same time the
officers of excise insisted upon exacting a tax of 6d. from the plain
all-cottons instead of the 3d. paid by the cotton-linens, on the ground
that the former were calicoes. Arkwright's plea, however, was admitted,
and by the act 14 George II. c. 72 the still operative part of the act
of 1721 was set aside, and the manufacture, use, and wear of cottons
printed and stained, &c., was permitted subject to the payment of a duty
of 3d. per sq. yd. (the same as the excise on cotton-linens) provided
they were stamped "British manufactory." The duty was varied from time
to time until its repeal in 1832.
Some more powerful force than that of man or horse was soon needed to
work the heavy water-frames. Hence Arkwright placed his second mill on a
water-course, fitting it with a water-wheel, and until the steam-engine
became economical most of the new twist mills were built on
water-courses. On rare occasions the old fire-engines seem to have been
tried.
The following passage quoted from a note in Barnes's _History_
illustrates the pressing need of the early mills: "On the river
Irwell, from the first mill near Bacup, to Prestolee, near Bolton,
there is about 900 ft. of fall available from mills, 800 of which is
occupied. On this river and its branches it is computed that there are
no less than three hundred mills. A project is in course of execution
to increase the water-power of the district, already so great and so
much concentrated, and to equalize the force of the stream by forming
eighteen reservoirs on the hills, to be filled in times of flood, and
to yield their supplies in the drought of summer. These reservoirs,
according to the plan, would cover 270 acres of ground, and contain
241,300,000 cub. ft. of water, which would give a power equal to 6600
horses. The cost is estimated at L59,000. One reservoir has been
completed, another is in course of formation, and it is probable that
the whole design will be carried into effect."[25]
As early as 1788 there were 143 water-mills in the cotton industry of
the United Kingdom, which were distributed as follows among the counties
which had more than one.[26]
Lancashire 41 Flintshire 3
Derbyshire 22 Berkshire 2
Nottinghamshire 17 Lanarkshire 4
Yorkshire 11 Renfrewshire 4
Cheshire 8 Perthshire 3
Staffordshire 7 Midlothian 2
Westmorland 5 Isle of Man 1
The need of water to drive Arkwright's machinery, and its value for
working other machinery, caused a strong decentralizing tendency to show
itself in the cotton industry at this time, but more particularly in the
twist-spinning branch. Ultimately the steam-engine (first used in the
cotton industry in 1785) drew all branches of the industry into the
towns, where the advantages of their juxtaposition--i.e. the external
economies of centralization--could be enjoyed. Out of the crowding of
the mills in one locality sprang the business specialism which has
continued up to the present day. Here it will not be out of place to
notice the appearance of the new power, electricity, in the cotton
industry, the extension of which may involve striking economic changes.
The first electric-driven spinning-mill in Lancashire, that of the
"Acme" Spinning Company at Pendlebury, the work of which is confined to
the ring-frame, was opened in 1905. Power is obtained from the stations
of the Lancashire Power Company at Outwood near Radcliffe, some 5 m.
distant.
The chief principle of the water-frame was the drawing out of the yarn to
the required degree of tenuity by sets of gripping rollers revolving at
different speeds. This principle is still applied universally. Twist was
given by a "flyer" revolving round the bobbin upon which the yarn was
being wound; the spinning so effected was known as throstle-spinning. The
plan is still common in the subsidiary processes of the cotton industry,
but for spinning itself the ring-frame, which appears to have been
invented simultaneously in England and the United States (the first
American patent is dated 1828), is rapidly supplanting the
throstle-frame,[27] though the "ooziness" of mule yarn has not yet been
successfully imitated by ring-frame yarn. The great invention relating to
weft-spinning was the jenny, introduced by James Hargreaves probably
about 1764, and first tried in a factory four years later.[28] Hargreaves
unfortunately was unable to maintain his patent, because he had sold
jennies before applying for protection. Crompton's mule, which combined
the principles of the rollers and the jenny, was perfected about 1779.
Both jennies and mules were known as "wheels," because they were worked
in part by the turning of a wheel. As they could be set in motion without
using much power, being light when of moderate size, for a long time
they were worked entirely by hand or partially with the aid of horses or
water. The first jenny- and mule-factories were small for this reason,
and also because skill in the operative was a matter of fundamental
importance,[29] as it was not in twist-spinning on the water-frame. The
size of the typical weft-spinning mill suddenly increased after the scope
for the application of power was enlarged by the use of the self-actor
mule, invented in 1825 by Richard Roberts, of the firm of Sharp, Roberts
& Co., machinists, of Manchester. In 1830 Roberts improved his invention
and brought out the complete self-actor. Self-actors had been put forward
by others besides Roberts--for instance by William Strutt, F.R.S. (son of
Arkwright's partner), before 1790; William Kelly, formerly of Lanark
mills, in 1792; William Eaton of Wiln in Derbyshire; Peter Ewart of
Manchester; de Jongh of Warrington; Buchanan, of Catrine works, Scotland;
Knowles of Manchester; and Dr Brewster of America[30]--but none had
succeeded. And Roberts's machines did not immediately win popularity. For
a long time the winding done by them was defective, and they suffered
from other imperfections. Broadly speaking, until the American Civil War
the number of hand-mules in use remained high. It was for the fine
"counts" in particular that many employers preferred them.[31] About the
end of the 'sixties, however, and in the early 'seventies, great
improvements were effected in machinery, partly under the stimulus of a
desire to elevate its fitness for dealing with short-staple cotton, and
it became evident that hand-mules were doomed. Here we may suitably refer
to the scutching machine for opening and cleaning cotton, invented by Mr
Snodgrass of Glasgow in 1797, and introduced by Kennedy[32] to Manchester
in 1808 or 1809; the cylinder carder invented by Lewis Paul and improved
by Arkwright; and the lap-machine first constructed by Arkwright's son.
Weaving machinery.
We now transfer our attention to that accumulation of improvements in
manufacturing (as weaving is technically termed) which, taken in
conjunction with the inventions already described, presaged the large
factory system which covers Lancashire to-day. Gradually, for many
years, the loom had been gathering complexities, though no fundamental
alteration was introduced into its structure until 1738, when John Kay
of Bury excited the wrath of his fellow-weavers by designing and
employing the device of the fly-shuttle. For some unfathomable
reason--for the opposition of the weavers hardly explains it, though
they expressed their views forcibly and acted upon them violently--this
invention was not much applied in the cotton industry until about a
quarter of a century after its appearance. The plan was merely to
substitute for human hands hammers at the ends of a lengthened lathe
along which the shuttle ran, the hammers being set in motion by the
jerking of a stick (the picking peg) to which they were attached by
strings. The output of a weaver was enormously increased in consequence.
In 1760 John Kay's son Robert added the drop-box, by the use of which
many different kinds of weft could be worked into the same fabric
without difficulty. It was in fact a partitioned lift, any partition of
which could be brought to a level with the lathe and made for the time
continuous with it. The drop-box usefully supplemented the "draw-boy,"
or "draught-boy," which provided for the raising of warps in groups, and
thereby enabled figured goods to be produced. The "draw-boy" had been
well known in the industry for a long time; in 1687 a Joseph Mason
patented an invention for avoiding the expense of an assistant to work
it,[33] but there is no evidence to show that his invention was of
practical value. Looms with "draw-boys" affixed, which could sometimes
be worked by the weavers themselves, later became common under the name
of harness-looms, which have since been supplanted by Jacquard looms,
wherein the pattern is picked out mechanically.
The principle of the fly-shuttle was a first step towards the complete
mechanizing of the action required for working a loom. The second step
was the power-loom, the initial effort to design which was created by
the tardiness of weaving as contrasted with the rapidity of spinning by
power. After the general adoption of the jenny, supplies of yarn outran
the productive powers of the agencies that existed for converting them
into fabrics, and as a consequence, it would seem, some yarn was
directed into exports which might have been utilized for the manufacture
of cloth for export had the loom been more productive. The agitation for
the export tax on yarn at the end of the 18th, and in the first years of
the 19th century, is therefore comprehensible, but there was no
foundation for some of the allegations by which it was supported. For a
large proportion of the exported yarn, fabrics could not have been
substituted, since the former was required to feed the hand-looms in
continental homes and domestic workshops, against much of the product of
which there was no chance of competing. The hand-loom was securely
linked to the home of the peasant, and though he would buy yarn to feed
his loom he would not buy cloth and break it up.[34]
Cartwright's loom was not the first design adapted for weaving by power.
A highly rudimentary and perfectly futile self-actor weaving machine,
which would have been adapted for power-working had it been capable of
working at all, had been invented by a M. de Gennes: a description of
it, extracted from the _Journal de scavans_, appeared in the
_Philosophical Transactions_ for July and August 1678, and again in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ in 1751 (vol. xxi. pp. 391-392). It consisted of
mechanical hands, as it were, that shot in and out of the warp and
exchanged the shuttle.[35] Another idea, which however proved fruitful,
was that of grinding the shuttle through the warps by the agency of
cog-wheels working at each end upon teeth affixed to the upper side of
the shuttle. Though shuttles could not in this fashion be set in rapid
movement, the machine turned out to be economical for the production of
ribbons and tapes, because many pieces could be woven by it at once.
These contrivances were known as swivel-looms, and in 1724 Stukeley in
his _Itinerarium curiosum_ wrote that the people of Manchester have
"looms that work twenty-four laces at a time, which was stolen from the
Dutch." Ogden says also that they were set up in imitation of Dutch
machines by Dutch mechanics invited over for the purpose. Another
interesting passage relating to the swivel-looms will be found in the
rules of the Manchester small-ware weavers dated 1756, where the
complaint is made that the masters have acquired by the employment of
"engine or Dutch looms such large and opulent fortunes as hath enabled
them to vie with some of the best gentlemen of the country," and it is
alleged that these machines, which wove twelve or fourteen pieces at
once, "were in use in Manchester thirty years ago."[36] One
power-factory at least was devoted to them as early as 1760, namely that
of a Mr Gartside at Manchester, where water-power was applied, but the
enterprise failed.[37] Cartwright's invention was probably perfected in
its first form about 1787, but many corrections, improvements and
additions had to be effected before it became an unqualified success.
Cartwright's original idea was elaborated by numerous followers, and
supplementary ideas were needed to make the system complete. Of the
latter the most important were those due to William Radcliffe, and an
ingenious mechanic who worked with him, Thomas Johnson, which were
patented in 1803 and 1804. They related to the dressing of the warp
before it was placed in the loom, and for the mechanical taking up of
the cloth and drawing forward of the warp, so that the loom had not to
be stopped for the cloth to be moved on and the warp brought within play
of the shuttle to be sized. Looms fitted with the latter of these
devices were known as "dandy" looms. The looms that followed need not be
described here, nor need we concern ourselves with the degree in which
some were imitations of others. It is of interest to note, however, in
view of recent developments, that one of Cartwright's patents included a
warp-stop motion, though it was never tried practically so far as the
writer is aware. Looms with warp-stop motions are now common in the
United States, as are also automatic looms, but both are still the
exception in Lancashire for reasons that will be sketched later.
Power-looms won their way only very gradually. Cartwright and others
lost fortunes in trying to make them pay, but the former was compensated
by a grant of L10,000 from government. In 1813 there were 2400 only in
the whole of the United Kingdom; in 1820 there were 14,000, beside some
240,000 hand-looms; in 1829, 55,500; in 1833, 100,000; and in 1870,
440,700.[38] To-day there are about 700,000 in the cotton industry. The
beginning, and the final consequences, of the competitive pressure of
the power-looms may be read in the reports of official inquiries and in
Rowbotham's diary.[39] It was upon the fine work that the hand-loom
weavers retained their last hold. In 1829 John Kennedy wrote in his
paper to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society on "The Rise
and Progress of the Cotton Trade," "It is found ... that one person
cannot attend upon more than two power-looms, and it is still
problematical [even in 1829, observe] whether the saving of labour
counterbalances the expense of power and machinery and the disadvantage
of being obliged to keep an establishment of power-looms constantly at
work." It was not easy to obtain a sufficiency of good hands for the
power-looms, because the operatives, who had acquired their habits under
the domestic system, hated factory life. This, in conjunction with the
ease with which the art of coarse weaving could be acquired and the
cheapness of rough looms, helps to explain the wretched straits into
which the hand-loom weavers were driven.
[Sidenote: Growth.]
Improvements in machinery, which ultimately affected every process from
cleaning the cotton to finishing the fabric, and the application of
water and steam-power, so lowered the cost of production as to render
Lancashire the cotton factory of the world. Figures are quoted in the
table to show the rate of growth in different periods of England's
imports and exports as regards the raw material and products of this
industry. It is important to remember when reading the last 6 columns
that the value of money was the same in 1831-1835, 1851-1855 and
1876-1880: the sums of Sauerbeck's index numbers for these periods were
454, 451 and 444 respectively. In the last two periods there were
considerable depressions in prices. If prices had remained constant, in
the periods 1891-1895 and 1896-1900 the figures of exports would have
been L90 millions and L91 millions respectively. The growth in trade has
been partly occasioned by the enormous increase in the volume of cotton
goods consumed all over the world, which in turn has been due to (1) the
growth of population, (2) the increase in productive efficiency and
well-being, and (3) the substitution of cotton fabrics for woollen and
linen fabrics. The rate of growth between the periods 1771-1781 and
1781-1791 (which is not shown in the above table) was particularly
remarkable, and reached as high a figure (when measured by importations
of weight of cotton) as 320%.
+---------+-------------+-------------+-----------------------------+---------------------------+
| | | | Exports of Cotton Yarns |Imports of Cotton Yarns and|
| | | |and Manufactures, Million L. | Manufactures, Million L |
| | Imports of | Raw Cotton | | |
| Year. | Raw Cotton, |re-exported, +------+-------------+--------+------+-------------+------+
| | Million lb. | Million lb. | | | | |Manufactures.| |
| | | |Yarns.|Manufactures.| Total. |Yarns.| (excluding |Total.|
| | | | | | | | Lace.) | |
+---------+-------------+-------------+------+-------------+--------+------+-------------+------+
|1700-1705| 1.17 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. |
|1771-1775| 4.76 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. |
|1785-1789| .. | .. | .. | .. | 1.07* | .. | .. | .. |
|1791-1795| 26.00 | .. | .. | .. | 2.09* | .. | .. | .. |
|1816-1820| 139.00 | 10.00 | 2.5 | 13.8 | 16.30 | .. | .. | .. |
|1831-1835| 313.00 | 23.00 | 4.8 | 14.2 | 19.00 | .. | .. | .. |
|1851-1855| 872.00 | 124.00 | 6.8 | 24.9 | 31.70 | .. | .. | .. |
|1876-1880| 1456.00 | 180.00 | 12.4 | 56.1 | 68.30 | .. | 2.29 | 2.29 |
|1891-1895| 1746.00 | 217.00 | 9.7 | 56.6 | 66.30 | .42 | 2.78 | 3.20 |
|1896-1900| 1798.00 | 223.00 | 8.9 | 58.2 | 67.10 | .26 | 4.27 | 4.53 |
|1901-1905| 1920.00 | 265.00 | 8.4 | 70.7 | 79.10 | .22 | 5.10 | 5.32 |
+---------+-------------+-------------+------+-------------+--------+------+-------------+------+
* Official values.
Differentiation and Integration.
Nothing is more interesting in the cotton industry than the processes of
differentiation and integration that have taken place from time to time.
Weaving and spinning had been to a large extent united in the industry
in its earliest form, in that both were frequently conducted beneath the
same roof. With mechanical improvements in spinning, that branch of the
industry became a separate business, and a substantial section of it was
brought under the factory regime. Weaving continued to be performed in
cottages or in hand-loom sheds where no spinning at all was attempted.
Cartwright's invention carried weaving back to spinning, because both
operations then needed power, and the trouble of marketing yarn was
largely spared by the reunion. Mr W. R. Grey stated in 1833 to the
committee of the House of Commons on manufactures, commerce and
shipping, that he knew of no single person then building a spinning mill
who was not attaching to it a power-loom factory. Some years later the
weaving-shed split away from spinning, partly no doubt because of the
economies of industrial specialism, partly because of commercial
developments, to be described later, which rendered dissociation less
hazardous than it had been, and partly because, in consequence of these
developments, much manufacturing (as weaving is termed) was constituted
a business strikingly dissimilar from spinning. The manufacturer runs
more risks in laying by stocks than the spinner, because of the greater
variety of his product and the more frequent changes that it undergoes.
The former, therefore, must devote more time than the latter to keeping
his order book and the productive power of his shed in close
correspondence. The minute care of this kind that must be exercised in
some classes of businesses explains why the small manufacturer still
holds his own while the small spinner has been crushed out. It also
explains to some extent the prevalence of joint-stock companies in
spinning, and their comparative rarity in manufacturing. Here we should
notice, perhaps, that the only combination of importance in the cotton
industry proper (apart from calico-printing, bleaching, &c., and the
manufacture of sewing-cotton) is the Fine Cotton Spinners and Doublers
Association, founded in 1898, which is practically coextensive with fine
spinning and doubling.
Localization of branches of the industry.
The specialism of the two main branches of the industry has been
followed by the specialism of sub-branches and by the localization of
specialized parts. Of the localization of certain sections of the cotton
industry the late Mr Elijah Helm, who spoke with the authority of great
local knowledge, has written as follows:--
"Spinning is largely concentrated in south Lancashire and in the
adjoining borderland of north Cheshire. But even within this area
there is further allocation. The finer and the very finest yarns are
spun in the neighbourhood of Bolton, and in or near Manchester, much
of this being used for the manufacture of sewing-thread; whilst other
descriptions, employed almost entirely for weaving, are produced in
Oldham and other towns. The weaving branches of the industry are
chiefly conducted in the northern half of Lancashire--most of it in
very large boroughs, as Blackburn, Burnley and Preston. Here, again,
there is a differentiation. Preston and Chorley produce the finer and
lighter fabrics; Blackburn, Darwen and Accrington, shirtings, dhooties
and other goods extensively shipped to India; whilst Nelson and Colne
make cloths woven from dyed yarn, and Bolton is distinguished for fine
quiltings and fancy cotton dress goods. These demarcations are not
absolutely observed, but they are sufficiently clear to give to each
town in the area covered by the cotton industry a distinctive place in
its general organization."[40]
The present local distribution of the cotton industry, as far as it is
displayed statistically, is revealed in the table beneath, based upon
the figures of spindles and looms given by Worrall and those of
operatives in the census returns of 1901.
_Distribution of Cotton Operatives in Lancashire and the Vicinity
according to the Census Returns of 1901, together with the Number
of Spindles and Looms according to Worrall._
+------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+
| | No. of | No. | No. of |
| | Operatives. | Spindles (in | Looms. |
| | | Thousands). | |
+------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+
| Blackburn | 41,400 | 1,325 | 75,300 |
| Bolton | 29,800 | 5,035 | 20,100 |
| Oldham | 29,500 | 11,603 | 18,500 |
| Burnley | 27,900 | 687 | 79,300 |
| Manchester and Salford | 27,200 | 2,666 | 24,200* |
| Preston | 25,000 | 2,036 | 57,900 |
| Rochdale | 14,800 | 2,168 | 25,100 |
| Darwen | 12,500 | 336 | 28,700 |
| Nelson | 12,400 | 23 | 39,000 |
| Glossop** | | 968 | 15,400 |
| Bury | 10,700 | 818 | 22,200 |
| Stockport | 9,700 | 1,803 | 8,700 |
| Ashton-under-Lyne | 8,600 | 1,839 | 11,500 |
| Accrington | 8,300 | 417 | 36,400 |
| Colne | 7,300 | 140*** | 20,500 |
| Heywood | 7,300 | 869 | 6,400 |
| Stalybridge | 7,100 | 1,106 | 7,100 |
| Todmorden | 6,900 | 261 | 15,800 |
| Rawtenstall | 6,600 | 356 | 8,800 |
| Hyde | 6,500 | 553 | 7,900 |
| Chadderton | 6,400 | .. | .. |
| Haslingden | 6,100 | 148 | 12,000 |
| Bacup | 5,900 | 315 | 9,300 |
| Chorley | 5,900 | 547 | 17,900 |
| Farnworth, near Bolton | 5,700 | 738 | 10,600 |
| Leigh | 5,000 | 1,667 | 5,900 |
| Great Harwood | 4,900 | 72 | 12,400 |
| Middleton | 4,900 | 511 | 2,500 |
| Radcliffe | 4,800 | 157 | 8,900 |
+------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+
* Manchester only.
** The number of operatives in places in Derbyshire is not separately
specified.
*** Includes Foulridge with Colne.
Local markets have steadily lost in importance, partly owing to railway
development, and it is now almost entirely in Manchester, on the
Exchange, that dealing in yarns and fabrics takes place, and
arrangements are made for export. The old Manchester Exchange, built in
1729, was taken down in 1792. A new Exchange, reared on a contiguous
site, was opened in 1809, the first stone having been laid in 1806. The
present building was erected in 1869. The great bulk of the exports of
cotton goods proceeds from Liverpool, though London used to be the
leading port, and Liverpool is still the chief English market for raw
cotton, though now from one-sixth to one-eighth of English cotton
supplies come up the Manchester Ship Canal.
Modern organization.
To understand the present organization of the cotton industry the reader
must begin by mentally separating the commercial from the industrial
functions. By the industrial functions are meant the arrangements of
factors in production--choosing the most suitable machinery and hands,
combining them in the most economical system, adapting the material used
to this system, and keeping its working at the highest attainable level.
The commercial functions consist in business which is not industrial.
Analysis will show that there are, broadly speaking, two classes of
commercial functions, namely (1) arranging for purchases and sales, and
(2) the bearing of risks. The character of the former is apparent; it
consists, as regards yarn, in discovering for each manufacturer which
spinner makes the yarn which is best adapted to his requirements at the
lowest cost, and in finding the most suitable customers for spinners.
Risk-bearing is a commercial function of another kind. Every business
that involves anticipation involves commercial risks. Thus the spinner
who sells "forward" yarn, trusting that the price of cotton will not
rise, is taking commercial risks, and so is the spinner who produces for
stock, trusting that the class of yarn that he is making will continue
in demand. These two instances will suffice to indicate what is meant by
the carrying of commercial risks. To make the rest of our argument clear
it will be well to write down formulae. Let A and B represent
respectively the industrial operations of spinning and manufacturing.
Let a and [alpha] represent respectively the commercial operations
implied by the separate existence of A, that is, the buying of cotton
and the selling of yarn; and let b and [Greek: beta] stand for the
commercial operations associated with manufacturing, that is, the buying
of yarn on the one hand, and the finding of customers and arranging for
their purchases on the other hand. Then, A and B being distinct
businesses, it is obvious that a range of schemes is possible of which
the extremes may be roughly represented as follows:--
1. (aA[alpha]), (bB[beta])
2. (a), (A), ([alpha]b), (B), ([beta]),
where the brackets signify independent businesses. In case 1 each
spinning business would be engaged with three problems, namely, (i.)
buying material at the most favourable time, (ii.) producing at the
lowest cost, and (iii.) finding buyers and selling at the highest price,
including the arranging for the performance of the most remunerative
work. But in case 2 the spinner would confine his attention to purely
industrial matters, while the problem of finding cotton and arranging
for the bearing of the risks as to future prices would rest with other
persons, and the business of bringing spinner and manufacturer together
and taking such risks as may be involved in ordering or disposing of
yarn would be the function of yet others. In case 2 the commercial
functions may be said to have differentiated completely from the main
body of the industry. We need hardly give illustrations of the
intermediate arrangements that formally lie between cases 1 and 2. A may
retain commercial risks but find customers through intermediaries; in
such an event there would be only partial differentiation of the
commercial functions. The reader must be reminded also that for the sake
of simplicity in the formulae we have overlooked different classes of A
and of B, omitted bleaching, dyeing, printing and finishing, and drawn
no distinction between the various classes of commercial work covered by
one letter, for instance, selling in the home market and selling abroad.
It may help the reader to appreciate the organic growth of the cotton
industry if we now run over the main lines of its evolution. Originally
the industrial units were held together in one homogeneous commercial
setting. The Manchester merchants bought cotton and warps, put them out
to the weavers, and arranged for the finishing of the cloth and then for
its sale, so far as they had not been acting on orders already received.
There were variations of this system--for instance, in early years
weavers sometimes bought their own yarns and cotton and sold their
cloth--but just before the industrial revolution the arrangement
sketched above was the most usual. Adverting to our formula, the
Manchester merchants, we observe, performed functions a (in conjunction
with importers), b (as regarded warps), and [beta]. Weft the weaver had
to get spun by his family or outsiders. So, broadly speaking, there was
one single commercial setting. After the appearance of the factory, the
commercial work as between the water-twist mills, the mule-spinning
businesses and the manufacturers, so far as the businesses were
distinct, appears to have been done by the several producing firms
concerned. It was not at once that ([alpha]b) began to differentiate,
[beta] was already a separate business in the hands of Manchester
merchants and the foreign houses who had established themselves in
Manchester to direct the export trade. At the present time an advanced
stage of commercial specialism has been reached. From the risks
connected with the buying of cotton the spinner may if he please escape
entirely.[41] Selling work is now done usually through intermediaries,
but there is no one uniform rule as to the carrying of the commercial
risks involved. This appears to be now to some extent a matter of
arrangement between the persons concerned, but ultimately no doubt the
risks will have to be borne by those most qualified by experience to
bear them, namely, the commercial specialists. In no other trade in
England, and in no other cotton industry abroad, has commercial
specialism been carried so far as in the cotton trade of Lancashire. It
is partly in consequence of the difference in this respect between the
cotton industry in Lancashire and abroad that the separation of spinning
from weaving is far more common in England than elsewhere. Elsewhere
producers are deterred from specializing processes further in distinct
businesses by the fear of the worries of buying and selling as between
them.
The explanation of differences in respect of the degree of commercial
specialism in different places and industries can be formulated only
very generally. Time is required for the differentiation and
localization to take place. The English cotton trade had not advanced
very far in the "'thirties," if we are to judge from the evidence given
to commissions and parliamentary committees. The general conditions
under which commercial specialism evolves may be taken to be a
moderately limited range of products which do not present many
varieties, and the qualities of which can be judged generally on
inspection. In such circumstances private markets need not be built up,
as they must be, for instance, for a new brand of soap which claims some
subtle superiority to all others. Soaps under present conditions must be
marketed by their producers. Broadly stated, if there be little
competition as to substitutes, though there may be much as to price in
relation to quality, commercial functions may specialize. On the whole
this is the case in the cotton industry; in so far as it is not and
firms produce specialities, they undertake much of the marketing work
themselves.
The advantages of commercial specialism are numerous. Firstly it allows
of differentiation of industrial processes, and this, of necessity, is
accompanied by increasing returns. When weaving dissociates from
spinning, both the number of looms in each business and the number of
spindles in each business tend to increase; more division of labour is
therefore secured, and lower costs of production are reached, and there
is a further gain because producers concentrate their attention upon a
smaller range of work. Again when producers are freed entirely, or to
some extent, from commercial worries, they can attain a higher level of
efficiency at the industrial task of mill organization, and a more
perfect accommodation of capacity to function will be brought about. If
the business unit is (aA[alpha]), a particular person may retain his
place in the market by reason of his excellence at the work a or
[alpha], though as works organizer (i.e. at the performances of function
A) he may be incompetent. The heads of businesses will succeed according
to their average capacities at the three tasks a, A and [alpha], and
there is no guarantee, therefore, that any one of these tasks will be
performed with the highest attainable efficiency in our present somewhat
immobile economic system. But if the three functions are separated there
is more certainty of a person's success in the performance of each
determining his continued discharge of it. The problems that arise when
specialized markets become very highly developed are dealt with in the
article COTTON: MARKETING AND SUPPLY.
Operatives in various processes.
The distribution of cotton operatives among the chief centres has
already been shown, but their distribution between processes has yet
to be considered, and the proportions of different ages and sexes from
time to time, together with the total. With such statistical material
as is available relating to supplies of labour we may set forth also
the official returns made of the quantity of machinery at work from
time to time. It hardly need be pointed out that the ratio of
machinery to operatives roughly measures the efficiency of labour,
other things being equal.
_Machinery in the United Kingdom (in Thousands)._
+--------+-----------+-----------+--------+
| Years. | Spinning | Doubling | Power- |
| | Spindles. | Spindles. | Looms. |
+--------+-----------+-----------+--------+
| 1874 | 37,516 | 4366 | 463 |
| 1878 | 39,528 | 4679 | 515 |
| 1885 | 40,120 | 4228 | 561 |
| 1890 | 40,512 | 3993 | 616 |
| 1903 | 43,905 | 3952 | 684 |
+--------+-----------+-----------+--------+
_Operatives employed in the Cotton Industry (in Thousands). (From the
Census Returns.*)_ (The figures in italics relate to Married and
Widowed Women.)
+----------------------------------------+--------------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+
| | 1901. | 1891. | 1881. |
| +-------------+------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| | | England | | England | | England |
| | Lancashire | and Wales |Lancashire.| and Wales |Lancashire.| and Wales |
+----------------------------------------+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| | M. | F. | M. | F. | M. | F. | M. | F. | M. | F. | M. | F. |
|Cotton, card and blowing-room processes | 11.4 | 28.7 | 13.8 | 34.0| .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. |
| | 10.1 | |12.2 | | | | | | | | | |
|Cotton spinning processes | 49.5 | 19.6 | 64.1 | 28.6| .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. |
| | 4.3 | | 6.0 | | | | | | | | | |
|Cotton weaving, warping, &c. | 57.6 |113.5 | 66.1 |130.8| .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. |
| | 13.0 | | 15.8 | | | | | | | | | |
|Cotton winding, warping, &c. | 14.8 | 38.6 | 18.3 | 48.9| .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. |
| | 38.1 | | 44.4 | | | | | | | | | |
| +------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----------+
| Total |133.3 | 265.9|162.3 |320.7|178.2|281.8|213.2|332.8|150.7|249.8|185.4|302.4|
| +------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
|Cotton workers in other processes or | 29.0 | 6.7 | 34.5 | 9.4 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. |
| undefined | 1.8 | | | 2.3 | | | | | | | | |
|Tape, manufacturer dealer | .. | .. | .. | .. | .47| .25| .9 | 1.5| .4 | .24| .7 | 1.2 |
|Thread, manufacturer dealer | .. | .. | .. | .. | .2 | .9 | .6 | 2.1| .1 | .9 | .5 | 1.7 |
|Fustian, manufacturer dealer | .6 | 1.2 | 2.1 | 2.6 | 1.1 | 2.9 | 3.2 | 5.0| 1.7 | 3.5 | 3.0 | 5.2 |
| | .55| | | 1.0 | | | | | | | | |
|Cotton, calico, warehouseman, dealer | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 2.5 | .3 | 3.2 | .38|
+----------------------------------------+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
* Census classifications have been altered twice in the period covered by this table.
In Scotland there are less than 15,000 cotton operatives distributed
as follows:--
In Thousands.
Card and blowing-room processes .4
Spinning-room processes 2.1
Winding, warping, &c. 2.7
Weaving, warping, &c. 6.8
Workers in other processes or undefined 2.8
----
Total 14.8
_Operatives employed in Cotton Factories in the United Kingdom and
Percentages of each Class. (From Returns of Factory Inspectors.)_
+-----------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| | 1835.| 1838.| 1847.| 1850.| 1856.| 1862.| 1867.|
+-----------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| Male and Female under | | | | | | | |
| 13, or half-timers. | 13.2 | 45.7 | 5.8 | 4.6 | 6.5 | 8.8 | 10.4 |
| Male, 13 to 18 | 12.5 | 16.6 | 11.8 | 11.2 | 10.3 | 9.1 | 8.6 |
| Male, over 18 | 26.4 | 24.9 | 27.1 | 28.7 | 27.4 | 26.4 | 26.0 |
| Female, over 13 | 47.9 | 53.8 | 55.3 | 55.5 | 55.8 | 55.7 | 55.0 |
+-----------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| Total number of | | | | | | | |
| Cotton Operatives |218,000|259,500|316,400|331,000|379,300|451,600|401,100|
+=======================+=======+=======+=======+=======+=======+=======+=======+
| | 1870.| 1874.| 1878.| 1885.| 1890.| 1895.| 1901.|
+-----------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| Male and Female under | | | | | | | |
| 13, or half-timers. | 9.6 | 14.0 | 12.8 | 9.9 | 9.1 | 5.8 | 4.1 |
| Male, 13 to 18 | 8.5 | 8.0 | 7.2 | 7.9 | 8.2 | 7.9 | 7.0 |
| Male, over 18 | 26.0 | 24.1 | 25.3 | 26.4 | 26.9 | 27.6 | 27.8 |
| Female, over 13 | 55.9 | 53.9 | 54.7 | 55.8 | 55.8 | 58.7 | 61.1 |
+-----------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| Total number of | | | | | | | |
| Cotton Operatives |450,100|479,600|483,000|504,100|528,800|538,900|513,000|
+-----------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
_Number of Operatives (in Thousands) engaged in Spinning,
Manufacturing and Subsidiary Processes (excluding Lace-making, but
including the Fustian Manufacture). (From Census Returns.)_
+------+------------------------+------------------------+------------------------+
| | Males. | Females. | Males and Females. |
+------+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+------+-----+-----+
| |Under| |Over | All |Under| |Over | All |Under| |Over | All |
| | 15.|15-20.| 20. |Ages.| 15. |15-20.| 20. |Ages.| 15.|15-20.| 20. |Ages.|
+------+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+------+-----+-----+
| 1881 | 29 | 39 | 121 | 189 | 40 | 81 | 189 | 310 | 69 | 120 | 310 | 500 |
| 1891 | 36 | 45 | 137 | 218 | 50 | 94 | 197 | 341 | 86 | 139 | 334 | 560 |
| 1901 | 24 | 36 | 139 | 199 | 36 | 92 | 207 | 335 | 60 | 128 | 346 | 535 |
+------+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+------+-----+-----+
The fact that the branches of work covered by the figures are not
identical explains discrepancies between this and the previous table.
_Number of Operatives engaged in the Cotton Industry (Processes
being distinguished and Ages and Sex). (From Special Returns made by
Factory Inspectors.)_