Page:EB1911 - Volume 07.djvu/308

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In Scotland there are less than 15,000 cotton operatives distributed as follows:—

Operatives employed in Cotton Factories in the United Kingdom and Percentages of each Class. (From Returns of Factory Inspectors.)

Number of Operatives (in Thousands) engaged in Spinning, Manufacturing and Subsidiary Processes (excluding Lace-making, but including the Fustian Manufacture). (From Census Returns.)

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.)

The figures in this table are not quite complete except for 1901; the relations between the changes shown for each class should nevertheless be accurately represented.

Index Numbers of Money, Wages and Prices.

Weekly Wages in the Manchester and District Cotton Trade.

The most noticeable features of these tables are the decrease in the proportion of children employed and the steady increase in the number of operatives as a whole until recent years. The contraction of the body of operatives of late years seems to have occurred primarily among children and young persons (where the first check would naturally be looked for), and secondarily among adult males. If allowance be made for the smaller value of children as compared with adults, and the census results be taken, it is not evident that there has been any diminution in the amount of labour-power; and if the factory inspectors’ returns be accepted, the falling off in the number of operatives cannot be proved to have taken place in either of the chief branches of the industry at so rapid a rate as to have occasioned the enforced dismissal of any hands. An industry which was not recruited at all would have dwindled at a greater rate. At least it may be inferred from these figures, when taken in conjunction with the large increase in spindles and looms, that the output per head has considerably advanced in spite of the rise in the average quality of both yarns and fabrics produced. This rise in the value per unit of the output accounts to some extent for the fact that wages have not been adversely affected of late.

Mr A. L. Bowley has calculated index numbers of wages for the leading trades, including the manufacture of cotton. Those for the cotton industry are given below, together with averages for cotton and wool workers, the building trades, mining, workers in iron, sailors, compositors

and agriculturists (England), the numbers in each class being allowed for in the average. Side by side with these figures, Sauerbeck’s index numbers of general wholesale prices are given, together with the average prices of wheat per quarter.

It must be remembered that the figures given above for cotton workers and average wages for eight trades do not measure the differences between each, but only the differences between the movements of each. Actual average money wages in the cotton industry have probably been approximately those stated in the second table beneath, but as these figures are culled from various sources they must not be taken to indicate fluctuations.

The wage of fine spinners exceeds the average wage of spinners