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Cotton Spindles (including Doubling Spindles) in Millions.

Average Annual Consumption of Cotton in the Period 1831–1835.

Average Annual Consumption of Cotton in the Period 1900–1905.

Roughly the consumption of cotton per spindle in the three areas to-day is, in ℔, 35 for the United Kingdom, 70 for the continent, and 95 for the United States.

Before the cotton industry in other countries is described it will be necessary to explain how it could have developed there on a large scale at all. Of course this growth is to be accounted for very largely by the natural protection of cost of transport aided by tariffs. But it would be a mistake for Englishmen to imagine that all foreign cotton mills are the product of a forcing culture, and that if the favourable conditions created by import duties were removed they would totally disappear. No doubt some of the growth is artificial, but much is natural and would have taken place under universal free trade conditions. Much of it, indeed, would have appeared in these circumstances even were cost of production a negligible quantity, difficult though it may be at first to reconcile this statement with certain ordinary conceptions of the operations of the law of increasing returns. Lancashire secured an immense lead at the beginning of the 19th century, and if the cost of production may be represented as varying inversely as the magnitude of the industry, every addition to her success increased her advantages. How could the small industry, with a high cost of production because it was small, compete with Lancashire? The answer is to be found in the peculiar conditions governing international trade and a closer analysis of “increasing returns.” “Increasing returns” in any place are a function of two variables, (1) the magnitude of the world market under conditions of world commerce, and (2) the magnitude of the industry in the spot in question. The economies connected with the first variable, which in such an industry as the cotton industry are enormous, and govern ultimately the limits of business specialism, are shared by every national section of the industry whether it be great or small. If Haiti started a cotton factory she might import all her specialized machinery—the specialism involved in producing which is dependent upon the exportation of some of it—and restrict narrowly the work undertaken by her one factory. The cotton goods outside this range she would still import, and if her specialized product were in excess of local demand she could export some of it, if she were favourably placed in respect of cost of carriage, for cost of production in Haiti would not be impossibly high, since machinery and the general system of production would be quite up to date though labour might be highly inefficient. Of course, the country with a large industry enjoys high local economies, and it might be thought that these alone would be a menace to the stability of the small industry, because if the industry in the favoured locality increased these would increase also and the small industry would be undersold. The answer to this difficulty is that foreign trade depends upon ratios between ratios, that is, upon the ratios between the costs of production of all the products of each country in relation to similar ratios for other countries. Relatively, therefore, diminishing returns operate in every country. In every country there must come a time, the utility of commodities being taken into account, when a unit of labour and capital provides less utility when applied to the creation of cotton goods, say, than when applied to producing something else for home consumption or for export in exchange for commodities wanted at home. It becomes apparent, therefore, that cotton industries of widely varying sizes dispersed throughout the world can settle into relations of perfectly stable equilibrium, as that term is understood by the economist. Slow changes, of course, in their relative volumes might be looked for with changes in a mutable world, but very sudden collapses would be impossible unless the general course of human affairs were revolutionized.

The United States.—The machine-cotton industry was carried to North America almost as soon as it evolved in England. Models of Arkwright’s machines were smuggled across the Atlantic in 1786—Arkwright’s first mill had not been started in England until 1769—and these with a jenny and stock-card were publicly exhibited. From these models a great mass of machinery was soon constructed. The first mill was erected in 1788 (that of the Beverly Association), the second appeared in 1790, the third five years later, and in 1798 Samuel Slater started with some of his wife’s relatives the first mill in which the principle of the water-frame was carried throughout. It is said that it was not until 1814 that power-loom manufacturing was commenced, but in England success with the power-loom was long delayed. As early as 1831, however, there were in the United States—mainly in the New England states—800 factories, a million and a quarter spindles, 33,500 looms and 62,200 operatives. At this time the annual consumption of cotton was about 77,000,000 ℔ as compared with some 300,000,000 ℔ in England at the same date, and 2,000,000,000 approximately in the United States at the present time. Writing in 1840, James Montgomery said that, in respect of cost of production, the American industry was 19% behind that of England apart from the cost of raw material, which was then a good deal less to the Americans. In 1878, when there was much interest in the question of British efficiency in the cotton industry because the passage of the Factory Act of 1874 had cut down the working hours, the Economist contrasted the result of twenty-five years’ growth in England and America:—

“In 1853 the average English production per weaver of 8¼ ℔ shirting was 825 yds. per week of sixty hours. In 1878 the working hours had fallen to fifty-seven, and the production had risen to 975 yds. An increased production of 23% is thus due to improvement in the processes of manufacture. In 1865 there were 24,151 persons employed in Massachusetts in the production of cotton goods, and they produced 175,000,000 yds. In 1875 the operatives numbered 60,176, and their product was 874,000,000 yds. The operatives had increased 150% and their products had increased 500%. The increase of production due to improved methods was thus in England 23%, and in Massachusetts 100%. I do not, of course, suppose that the American manufacturer is in advance of his English rival to the extent of this difference, for I presume that he started upon the career of improvement from a lower platform. But a progress so greatly more rapid than ours will be admitted to cast much light on the change which has occurred in our relative positions.”

The contrast no doubt was not perfect, as indeed it could not be