Woolen industry

“ Until very recently the first of these groups had comprehended the greater part of the industry. There has been, however, a decline in the value of the products of woolen goods from $160,606,721 in 1880 to $118,430,158 in 1900. In the latter year there were 68,893 wage-earners employed in 1035 establishments. The decline in the manufacture of woolen goods is due to the introduction of worsted cloth for men's wear and the development of knit-goods manufacture. ”

“ A feature which goes far to explain the superior advantage which the worsted industry has over the woolen is that the former is essentially the big capitalist’s field, while the woolen mills are still run to a large extent by people of moderate means. According to the last census report, in 1909 the average output per mill in the worsted industry was nearly one million dollars, which was more than five times as large as that of the average woolen mill. ”

“ Let us turn from the sheep problem to the factory problem. What are the difficulties of the woollen industry? In the first place, as we have seen, there is no home supply of wool worth mentioning. Further, there is the intricacy of woollen manufacture. Cotton machinery has been brought to such a pitch of perfection for every operation and there are in existence so many technical manuals for every department of cotton manufacture that a certain standardisation of output is not difficult. The problem of woollen manufacture is much more complicated. ”

“ It soon became apparent that, to sustain our manufacturing interest—that engaged in the manufacture of fine cloths—the diminution of fine wools should not only be at once arrested, but that the growth of them should be immediately and largely increased. An increased attention was accordingly bestowed upon this branch of industry, and sections of the country which had previously held aloof from wool-growing, embarked in that calling with commendable enterprise. ”

“ Whereas we saw that the worsted cloth was practically finished when it left the loom, this is not the case with woolens. Oftentimes it would tax an expert to identify the finished goods with the loose and altogether different material produced by the weaver. Some fine woolens, it is true, are scarcely altered more than worsteds, but in most cases the finishing operations are in this industry a major rather than a subsidiary stage of manufacture. ”

“ Old woollen rags, rags of carpets, and all the dust from the carding and spinning in the wool and cotton factories of Northern France, with a small addition of cotton, are transformed here into cloth which flows from Vienne to all the big cities of France--20,000 yards of "shoddy" every day-to supply the ready-made clothing factories, Hand-weaving has evidently nothing to do in that industry, and in 1890 only 1,300 hand-looms were at work out of the 4,000 which were in motion in 1870. ”

“ Certain large wool merchants were allowed to create a monopoly on the export of wool. Also under Edward III, Flanders weavers were encouraged to come to England to teach the English how to weave and finish fine cloth. A cloth industry grew with all the manufacturing processes under the supervision of one capitalist manufacturer, who set up his enterprise in the country to avoid the regulations of the towns. ”

“ Wool, silk, cotton, linen, paper, and many others materials have come into common use. All of these are produced by groups of people of whose working conditions we are in ignorance and whose very existence is unknown to most of us. Among civilized people the use of wool has grown to such an extent that the sheep-raising industry has become one of the biggest businesses in all sections of America. The sheep-herder lives a lonely life and yet rarely complains, and is never happier than when out in the fields with his charges. ”

“ Again, the manufacture of wool is the most laborious, the most intricate, the most delicate, the most variable, of any of the fibers; and for this reason among others it deserves to rank, as it does, as the textile industry requiring the most brains and demanding the largest resources of art and skill. ”

“ English weavers and spinners became very skilful and invented different mechanical aids for the production of yarn and cloth. These mechanical aids not only enabled one man to do twenty men’s work, but further utilization was made of water and steam power in place of manual labor. Then began the organization of the industry on a truly gigantic scale, combining capital and machinery and resulting in what is known as the factory system. ”

“ The Wool Manufacture in the United States.
The development of the wool manufacture in the United States occupies a unique relation in this narrative. It is contemporaneous with the period of the actual mechanical florescence of the industry. Up to the time when our independence was asserted, we were a nation dependent upon our household industries and our foreign commerce. We used but little cotton—that little, strange as it now seems, being imported. Men and women were clad in homespun, spun and woven on the domestic wheel and loom. Almost every man was literally his own weaver. ”

“ By 1880 the product of all our mills, employed in the manipulation of wool in any form, was stated at 6207,000,000, and the census of 1890 will show this product not far, if any, short of $350,000,000. Next to England the United States is to-day the largest wool manufacturing nation, and the people of the United States consume a much larger quantity of wool per capita than any other people. Indeed, the increasing capacity of our woolen mills barely keeps pace with the increasing consumption of our people. ”

“ Wells after a full discussion of these points, “what is now needed to restore prosperity to the woollen industry, is a removal of all duties on the importation of foreign wools and dyestuffs, and a general reduction of the duties on manufactured woollen fabrics of every description to 25 per cent ad valorem. ”

“ Here a capital of £40,000,000, employing 140,000 operatives, turns out each year a product of manufactured wool valued at nearly the total amount of its capital. Here, built up within the century, is an aggregation of organized industrial development without a parallel among the princely cities of antiquity—the most striking, the most tangible, of the many results of the evolution of the wool manufacture. The complete organization of the Bradford manufacture indicates the ultimate development of the industry. ”

“ The wool industry easily furnished home occupation to an entire family. Often by the bright firelight in the early evening every member of the household might be seen at work on the various stages of wool manufacture or some of its necessary adjuncts, and varied and cheerful industrial sounds fill the room. The old grandmother, at light and easy work, is carding the wool into fleecy rolls, seated next the fire; for, as the ballad says, "she was old and saw right dimly." The mother, stepping as lightly as one of her girls, spins the rolls into woollen yarn on the great wheel. ”

“ The innovation was quickly adopted in France, in Germany, and in the United States, and these worsted suitings are so popular and so serviceable that the manufacture of wool goods may almost be said to have been revolutionized in the interval. There are to-day as many persons and looms employed in the worsted manufacture in England as in the woolen manufacture, and the substitution of worsted for woolen machinery has been going on at a rapid rate. ”

“ Historically the Woollen Trade has a further importance, due to the part which it played in the development of capitalism. The manufacture of woollen materials had existed in the remote past as a family industry, and even in the twentieth century this method still survives in the remoter parts of the British Isles; but the manufacture of cloth for Foreign trade was from its beginning organized on Capitalistic lines, and the copious records which have been preserved of its development, illustrate the history of Capitalism itself. ”

“ If Leeds makes woolens and does not, by fulfillment of contract, receive the means of obtaining from agricultural districts the needful quantity of food, it must starve, and stop producing woolens. If South Wales smelts iron and there comes no equivalent agreed upon, enabling it to get fabrics for clothing, its industry must cease. ”

“ The price of wool was a governing factor of that of cloth and, indirectly, of all other commodities. The result was that cloth was ‘falsified’ to a greater extent than ever before, a new Act to the contrary notwithstanding, and foreign competition began seriously to affect the prosperity of English industry. We read that trade with Flanders decayed, that much cloth was now made in other countries of Spanish wool, and that crowds of workmen were thrown out of employment. One remedy proposed was the holding of free marts in England on the lines of those in the Flemish and German cities. ”

“ SO much for the raw wool, which does not concern the consumer directly, but which he must consider in order to understand the conditions under which the woolen manufacturer is laboring.
When we come to cloth, the discrimination against the woolen manufacturer and the burden imposed upon the consumer is no less striking. ”

“ An eminent woollen manufacturer having been asked what cloth he would recommend for wear and warmth to a backwoodsman, answered quickly, “Nothing can wear like a good blanket.” The small manufacturers generally dispose of their cloth in the rough state.
The progress of machinery has called into existence a great number of factories, especially in worsted and mixed stuffs, has given value to many descriptions of wool formerly valueless, and, coupled with the repeal of the duty, brought into the market many kinds unknown a few years ago. ”

“ We have not machinery enough to manufacture all our wool, but we can manufacture a great deal, but our machinery will not manufacture all we need to supply our present wants, and a million pounds of wool go east to be manufactured, and we have to pay manufacturers for the cloth made from that wool, and we are thus paying tribute to other communities. ”

“ The duties of the male portion of the family are to tend the flocks, shear the sheep, separate the various qualities of the wool into bundles, dye it, and make the framework for the rug. With the extension of the industry, a class of workers has arisen whose sole task is to manipulate and dye the wool for use. The reason why men do not usually weave is that the occupation, besides not being a paying one, requires an amount of patience not within the power of men accustomed to work out of doors. ”

“ The Tariff Board reported that the average cost of production of wool in this country is about three times as high as in Australia and about double that in South America. On that basis our present duty is ridiculously low, and it is a wonder that our wool industry has not long gone out of existence. ”

“ The market for wool and raw hides, on the contrary, is in the rude beginnings of improvement very seldom confined to the country which produces them. They can easily be transported to distant countries, wool without any preparation, and raw hides with very little: and as they are the materials of many manufactures, the industry of other countries may occasion a demand for them, though that of the country which produces them might not occasion any. ”

“ The wool manufacture of Great Britain employs very nearly three hundred thousand persons; in the various processes connected with the production of cloth, worsted, flannel, blankets, and carpets. What a contrast to all this variety of labour is the history of the earlier stages of the manufacture of woollen cloth. ”

“ Of the hand-weavers of the cotton industry we have already spoken; the other woven fabrics are almost exclusively produced on hand-looms. Here most of the workers have suffered as the weavers have done from the crowding in of competitors displaced by machinery, and are, moreover, subject like the factory operatives to a severe fine system for bad work. ”

“ The wool industry dates back to prehistoric man. The patience, care, and skill involved in its manufacture have ever exercised a potent influence on civilization. It is, therefore, interesting and gratifying to note the intelligent eagerness of our first colonists for wool culture. It was quickly and proudly noted of towns and of individuals as a [188] proof of their rapid and substantial progress that they could carry on any of the steps of the cloth industry. Good Judge Sewall piously exulted when Brother Moody started a successful fulling-mill in Boston. ”

“ Another necessity of large-scale production, involving still greater consequences, was mechanical labour.
“Great” industry demanded the division—even the disintegration—of labour. The product, before it is finished, passes through the hands of various craft groups. It undergoes a series of processes which follow one another and are interdependent, and of which each is carried out by specially trained workers. This was the case in the manufacture of wool from the thirteenth century. ”

“ The increase in the duty on clothing wool and substitutes for wool to protect the wool growers of this country, and the well-understood fact that the tariff of 1883, and the construction given to the worsted clause, reduced the duties on many grades of woollen goods to a point that invited increasing importations, to the serious injury of our woollen manufacturers and wool growers, necessitate raising the duties on woollen yarn, cloth and dress goods to a point which will insure the holding of our home market for these manufactures to a much greater extent than is now possible. ”

“ The manufacturing industries are rapidly developing, although the lack of demand for Cashmere shawls has been a severe blow to local weavers, who, however, have turned their attention to carpets and rugs instead. Wool is the great staple, and from time immemorial the weavers of Cashmere have turned out the finest woolen fabrics in the world. They have suffered much from the competition of machine-made goods during the last half-century or more, and have been growing careless because they cannot get the prices that used to be paid for the finest products. ”