Lombardy 1,850,000
Piedmont 1,000,000
Venetia 550,000
Campania 250,000
Liguria 250,000
Tuscany 100,000
The distribution of spindles and power-looms in the chief
manufacturing towns in Italy is shown in the following table:--
+-------------+--------------++-------------+--------------+
| | Spindles. || | Spindles. |
| Turin | 470,000 || Genoa | 210,000 |
| Bergamo | 450,000 || Salerno | 150,000 |
| Como | 250,000 || Brescia | 310,000 |
| Milan | 660,000 || Naples | 100,000 |
| Novara | 410,000 || Udine | 240,000 |
+-------------+--------------++-------------+--------------+
| | Power-Looms. || | Power-Looms. |
| Milan | 40,000 || Pisa | 2,500 |
| Turin | 22,000 || Como | 6,000 |
| Novara | 13,000 || Bergamo | 13,000 |
| Genoa | 6,000 || Udine | 3,500 |
+-------------+--------------++-------------+--------------+
The district between Milan and Lago Maggiore contains numerous
villages devoted to the cotton industry. Many of the factories in the
province of Bergamo are situated in the Valle Seriana, which is
endowed with abundant water-power. In this district coarse and medium
yarns and grey cloth are the chief products. In the province of Milan
there are several small towns, notably Gallarate, Busto Arsizio and
Monza, in which the manufacture of coloured and fancy goods is
extensively carried on. The finest spinning in Italy is done in Turin.
The coarsest spinning is done in Venetia.
_The Netherlands._--In 1805 the cotton industry was reintroduced into
the Netherlands from England in its factory form. Seventeen mules
bearing 16,000 spindles are said to have been smuggled across the
channel, while forty Englishmen were enticed over to work them, in
spite of English legal prohibitions. Lievin Bauwens was the prime
mover of the achievement. Expansion rapidly followed, and in 1892
Belgian spindles numbered nearly a million. Since then a decline has
set in. Ghent, with about 600,000 spindles, is the only really
important place: no other place has as many as 50,000. Holland
possesses about 417,000 spindles: the leading district is Twente and
the leading town Enschede; Twente contains also about 20,000
power-looms. Rotterdam is the chief cotton port; Amsterdam, always a
far-away second, has lost place still further of late.
_Spain and Portugal._--The greatness of Spain in the cotton industry
lies buried in the remote past, but of late she has awakened somewhat,
with the result that her spindles now number about 1,853,000.
Catalonia is the chief province where the industry is carried on, and
Barcelona surpasses all other centres. Portugal possesses nearly half
a million spindles (the bulk in Lisbon and Oporto), many of which have
appeared since 1894.
_The Rest of Europe_.--Of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Greece and
Macedonia no special mention need be made, nor of other parts where
the cotton industry may just exist. It may be mentioned here that
among the scattered rural populations of many parts of the continent,
even in such advanced countries as France and Germany, hand-looms are
still to be found in large numbers.
_India_.--The hand-cotton-industry has been carried on in India since
the earliest times, and for many years English fabrics were protected
against the all-cottons of India. Soon after the introduction of
spinning by rollers, English all-cottons began to rival the Indian in
quality as well as in cost. A large export trade to India has grown
up, but Indian hand-loom weavers still ply their craft. In 1851
power-spinning was started, and by 1876 there were in India 1,000,000
spindles. Since then they have nearly reached six millions and
importations of yarn have been significantly affected. The growth of
Indian power-spinning, which is almost entirely of the ring variety,
was attributed by some to the depreciation of the rupee after 1873,
but the fall in the value of the rupee was stopped in 1893 and the
competition continued. The real explanation, no doubt, is that at the
cost of Indian labour it is found cheaper to import machinery and coal
than to export or cease to grow cotton and import yarn. This was the
conclusion of the majority report of the committee of the Manchester
Chamber of Commerce, which made an inquiry into Bombay and Lancashire
spinning in 1888. Besides, as regards Indian exports to China, the
remission in 1875 of the 3% export duty on yarns must be borne in
mind. The efficiency of labour in India is only a small fraction of
that of Lancashire operatives. Recently complaint has been made that
Indian mills are being run inhumanely long hours with the same set of
labour, and that child-labour is being abused, both legally and
illegally--legally as regards children over fourteen who are classed
as adults. The working of heavy hours began with the electric lighting
of the mills; previously all shut down at sunset largely because of
the cost of illumination. The outcry which has been raised is,
perhaps, sufficient guarantee that the worst evils will be remedied.
Indian spinning, it must be remembered, is still very coarse as a
rule, though some fine work is attempted and the average of counts
spun is rising. Though there are about a ninth as many spindles in
India as in the United Kingdom, there are only about one-fifteenth as
many power-looms, 46,400 in all, to which figure they rose between
1891 and 1904 from 24,700. The reason for the paucity of power-looms
is probably two-fold, (1) the low cost of production of Lancashire
weavers, and (2) the habit of hand-loom weaving which is fixed in the
Indian people. A rapid increase of power-looms is, however,
observable. The hand-loom industry is gigantic, particularly in the
Madras Presidency and the Central Provinces; in the latter district
alone there were estimated to be 150,000 hand-looms in 1883. The
following details relating to the Indian cotton industry are supplied
officially:--
_Cotton Mills in India, including Mills in Native States and French
India_.
+-----------------------------------+------------+------------+
| Mills. | 1897-1898. | 1903-1904. |
+-----------------------------------+------------+------------+
|Mills (number) | 164 | 204 |
|Capital (thousand Ls) | 648 | 1,067 |
|Looms (number) | 36,946 | 46,421 |
|Spindles (thousands) | 4,219 | 5,213 |
|Persons employed (daily average) | 148,753 | 186,271 |
|Yarn produced:-- | | |
| Counts (1 to 20 thousand lb.) | 400,384 | 474,509 |
| Counts (above " " ") | 62,212 | 104,250 |
| +------------+------------+
| Total lb. | 462,596 | 578,759 |
| +------------+------------+
|Yarn produced:-- | | |
| Bombay (thousand lb.) | 324,649 | 414,932 |
| Bengal " " | 44,807 | 46,487 |
| Madras " " | 32,516 | 28,714 |
| United Provinces (including | | |
| Ajmere-Merwara)(thousand lb.) | 26,747 | 29,930 |
| Central Provinces (thousand lb.) | 18,334 | 24,549 |
| Punjab " " " | 6,607 | 11,578 |
| Elsewhere " " " | 8,936 | 22,569 |
| +------------+------------+
| Total lb. | 462,596 | 578,759 |
| +------------+------------+
|Woven Goods:-- | | |
| Grey (thousand lb.) | 83,136 | 111,494 |
| Others " " | 8,152 | 26,550 |
| +------------+------------+
| Total lb. | 91,288 | 138,044 |
+-----------------------------------+------------+------------+
_China_.--In China spinning has not met with the same success as
India, and power-manufacturing has not yet obtained a sure footing.
The ingrained conservatism of the Chinese temperament is no doubt a
leading cause. Of the spindles in China--about 600,000 in all--from a
half to three-fifths are in Shanghai. The following details relating
to the inception of the power-industry are quoted from a Diplomatic
and Consular Report of 1905:--
"The initial experiment on modern lines was made in 1891, when a
semi-official Chinese syndicate started at Shanghai--the Chinese
Cotton Cloth Mill and the Chinese Cotton Spinning Company. Its
originators claimed for themselves a quasi-monopoly, and prohibited
outsiders who were not prepared to pay a fixed royalty for the
privilege from engaging in similar undertakings. Although certain
Chinese accepted this onerous condition, foreigners resented it as an
undue interference with their treaty rights, and it was only when
Japan, in 1895, after her war with China, inserted in the treaty of
Shimonoseki an article providing for the freedom of Japanese subjects
to engage in all kinds of manufacturing industries in the open ports
of China, and permitting them to import machinery for such purposes,
that outsiders were afforded an opportunity of exploiting the rich
field for commercial development thereby thrown open. Accordingly, so
soon as the Japanese treaty came into force no time was lost in
turning this particular clause to account, and the erection of no less
than 11 mills--Chinese and foreign--was taken in hand. At that time
the pioneer mill, which was burnt to the ground in October 1893, but
subsequently rebuilt, and other Chinese-owned mills were together
working some 120,000 spindles and 850 looms."
By 1905 the mills increased to 17, the spindles to 620,000 and the
looms to 2250, but there is little inclination to expansion. Yarns for
the hand-looms are obtained primarily from India and secondarily from
Japan. The following are the recent figures relating to imported
yarns:--
_In million_ lb
+--------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| | 1898. | 1899. | 1900. | 1901. | 1902. | 1903. |
+--------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| | lb. | lb. | lb. | lb. | lb. | lb. |
| British | 9.1 | 7.8 | 4.1 | 7.0 | 4.3 | 2.2 |
| Indian | 186.7 | 254.2 | 131.5 | 228.9 | 251.6 | 250.8 |
| Japanese | 64.7 | 104.0 | 62.9 | 66.4 | 69.7 | 110.9 |
| Hong-Kong | | | | .7 | .8 | 1.2 |
| Tongkinese | | | | | | .01|
| +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| Total | 260.5 | 366.0 | 198.5 | 303.0 | 326.4 | 365.1 |
+--------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
_Japan._--If in China the factory cotton industry reveals no prospects
as yet of a great future, the same cannot be said of Japan.
The chief centres of spinning with their outputs in value of yarn for
a year at the beginning of the 20th century are stated beneath:
+------------+------------++------------+------------+
| | Thousands. || | Thousands. |
+------------+------------++------------+------------+
| | L s. || | L s. |
| Osaka | 1226.5 || Nara | 111.5 |
| Hyogo | 495.5 || Hiroshima | 91.3 |
| Okayama | 374.4 || Kyoto | 82.2 |
| Miye | 238.1 || Wakayama | 79.2 |
| Tokyo | 227.9 || Ehime | 70.5 |
| Aichi | 224.3 || Kajawa | 36.4 |
| Fukuoka | 168.1 || | |
+------------+------------++------------+------------+