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Rh 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 £10,000 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. 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. 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.

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 £90 millions and £91 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%.

* Official values.

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 régime. 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.