Part 20

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 || | | +------------+------------++------------+------------+

The following table gives other valuable information:--

+---------+----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+----------+----------+---------+-------+--------------+--------------+ | | | Average | Quantity | | Average | Average | | | Average | Average | | | Gross | Number | of Raw | Total | Number | Number | Annual | Daily | Daily | Daily | | Year | Amount | of | and | Production| of Male |of Female | Working |Working| Wage | Wage of | | |of Capital| Spindles | Ginned | of Cotton |Operatives|Operatives| Days. | Hours.| of Male | Female | | | invested.|used daily.| Cotton | Yarn. | daily | daily | | | Operatives. | Operatives. | | | | | demanded. | | employed.| employed.| | | | | +---------+----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+----------+----------+---------+-------+--------------+--------------+ | |Thousand L| Thousands.|Million lb.|Million lb.| | | | | | | |1892-1894| 1123 | 420 | 112.9 | 97.9 | 6,916 | 21,695 | 290 | 22 |4d. to 4-1/4d.|2d. to 2-1/4d.| |1900-1902| 3569 | 1209 | 335.3 | 288.0 | 13,373 | 50,271 | 312 | 19 | 7-1/2d.|4-1/2d. to 5d.| | 1903 | 3441 | 1290 | 375.5 | 322.7 | 13,160 | 57,166 | 308 | 20 |7-1/2d. to 8d.|4-1/2d. to 5d.| | 1904 | 3470 | 1306 | 332.1 | 285.9 | 10,967 | 52,115 | 309 | 20 | 8d.| 5d.| +---------+----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+----------+----------+---------+-------+--------------+--------------+

With amazing adaptability the Japanese have assumed the methods of Western civilization as a whole. But hand-weaving more than holds its own, and power-weaving has as yet met with little success. The custom already mentioned as a cause of the continued triumph of the hand-loom in India and China is strong also in Japan, and the economy of the factory system is greater relatively in spinning than in manufacturing. In Japan it is ring-spinning which prevails: 95% of the spindles are on ring-frames. Ring-spinning entails less skill on the part of the operative, and ring-yarn is quite satisfactory for the sort of fabrics used most largely in the Far East. The counts produced are low as a rule. Generally mills run day and night with double shifts, and the system seems to pay, though night-work is found to be less economical than day-work there as elsewhere. More operatives are placed on a given quantity of machinery in Japan than in Lancashire--possibly more "labour" as well as more operatives, because labour as well as operatives may be cheaper. On the same work the output per spindle per hour is less in Japan than in England, even when day-shifts only are taken into account. Japanese work has been severely criticized, but the recency of the introduction of the cotton industry must not be forgotten.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The literature relating to the cotton industry is enormous. The most complete bibliographies will be found in Chapman's _Lancashire Cotton Industry_ (where short descriptions of the several works included, which relate only to the United Kingdom, are given); Hammond's _Cotton Culture and Trade_; and Oppel's _Die Baumwolle_. The list of books set forth here must be select only.

The development of the English industry can be traced through the following:--Aikin, _A Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles round Manchester_ (1795); Andrew, _Fifty Years' Cotton Trade_ (1887); Baines, _History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain_ (1835); Banks, _A Short Sketch of the Cotton Trade of Preston for the last Sixty-Seven Years_ (1888); Butterworth, _Historical Sketches of Oldham_ (1847 or 1848); Butterworth, _An Historical Account of the Towns of Ashton-under-Lyne, Stalybridge and Dukinfield_ (1842); Chapman, _The Lancashire Cotton Industry_ (1904); Cleland, _Description of the City of Glasgow_ (1840); _A Complete History of the Cotton Trade, &c._, by a person concerned in trade (1823); Ellison, _The Cotton Trade of Great Britain including a History of the Liverpool Cotton Market and of the Liverpool Cotton Brokers' Association_ (1886); Leon Faucher, _Etudes sur Angleterre_ (1845); French, _The Life and Times of Samuel Crompton_ (1859); Guest, _A Compendious History of the Cotton-manufacture, with a Disproval of the Claim of Sir Richard Arkwright to the Invention of its Ingenious Machinery_ (1823); Guest, _The British Cotton Manufacture and a Reply to the Article on Spinning Machinery, contained in a recent Number of the Edinburgh Review_ (1828); Helm, _Chapters in the History of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce_ (1902); Kennedy, _Miscellaneous Papers on Subjects connected with the Manufactures of Lancashire_ (1849); Ogden, _A Description of Manchester ... with a Succinct History of its former original Manufactories, and their Gradual Advancement to the Present State of Perfection at which they are arrived, by a Native of the Town_ (1783); Radcliffe, _Origin of the New System of Manufacture, commonly called "Power-Loom Weaving" and the Purposes for which this System was invented and brought into use, fully explained in a Narrative concerning William Radcliffe's Struggles through Life to remove the Cause which has brought this Country to its Present Crisis_ (1828); Rees' _Cyclopaedia_, articles on Cotton (1808), Spinning (1816) and Weaving (1818); Ure, _The Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain, investigated and illustrated, with an Introductory View of its Comparative State in Foreign Countries_ (2 vols.); Ure, _The Philosophy of Manufacture; or An Exposition of the Scientific, Moral and Commercial Economy of the Factory System of Great Britain_ (1835); Watts, _Facts of the Cotton Famine_ (1866); Wheeler, _Manchester: its Political, Social and Commercial History, Ancient and Modern_ (1836).

In addition there are many short papers in the Manchester public library. Much valuable information may be obtained from parliamentary papers; a list of relevant ones is printed as an appendix to Chapman's _Lancashire Cotton Industry_, but it is too lengthy to repeat here. The most important are the reports relating to the hand-loom weavers, those on the employment of children in factories (of which a list will be found in Hutching and Harrison's _History of the Factory Legislation_), and the state of trade and the annual reports of the factory inspectors. On labour questions there is a list of authorities in Chapman's _Lancashire Cotton Industry_ and also of parliamentary papers containing useful material. Printed copies of the "Wages Lists" are issued by the trade unions. The Factory Acts are dealt with in Hutchins and Harrison's _History_, mentioned above, as well as the literature relating to them; while the handbooks by Redgrave and by Abraham and Davies are specially useful.

On the industry abroad the following are the fullest authorities:--Besso, _The Cotton Industry in Switzerland, Vorarlberg and Italy_ (1910) (a report made as a Gartside Scholar of the University of Manchester); Chapman's _Cotton Industry and Trade_ (1905); Hammond, _The Cotton Industry_; Hasbach's article, "Zur Characteristik der englischen Industrie," in _Schmollers Jahrbuch_, vol. ii. (1903); Leconte, _Le Coton_; Lochmuller, _Zur Entwicklung der Baumwollindustrie in Deutschland_ (1906); Montgomery, _The Cotton Manufacture of the United States of America contrasted and compared with that of Great Britain_ (1840); Oppel, _Die Baumwolle_ (1902); Schulze-Gaevernitz, _Der Grossbetrieb: ein wirtschaftlicher und socialer Fortschritt: eine Studie auf dem Gebiete der Baumwollindustrie_ (1892; translated as _The Cotton Trade in England and on the Continent_); T. M. Young, _American Cotton Industry_ (1902); Uttley, _Cotton Spinning and Manufacturing in the United States of North America_ (1905; a report of a tour as Gartside scholar of the university of Manchester); and the Gartside reports on the cotton industries of France and Germany by Forrester and Dehn respectively. Information will also be found in Diplomatic and Consular Reports, and fragments may be gathered from other books such as G. Drage's _Russian Affairs_, Dyer's _Dai Nippon_, and Huber's _Deutschland als Industriestaat_. Japan has published since 1901 a very full financial and economical annual, and the British government issues annually a good statistical abstract for India. The American census contains much detailed information, and there are, in addition to the statistics issued by the Federal government, those of Massachusetts, the Bureau of Statistics of which has also reported the results of an investigation into the industry in the Southern states. Among official matter the semi-official Bombay and Lancashire cotton spinning inquiry of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce may be included. The census of production of the United Kingdom must be mentioned, and the reports of the International Congresses of Cotton Spinners and Manufacturers. As to labour, see the reports of the International Textile Congresses.

The periodical literature is of good quality and much of it is filed in the Patent Office library. We may notice particularly the _Cotton Factory Times_; _Textile Journal_; _Textile Manufacturer_; _Textile Mercury_; _Textile Recorder_; _Textile World Record_ (American); _Der Leipzige Monatsschrift fur Textilindustrie_; and the French _Textile Journal_. Shepperson's _Cotton Facts_ is an annual which relates chiefly, though not entirely, to raw cotton, as does also _Cotton_, the periodical of the Manchester Cotton Association. For technical works we may refer here to the well-known treatises of Brooks, Guest, Marsden, Nasmith and Walmsley, and to Johannsen's ponderous two-volumed _Handbuch der Baumwollspinnerei, Rohweissweberei und Fabrikanlagen_. (S. J. C.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See the extract from the books of Bolton Abbey, given by Baines (p. 96) and dated 1298.

[2] Vol. ii. p. 206; Baines, pp. 96-97.

[3] Baines, pp. 93 and 94.

[4] Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society, vol. ii.

[5] _State Papers, Domestic_, lix. 5. See W. H. Price, _Quar. Jour. Econ._, vol. xx.

[6] London Guildhall Library, vol. Beta, _Petitions and Parliamentary Matters_ (1620-1621), No. 16 (old No. 25).

[7] The act referred to is 33 Henry VIII. c. xv., already mentioned.

[8] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_ (1903), vol. ii. p. 623.

[9] Original edition, pp. 32, 33.

[10] Aikin's _Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles round Manchester_, p. 154.

[11] _Tour_, vol. iii. p. 219.

[12] For instance Radcliffe p. 61. Ogden (author of _A Description of Manchester_, &c., published in 1783), if Aikin's "accurate and well-informed enquirer" by Ogden, says that the period of rapid extension of the cotton industry began about 1770. See also Butterworth's _History of Oldham_ and the passage quoted below in the text.

[13] Account of Society for Promotion of Industry in Lindsey (1789), Brit. Mus. 103, L. 56. Quoted from Cunningham's _English Industry and Commerce_, vol. ii. p. 452, n. ed., 1892.

[14] In 1838 the only other county with more than 1000 was Gloucester with 1500. 217,000 of the 219,100 operatives in England and Wales were employed in the counties enumerated. Of the 2000 operatives whose location is not given, about 1000 worked in Flintshire.

[15] W. Radcliffe's _Origin of the New System of Manufacturing_, p. 59.

[16] The term "fustian" had originally been used to designate certain woollen or worsted goods made at Norwich and in Scotland. A reference to Norwich fustians of as early a date as the 14th century is quoted by Baines.

[17] E. Butterworth's _History of Oldham_, p. 101.

[18] _Parliamentary Reports, &c._ (1826-1827), v. p. 5. See for even later examples Gardner's evidence to the committee on hand-loom weavers in 1835.

[19] This is illustrated in one of the plates to Guest's _History of the Cotton Manufacture_.

[20] Chapman's _Lancashire Cotton Industry_, pp. 15 and 16.

[21] Page 167.

[22] Mrs Crompton, wife of Samuel Crompton, we are told, used to employ her son George shortly after he could walk, as a "dolly-peg" to tread the cotton in the soapy water in which it was placed for washing. See French's _Life of Crompton_, pp. 58-59 (3rd ed.). Rowbotham in his diary gives two accounts of fires which were caused by carelessness in drying cotton.

[23] On the difference between the two machines see Baines's _History_, p. 138 et seq.

[24] Baines p. 183.

[25] Baines's _History of the Cotton Manufacture_, p. 86 n.

[26] These figures are quoted from a pamphlet published in 1788 entitled "An Important Crisis in the Calico and Muslin Manufactory in Great Britain explained." Many of the estimates given in this pamphlet are worthless, but there seems no reason why the figures quoted here should not be at least approximately correct.

[27] See article on COTTON-SPINNING MACHINERY.

[28] Hargreaves' claim to this invention has been disputed, but no satisfactory evidence has been brought forward to disprove his claim. Hargreaves was a carpenter and weaver of Stand-hill near Blackburn, and died in 1778.

[29] See Chapman's _Lancashire Cotton Industry_, pp. 59 et seq.

[30] See Baines p. 207.

[31] "Counts" are determined by the number of hanks to the lb. A hank is 840 yds. The origin of the hank of 840 yds. is probably that spinners used a winding-reel of 1-1/2 yds. in circumference, so that 80 threads (one "lea" or "rap" according to old phraseology) would contain 120 yds., and seven leas (i.e. a hank) would contain 840 yds. A hank of seven leas was the common measure in the woollen industry, in which the reels were 1 yd. or 2 yds. in circumference. For details see an article on the subject in the _Textile World Record_, vol. xxxi. No. 1.

[32] The author of the memoir of Crompton (see bibliography).

[33] Specification 257.

[34] For further analysis of the arguments current see Chapman's _Lancashire Cotton Industry_, pp. 66 et seq.

[35] Also in the 17th century a John Barkstead was granted a patent for a method of manufacturing cotton goods, but the method is not described. 1691, Specification 276.

[36] In the parliamentary reports (1840), xxiv. p. 611, the invention of the swivel-loom is claimed for a "Van Anson." It is a plausible supposition that by "Van Anson" is meant Vaucanson, as he appears to have improved the swivel-loom. But he could not have been the original inventor, since in 1724 (that is, when Vaucanson was at the most fifteen years of age) they were being employed in Manchester.

[37] Aikin, pp. 175-176, and Guest, p. 44. An explanation of the mechanism of the swivel-loom will be found in the _Encyclopedie methodique, manufactures, arts et metiers_, pt. i. vol. ii. pp. 202, 208, and _Recueil de planches_, vol. vi. (1786), pp. 72-78.

[38] Figures for the years above up to 1838 will be found in parliamentary reports (1840), xxiv. p. 611.

[39] This is the manuscript diary of a weaver of Oldham roughly covering the period 1787 to 1830. It is now in the Oldham public library. Mr S. Andrew edited extracts from it in a series of articles in the _Standard_ (an Oldham paper), under the title _Annals of Oldham_, beginning January 1, 1887.