Sydney John Chapman

“ 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? ”

“ We ought to observe here that the Oldham Spinning list differs from all others in that its basis is an agreed normal time-wage for different kinds of work on which piece-rates are reckoned. But in effect understandings as to the level of normal time-wages are the real basis everywhere. If the average wages in a particular mill are lower than elsewhere for reasons not connected with the quality of labour (e.g. because of antiquated machinery or the low quality of the cotton used) , the men demand “allowances” to raise their wages to the normal level. ”

“ Hours of work in the South are bound to fall and the abuse of child labour, which had unquestionably crept in, may be expected to discontinue entirely. The factory conditions of children are better now than they were, but in some places they are still very bad. In Georgia no children under twelve are employed, but infants without fathers may begin work at ten years of age, and according to Mr Pidgin’s report, “it certainly seemed as though the intention was honoured more in the breach than in the observance, or that there must be many widows in the neighbourhood of the cotton mills.” ”

“ Apart from the efficiency of labour, reasons exist for the lower real cost of production in England in the organization of the industry. The German industry is not only less localized, but, as we might perhaps infer from that circumstance, less specialized. A German factory will turn out scores of patterns where an English firm will confine itself to a few specialities. Time is wasted in accommodating machinery to changes and in accustoming the hands to new work. The German producer suffers from the undeveloped state of the market. ”

“ Recent events in the United States afford a valuable empirical indication of the effect that improved machinery actually has upon wages. The new automatic looms caused a saving of labour per unit of product which recalled the complete subversion at the industrial revolution of the proportions in which the several factors in production were organized. Displacement of labour and falling wages might not unreasonably have been looked for temporarily, but wages stuck at their old level or rose. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The history of the hand industry in Germany runs back some centuries. At the time when it flourished in the Netherlands we may be sure that it was prosecuted to some extent farther north and east. The start with the machine industry was not long delayed after its economies had been learnt in England. It was fostered by protection against the cheap products of Lancashire, and in the course of time stimulated by every step taken towards the economic unity of the German States which broke down local barriers and therefore enlarged the German market. ”

“ American organization display intense specialism, but of a type different from that in England, where businesses are specialized by processes; in America they are specialized by products but hardly at all by processes. Independent spinning, independent manufacturing, independent bleaching, dyeing and finishing are the significant features of English industry to the bird’s-eye view; in the United States the typical firm will spin, make up its own yarn, and perhaps complete its fabrics for the market ”

“ When weaving dissociates from spinning, both the number of looms in each business and the number of spindles in each business tend to increase; more division of labour is therefore secured, and lower costs of production are reached, and there is a further gain because producers concentrate their attention upon a smaller range of work. Again when producers are freed entirely, or to some extent, from commercial worries, they can attain a higher level of efficiency at the industrial task of mill organization, and a more perfect accommodation of capacity to function will be brought about. ”

“ Every business that involves anticipation involves commercial risks. Thus the spinner who sells “forward” yarn, trusting that the price of cotton will not rise, is taking commercial risks, and so is the spinner who produces for stock, trusting that the class of yarn that he is making will continue in demand. These two instances will suffice to indicate what is meant by the carrying of commercial risks. To make the rest of our argument clear it will be well to write down formulae. Let A and B represent respectively the industrial operations of spinning and manufacturing. ”

“ Taking a spinner and his first assistant as the unit, we should have a joint average daily wage of about 8/6 in England and 6/6 in Germany. In the case of weavers, comparison of wages is more difficult to draw, but the advantage of England would seem to be but little less. However, in instituting a comparison between two countries, as regards the relative efficiency of labour in some industries, we should do well to remind ourselves that efficiency is a somewhat transitory thing, dependent upon education and experience as much as upon aptitude. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Since, as transformed in England, the cotton industry, particularly spinning, has spread throughout the civilized and semi-civilized world, though its most important seat still remains the land of its greatest development. ”

“ In spite of American nationalism and the prevalence of protective sentiments it is said that there is still a prejudice in the United States against home-made fine cotton goods. [57] “The product of the American system is a cloth which is, on the whole, distinctly inferior in appearance, ’feel’ and finish to that produced by the Lancashire system. To equal a Lancashire cloth in these respects an American cloth must not only be made of better cotton, but must contain more of it—perhaps 5% more. ”

“ The labour market of the North was comparatively exhausted; in less developed parts of the country larger supplies of intrinsically good labour might be looked for at lower wages. Skill was not a matter of much moment, because in the North it would have been necessary to incorporate much labour without previous experience in the industry, the work was intended to be of the rough kind upon which manual skill is least important, and it was intended to repose reliance for economy upon machinery in the main. ”

“ We now reach the era of the great inventions. In order to ensure clearness it will be desirable to consider separately the branches of spinning and weaving: to pass from the one to the other, and follow the chronological order, The invention of machinery. ”

“ No doubt small hand-looms factories would have become the rule, and more and more control over production would have devolved upon the factory master, and the work to be done would have been increasingly assigned by merchants, had the steam-engine remained but the dream of Watt, and semi-automatic machinery not been invented. ”

“ The cotton industry has not been prosecuted on a large scale in Germany so long as in England, and the Germans have not, therefore, had the same opportunity for developing their latent powers. But the thoughtfulness and carefulness of the German workman are beyond dispute, and these qualities will procure for him a leading place where work is not mechanical. Already in the cotton industry it is said that the operatives are displaying quite striking powers of undertaking a wide range of work and changing easily from one pattern to another. ”

“ For some years, however, the saving in labour has been a most important economy. Large supplies of half-occupied white labour existed in the Southern States among the families of small farmers who flocked South after the Civil War, and in the districts of the decayed hand industry in the mountains of Kentucky and North Carolina. For small money wages much of this labour could be attracted to the mills. Negroes do not work in the mills; the reason is said to be partly their own disinclination and partly that they are not very efficient at factory work. ”

“ There is, certainly, in the American labour problem no serious grievance on the question of wages. If there is any abuse it consists in excessively fierce work. Mr. T. M. Young, who visited the American cotton districts in 1904 with an informal commission of Lancashire spinners and manufacturers, did not think that the cause of the high wages—allowance being made for the purchasing power of money, they are above those of England, though cotton operatives in England are well paid relatively—was the superiority of the American cotton worker ”

“ The contrast no doubt was not perfect, as indeed it could not be in view of the varieties of product and their changes, but it proves at any rate that Americans were making vast strides in industrial efficiency even before the period when American methods and American enterprise were monopolizing in a wonderful degree the attention of the business world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For some reasons we should expect to find the American method applied even in England for fabrics of the highest qualities, because in their case the adaptation of the yarn to the fabric, and finishing to the fabric, are of great importance, and actually where the American plan is followed in England the explanation is frequently the speciality of the product which is associated with the particular firm producing it. When a firm manufactures a speciality of this kind it cannot always trust bought yarn, or the finishing applied to fabrics in the ton. ”

“ The choice of new fields meant at the outset the sacrifice of some of the economies of localization, but so large an expansion was looked for that projectors did not despair of creating fresh industrial localization of sufficient magnitude to produce such economies as are derived from it, which, it must be observed, are inconsiderable in America, and have declined relatively with falling cost of transport and the adoption, as regards machinery, of the principle of interchangeable parts. ”

“ In several places in England and abroad, where there is a scarcity of moisture, artificial humidifiers have been tried, but no cheap and satisfactory one has hitherto been discovered. To the advantages of the Lancashire climate for cotton spinning must be added—especially as regards the early days of the cotton industry—its disadvantages for other callings. The unpleasantness of the weather renders an indoor occupation desirable, and the scanty sunshine, combined with the unfruitful nature of much of the soil, prevents the absorption of the population in agricultural pursuits. ”

“ American producers in both North and South are too widely scattered for one town, like Manchester in the English cotton district, to be visited frequently by them for the purpose of making purchases and effecting sales. Even if the Americans did possess a convenient commercial centre, the high cost of transport between works distributed over a very wide area would prevent much specialism of businesses by processes from appearing. ”

“ He fares best if the sale is concentrated in one market, and ‘change’ prices simplify the struggle between buyer and seller. The search for customers, foreign as well as home, and the bearing of all possible risks of disposal, are in any case difficult enough to necessitate the whole strength of a man. The wholesale merchant alone is in a position to pay the manufacturer in cash or on sure, short terms. But especially where export is in question is the dispersal of sales an extreme impediment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Specialism, however, was on the increase, the capitalist was assuming more control, and the operative was being transformed more and more into the mere executive agent. Further, as creative of enterprise, an atmosphere of freedom and a general economic restlessness, consequent upon the reaction against mercantilism, were noticeable. Great changes, no doubt, would soon have swept over Lancashire had a new source of power and big factories not been rendered essential by inventions in spinning. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Protection was of course contributory to the growth of the American cotton industry. It may be remarked incidentally that the New World, including the West Indies and the Chinese empire, take the bulk of American exports, which for so large an industry are inconsiderable. The imports have always been well in excess of the exports. ”

“ 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. ”