Since the period when the cotton manufacture was treated of in the Encyclopaedia, its importance to the country has much increased. An immense capital has been invested in it; and, in consequence of the progress which has been made in the perfecting of its mechanical processes, an extraordinary increase of its products has been obtained. These circumstances impart a fresh interest to the subject; and we, therefore, propose to give the article anew; arranging it in the form of a historical view of the rise and progress and present state of the Cotton Manufacture in the different countries where it is carried on, and embodying in the narrative an account of the various mechanical inventions to which it has given rise.
The cotton manufacture had its origin in the East, where the cotton plant is indigenous, and where the climate renders a light and absorbent fabric a suitable clothing for the people. It has in consequence been long established everywhere over that quarter of the world, though it is only in India that it is carried on extensively, with a view to foreign exchange.
Arrian mentions cotton cloth among the commodities which the Romans brought from India; but from the use which that people made of the bath, woollen was the general wear, and, therefore, the quantity of cotton goods imported by them was not considerable. Dr Robertson remarks, that the difference between the cargoes imported from India, in ancient and in modern times, appears to have arisen, not from any diversity in the nature of the commodities prepared for sale in that country, but from variety in the tastes or in the wants of the nations with which they trade.
The implements made use of in the cotton manufacture of India are of so rude and simple a construction, that they are evidently the invention of a very early period. It is probable that they existed, as we now find them, before the people of that country were divided into casts; for the continuing of a particular employment in the same family, which seems to belong to that artificial construction of society, while it had the effect to transmit unimpaired the knowledge already acquired in the art, puts a stop to farther progress.
There is, indeed, no law in the Hindoo code which prescribes a division of employment within cast, but it is the invariable practice, that the profession or occupation which the father has followed, shall be pursued by the son.
From the perpetuated course of training to which this gives rise, is obtained that dexterity which each individual, in his particular employment, possesses beyond what is to be found elsewhere; but undeviating adherence to established practice precludes all development of talent, and reduces man to the condition of a machine. Any improvement in the art, while the human mind remains thus locked up, appears impossible. It is, however, the opinion of Mr Rickards, who so ably advocated the interests of the natives of India, in the discussions in Parliament on the renewal of the Company's charter, that, latterly, this form of society, with all its peculiar habits and restraints, has been held together chiefly by the oppression of the fiscal exactions, the want of a free trade, and the consequent universal poverty of the people, which prevents any expansion of their faculties; and, in support of this opinion, he refers to what the Hindoo population of Calcutta and Bombay have achieved in the pursuits of commerce, within a very recent period.
The whole implements used by the Indians in the different processes of the cotton manufacture, from the cleaning of the wool to the converting of it into the finest muslin, may be purchased for the value of a few shillings. With the exception of their loom, there exists among them no manufacturing instrument that can bear the name of a machine, nor is there any trace of the Hindoos having ever displayed any mechanical ingenuity. They spin their yarn upon the distaff; and yet with all the advantages which we derive from machinery, we have never been able to equal, either in fineness or quality, the yarn which they produce by means of this primitive instrument. The loom upon which their cloth is woven, is composed of a few sticks or reeds, which the weaver, carrying them about with him, puts up in the fields, under the shade of a tree, digging a hole large enough to contain his legs and the lower part of the "geer," the balances of which he fastens to some convenient branch over his head. Two loops underneath the geer, in which he inserts his great toes, serve as treadles, and the shuttle, formed like a large netting-needle, but of a length somewhat exceeding the breadth of the cloth, he employs also as "batton," using it alternately to draw through the weft and strike it up. The loom has no beam; the warp is laid out upon the ground, the whole length of the piece of cloth. On this account the weavers live entirely in villages, as they could not, if shut up in towns, work in this manner. Forbes says, "the weavers' houses are mostly near the shade of tamarind and mango trees, under which, at sunrise, they fix their looms and weave a variety of very fine cloths."—(Forbes's Oriental Memoirs.) The reed is the only part of the weaving apparatus, which approaches in perfection of construction to the instruments we use. Upon this rude machine, worked in the way we have mentioned, the Indians produce those muslins, which have long been such objects of curiosity, from the exquisite beauty and fineness of their texture.
From the superiority of these goods, and from their being said to retain their appearance longer than European muslins, it has been erroneously supposed that the cotton of which they are made is of better quality than any known to the European manufacturer. This is a mistake; they have no cotton in India of a quality equal to the best Sea Island; and the excellence which their muslins possess, is to be ascribed wholly to the skilful tact of the workmen in the processes of spinning and weaving. The well managed use of the finger and thumb of the Indian spinner, patiently and carefully applied in the formation of the thread, and the moisture at the same time communicated to it, have the effect of incorporating the fibres of the cotton more perfectly than can be accomplished by our machines. While in the weaving process, the Indian, to be able to manage his ill-constructed loom, even in the production of ordinary fabrics, is obliged to acquire such dexterity and sleight of hand, that it is not surprising, if, out of the multitude trained in this manner, a few should be found capable of producing those muslins said to be of such fineness, that, when spread upon the grass, they appear like the gossamer's web.
But how dearly is this excellence of art purchased by the sacrifice of the better faculties of man! How different is the effect produced by this branch of industry, upon the people and circumstances of India, from that produced by it upon the people and circumstances of England. This manufacture, though probably carried on in India to its present extent, for some thousand years, has given birth to no inventions,—to nothing which could contribute to the means of procuring enjoyment,—to nothing calculated to improve man's condition or to enlarge the sphere of his happiness. In England it has existed for only fifty years, and in that short time has given rise to some of the happiest efforts of ingenuity. It has been of incalculable use in promoting mechanical skill, and in improving the power of execution in our artisans; and the demand for additional mechanical power, created by the extension of its processes, has led to the perfecting of the steam-engine, the most successful attempt which man has ever made to bend the properties of matter to his will. How many roads, canals, and bridges, has the circulation of its products brought into existence, and how many new markets of every thing the soil can supply, has it been the cause of establishing throughout the country!
In India, this manufacture not only has no effect, in improving the condition of the people, but does not appear even to afford to those engaged in it, the means of accumulating the capital necessary to its own existence; for the funds which keep this branch of industry in motion, in place of being supplied from the stock of the master manufacturer, are advanced by the purchaser of the goods.
Thus, in the case of the East India Company's investments, the funds which are to enable the manufacturer to produce the goods, are advanced by the Company's commercial Resident, a person appointed to take charge of this part of the business. To assist this officer in his duties, he has under him a number of European servants of the Company, and an establishment of native clerks, and of people termed peons, whose business is to watch and control the weavers.
The Resident, when he has to provide an investment, enters into contracts for the goods, either with the native merchants acting as brokers, or with the master manufacturers or headsman, and these parties make subsidiary engagements with the weavers. The Resident then advances money for carrying on the work, to the chief contractors, who distribute it to the different classes of workmen, and are responsible for the delivery of the manufactured goods into the Company's warehouse, in the state stipulated in the contract. The commercial Resident never interferes with the arrangements or operations of the contractors, except when complaints are made of delay or fraud, arising from the interference of other brokers or contractors acting for other parties than the Company; and then a host of peons is sent forth by him to intimidate, and if necessary to coerce the weavers.
The Resident, when not engaged in providing goods for the Company's investment, is authorized to employ the weavers on his own account. This greatly increases his influence over these people, who having him constantly among them, as head of the little colony, and being unable at any time to move a step without his advances, feel themselves in a state of such entire dependence upon him, that although the brokers who make contracts for the Portuguese and others are generally willing to give higher prices than those which he arbitrarily fixes, the weavers, however they may be disposed to elude his orders, or to outwit him in his operations, never venture openly to dispute his will. Various laws and regulations have been enacted, to protect these poor people in their transactions with the Company's agents; but where the sovereign is the chief trader, and a party in the cause, the impartial administration of justice is not to be looked for. The very fine muslins are manufactured at Dacca, in the district around which the best cotton is produced. But those fabrics, of such exquisite fineness as to have been poetically compared to "webs of woven wind," are considered more as articles of curiosity than of trade, and their use is confined almost exclusively to the families of the potentates and princes of the country, who keep agents in this place to superintend the workmen employed in their manufacture.
Common muslins are made in every village throughout the Peninsula. Orme says, that "when not near the high road, or a principal town, it is difficult to find a village in which every man, woman, and child is not employed in making a piece of cloth." (Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire, by Robert Orme.)
The long cloths and fine pullicats are made chiefly within the presidency of Madras, the coarse piece-goods and pullicats at Surat; the finest calicoes at Masulipatam, and table-cloths of a superior quality at Patna. But every district varies from the rest in the nature of some of its productions, as may be seen from the different denominations of cotton goods to be found in every investment coming from India.
An apprehension has been expressed, that the inhabitants of India, in possession of the raw material, Cotton manufacture may obtain a knowledge of our machinery, and by combining with its peculiar advantages their cheaper labour and superior manual dexterity, be enabled to undersell us to such a degree, as to ruin and put an end to our manufacture. But in the state of the people of India, there are circumstances which render this impossible, without a change being first produced upon their moral condition, their institutions, and habits. The training which makes the Indian, with such imperfect tools, able to perform his work so well, disqualifies him from doing it in any other way, or with other implements than those to which he has been familiarized from his infancy. Besides, the uncertainty of success, and the length of time which it would take to try the experiment, are sufficient securities against the attempt being made.
Meantime, however, a revolution has been taking place in the trade between India and this country; and indeed between India and all the countries on this side of the Cape of Good Hope. The introduction of machinery so extensively into our processes, has enabled us to reduce the price of our manufactures so much, that we now not only maintain a successful competition with the India goods, in markets formerly supplied exclusively with them, but we export cotton goods to India itself.
When we first got possession of that country, our investments home were principally (in point of value, almost entirely) composed of manufactured produce; they are now in a very great proportion made up of the produce of the soil, as indigo, cotton wool, raw silk, saltpetre, &c. &c. Should this continue to be the case, and from the circumstances which have been stated, there is every ground for believing that it will,—how severe must its effects be upon the crowded population of a country, which in all ages has been a great manufacturing and exporting community!
The cotton manufacture of China is of immense amount, and carried on almost entirely for home consumption. But its origin is not of the same remote date as that of India. Indeed, the lateness of its rise, and the slowness of its progress in a situation so favourable, appear extraordinary. In the accounts of the revenues and of the arts of China, during the period of the celebrated dynasty which commenced about 1100 years before the Christian era, and lasted for some centuries, no mention is made of the cotton plant, or of any thing connected with cotton; nor indeed is there any notice of cotton in these records, until about 200 years before the Christian era; from which period to the sixth century, the cotton cloth, that was either paid in tribute, or offered in presents, to the emperors, is always mentioned as a thing rare and precious. The annals record, as a singular circumstance, the emperor Ou-ti, who mounted the throne in 502, having had a robe of cotton. In the seventh century, we find the cotton plant mentioned, but as being confined to gardens, and the poems and romances of that period are occupied in celebrating the beauty of its flowers. From these circumstances we may venture to say, that there could have been no manufacture of the article in the country at that time; which appears the more surprising, as cotton cloths were highly prized at Court, and are always noticed among the offerings made to the emperors by the ambassadors of foreign princes. It was in the eleventh century that the cotton plant was first removed from the gardens to the fields, and became an object of common culture; and it is not until this period that we can date the commencement of the manufacture. So slow and backward sometimes are nations, far advanced in other respects, in prosecuting objects, considered afterwards by them as indispensable to their comforts. And how extraordinary is this, in the case of the Chinese, a people possessed of so much ingenuity, and known to be so much awake to every thing connected with self interest.
The cotton tree was introduced into China at the time of the conquest of that country by the Mogul Tartars, in the year 1280; after which period every encouragement was given by government to the culture and manufacture of cotton. But there were considerable difficulties to be encountered in the prejudices of the people, and in the opposition of those engaged in the manufacture of woollen and linen; and it was not until the year 1368, that these obstacles were altogether surmounted. After that date the progress of the cotton manufacture was rapid, and now, nine-tenths of the population of that immense empire are clothed in its fabrics. All the cotton cloth used by the Chinese for garments is coloured, white being the dress employed for mourning, and never worn but on that occasion.
Almost the only cotton goods exported from China are nankeens, and a few chintzes. Barrow mentions, that the cotton from which the former article is made, when cultivated in the southern provinces, is said, from the greater heat, to lose its peculiar yellow tint, in the course of two or three years. But this Mr Barrow thinks cannot be the case, having himself, he says, raised the nankeen cotton at the Cape of Good Hope, and found the third year's crop of as full and rich a tint as the first. He states the production of all the fabrics of the Chinese manufacture at the time he visited the country in 1792 to be stationary, attributing this to the want of proper encouragement from the government, and to the rigid adherence of the people to ancient usage. But to keep a manufacture in a progressive state, there must be a progressive demand for its products; and the Chinese manufacturers having no means of disposing of any surplus quantity, must shape the supply to the wants of their own consumption. It is said by travellers who have obtained access to that country, that the people show a great desire for articles of British manufacture. How valuable then would the establishment of a free intercourse be to both countries, and how conducive, probably, to the increase of the productions of both?
The Chinese, over and above the cotton wool
* Du Cotonnier et de sa Culture, par Lasteyrie. 8vo. Paris, 1808. they raise at home for their manufacture, import largely from India. This intercourse commenced about 40 years ago. A famine, which happened in China about that period, induced the government to direct, by an imperial edict, that a greater proportion of the land should be thrown into the cultivation of grain. Since then, the importation from India has been considerable, although constituting but a small part of what is consumed in their manufacture. Small, however, as they consider it, its amount has been nearly equal to a half of the quantity required for the whole cotton manufacture of Great Britain.
The manufacture of cotton goods in Europe, it is said, was first attempted by the Commercial States of Italy, before the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope. These enterprising communities had till then been the medium through which the cotton fabrics of India had passed to the different markets of the west; and being situated in the neighbourhood of countries where the cotton wool was grown, and familiar with manufacturing processes, they had been led, it is supposed, to attempt the imitation of articles so much valued, and so profitable of sale. Another speculation, however, places the introduction of the cotton manufacture into Europe at a later date, and states the people of the Low Countries to have been the first manufacturers of these articles, in imitation of the cotton fabrics which the Dutch, about the beginning of the seventeenth century, began to import from India. But this last account cannot be correct; for Guicciardini, in 1560, in a very full list which he gives of the different articles annually imported into, and exported from, Antwerp,* then the greatest commercial mart in Europe, specifies fustians and dimities of many fine sorts, among the manufactured articles imported from Milan, and mentions cottons generally among those brought from Venice. But in the articles exported from Antwerp, although we find linens sent to almost every country, cotton cloth is not once mentioned. Italy, therefore, at that time, had a cotton manufacture, which, it is probable, soon after made its way to the Netherlands; for we know that it was brought from thence to Britain, by Protestant refugees, about the close of the sixteenth, or early in the seventeenth century.
That this manufacture was carried on in this country at a pretty early period of the seventeenth century, we know from good authority. Lewis Roberts, in his "Treasure of Traffic," published in the year 1641, says, "The town of Manchester buys linen yarn from the Irish in great quantity, and weaving it, returns the same again in linen into Ireland to sell. Neither does her industry rest here; for they buy cotton wool in London, that comes from Cyprus and Smyrna, and work the same into fustians, vermillions, and dimities, which they return to London, where they are sold, and from thence not seldom are sent into such foreign parts where the first material may be more easily had for that manufacture."
These goods were woven chiefly about Bolton, and were purchased there at the weekly market, by the Manchester dealers, who afterwards finished them, and sold them to their customers over the country.
At this period, and for a long time after, the Early state weaver provided his own warp, which was of linen of the Mauyarn, and the cotton wool for his weft, buying them wherever he could best supply himself. But, as the trouble of looking about for these materials when he wanted them, was found to be an unprofitable application of his time, the Manchester purchasers established agents in the different villages to supply those articles, and receive in return the goods when manufactured. In this way of conducting the business, each weaver's cottage formed a separate and independent little factory. The yarn for his warp was bought by him in a prepared state, the wool for his weft was carded and spun by the female part of the family, and the cloth was woven by himself and his sons.
This is the situation in which we find manufactures everywhere before the introduction of machinery, and particularly before the manufacture has been carried to such an extent as will allow of a division of labour, and a separation of the different processes into distinct employments. At this period of the business, the workman usually has his residence in the country, where he can be accommodated with a little garden ground, and perhaps with grass for a cow; and there in the bosom of his family, aided by the industry of its different members, prosecutes his employment. How much more of the comforts of life, and of the means of natural enjoyment, belong to this stage of the manufacture than to a more advanced one, in which combined systems of machinery, and a more perfect division of labour, collect the workmen into factories and towns!
It would be impossible to enumerate all the descriptions of cotton goods which, in succession, were brought forward from the commencement of the manufacture.† The pattern cards of the principal houses in the trade, circulated from time to time through these kingdoms, and over the continent of Europe and America, exhibited specimens of nearly two thousand different kinds, comprehending, in the assortment, every variety of taste and fancy.
For the introduction and after improvement of many of these articles, the country is indebted to the late Mr John Wilson of Ainsworth. This gentleman was originally a manufacturer of fustians at Manchester, and had early engaged in the manufac-
* See Macpherson's Annals of Commerce. † The fustians which were made in this early period of the manufacture, were those denominated herring-bone, pillows for pockets and outside wear, strong cotton-ribs and barragon, broad raced linen thickset and tufts, with whitened diaper, striped dimities, and jeans. At some distance of time, there were added to these, cotton thicksets, goods figured in the loom; and, at a still later date, cotton velvets, velveteens, and strong and fancy cords. (Aitkin's History of Manchester.)
Cotton manufacture of cotton velvets, which, by persevering efforts, he succeeded in bringing to the utmost degree of perfection. His improvement of the mode of dressing, of finishing, and particularly of dyeing these goods, acquired to them so great a character, both in the home and foreign market, that they always sold in preference to those of every other manufacturer. He cleared off the loose and uneven fibres from them with razors, and then burned or singed them with spirits of wine. Afterwards he made use of hot irons, resembling the weavers' drying iron, which instrument had been first employed for this purpose in the manufacture carried on in the Manchester house of correction, by Mr Whitlow, governor of that establishment. At a later period, Mr Wilson effected the same object, by drawing the goods rapidly, and equally, over a cylinder of cast-iron heated to redness, by which they were in a still superior manner cleared of the down or pile which had been raised upon them, in the various operations of weaving, washing, bleaching, or dyeing. These successive inventions of Mr Wilson, for performing this process, give us some idea of the manner in which improvements are introduced into our manufactures, when, fortunately, the efforts of self-interest come to be directed by intelligence and talent.
Mr Wilson having a turn for chemical inquiries, investigated the different known processes of dyeing; and, by the improvements he introduced, in the application of them to his own manufacture, materially advanced that art. Having succeeded to his satisfaction in dyeing the other rich colours, he procured from the Greeks of Smyrna the secret of dyeing Turkey red. He afterwards gave an account of this process, in two Essays, which he read to the Philosophical and Literary Society of Manchester, and which, upon retiring from business, he printed and distributed among his friends. The many valuable improvements introduced by him into the different processes connected with the cotton manufacture, had the effect, not only to establish it more firmly, but rapidly to enlarge its extent.
A considerable share of the calico-printing business, about the year 1760, was transferred from London to Lancashire, in consequence of the cheaper accommodation there for carrying on the work, and the lower wages the Lancashire workmen were content to accept for their labour. This cheapness produced an increasing demand for calicoes. These goods were at that time made of linen warp and cotton weft, it having been found impracticable before Sir Richard Arkwright's discovery, to spin cotton yarn of sufficient strength for the former.
At this period, the dealers from Manchester, in place of buying fustians and calicoes from the weaver, as had been the practice before, began to furnish him with materials for the cloth, and to pay him a fixed price per piece for the work when executed. Along with a portion of linen warp, they gave him out a certain quantity of cotton wool, which he was obliged to get spun into the weft he was to use. But so fast was the manufacture by this time outstripping the process of spinning, that it frequently happened that the sum the weaver was allowed by his employer for the spinning, was less than what he found himself obliged to pay for it. He durst not, however, complain, much less abate the spinner's price, lest his looms should be unemployed. In this state of things, the farther progress of the manufacture must have been stopped, if a more productive mode of spinning had not been discovered.
It has been said, that the yarn produced at this time in England by the one thread wheel, the only spinning machine known, did not exceed in quantity what 50,000 spindles of our present machinery can yield. To have reared and trained hands sufficient to have doubled this quantity, had it been possible, must have been the work of a length of time, and the amount of the manufacture would still have been insignificant. A change in the system, therefore, had become indispensable; and we find, that different ingenious people had already begun to employ themselves in contriving a better mode of spinning.
When we contrast the splendid inventions connected with the cotton manufacture, which, from this period, burst forth in rapid succession, with the passive acquiescence in the use of imperfect machinery during the long period which preceded, we are apt to ascribe these improvements to the circumstance alone of a number of men of genius at that moment having shone out upon the world, and to forget that the ultimate cause exists in the times which have called that genius into action.
Previously to the year 1760 improvements had been attempted in the carding process. James Hargreaves, a weaver at Stanhill, near Church, in Lancashire, an illiterate man possessed of no great mechanical knowledge, had adapted the stock-cards used in the woollen manufacture to the carding of cotton, and had greatly improved them. By their means a person was able to do double the work, and with more ease, than by hand-carding, the method practised till then. In the stock-cards one of the cards is fixed, while the other being suspended by a cord over a pulley, is worked by the carder; and in this way two or three cards can be applied to the same stock. This contrivance was soon succeeded by the cylinder cards, or carding engine. It is not ascertained who was the inventor of this valuable machine, but it is known that the father of the present Sir Robert Peele was among the first who used it; and that, as early as the year 1762, he, with the assistance of Hargreaves, erected a carding engine with cylinders, at Blackburn. This machine did not differ materially from that now in use, except that it had no contrivance for detaching the cotton from the cards, an operation which was performed by women with hand-cards. About the same period the fly-shuttle, one of the most important improvements that has been introduced into the process of weaving, was invented by a person of the name of Kay at Bury.
These successful advances show how much the minds of the manufacturing class had been awakened to discovery, and must have encouraged the efforts that were then making to effect like improvements in spinning. There had been several unsuccessful attempts to improve the mode of spinning before the year 1767, when James Hargreaves, whom we have already mentioned, invented the "spinning jenny." The idea of this machine is said to have been suggested to him, by seeing a common spinning wheel which had been accidentally overturned, continue its motion while it lay on the ground. If this was the case, it shows a mind of no common description, which, from such a casual occurrence, could elicit an invention of so much importance.
After several unsuccessful attempts to carry into execution the conception he had formed, he succeeded in producing a rudely constructed jenny of eight spindles, turned by bands from a horizontal wheel. In it, the eight rovings were passed between two pieces of wood laid horizontally the breadth of the machine, and these being grasped in the spinner's hand and drawn out by him, formed the rovings into threads. The structure of this jenny was afterwards greatly improved, and it was at last brought to work as many as eighty spindles. This machine, although of limited powers, when compared with the beautiful inventions which succeeded it, must be considered as the first and leading step in that progress of discovery, which carried improvement into every branch of the manufacture; changing, as it proceeded, the nature and character of the means of production, by substituting mechanical operations for human labour, and causing the manufactured article to become more and more a product of capital. The progress of invention after this was rapid; for when it was seen that, with the aid of the few mechanical combinations we have mentioned, the spinner had been enabled to increase his power of production nearly eighty fold, those engaged in other branches of manufacture had their attention awakened to the possibility of introducing changes equally beneficial, by an application of similar contrivances.
Hargreaves's invention occasioned great alarm among those who earned their subsistence by the old mode of spinning, and even produced popular commotion. A mob broke into his house and destroyed his machine; and, some time after, when a better knowledge of the advantage of his invention had begun to bring his "spinning jenny" into general use, the people rose a second time, and, scouring the country, broke to pieces every carding and spinning machine they could find. Hargreaves himself had now removed to Nottingham, where he was engaged in erecting a small spinning work about the same period when Mr Arkwright came to settle there, being also driven from Lancashire by the fear of similar violence.
The jenny having in a short time put an end to the spinning of cotton by the common wheel, the whole wefts used in the manufacture continued to be spun upon that machine, until the invention of the "mule jenny," by which, in its turn, it was superseded. Hargreaves died in great poverty a few years after his removal to Nottingham.
It would appear that while Hargreaves was producing the common jenny, Mr Arkwright, afterwards Sir Richard Arkwright, was employed in contriving that wonderful piece of mechanism, the spinning frame; which, when put in motion, performs of itself the whole process of spinning, leaving to man only the office of supplying the material, and of joining or piecing the thread when it happens to break.
The extraordinary person to whom we owe this invention was born in the year 1732, at Preston in Lancashire, of parents in poor circumstances, and he was the youngest of 13 children. He was brought up to the humble occupation of a barber, and even to the time that he made his discovery, he continued to derive his subsistence from the exercise of this employment. But living in a manufacturing district, his attention, it is probable, had been drawn to the operations carrying on around him, and hearing from every one complaints of the deficient supply of cotton yarn, he set about contriving a plan for changing the mode of spinning.
Even after he had matured in his mind the conception of what he proposed to execute, he had great difficulty in giving his ideas a practical form, from his total want of mechanical skill and experience. And, at the last, his discovery was likely to have been lost to the world, from his not being able to find any person willing to embark the capital that was necessary to give the undertaking a fair trial; None but a person of his ardour and perseverance could have overcome such obstacles.
It has already been mentioned, that he had removed to Nottingham; here he prevailed upon the Messrs Wrights, bankers, to advance him the sums of money necessary to enable him to go on with his experiments, it being understood, that if his plan should succeed, they were to share in its profits. These gentlemen, however, finding the amount of their advances swell to a larger sum than they had expected, while there seemed to them little prospect of the discovery being brought into a practical state, informed Mr Arkwright, that the transaction being out of the ordinary course of their business, they would be glad if he could get some one to take their place, and pay them up their money; and they mentioned Mr Need of Nottingham, as a person likely to do this, from his being already engaged in other patent discoveries, and acquainted with such undertakings. Mr Arkwright in consequence applied to Mr Need, who told him he had no objection to join in the scheme, if he could be satisfied that the discovery was such as he represented it; and who desired him to carry the model of his machine to Mr Strutt of Derby, his partner in the stocking patent, by whose report he would be guided. Mr Strutt, a man of great mechanical skill, seeing at a glance the merit of the invention, and how little was required to render it complete, told Mr Need that he might with great safety close with Mr Arkwright; the only thing wanting to his model, being an adaptation of some of the wheels to each other, which, from a want of skill, the inventor, with all his powers of contrivance, had not been able to accomplish.
In the year 1769, Mr Arkwright obtained his patent for spinning with rollers; and Mr Need and Mr Strutt became his partners in the concerns to be carried on under it. He erected his first mill at Nottingham, which he worked by a horse power. But this mode of giving motion to the machinery being expensive, he, in the year 1771, built another mill at Cromford, in Derbyshire, to which motion was given by water.
In the year 1772, his patent was contested, on the ground that he was not the original inventor of the process for which it was obtained; but a verdict was given in his favour, and his right to the exclusive use of the discovery remained afterwards undisturbed.
Mr Arkwright, soon after his removal to Cromford, continued Patent followed up his first great discovery with other inventions and combinations of machinery for preparing the cotton for spinning, by which perfection was gradually given to the process through all its successive operations. For these additional improvements he took out another patent in the year 1775. But, in the year 1781, his right to this patent was disputed, on the plea that he was not the inventor of some of the mechanical contrivances comprehended under it; and after different trials of the question before the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas, judgment was finally given against him in November 1785, and the patent cancelled.
We shall now proceed to give a description of Mr Arkwright's different inventions, not, however, in the order in which he brought them forward, but in that in which they are employed in the process of spinning, of which art, in its present state, this will enable us at the same time to exhibit a view.
The cotton-wool, after it has been carefully picked, either by the hand or by a machine, is carried to the carding engine. This machine consists of two or more large cylinders, covered with cards, with teeth like those of hand-cards, which revolve in opposite directions, and nearly in contact with each other. These cylinders are either surmounted by other smaller ones, covered in like manner with cards, by whose revolutions in opposite directions to those of the larger cylinders, and with different velocities, the cotton is carded, and put on the last or finishing cylinder; or, as is now more generally practised, the first cylinder, that is, the one nearest the feeder, is surrounded by a fixed concave framing, lined with cards, which, coming nearly in contact with the cylinder cards, produce the same effect in the process as the top cylinders, and in a more simple manner. See Plate LXVII. Fig. 1, 2, 3, and 4.
We have noticed, in speaking of the carding engine which Mr Peale erected in 1762, that, at that time, the cotton was taken off the finishing cylinder by means of hand-cards. But by the time Mr Arkwright began his spinning, this operation was performed by the application of a roller, with tin plates upon it, like the floats of a water-wheel, which, revolving with a quick motion, scraped off the cotton from the card. This was a rude contrivance, and in its operation injured both the cotton and the cards. Mr Arkwright substituted for it a plate of metal, toothed at the edge like a comb, which, in place of being made to revolve like the other, was moved rapidly in a perpendicular direction by a crank, and with slight but reiterated strokes on the teeth of the cards, detached the cotton from them in a uniform fleece. In place also of sheet cards, with which the finishing cylinder had hitherto been covered, he employed narrow fillet cards, wound round it in a spiral form, by which contrivance a continuity of the fleece was produced, which, as it left the card, was gradually contracted in its size, by being passed through a kind of funnel, and then flattened or compressed between two rollers, after which it was received into a tin can in the state of a uniform continued carding.
The taking off the cotton from the cards in this manner is one of the most beautiful and curious operations in the process of cotton spinning: and although the crank, which forms a part of the apparatus, had perhaps been used in some way or other prior to the date of Mr Arkwright's second patent, as was urged in the action for having it set aside, the comb for taking off the fleece, and the spiral card which produces its continuity, were inventions indisputably his own.
The next step in the process after the carding is, what is called drawing the cotton. The machine employed for this purpose, called the drawing frame, is constructed upon the same principle as the spinning frame, from which machine the idea of it was taken. To imitate the operation performed by the finger and thumb in hand-spinning, two pairs of rollers are employed; the first pair, slowly revolving in contact with each other, are placed at a little distance from the second pair, which revolve with greater velocity. The lower roller of each pair is furrowed, or fluted longitudinally, and the upper one is neatly covered with leather, to give the two a proper hold of the cotton. If we suppose a carding to be passed between the first pair of rollers, it will be drawn forward as they move, but without any change in its form or texture, farther than a slight compression received from the incumbent roller. But if from the first pair it be passed through the second moving with twice or thrice the velocity of the first, it will be drawn twice or thrice smaller than it was when it entered the first rollers. In the succeeding operation, two, three, or more of these drawings are passed together through the rollers in the same manner, coalescing as they pass, and forming a single new drawing. This doubling and drawing is several times repeated, having the effect to arrange all the fibres of the cotton longitudinally, in a uniform and parallel direction, and to do away all inequalities of thickness. In these operations the cotton receives no twist. See Plate LXVII. Fig. 5. and 6.
Roving the cotton, which is the next part of the Roving process of preparation, is an operation similar to that employed for drawing it, only that, to give the rove, in its now reduced thickness, such a degree of tenacity as will make it hold together, a slight twist is given to it, converting it into a soft and loose thread. This is effected, by passing it as it leaves the rollers, into a round conical can, which, while receiving it, revolves with considerable velocity. (See Plate LXVII. Fig. 7, 8, and 9.) After this the rove is wound by the hand upon a bobbin by the The spinning frame has the double set of rollers, which have been described in the account given of the drawing and roving frames, and which, operating in the same manner as in those machines, extend the rove, and reduce it to a thread of the required fineness. The twist is given to this thread, by the application of the spindle and fly of the common flax wheel adopted into the machine for this purpose. (See Plate LXVIII. Fig. 10.)
When we consider the merits of Mr Arkwright's invention of the spinning frame, the circumstance which strikes us most, is the little resemblance there is between it and the spinning wheel in use at the time the discovery was made. It is not that machine improved by him, but a new instrument for performing the process in a better manner. And when this is kept in view, how extraordinary it appears, that a contrivance so original, and so finely conceived, should be the production of a person in his circumstances. His after inventions for preparing the cotton, which are sometimes spoken of as the finest thing to be observed in the process of cotton spinning, are certainly not so wonderful as this first effort of his genius; for, besides the advance in mechanical knowledge which he must have made by the time he produced them, the spiral cards, and the comb for taking off the finished carding, although contrivances which only an original and fertile mind could have conceived, are still but improved arrangements or dispositions of parts of a machine which previously existed; and the other parts of his apparatus for preparing the cotton, however excellently and beautifully fitted to produce their end, are but applications of his own spinning machine, altered and adapted to the accomplishment of this object.
But the originality and comprehension of his mind were perhaps marked by nothing more strongly, than the judgment with which, although new to business, he conducted the great concerns his discovery gave rise to, and the systematic order and arrangement which he introduced into every department of his extensive works. His plans of management, which must have been entirely his own, as no establishment of a similar nature then existed, were universally adopted by others; and, after long experience, they have not yet, in any material point, been altered or improved.
The yarn produced by this mode of spinning is called Water Twist, from the circumstance of the machinery from which it is obtained, having, for a long time after its invention, been generally put in motion by water.
The only improvement, or even alteration yet made upon Mr Arkwright's first contrivance, the spinning frame, is to be found in the machine called the Throstle introduced some years ago; the spinning apparatus employed in which, however, is in every respect the same as that in Mr Arkwright's frame, though the movement of the parts is different. In place of four or six spindles being coupled together, forming what is called a head, with a separate movement by a pully and drum, as is the case in the frame, the whole rollers and spindles on both sides of the throstle are connected together, and turned by bands from a tin cylinder, lying horizontally under the machine. In the throstle, too, a greater number of spindles are contained in the same space. But its merit lies in the simplification of the moving apparatus just mentioned, which not only renders the movement lighter, but affords the means of increasing, with greater facility, the speed of the machine; and consequently, when the nature of the spinning admits it, of obtaining a larger production. Besides this, the throstle can, with more ease, and at less expense than the frame, be altered to spin the different "grists" of yarn; only a few movements having to be changed in it to produce this end, while in the spinning frame there are a great many. (See Plate LXVIII. Fig. 11.)
In the year 1786 Mr Arkwright had the honour of knighthood conferred upon him, on presenting an address from the county of Derby, of which he was then High Sheriff.
From Mr Arkwright having commenced his operations at Nottingham, the seat of the stocking manufacture, and from his connection with Mr Need, who was largely engaged in it, the whole produce of his spinning at first was devoted to that trade. The cotton yarn for this manufacture requires to be particularly smooth and equal; and to secure to it these qualities, it is spun by a process differing a little from that employed for ordinary twist; being from two roves in place of one, it is called double spun twist. The introduction of this article produced a great change upon the stocking manufacture: hand spun cotton was entirely laid aside, and stockings made of twist were of so superior a quality, that in a short time they wholly supplanted thread stockings, which hitherto had been preferred. The manufacture of cotton stockings in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and Leicestershire, is now of great extent.
It was soon discovered, that the yarn produced by the spinning frame had sufficient strength to fit
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* Since this article was written, a change in the process of roving has been introduced into many mills, and is expected to become general. In place of the rove being received in a roving can, as described above, it is now received upon a bobbin, by means of a spindle and fly. The spindle moving with a uniform speed, communicates an equal twine to the rove; while the bobbin, turned by a band which moves upon a cone, has its speed varied so as to take up the rove equally in all the different stages of the filling of the bobbin. This process saves the expense and trouble of winding the rove by hand, and, it is thought, occasions less waste than the other. But from the greater number and complexity of the movements of this machine, its parts require to be very perfect, and to be kept in the highest order. Cotton Manufacture.
It for warp; but that the firmness and hardness of texture which gave it this quality, rendered it less suitable for weft than that spun by Hargreaves's jenny. In consequence, however, of the manufacturers being now enabled to procure cotton thread of this description, the calicoes and other articles in imitation of India goods, which had hitherto been manufactured with linen warp, came to be made wholly of cotton, and the progressive increase of these manufactures, particularly of calicoes after this time, was unexampled.
Calicoes wove with cotton warp were first attempted at Derby, in the year 1773, by Mr Need and Mr Strutt, Mr Arkwright's partners. But after these gentlemen had made a considerable quantity of those goods, they discovered, that when printed, they were subject to double the duty charged upon calicoes wove with linen warp, and that their sale was even prohibited in the home market. After a long and expensive application to the legislature, they succeeded in procuring the repeal of those impolitic laws. Nearly about the same period, calicoes entirely of cotton, were begun to be made at Blackburn, which place soon became the principal seat of their manufacture, and for a long time the great market to which the printers, from all parts of the kingdom, resorted for their supplies. This branch went on increasing for many years in a most extraordinary degree. About the year 1805, it was calculated, that the number of pieces of calico sold annually in the Blackburn market, was not less than a million; and by that time the manufacture of this article was not confined to the country round Blackburn, but had spread into the north-west district of Yorkshire, principally about Colne and Bradford, from which part of the country 20,000 pieces weekly, it is said, were sent to Manchester.
In the year 1775, Mr Samuel Crompton, of Bolton, completed his invention of the "mule jenny," in the contriving of which he had been engaged for several years. But this machine did not come into general use until after the expiration of Mr Arkwright's patent, because, till then, the spinner was confined to the rove prepared for common jenny spinning, which was so unsuitable to the mule jenny, that it was apprehended this invention would prove abortive.
After the spinner was allowed to make use of Mr Arkwright's fine preparation, by his patent being cancelled, the powers of this machine became known, and its introduction forms another important era in the history of the cotton manufacture. For, being fitted to supply those grits and qualities of yarn which the other machines could not produce, the manufacturer was enabled to enter upon fabrics which otherwise it would have been vain to attempt. Warps of the finest quality are spun upon the mule, while, on the spinning frame, yarn finer than what is called No. 50 cannot be spun to advantage. The reason is, that the fine thread has not strength to stand the pull of the rollers when winding itself on the bobbin of the spinning frame, a stress which is saved to it in the mule, where the draught takes place only in a slight degree faster than the rove is given out by the rollers. All wefts, from the lowest to the highest numbers, are now spun upon this machine, the use of Hargreaves's jenny having been entirely superseded by it.* It was some time indeed after the mule came into use, before it was ascertained that the finest yarn required for the manufacture might be produced from it. But, by the year 1792, Mr Jonathan Pollard of Manchester had come to spin yarn upon the mule of the fineness of 278 hanks to the pound, from cotton wool grown by Mr Robley, in the island of Tobago; which yarn was sold at 20 guineas per pound to the muslin manufacturers of Glasgow.
The mule, in its structure and operation, is a compound of the spinning frame, and of Hargreaves's of the jenny, from which circumstance it has probably received its name. It contains a system of rollers like that belonging to the twist frame; but, in place of having every four or six of them in separate heads, as is the case in that machine, the whole are coupled together, and the rove being drawn through them, is, in its conversion into thread, received on spindles revolving like those of the jenny. The carriage on which these spindles are placed is moveable, and is made to recede from the rollers a degree faster than the thread is given out. After a certain quantity of the roving has been thus delivered by the rollers, they are stopped, but the carriage continues to recede somewhat farther, and the spindles continuing also to revolve, the thread is drawn out to the fineness required, and then receives its proper portion of twist. This last operation resembles that performed by the common jenny, and produces a similar effect. (See Plate LXVIII. Fig. 12.)
Mr Crompton took no patent for this discovery, but many years after he had given this important invention to his country, he received from Parliament a grant of L.5000.
The mule was originally worked by the spinner's Mr Kelly's hand; but in the year 1792, Mr William Kelly of Glasgow, at that time manager of the Lanark mills, obtained a patent for moving it by machinery. But Mule by he soon saw, that, in the extended state of the cotton trade, the exclusive possession of this important improvement was not likely to be quietly acquiesced in, and, unwilling to involve himself in the litigation which would have been necessary to defend his privilege, although the undisputed inventor of the process, he allowed every one freely to avail himself of its advantages.
A great object expected to be attained by this improvement in the mule was, that, in place of employing men as spinners, which was indispensable when the machine was to be worked by the hand, children would be able to perform every office required. To give the means of accomplishing this, Mr Kelly's machinery
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* A few of Hargreaves's jennies are still employed in spinning cotton waste and the low qualities of India cotton, to be used as wefts in the inferior descriptions of cotton cloth. was contrived so as to move every part of the mule, even to the returning of the carriage into its place after the draught was finished. But after a short trial of this mode of spinning, it was discovered that a greater amount of produce might be obtained, and at a cheaper rate, by taking back the men as spinners, and employing them to return the carriage as formerly, while the machine performed the other operations. In this way one man might spin two mules, the carriage of the one moving out during the time that the spinner was engaged in returning the other.
Proceeding in this train of discovery, it was next found that it was no longer necessary to confine the mule to 144 spindles, the largest number it had till then contained, for, with the assistance of the mechanical movement, the spinner was able to manage two mules of three or four hundred spindles each, and thus to spin on six or eight hundred spindles, where before he had spun on only 144.
The process of mule spinning continued to be conducted upon this plan till very lately, when several proprietors of large cotton works have restored the part of Mr Kelly's machinery, which returns the carriage into its place after the draught is completed, with the view of relieving the spinner from this operation; and, by lessening the fatigue, of being enabled to employ women in place of men. All that is to be done by the spinner in this case is, with a slight touch of the hand, to shift the band, to allow the carriage to be moved back into its resting position, managing the guide for building the cop as this takes place, and regulating and tempering at the same time the motion of the carriage as it recedes.
In addition to the process for preparing the cotton for frame spinning, which has been described, it goes through a farther operation when it is to be spun upon the mule—that of stretching. When fine yarn came to be spun upon the mule, it was found that extending the roves, at once, to a fine thread was a reduction of texture too rapid to admit of the production of a good article, and that an intermediate operation was necessary. This gave rise to the process of stretching, which is performed on a mule fitted up for the purpose, which draws the rove another degree finer, without communicating to it such additional twist as might prevent its being extended afterwards into a thread upon the spinning mule. This process of stretching by the mule has been found so much easier and more expeditious than roving by the spinning frame, that it is now employed in preparing for the coarser spinning, and supersedes the frequent repetition of the drawing process.
We have now finished our account of the different machines employed in cotton spinning, and have endeavoured to describe the succession of improvements, which up to this time have been made upon the plan and mode of working them, so as to give some idea of the effect they must have had to increase the quantity of production. But it will not be possible, from the nature of the thing, to exhibit in a similar manner that advance, not less important, which continued to be made in the better construction of the parts of these machines, and in the skill and management of the spinner in working them. By these a progressive acceleration of their movement was rendered practicable, and even after the machine had long been apparently in a very perfect state, the quantity of produce was nearly doubled. Of these we can only give the results.
Twenty-five years ago, the average production of the spinning machinery in Britain was estimated at between six and seven hanks per spindle per week. Since that time, it has gradually risen, until it has reached an average of twelve hanks. But we know of several works in which eighteen are now regularly produced; and it is the opinion of the best informed spinners, that even this quantity may be greatly increased.
The effect upon the cost of the article from this increase of production was very great, as will be seen by a statement of the reduction of the wages of spinning, and of the sale price of the yarn, which rapidly followed.
Until the cancelling of Sir Richard Arkwright's patent, by which the mule spinner became at liberty to use his improved mode of preparation—the few fine wefts required for the manufacture were spun on Hargreaves's jenny. In the year 1786, this yarn was sold in Glasgow and Paisley at 3s. the pound, for No. 90, 7s. per pound being the price of spinning it. The warp was spun upon the twist frame, and was sold at the same time at 47s. 6d. the pound, for No. 90.
We have learned from Mr Crompton, that, immediately upon his completing his invention of the mule, in the year 1775, he obtained 14s. per pound for the spinning and preparation of No. 40; that a short time after, he got 25s. per pound for the spinning and preparation of No. 60, and that he then spun a small quantity of No. 80, to show that it was not impossible, as was supposed, to spin yarn of so fine a grist; and for the spinning and preparation of this he got 42s. per pound.
For some little time after the mule came into general use, in the year 1786, it was the practice in many places for the spinner to purchase the wool in a prepared state, and separate concerns for preparing cotton were established and carried on. At this time (1786) 10s. per pound were paid for spinning No. 100, but soon after, the wages for this number were reduced, first to 8s., and then to 6s. 8d. In 1790, the price of spinning No. 110 was 4s. per pound. In 1792, it was brought to 3s. 1d., and in 1793 to 2s. 6d., at which price it continued till 1795, when the mule coming to be worked by machinery, and an enlargement of the number of spindles taking place, the spinner was enabled so to increase the quantity of his produce as to admit of another considerable reduction in wages. The price of spinning No. 100 was in the course of a few years brought down to 8d. per pound, at which rate it now continues. Notwithstanding this extraordinary diminution of the price of spinning, such have been the effects of the improvements in the plan and construction of the machinery, in the selection and preparation of the wool, and in the spinner's skill and tact in the execution of his work, that he is able to earn more money. now, than he did when the wages were at the highest.
The sale prices of the yarn during this period were as follows:
| Year | No. 100 | |---------|---------| | 1786 | 38s. | | 1787 | 38s. | | 1788 | 35s. | | 1789 | 34s. | | 1790 | 30s. | | 1791 | 29s. 9d.| | 1792 | 16s. 1d.| | 1793 | 15s. 1d.| | 1794 | 15s. 1d.| | 1795 | 19s. |
Since which time, the price has been as low as 4s. 5d., and fluctuating between that and 6s. 9d. But the benefit of the improvements we have noticed, has not been confined to the reduction of the cost of the yarn; its quality has been rendered so much superior, that the weaver is enabled, without any additional hours of labour, to earn nearly as much as he did twenty-five years ago, although paid a fourth less per yard than he was then.
In an account of the means which contributed to the production of these results, we must not omit the progressive improvement in the cultivation of the raw material, and in the application of its different qualities to their most profitable uses. Previous to the year 1793, the cotton used in the coarser articles of the manufacture, with the exception of a small quantity imported from India, and from the Levant, for the fustian trade, was wholly of the growth of our own, and of the French West India Islands. That for the better kind of these goods was raised in Demerary, Surinam, and Berbice. The wool for the fine goods was grown in the Brazils, and that for the few very fine muslins then manufactured, in the Isle of Bourbon.
In the year 1787, the descriptions of cotton imported into Britain appear to have been as follows:
- From the British West Indies: 6,800,000 lbs. - The French and Spanish Colonies: 6,000,000 - The Dutch: 1,700,000 - The Portuguese: 2,500,000 - The Isle of Bourbon by Ostend: 100,000 - Smyrna and Turkey: 5,700,000
Total: 22,300,000 lbs.
Had we continued to be confined to these countries for our supply of cotton, the progress of the manufacture would have been greatly retarded, from the difficulty which would have been experienced in making the production of the raw material keep pace with the increasing consumption; and, added to this, we might not have been able to obtain the qualities of wool, suited to the finer descriptions of goods, which the improved state of the machinery now enabled us to undertake.
But fortunately about the year 1790, the planters in the southern states of the American union, began to turn their attention to the raising of cotton wool, and, besides carrying the cultivation of the article to a great extent, they produced qualities of cotton before unknown. In the year 1792, the quantity of cotton exported from the United States was only 138,328 lbs. At present the annual export is supposed to be not less than 60,000,000 of lbs., and the amount is yearly increasing.
The American cotton wool first brought to this country was very ill cleaned, and, in consequence, was for some time indiscriminately applied to the manufacture of the coarser species of goods. It was soon, however, perceived that the cotton grown upon the coast, termed Sea Island Cotton, had a finer and longer staple than that grown farther back in the country, and known by the name of Upland Cotton. But it was not for several years, and after a succession of trials, that this wool was ascertained to be of a quality in every respect superior to the cotton of the Isle of Bourbon. Indeed, it was not before the year 1796, that the finest description of it was applied to the purposes for which Bourbon wool had till then been used, and which it soon entirely supplanted; the second-quality of it, in like manner, supplanting the Brazil wool, in many kinds of goods for which it had been employed.
The upland cotton is a different species from the sea island, and is separated with such difficulty from the seed, that the expense of cleaning this wool must have put a stop to its farther cultivation, had not Mr Eli Whitney, a gentleman of the State of Massachusetts, in the year 1795, invented a machine by which the operation is easily and successfully accomplished.
There are two qualities of this cotton, the one termed upland Georgia, grown in the States of Georgia and South Carolina, and the other, of superior quality, raised upon the banks of the Mississippi, and distinguished in the market by the name of New Orleans Cotton.
There was at first a strong prejudice against this wool; it was supposed that it was of an inferior quality, and did not receive a good colour in dyeing; but being found suitable to different coarse fabrics, its cultivation was so rapidly extended, that, in the year 1807, 55,018,448 lbs. of upland cotton were exported from the United States.
The cotton of the finest quality ever brought to the English market, or probably ever grown, was that raised in the Island of Tobago, upon the estate of Mr Robley, between the years 1789 and 1792. That gentleman carried the cultivation of this article to some extent, but the price of cotton falling very low, and the growing of sugar becoming extremely profitable in consequence of the destruction of the sugar plantations in the French islands, he was induced to convert his cotton plantation into a sugar one. The production of cotton of this description was never attempted by any other person, although it is believed that the price it would yield would amply repay its expense.
Until lately, it was thought that the cotton wool of India, from the shortness of its staple, could not be spun to advantage upon our improved machinery, and, in consequence, the greater part of the Indian cotton brought to this country was spun upon the common jenny, and used as well for the coarsest calicoes. A part of this wool still continues to be thus applied, but a great proportion of it is now mixed with the longer stapled wools of other countries, and by that means brought into a state fit for the mule and spinning frames. It is to be expected that more pains will now be bestowed upon the culture of this article in India than has hitherto been done. The opening of the trade will introduce competition, and the planter will find that a better quality will command a proportionally higher price. The impolitic regulations, however, established under the monopoly for securing the collection of the revenue, and preserving the exclusive trade, being in many places still allowed to exist, retard that improvement which otherwise would take place.
The influence of this policy is particularly felt in the Presidency of Bombay, till lately the only part of India from which any considerable quantity of cotton was exported, and in which the cultivation of this product is so extensive that, in the district of Guzerat alone, 100,000 heavy bales are annually produced.
About 18,000 bales of this quantity go to the Company for the rent of their lands, and are delivered by the cultivator to the Company's collector, immediately after the cotton has been picked, but before it has been separated from the seed. This person fixes, annually, the rent which the cultivator is to pay; the amount is always imposed in a specified sum of money, but payable in cotton, rated at a price named by the collector. Its amount, upon an average of years, is about one half of the crop. In the payment of this rent, the collector refuses to receive any but the best and cleanest of the cotton; and to this the farmer dare not object. The remaining half is purchased by the Company's commercial Resident, who, till within the last two years, fixed the price he was to give for it. But in the bargains made by this officer, in the last and present year (1818), he has agreed to give to these parties the average price received by the cultivators in the surrounding districts.
If the culture of cotton in the Guzerat has been able to exist under this oppressive system, what might not be expected, were the rent of the lands, as is now the case in the Presidency of Bengal, permanently fixed, and paid in money; and were the growers at liberty to sell the product to those who would give the best price for it? The rapid increase of cultivation in Bengal, since the introduction of this more enlightened system of management, and the acquisition and diffusion of wealth which have been the consequences, present a striking contrast to the impoverished and wretched state of the cultivators in Bombay, and speak a language in political science, not to be misunderstood.
The Company, within the last two years, have been attempting to introduce the Bourbon seed into the Guzerat. This plant takes three years to come to maturity; and in the second year of its growth, the crop did not promise well. It would be wrong, however, to be discouraged by the failure of an undertaking carried on under the management which usually belongs to monopoly: For, when that system and its effects shall have been more completely done away, and improvements come to be conducted by those who are to reap the benefit of them, a very different result may be looked for. Were this better system once established throughout the Peninsula, it appears not unreasonable to expect, in a country of such various soil, and of such extent, with a population such as India affords, that not only all the qualities of cotton wool, known to our manufacturers, might be produced, but that new descriptions of it might be obtained, possibly of more useful application than any we yet possess.
The following Table shows the Descriptions of Cotton annually imported into Britain since the year 1802:
| Year | Description | |------|-------------| | 1802 | American, Brazil, East India, Other sorts | | 1803 | 107,494, 74,720, 8,535, 90,634 | | 1804 | 106,831, 76,297, 10,296, 45,474 | | 1805 | 104,103, 48,386, 3,561, 86,358 | | 1806 | 124,279, 51,242, 1,953, 75,116 | | 1807 | 124,939, 51,034, 7,757, 77,978 | | 1808 | 171,267, 15,981, 11,409, 81,010 | | 1809 | 37,672, 50,442, 12,512, 67,512 | | 1810 | 159,950, 140,927, 35,764, 103,511 | | 1811 | 243,963, 142,846, 79,382, 92,186 | | 1812 | 128,192, 116,514, 14,646, 64,679 | | 1813 | 95,331, 96,704, 2,607, 64,563 | | 1814 | 37,720, 137,168, 1,629, 73,219 | | 1815 | 48,653, 150,936, 13,048, 74,890 | | 1816 | 203,051, 91,055, 22,357, 52,840 | | 1817 | 166,077, 123,450, 30,670, 49,235 |
Packages: | Year | Description | |------|-------------| | 1802 | 281,333 | | 1803 | 236,896 | | 1804 | 242,610 | | 1805 | 252,620 | | 1806 | 261,738 | | 1807 | 282,667 | | 1808 | 168,135 | | 1809 | 440,382 | | 1810 | 561,173 | | 1811 | 326,231 | | 1812 | 261,205 | | 1813 | 249,536 | | 1814 | 267,631 | | 1815 | 369,303 | | 1816 | 369,432 | | 1817 | 479,261 | The succeeding Table shows the Application of the Cotton imported into Britain in the year 1817.
| Description | Quantity | |--------------------------------------------------|------------| | Stock in the ports, 1st Jan. 1817 | 76,600 | | Ditto in the dealers' hands | 20,000 | | Ditto in the spinners' hands, England | 17,000 | | Scotland | 2,000 | | Export to Continent | 23,800 | | Ireland | 8,400 | | Taken for consumption of England and Scotland | 416,300 | | Deduct increase of stock in the hands of dealers and spinners | 9,300 | | Consumed in England | 359,400 | | or 6911 bags per week | | | Ditto Scotland | 47,600 | | or 915 bags per week | | | Remaining on hand in the ports | 112,800 | | In dealers' hands | 28,300 | | In spinners' ditto, England, about | 18,000 | | Scotland | 2200 | | | 20,000 | | | 161,300 | | | 595,000 |
The average weight of the packages included in the import and stock in the ports is 275 lbs. The average weight of the package of the cotton consumed in the year is 268 lbs.
In these results, we see the necessities, the interests, and the energies, of a free people, calling into existence the latent powers of the cultivator and the mechanic, and co-operating with commerce, in carrying the arts to a degree of perfection which they could not otherwise have attained.
During the time that the machines for the different processes of cotton spinning were advancing towards perfection, Mr Watt had applied his admirable improvements on the steam-engine to the giving motion to mill-work in general. His inventions for this end, besides the ingenuity and beauty of contrivance which they possess, have had an influence upon the circumstances of this country and of mankind, far more important than that produced by any of the other mechanical discoveries which mark this period.
If we had had no other alternative in the means of giving motion to our machinery, than that of placing it on a stream of water, or employing the power of horses, how comparatively expensive must our operations have been, and how slow and limited their progress! By Mr Watt's inventions, we became enabled to carry the power at once to the situation where it could be most advantageously used, to place it in the centre of a population trained to manufacturing habits; and thus to bring together the different branches of manufacture, dependent upon, or intimately connected with each other, with all their numerous subsidiary establishments; thereby giving facility and effect to their mutual operations.
Some account of the introduction of this valuable accessory, naturally forms a part of the history of the cotton manufacture; and, in perusing the following short detail, the reader will be surprised at the slowness with which the steam-engine came into use at first, compared with its present extensive employment.
Mr Watt had early turned his thoughts to the application of the steam-engine to rotative motions; and, in the year 1781, had completed the means for accomplishing this end. But, at the moment he was taking measures for securing to himself the advantages of his discovery, a confidential workman betrayed a part of his invention to other persons, who took a patent for it.
It was not till the following year, after having substituted a most ingenious contrivance to supply the part of the process which had been stolen from him, that he obtained for Messrs Bolton and Watt a patent for the application of this power. Their first rotative engine (for we are obliged to use that phrase to avoid circumlocution) was erected in the year 1782, at Bradley Iron Works, and they erected another the same year at their own manufactory. In 1783, they erected an engine for winding ores out of a mine in Cornwall. In 1784, one for an oil mill at Hull, and the first engine for that splendid establishment the London Albion Mills; one at Messrs Goodwin and Company's brewery in London, and one at Mr Whitbread's, with three others, making in all seven engines that year. Among those erected by them in 1785, was one for Messrs Robinsons at Papplewick, in Nottinghamshire, for spinning cotton, the first instance of the application of steam to this manufacture. In the following year, they erected a number of rotative engines for various purposes; and, in 1787, one for Messrs Puls at Warrington, for cotton spinning, and three others for the same purpose at Nottingham. But no rotative engine had yet been erected at Manchester; and it was not until 1789, seven years after Bolton and Watt had received their patent, that they constructed, for Mr Drinkwater, the first engine used there in spinning cotton. In 1790, they erected one for spinning cotton at Nottingham, for Sir Richard Arkwright, and another at Darlington for spinning flax; a cotton spinning engine at Manchester, for Mr Simpson, and a second one at Papplewick, for Messrs Robinsons. Some time before this, however, Sir Richard Arkwright and others, from an ill-judged economy in the first cost, had used, for spinning, atmospheric or Newcomen's engines, with rotative motions applied to them. But, soon coming to see their error, these were abandoned, and Bolton and Watt's engines came into general use with the cotton spinners, and in all other manufactures where this power was to be employed.
About the year 1780, some attempts began to be made, both in Lancashire and at Glasgow, to manufacture muslins, but without success. There was no yarn for the weft of these goods, but that spun upon Hargreaves's jenny, and when made of this, it was found they were not of a marketable quality. The next attempt was with wefts brought from India, and although a better article than the former was by this means produced, it was still not of a quality to bear competition with Indian muslin.
It was not till the mule jenny gave the yarns suited to the fabrics, that the manufacture of the finer cotton articles had any success in this country. This machine, as has been mentioned, came into use at the end of the year 1785, upon Sir Richard Arkwright's patent being cancelled, and it is from this period that we are to date the proper commencement of this part of the manufacture. So rapid, however, was its progress after this time, that, in the year 1787, 500,000 pieces of muslin, it was computed, were manufactured in Great Britain.
This article began to be made nearly at the same time at Bolton, at Glasgow, and at Paisley, each place betaking itself to the fabric which resembled most the goods it had been accustomed to manufacture; and, in consequence of this judicious distribution at first, each place has continued to maintain a superiority in the production of the articles it set out with.
Jaconets, both coarse and fine, but of a stout fabric, checked and striped muslins, and the other articles of the heavier description of this branch, are manufactured at Bolton and in its neighbourhood.
Book, mull, and lino muslins, and jaconets of a lighter fabric than those made in Lancashire, are manufactured at Glasgow. Sewed and tamboured muslins are almost exclusively made there and at Paisley. A machine, of most ingenious contrivance, for performing the operation of tambouring, was, about ten years ago, invented by Mr John Duncan of Glasgow, and a patent taken out for the discovery. Each machine contains about forty tambouring needles, and is superintended by a girl, who pieces the thread when it breaks. The patent is at present the property of the Messrs Mitchells of Glasgow, who have a work containing twenty-one of these machines.
What are called fancy goods, wove in the loom, were first made at Paisley, which had been the chief seat of the silk gauze manufacture of this country. In this branch, which was beginning to fall into decay, a body of most ingenious workmen had been bred, and by employing them, the taste and invention which had produced the varieties displayed in that beautiful article, were immediately transferred to the production of similar descriptions of muslin. From this circumstance, Paisley, for a long time, retained the exclusive possession of this branch; but being only seven miles distant from Glasgow, the general seat of the cotton manufacture of Scotland, and the mart to which most purchasers resort, several of its principal manufacturers were induced to move their establishments to that city, although the weaving of these muslins continues to be executed in Paisley or its neighbourhood. The weavers employed on this article, supposed to amount to above five thousand, are probably the most orderly and the best informed body of workmen to be found in the island. Their occupation happily is of a nature to afford exercise to their minds, and having received the education given to this class in Scotland, they are not only fond of reading, but there are among them many with considerable literary attainments, and some who devote their spare hours to the prosecution of science. If it were required to prove the beneficial effects produced upon the condition of the lower orders by education, and the cultivation of the understanding, the superior state of the working people of Paisley above that of most other places might safely be referred to.
There is a curious circumstance to be noticed with regard to the manufacture of fine muslins in Scotland, that nearly the whole of the yarn used for this article is brought from Manchester, in consequence of the Scotch spinners not having yet been able to produce fine yarn of the best quality. This inferiority does not proceed from a less perfect construction of the machinery employed in Scotland, the mechanics and machine-makers of Glasgow being admitted to be excellent workmen; neither does it arise from the want of skill in those who conduct the business, or from any difference in the processes employed in the two countries; but it is to be attributed to the same cause which produces the superior yarn of India; namely, an adroitness and mechanical slight of hand, in the operative spinners, acquired by a few out of the great multitude bred at Manchester.
The manufacture of the thicker cotton fabrics was at the same time rapidly extending. The manufacture of dainties has been exclusively confined to the north of England, all attempts to make them in Scotland having proved unsuccessful. The finer qualities of this article are made at Warrington, the coarser in the western parts of Yorkshire.
Balasore handkerchiefs were at this time begun to be manufactured about Preston and Chorley, where they still continue to be made.
The manufacture of ginghams was for a long time confined to Lancashire, but for many years it has been extensively introduced at Glasgow, although Lancashire continues to be the chief seat of this branch.
Pulicat handkerchiefs were begun to be made about the year 1785 at Glasgow, where the manufacture of them has been carried to a great extent. They were not made in Lancashire till some time after, and the manufacture of them there has never been to the same amount. Glasgow therefore continues to be the principal mart for this article.
Blue and white checks and stripes for exportation, were at first a linen fabric; afterwards they were made with linen warp and cotton weft; and when Sir Richard Arkwright's discovery enabled the spinner to produce cotton yarn of a sufficient strength, to be used for warps, a great proportion of these goods came to be made wholly of cotton. This manufacture is carried on in Lancashire and in the county of Fife, and to a small extent at Aberdeen; but the chief seat of this branch is at Carlisle.
The manufacture of cotton cambric was begun Cotton manufacture.
About the same period, and was separated into two branches: into cambric to be used as garments in a white or printed state; and into cambric made in imitation of French linen cambric, to be used for the same purposes with that article. The first is manufactured nearly altogether in Lancashire, where it is carried on to great extent, and the second, of much less amount, wholly at Glasgow; the Scotch manufacturers having never been able to rival the Lancashire in the first, nor the Lancashire manufacturers to rival the Scotch in the last.
Bandanna handkerchiefs, and bandanna cloths for garments, were begun to be made at Glasgow about the year 1802, by Mr Henry Monteith, and are now manufactured there to a considerable amount. The cloth is dyed a bright Turkey red, and the colour is discharged from those parts in which form the pattern or figure, by passing a chemical mixture through them. This article is made nowhere but at Glasgow.
From Glasgow being the seat of a fine manufacture, it was not found practicable to introduce there the making of calicoes. This article, however, was made at Perth, though never to a great amount, and the Scotch printers were obliged to get the principal part of their supply from Lancashire. In this state, they felt that they were not on an equal footing with the English printers, and as large capitals had been embarked in the trade, there was a considerable anxiety that this defect in their situation should be remedied. This was at last accomplished by the introduction into Scotland, in the year 1801, of the art of weaving by the power of water or steam, the machinery and subsidiary processes for which had about this time been so improved, that the cloth woven in this way was found to come as cheap, if not cheaper, than that derived from manual labour.
Weaving by water or steam had been attempted fifteen years before that period by the Rev. E. Cartwright, of Hollander House, Kent, who invented a loom to be worked by mechanical means. The circumstances of this discovery, which have been obligingly communicated to us, in a letter from Mr Cartwright, are curious, and in the history of inventions, we think interesting. Mr C. says,
"Happening to be at Matlock in the summer of 1784, I fell in company with some gentlemen of Manchester, when the conversation turned on Arkwright's spinning machinery. One of the company observed, that as soon as Arkwright's patent expired, so many mills would be erected, and so much cotton spun, that hands never could be found to weave it. To this observation I replied, that Arkwright must then set his wits to work to invent a weaving mill. This brought on a conversation on the subject, in which the Manchester gentlemen unanimously agreed that the thing was impracticable; and, in defense of their opinion, they adduced arguments which I certainly was incompetent to answer, or even to comprehend, being totally ignorant of the subject, having never at that time seen a person weave. I controverted, however, the impracticability of the thing, by remarking that there had lately been exhibited in London an automaton figure which played at chess. Now, you will not assert, gentlemen, said I, that it is more difficult to construct a machine that shall weave, than one which shall make all the variety of moves which are required in that complicated game.
"Some little time afterwards, a particular circumstance recalling this conversation to my mind, it struck me, that, as in plain weaving, according to the conception I then had of the business, there could only be three movements, which were to follow each other in succession, there would be little difficulty in producing and repeating them. Full of these ideas, I immediately employed a carpenter and smith to carry them into effect. As soon as the machine was finished, I got a weaver to put in the warp, which was of such materials as sail-cloth is usually made of. To my great delight, a piece of cloth, such as it was, was the produce. As I had never before turned my thoughts to any thing mechanical, either in theory or practice, nor had ever seen a loom at work, or knew any thing of its construction, you will readily suppose that my first loom must have been a most rude piece of machinery. The warp was placed perpendicularly, the reed fell with a force of at least half a hundred weight, and the springs which threw the shuttle were strong enough to have thrown a Congreve rocket. In short, it required the strength of two powerful men to work the machine at a slow rate, and only for a short time. Conceiving, in my great simplicity, that I had accomplished all that was required, I then secured what I thought a most valuable property by a patent, 4th April 1785. This being done, I then condescended to see how other people wove; and you will guess my astonishment, when I compared their easy modes of operation with mine. Availing myself, however, of what I then saw, I made a loom, in its general principles, nearly as they are now made. But it was not till the year 1787 that I completed my invention, when I took out my last weaving patent, August 1st of that year."
But the idea of weaving by machinery was not new. About the close of the preceding century, a drawing and a description of a similar loom (a circumstance unknown to Mr Cartwright) had been presented to the Royal Society of London. The movements, too, in both, are the same with those of the Inkle loom, a machine which had long been in use.
Mr Cartwright, after obtaining his second patent, erected a weaving mill at Doncaster, which he filled with looms. This concern was unsuccessful, and at last was abandoned. But still the invention was considered so important to the country, that some years after, upon an application from a number of manufacturers at Manchester, Parliament granted Mr Cartwright a sum of money as a remuneration for his ingenuity and trouble.
About the year 1790, Mr Grimshaw of Manchester, under a licence from Mr Cartwright, erected a weaving factory, which was to have contained five hundred looms, for weaving coarse sacking cloth. He was also to have attempted the weaving of fustians. But after a small part of the machinery had been set agoing, the work was destroyed by fire; and the concern, during this trial, not having promised to be successful, the mill was not rebuilt.
About the year 1794, Mr Bell of Glasgow invented another loom, for which a patent also was taken, and a factory of these looms was erected at Milton, near Dumbarton. But this concern, although carried on for many years, was not more successful than those which had preceded it.
In the year 1801, Mr John Monteith of Glasgow erected a weaving factory, containing two hundred looms. This also was at first unprosperous, but, for a considerable time, it is supposed to have been successful; the number of looms, some years ago, having been increased to three hundred.
In 1805, a large weaving mill was erected at Catrine, in Ayrshire, by Messrs James Finlay and Company, to be carried on in conjunction with their extensive spinning work at that place; and, in 1808, they built another mill at Down, in Stirlingshire, connected with their spinning works there: the two containing 462 looms. The quantity of cloth produced in these establishments, in proportion to the number of hands employed in them, is understood to have been greater than had been obtained before in other works, and the undertaking is said to have done well from the outset.
After this period new weaving factories were reared in Glasgow or in its neighbourhood, almost every year; and it would appear that this branch is now solidly and permanently established in that part of the country. At present there are in Glasgow, or belonging to it, fifteen weaving factories, containing 2275 looms, and producing about 8000 pieces of cloth weekly.
In the present improved state of this process, one person, generally a girl, attends to two looms, the weekly produce of which is from seven to nine pieces of cloth of 8ths wide, and 28 yards long, woven in an 1100 reed. For this she is paid at the rate of 1s. 2d. per piece.
This mode of weaving, however, never could have succeeded, and indeed must have been long ago abandoned, if Mr Ratcliffe, of Stockport, had not happily invented a process for dressing the web before it is put into the loom. The stoppage of the work from time to time, which made it impossible for one person to do more than attend to one loom, was thus rendered unnecessary.
The contrivances for performing this process are very ingenious, the machinery employed in it having its movement from the power which gives motion to the looms.
The yarn is first wound from the cop upon bobbins, by a winding machine, in which operation it is passed through water to increase its tenacity. The bobbins are then put upon the warping-mill, and the web warped from them upon a beam belonging to the dressing frame. From this beam, placed now in the dressing frame, the warp is wound upon the weaving beam, but, in its progress to it, passes through a hot dressing of starch. It is then compressed between two rollers, to free it from the moisture it had imbibed with the dressing, and drawn over a succession of tin cylinders heated by steam, to dry it; during the whole of this last part of its progress being lightly brushed as it moves along, and fanned by rapidly revolving fans.
The weaving of calicoes by power, has not succeeded so well in Lancashire as in Scotland, although numerous attempts, some of them on a considerable scale, have been made to establish it there. They have never at any time had more than two thousand of such looms at work; the number employed at present does not exceed a thousand; and without some change of circumstances, it is thought that even these must be given up.
The obstacle to the success of this branch in Lancashire, seems to be the low wages at which goods are woven there by the hand. The population of this district, it appears, has reached an amount which makes it press at all times on the means of employment, and when trade is dull, to a great degree. Whenever trade, therefore, is in this state, the price of hand-weaving falls below what the goods can be produced for by machinery, making an allowance for its cost and maintenance. But there is besides another thing which, at times, helps to bring the goods produced by hand-weaving, particularly those of the lowest quality, cheaper to market than those from the power looms, namely, that yarns of inferior description, and bought at a lower price, can be used by the hand weaver, and by great dexterity and pains, fabricated into marketable cloth. This cannot be done in machinery, the yarn for which, that it may stand the fatigue of the operation, and occasion as few interruptions as possible by breaking, must be spun from a superior quality of wool, and with more than ordinary pains, and in consequence is dearer than even the best yarn used for cloth woven by the hand. From these circumstances operating in favour of the production of goods by hand-weaving, the attempts to extend weaving-mills have not proved successful in Lancashire. But this struggle between the two processes, we think, must finally terminate in favour of the latter. For the weavers cannot go on at the wages they have been reduced to, while the weaving-mills, if we may venture an opinion from what we have seen take place in other processes of machinery, will be daily acquiring facilities and improvements, in addition to the advantages which they already possess. Until, however, the demand for labour increases, the lower qualities of goods will probably continue to be woven by the hand, while those of a superior quality, requiring better materials, will be woven by machines.
Mr Peter Marsland, of Stockport, who, for many years, has had a large factory for weaving cloth of a superior quality, is the inventor of an improvement upon the power loom, by means of the double crank, for which, about ten years ago, he obtained a patent. The operation of this crank is to make the lathe give a quick blow to the cloth on coming in contact with it, and thereby to render it more stout and evenly.
From the change which has lately taken place in the dress of this country, by the printed cotton cloths being nearly supplanted by silks and worsted stuffs, it has been supposed, that the manufacture of calicoes, and in general of cotton goods, must have considerably declined. This, however, is not the The increased demand for this article for exportation, to be printed abroad, or used there in a white state, has more than compensated the falling off in the sale for the home printing trade; and the number of yards of cotton cloth of this description, produced at present, is greater than it was when printed cottons were universally worn.
Having now brought down the history of the cotton manufacture of this country to the present time, we shall endeavour to give a view of its progressive advances from time to time, from a statement of the quantity of cotton wool imported into Great Britain at different periods.
From the year 1716 to 1720 the average annual importation of cotton was 2,173,287 lbs. We have not been able to obtain any account of the cotton imported from this period to the year 1771; but the increase above the preceding importation had not been great; for the average annual importation from 1771 to 1775, which commences two years after Hargreaves's and Arkwright's discoveries, and comprehends two years of the time after which calicoes began to be made wholly of cotton, is only 4,764,589 lbs.
| Year Range | Importation (lbs) | |------------|------------------| | 1776-1780 | 6,766,613 | | 1781-1785 | 10,941,934 | | 1786-1790 | 25,443,270 | | 1791-1795 | 26,000,000 | | 1796-1800 | 57,364,077 | | 1801-1805 | 58,334,492 | | 1805-1810 | 76,601,775 | | 1811-1815 | 71,761,067 | | 1816 | 93,920,055 | | 1817 | 124,996,427 |
The present annual value of the cotton manufacture of Great Britain, is estimated to be between thirty and forty millions of pounds sterling: of which there is exported, including cotton yarn, to the value of twenty millions sterling. Of this last article, there was exported in 1816, 16,862,782 lbs, valued in the custom-house entries at L. 2,707,384.*
In the year 1811, when Mr Crompton applied to Parliament for a remuneration for his invention, he found the number of mule spindles in the country, by as accurate an investigation as he could make, to be about five millions. At present the number of spindles, throstle and mule, is supposed to be nearly six millions; and the power required to move them, it is calculated, is equal to that of 10,572 horses.
Such is the state to which we have been enabled to bring this manufacture, in consequence of the inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton, Kelly, and Watt. But having reached this point, it may be asked what security we have that we shall be able to retain this branch to the same extent, now that other countries, over which we possess no exclusive natural advantage, are using efforts to participate in its benefits. To this it can only be answered, that the hopes of being able to preserve our hold of this manufacture, rest upon our persevering industry, our economy, our great capital, the advanced state of our attainments in machinery and mechanical knowledge, and the advantage we derive from having been long in possession of the business, and by that means being more skilful in the manipulation, and better acquainted with the minutiae of its processes. The start we have got of our competitors in the career of invention and discovery is another important advantage. The lead we have thus obtained, we think it probable we may be able for a long time to retain; for invention is progressive, and, in a manufacture extended like ours, it is at the same time diffusive; every discovery that is made, having the effect to unfold principles leading to other discoveries, or to suggest analogous applications in other departments. And when the manufacturing class has once received this impulse, those who conduct the processes, and those employed in the operative part of them, have their thoughts constantly turned to the means of enlarging the powers of the machines they are in possession of, or to the discovery of other machines for executing work still performed by the hand. But beside the greater progress in machinery, which may be expected to take place in a long established manufacture, there is a progress also of art in the use of that machinery, of contrivance to supply its defects, and of little undefinable subsidiary aids for the furtherance of the work, which contribute to give a superiority to it over every undertaking of a more recent date.† Or, to take a more liberal view of the matter, may there not, independent of these securities, be room for the growth of the manufactures of other countries, without the diminution of ours, in the increased wealth and consumption of all?
But it is not the rivalry of the European states, it is thought, that we have most to dread in this branch. Over many of them we have natural advantages, and with all of them, from the circumstances which have been stated, it is probable we shall be able, if necessary, to maintain our ground. But this, it is feared, may not be the case to the same degree, in the competition which at some future period we shall
* By a computation, from data collected with great care, it appears, that in the year ending the 1st of May 1818, there were 105,000,000 of yards of cotton cloth of all descriptions manufactured in Glasgow and the neighbourhood, the value of which was estimated to be L. 5,200,000, and that of these goods about one half was exported.
† When the measures for conciliating the respective commercial interests of parties in the Irish union were arranging, the opinion of professional men was taken as to the period at which the cotton manufacture of Ireland might be able to go on in competition with that of England without the help of protecting duties; and Mr William Orr of Dublin, who had introduced the manufacture into that country, was asked if he thought it likely that in ten years the Irish manufacturers would overtake the English in skill. Mr Orr replied, yes! if the English can be persuaded during that time to stand still. have to encounter from America; after her great tracks of land are occupied, and a fuller population admits of her capital and industry being profitably directed to manufacturing pursuits. From being the grower of the raw material, it is apprehended she will have an advantage over us in this contest which none of our other competitors possess. But even this circumstance, we apprehend, is not of so much moment as at first sight it may appear. The southern states of the union, in which the cotton wool is raised, from their local defects in other requisites, and the description of people of which their lower order is composed, never can become a manufacturing country. The competition, therefore, which we shall have to sustain, will be with the people of the northern states, who must, like ourselves, import the raw material they are to manufacture. The difference of its cost to them and to us cannot be great, particularly if we shall have the East Indies and South America open for our supply.
We believe, then, that in this manufacture we have little to fear from a competition with others; but we are not equally confident that its prosperity may not be exposed to risk from our ill-judged anxiety to secure a monopoly of its advantages. Our practice of excluding from our markets the manufactures of other countries, is not only contrary to sound commercial principle, but gives rise to a spirit of hostility unfavourable to our interests, and places us in that state, that when other nations, in retaliation, exclude our manufactures from their markets, we have no right to complain. But even without any wish to retaliate, will not the different nations, as they advance in manufactures, be led to copy regulations to which they may erroneously ascribe our success?
That we may not decide this question rashly, let us examine what is the danger we should be exposed to if we were to take the opposite system, and open our ports to the manufactures of other countries.
If we can now export annually to the value of twenty millions Sterling of cotton goods, which, burdened with freight, charges, and the exporters' profit, we are able to sell in competition with the foreign manufacture, can we have any thing to fear from a competition with that manufacture in our home market, where the circumstances of the competing parties will be reversed? So far from the introduction of foreign manufactures into our market being an evil, we are inclined to think that it would be advantageous to our interests; that in the interchange of commodities which would be the consequence, the sale of our own manufactures would be increased. Commerce being altogether a matter of barter, it is necessary for every country to purchase, in order that she may sell. And, fortunately, even in the same branch of manufacture, there is always room for such exchanges. There are shades of difference in the fabric of every article, upon which fashion or caprice never fails to fix an arbitrary value, thereby constituting them into separate commodities capable of being exchanged.
But the view we are taking of this important question does not rest altogether upon theory. Happily we have experience in support of it. No one disputes the advantage resulting from the interchange of commodities between Lancashire and Lanarkshire, or alleges that it would be for the benefit of either to have the manufacture of the other excluded from its market; yet these two districts have their dependence upon manufactures, which, in their general features, are the same.
Those, who recollect the commercial treaty with France, in which some approach was made to a free trade between the two countries, will remember, that while it lasted, the sale warehouses of London and Manchester were resorted to by the purchasers from the different towns of France, with the same freedom, and in nearly an equal proportion of numbers, as from the towns in England. And although in those warehouses, commodities of a similar description, of French and English production, were to be found, and our shopkeepers were at the same time daily resorting to France to make purchases, in no period were our manufactures in a state of greater progressive prosperity, than during the six years, from 1786 to 1793, that this treaty existed. There is no one, we believe, who had an opportunity of knowing the two countries at the time we mention, who will not say, that both were benefited by this treaty, and, probably, exactly in the degree that the exclusive system in both had been departed from.
In addition to this, it may be proper to notice, that Switzerland and Saxony have always been open to the reception of cotton goods, free of duty; and that in none of the countries on the Continent is the cotton manufacture in a more thriving state. Might it not, therefore, be a measure of wisdom, to withdraw our restrictions against the importation of foreign manufactures, the interference of which with our own products in the home market, supposing no interchange of the two to take place, never could be to the amount of the sale we may be deprived of by following the opposite policy, and thus inducing the exclusion of our own goods from the foreign market?
Before concluding our account of the cotton manufacture of this country, we shall offer a few observations upon the effects produced, by the extension of the use of machinery, on the character and moral condition of the people.
The more perfect division of labour, and separation of employments, which take place, as the use of machinery advances, and the consequent limitation of the workers' attention to a single object, check the expansion of the faculties, and prevent that growth of intelligence in this class, which, under a more general employment of their powers, might be expected. There is another evil of a similar nature, but attended perhaps with more serious consequences, produced by manufactures when they have arrived at this state, namely, the employment of children in the factories, by which these young creatures are withdrawn from their parents and homes before they have received the elements of education, or can have acquired domestic or moral habits.
In noticing these evils, however, we must recollect, that the state of manufactures which gives birth to them is not an optional one, or the production of regulation or institution, but has grown up in the progress of the arts of industry prosecuted by an intelligent people. Although, therefore, it is our duty, in as far as we can, to correct their effects, we must lay our account with being exposed to them, so long as men are allowed to pursue their interests by whatever fair means they conceive likely to attain their ends.
To remedy, in as far as possible, the interruption of education from this employment, there are schools in many of those factories, in which the children are instructed gratis in reading and writing. An establishment of this kind, we conceive it to be the interest of every work to provide. Its expense cannot be great, and will be amply repaid in the superior description of workers it will be the means of rearing. In the mean time, something is done to supply the deficiency of this provision by means of Sunday schools; which have been generally established in most of the larger manufacturing towns. In these, the children are not only taught to read, but also instructed in the principles of religion, and in a knowledge of their moral duties. In the city of Glasgow there are about 5000 children who receive education by this means. And this invaluable blessing is obtained from the gratuitous services of a few benevolent young men, chiefly Methodists, who devote several hours every Sunday to this praiseworthy employment. To each of the Glasgow Sunday schools a juvenile library is attached, supported by a subscription of a penny a month from each child choosing to become a member of it, and conducted by a committee of the children themselves, under the direction of the teachers. The books in these collections are not only read by the children, but by their parents, upon whose habits, in many instances, those means of recreation have been known to have produced salutary effects.*
In Glasgow there is another establishment, intended for the improvement of those who have arrived at a more advanced age, and have received the first rudiments of education. The information given in it we consider calculated to produce the most important effects.
About sixteen years ago, Dr Birbeck of London, then professor of natural philosophy in the Andersonian Institution at Glasgow, planned a course of lectures, upon the principles of mechanics, in the view of instructing the working class there, in the science of their respective occupations; and to render the information he wished to convey to them familiar, he illustrated his prelections by an exhibition of working models of different machines. The lectures were given on the Saturday evening, and for the two first Cotton Ma- years gratis, a recommendation from some respectable manufacturer being all that was required for admission. Between four and five hundred persons attended each year. Having ascertained the disposition in these people for information, Dr Birbeck thought it proper, in order that a feeling of independence might be kept up in them, to make the terms of admission to the course two shillings and sixpence, to defray the expenses of experiments, a sum which the poorest among them could without difficulty command.
The furnishing of these parties with a course of instruction, so well adapted to their circumstances, is probably the best means that could have been devised for reviving the powers which their early occupation in the factories may have rendered torpid. But the benefit to be derived from these lectures, is not confined to the individuals to whom they are delivered. The branches of manufacture in which those persons are employed profit by them also. In the same degree that workmen are made acquainted with the principles of the processes with which they are occupied, will be the probability that improvements shall be introduced. So important, indeed, does the securing of this object appear to us, in the present circumstances of this country, that we think the plan sketched by Dr Birbeck for Glasgow should be generally extended, and our artizans all over the kingdom furnished with the means of receiving similar instruction. Were a national provision made, for giving in all our large manufacturing towns, such lectures upon mechanics, to which might be joined a short exposition of the elements of chemistry, the most important consequences might be expected to ensue. The expense of such an institution would be trifling, while means would be afforded of rearing, in every department of industry, a body of intelligent workmen, qualified to carry forward that progress in machinery which we have shown to be necessary to the prosperity of our existing undertakings.
Some attempts were made as early as the year Cotton Ma-1770 to introduce the manufacture of cotton goods into Ireland, but on a very limited scale before the year 1790. After that period the progress was considerable, although far short of what took place during the same time in this country. Indeed, the cotton manufacture has never arrived at that state in Ireland, that its products could enter into competition with those of Britain, or even become articles of general foreign sale.
The goods manufactured in Ireland are almost
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* The plan of discipline followed in some of these schools we think excellent, and worthy of being imitated in what may be considered more important establishments. When faults of carelessness are committed, the party is reprehended or punished immediately by the teachers; but any thing amounting to a misdemeanor, or of the nature of a crime, is brought before a jury of the children, and submitted to their consideration and award. The teachers say, that it is astonishing with what propriety these young jurors conduct themselves on such occasions, the pains they take to investigate the circumstances, and the judgment with which they make up their opinion, and award the sentence. We question if there be any thing taught in these schools of more important influence on the future character, than the moral impression of self respect made upon them by the exercise of these functions. entirely for home consumption, and the monopoly of this sale is endeavoured to be secured to its manufacturers, by a duty of ten per cent. levied upon all cotton cloths brought into the country. Even with this encouragement, the Irish cotton manufacture does not thrive, and English goods continue to be imported. Perhaps this state of the manufacture may in part be occasioned by the high price of fuel in that country; for, without a command of the power of steam at a moderate expense, the concentration of the several processes, and the consequent saving of labour, are impossible in most situations.
The chief seat of this branch in Ireland is Belfast, and the district of country within twenty miles of that town. But there are a good many calicoes, fustians, and cotton checks, made in Dublin, Balbriggan, Banden, and Cork. All these goods are consigned to factors in Dublin for sale, except a part of the calicoes, which the manufacturers are sometimes enabled to dispose of to printers upon the spot.
There are twenty-five cotton mills in Ireland, containing about 145,000 spindles, partly mule and partly throstle. And when all these are at work, they are supposed to spin about 36,000 lbs. of cotton weekly; but at present a number of them are standing unemployed.
Some of the spinners manufacture the whole of their own yarn, while others do not manufacture any. But in either case the weaving is carried on by capitalists, who give out the yarn to be woven, and pay the weaver wages for his work. The conducting of this business exclusively on this plan appears extraordinary, when it is considered that the greater part of it is carried on in the same district with the linen manufacture, in which the weaver is the sole manufacturer; buying the yarn for his web, and selling the cloth when he has finished it. Perhaps the difference in the manner in which these manufacturing processes are conducted, may proceed from the different way in which the yarns made use of in the two branches are produced. The yarn for the linen manufacture is spun by individuals scattered over the country. This, in the infancy of the business, and while little capital had been accumulated, may have led to the manufacturing process being carried on in a like detached manner; the weaver purchasing the yarn from his neighbour the spinner, and, after converting it into cloth, selling the web at the nearest market to the merchant. The cotton manufacture in Ireland did not grow up thus from small beginnings, but was introduced into that country at once, from England, and with spinning establishments upon comparatively a large scale. It was in consequence necessary that the weaving should, from the first, take off the produce of those establishments; and there being no way of effecting this with certainty, but by employing the weavers upon wages to work up the yarn, the manufacture was begun, and has been prosecuted upon this plan ever since, while the linen manufacture, carried on in the same district, continues to be conducted upon the opposite system.
The annual return of the cotton manufacture of Ireland is estimated at £700,000.
The cotton manufacture was introduced into France about fifty years ago, and was first established at Arebonas in the Vivarais, from whence it afterwards made its way to Montpelier in the lower Languedoc. For some time after its introduction the greater part of the yarn used in its fabrics was brought from the Levant, a small part only being produced in the country, and that was spun in the mountains of the Vivarais and the Gevanvans. The Turkey red yarn required for the coloured goods was either brought from Adrianople and Smyrna, in a dyed state, or the manufacturers sent the yarn of their own spinning to these places by way of Marseilles, to be dyed and returned to them. But this circuitous mode of obtaining those yarns did not continue long; for the manufacturers soon succeeded in inducing some Greek dyers to settle in France; and the natives having acquired from them a knowledge of their processes, the whole dyeing required for the manufacture came in the course of twenty years to be executed by Frenchmen. From these yarns, spun and dyed in the way we have stated, were produced at Montpelier, at Cholet in La Vendée, and in Bearn, large quantities of pocket-handkerchiefs, and of cloths for garments, and for furniture. The manufacture of these articles, and the art of dyeing, were established also at Rouen, at Amiens, and throughout the surrounding country, within ten years after their introduction into the south of France. Before this period there had been a considerable linen manufacture carried on at Rouen, and of articles similar to those afterwards made of cotton. The cotton goods, however, as was the case in England, were at first woven with linen warp and cotton weft; and it was not till after Sir Richard Arkwright's invention, that they were able to make them wholly of cotton.
With all this activity in pushing the extension of the cotton manufacture in France, no early attempts were made by the French manufacturers to avail themselves of the improvements, which, during this period, had been introduced into the process of cotton spinning in England. The first spinning machine they had, of a construction superior to the one thread wheel, was a mule which Monsieur de Calonne, at that time minister, introduced in the year 1787. This was immediately copied, and these machines adopted wherever the manufacture was carried on. The use of them from this time increased rapidly, particularly at Rouen, at Paris, at Lille, at St Quentin, at Amiens, and at Montpelier. About the same period the first attempt to spin water twist was made at Louviers. Hostility to the introduction of these improvements, similar to what had before taken place in England, was manifested by the common people in France. But the disposition to disturbance was soon quelled, and the evident advantage which the new mode of spinning possessed over the old, put an end in a short time to all idea of opposition.
It is only in the large spinning works, of which there are very few in France, that the power of water or of steam is employed, and even in the greater part of these, the application of these powers is confined to the machinery used in the preparation of the cotton. Nearly the whole of this branch, Cotton manufacture therefore, is carried on in France with small systems of preparative machinery, moved by the power of horses, or by a wheel turned by a man or men, and the spinning part, under either system, is almost wholly worked by the hand. The yarn they spin at present is from No. 15 up to No. 150.
The weaving branch is partly carried on by manufacturers, but more generally by operative weavers, who buy the yarn they are to use, and dispose of the cloth when woven at the weekly markets.*
In the plan as well as in the conduct of many of the processes of this manufacture, it is evident that the French are behind the English. And this is particularly the case in the important art of combining mechanical power with manual dexterity, so as to occasion an economy of labour and increase of production. But they will now make every effort to remedy these defects; and as they are an ingenious and industrious people, we must lay our account with finding them at no distant period, in a state to maintain a more successful competition with us.
The French have been induced to prosecute the manufacture upon the plan we have mentioned, rather than with establishments upon the extended scale, and of the comprehensive nature used in this country, by the high interest they are obliged to pay for money, upon the one hand, and the comparatively cheap rate of labour upon the other. The combined operation of these circumstances, led them to the system they have pursued; as being calculated, they conceived, to produce the goods upon the cheapest terms, and with the smallest advance of capital. In the attempts that were made too, in France, during the late war, to introduce our large power systems, no saving corresponding to the advance of capital which they required was obtained, and many of the parties who embarked in these undertakings were ruined.
The French now, however, are generally impressed with the advantages we possess over them, from carrying on our spinning in large establishments, moved by mechanical power, and are anxious to adopt the same plan. They have no scarcity of falls of water for this purpose, but the greater part of these are in situations either where the population is scanty, or which are inconvenient for the disposal of the manufactured product. Many of them too are already appropriated to mills and mines, and in consequence not to be obtained but at an expense, which the benefit to be derived could not repay. In their proposed improvements, therefore, they will, in most cases, be obliged to have recourse to steam. They have already (1817) got four spinning works upon an extended scale, with English steam-engines, and more are forming. The ruin which the preceding adventurers had experienced, affords an advantage to their successors, from the cheap rate at which the latter are enabled to purchase the erections formerly made. In these new establishments, they are introducing mules of 800 spindles. Upon this change of system,
* For a great part of this account of the cotton manufacture of France, we are indebted to the Count Chaptal, who, upon being applied to for some information on the subject, with a liberality which usually accompanies talents, immediately favoured us with the following details:
"Amboise, le 18 Juin 1817.
"C'est avec plaisir que je vais vous transmettre les renseignements que vous me demandez.
"Les manufactures de coton ont été introduites en France il y a peu près 50 ans; la première fabrique a été formée à Arebonas dans le Vivarais; de là cette fabrication a passé à Montpellier, dans le bas Languedoc. On tiroit une grande partie du coton filé du Levant, et on filoit le reste au rouet ou à la main dans les montagnes du Vivarais et du Gévanvans.
"Pendant plusieurs années, on tiroit les cotons teints en rouge d'Adrianople et de Smyrne; ou y envoyoît même par Marseille, des cotons filés pour les y faire teindre.
"Quelques années après, on a attiré dans le pays, des teinturiers Grecs qui, peu après, ont fait connaître leurs procédés, et depuis 30 ans il n'y a que de Français qui teignent.
"Avec ces cotons on fabriquoit à Montpellier, à Cholet dans la Vendée, et dans le Bearn, des tissus pour habillement, meubles, mouchoirs, dont il se faisoit un grand commerce.
"La fabrication de ces tissus, et l'art de la teinture ont été établis à Rouen, à Amiens, et dans tous les environs, 10 ans après qu'ils existaient dans le midi de la France.
"Le ministre Monsieur de Calonne a introduit le premier métier pour filer le coton, il y a 30 ans. Depuis cette époque, et surtout depuis 20 ans, ces mécaniques se sont propagées sur tous les points de la fabrique, surtout à Rouen, à Paris, à Lille, à St. Quentin, à Amiens, à Montpellier. Elles sont si nombreuses que, d'après un calcul exact, elles peuvent filer 30,000,000 de livres pesant par an, de laine de coton. Elles sont mûes par des cours d'eau, par des chevaux, ou par des machines à vapeurs.
"Le tissage se fait dans les villes, et dans les campagnes. Il y a beaucoup de tisserands qui achètent leurs fils et vendent leurs tissus aux marchés où se vendent les fils. Il y a des entrepreneurs qui donnent le fil et font tisser à savoir.
"On fabrique en France toutes sortes de tissus de coton; à Tarrare, et dans les montagnes voisines, on fait des mousselines qui ne le cèdent pas aux plus belles des Indes. Nos imprimeurs sur toile n'emploient que les calicos et les percales fabriqués chez nous, et ils y trouvent de l'avantage.
"Le commerce des tissus de coton fabriqués chez nous, est annuellement de deux à trois cents millions de francs, sur lesquels il y a les quatre cinquièmes de main d'œuvre.—J'ai l'honneur de vous saluer,
"Le Comte CHAPTAL." the intelligent person from whom we have received the more particular details of the present state of the French manufacture, observes, "Ces colosses, relativement aux petites filatures à bras, menacent d'écarter les anciens systèmes. Le temps nous fera connaitre, s'il est possible de réunir en France, tous les éléments qui peuvent faire réussir les grandes fabriques; savoir les capitaux, les chefs économiques et expérimentés, les ouvriers habiles, soigneux, et appliqués, et la confiance dans l'avenir."
The only articles of cotton manufacture in which the French are at present on a footing with us, are their dyed goods, and their sewed muslins. The colours of the former are bright and durable, and the work put upon their embroidered muslins is designed with taste, and well executed.
It appears from official reports, that the quantity of cotton wool used in the French manufacture was,
| Year | Quantity | |------|----------| | 1798 | 18,000,000 lbs. | | 1799 | 10,200,000 | | 1800 | 6,726,000 | | 1801 | 11,008,000 | | 1802 | 15,120,000 | | 1803 | 15,780,000 | | 1804 | 17,200,000 | | 1805 | 18,412,000 | | 1806 | 21,734,000 |
The cotton imported in the year 1806 was manufactured into the following articles: About 1,000,000 lbs. into velvets; about 925,000 lbs. into nankeens, nankinets, crapes, and other small stuffs; about 1,155,000 into dimities; about 14,880,000 into fustians, calicoes, coverlets, simoises, muslins, &c., &c.
In twenty-two of the departments in France, in which this manufacture was carried on, there were at this time (1806) 7,450 spinning mules, containing 800,724 spindles, and employing 28,460 persons; and there were in these departments 28,634 looms employed in weaving cotton fabrics, giving occupation to 31,107 persons. The number of machines and of people engaged in this manufacture in the other parts of the country are not stated.
In the same year, France imported (contraband) from England 2,000,000 pieces of nankeen, 1,000,000 pieces of cotton cloth for printing, and about 300,000 pieces of other descriptions of cotton goods, such as muslins, cambrics, dimities, &c., valued at three millions Sterling.
The cotton manufacture is carried on in France at present (1817) in the following districts:
At Paris they have a good deal of spinning, and they manufacture the best calicoes and the finest cotton hosiery produced in France. The manufacturers of Paris have also a number of people employed in spinning and weaving at Versailles, Essennes, Melun, Senlis, Royaumont, Liancourt, Chantilly, Gisors, Carlepont, &c.
The cotton manufacture is established on a more extensive scale in Rouen than in any other town in France; and it is not confined to the city, for the whole of Normandy is covered with cotton weavers, who carry on the business in their own houses, and send the goods they make to the hall at Rouen for sale. The manufacturers of Rouen have also numbers of workmen employed in the neighbourhood of St Quintin and Cambrai, where their finest cloths are woven. The articles produced in Rouen, and in these dependent districts, are calicoes, coarse and fine, made to a great amount; velvets, also, in great quantity; coloured cotton goods of all descriptions; which last, from their superior knowledge in the art of dyeing, they execute well.
At Amiens, and in the neighbourhood, there is a great deal of spinning done, partly for hosiery, but chiefly for velvets, of which a large quantity is made in this district. The cotton manufacture has, in a great measure, supplanted the woollen manufacture formerly carried on here.
At Troyes, they manufacture dimities, fustians, swanskins, and different strong stuffs for furnitures and linings. There is also a considerable manufacture here of low priced hosiery.
At St Quintin, although the spinning is considerable, it does not supply above a fifth of the yarn used in the surrounding district, in which there are, it is said, 12,000 cotton weavers. These are employed upon different qualities of calicoes, upon cambrics for printing, upon dimities, and upon fancy goods, both white and coloured. There is no weaving done in the town; and in the linen manufacture formerly carried on here, 15,000 weavers were employed in making linens, thread, gauzes, and cambrics. These are now reduced to about 2000.
At Tarare they make the finest book-muslins, but the yarn they use is all smuggled from England.
In the ci-devant province of Beaujolois, in which, till lately, no manufacture was carried on, they produce calicoes, low priced dimities, and stuffs for linings.
At Nismes, the people formerly were wholly employed upon articles of silk, but they now manufacture very fine cotton stockings, and fancy goods of different descriptions, woven with silk warp and cotton weft.
At Lyons, they have begun to make fancy articles in cotton, of superior taste and beauty as they boast, to any thing of the kind ever exhibited before; but the price of the goods they admit is very high.
The manufacture of Montpelier is now entirely confined to what are called Madras handkerchiefs, made in imitation of those of India.
The manufacture carried on in Cholet, Laval, and the surrounding country, was formerly wholly of linen. They now make calicoes, coloured cotton handkerchiefs in great quantities, and coloured handkerchiefs of cotton and linen. They have no spinning in this district.
The calico printers of Alsace, only a few years ago, drew their whole supplies of cloth from Paris, Rouen, and St Quintin. But, having been enabled to establish spinning works, with the assistance of a few Swiss emigrant workmen, who instructed the Alsatians; they introduced into their country the cotton manufacture, and are now in a situation to supply not only the goods required for their own printing, but have a surplus to dispose of for the consumption of others. Lille, Tourcoing, and Roubaix, with the surrounding country, form a spinning and manufacturing district. Lille and Tourcoing spin not only for their own consumption, but are able to furnish a great deal of yarn for the weaving carried on in the neighbourhood. The yarn produced in Roubaix, on the contrary, does not suffice for its own demands. The goods manufactured in this district are printnieres, thicksets, crapes, and nankinets. Formerly its weavers were employed on woollen stuffs, but this branch is now entirely given up.
At Cambrai the weaving is considerable, but it is almost wholly carried on for the manufacturers of St Quintin and Rouen.
At present the cotton manufacture of France works up about thirty millions of pounds of cotton annually; and the value of this, when manufactured, is estimated at about ten millions sterling, nearly four-fifths of which they reckon to be workmanship.
The people of free countries betake themselves more early to the pursuits of industry, than those who live under despotic governments; from the feeling, perhaps, that what their labour produces will be secured to them for their enjoyment. The Swiss boast that they manufactured muslins a hundred and fifty years ago. But if this were the case, these goods had certainly not been fitted to compete with the India muslins, with which the markets of Europe continued to be supplied, until the invention of the mule-jenny enabled the British muslins to rival them.
The cotton manufacture of Switzerland, whatever may have been the date of its commencement, had not at an early period been of much amount. It was even many years after Sir Richard Arkwright's improvements, before it began to make any considerable advance. It was not until the year 1798, that the Swiss had any spinning by machinery, at which time their first mill was erected at St Gall. Before that period all their yarn was spun upon the one thread wheel; and even still, about a tenth part of what they produce is spun in this manner.
After the introduction of machinery, however, the manufacture made rapid advances, and spinning works were erected in all the manufacturing cantons of the republic. In these they now spin water-twist up to No. 40, and mule yarn up to No. 80; but they import from this country all the higher numbers required in their manufacture.
A considerable proportion of their machinery is worked in the same manner as a part of the spinning machinery of France; a description of which we have given in our account of the cotton manufacture of that country; that is, in small systems; and, in Switzerland, these little establishments are scattered over the country.
In the manufacture of the goods, the weaver in general provides himself with the yarn, and sells the cloth, when woven, at the nearest weekly market, or exchanges it for a new supply of yarn. But there are also manufacturing capitalists, who employ a number of weavers, furnishing them with materials for the cloth, and paying them wages; only a small part of the manufacture, however, is carried on in this way.
Although the manner in which the Swiss conduct this business, is not so well calculated to produce quantity, or to bring the article cheap to market, as the more perfect mode which we pursue; it leaves to the mechanic employed, a higher moral rank and character, and a greater possibility of worldly enjoyment, than belong to the working people of our more systematized establishments. Under the one, the workman appears to exercise independent labour, and his employment seems to be subservient to his own use and benefit. In the other we see him only as an accessory to some piece of machinery for supplying the elements of commerce; and, losing sight of the object of man's labour, the extension of his comforts and enjoyments, we are at last led to consider a nation as a great manufacturing concern, and increase of production as what is to be desired, at whatever expense of individual privation it may be obtained.
The quantity of cotton yarn used in the Swiss manufacture, when trade is in its ordinary state, is about 130,000 lbs. weekly. Of this quantity more than a half is imported; and of the remainder, nine-tenths are spun by machinery, and a tenth by the hand. Besides the machinery for spinning water twist, it is computed that there are in Switzerland 1200 mule jennies, averaging 216 spindles each. Spinning works are established at Winterthur, and in its neighbourhood; in the town and canton of Zurich; in the cantons of St Gall and Appenzell; of Argovia; of Thurgovia; of Geneva; and at St Blaze near Basil.
The goods manufactured are nearly of the same description as those made in Britain. The canton of Appenzell produces fine plain muslins, and the finest embroideries. The canton of St Gall, muslins, coloured pocket-handkerchiefs, cottonets, and the finest cotton cloths. The canton of Zurich on both the banks of the lake, produces about a thousand pieces of calicoes weekly. The cantons of Thurgovia and Argovia produce mostly coloured goods; and in these, and in the cantons of Zurich and Glaris, the printing of cotton cloths is carried on to a very considerable extent.
The wages at the present time, when, from the depressed state of trade, the price of labour everywhere over Europe is reduced to the lowest rate are, for a spinner, 18d. to 20d. a-day; a reeler 10d to 12d.; a weaver of calicoes 10d. to 12d. But the weavers of the finer articles, even at this time, can earn as much as 2s. 6d. or 3s. 4d. a-day, according to the fineness and necessary nicety of execution of the work in which they are employed.
The cotton manufacture is prosecuted to a considerable extent in different parts of Germany. In Austria it is carried on principally around Vienna, in Austria, the neighbourhood of which city there are a number of large spinning works, all of which are moved by water. The business of spinning and that of manufacturing are kept quite separate. The weaving is done in Vienna and the surrounding country; and it is supposed that there are about 10,000 weavers em- ployed. There is also a good deal of cotton woven in the mountainous part of Bohemia; but there is no cotton spun there; the Bohemians using principally English yarns. To facilitate the contraband introduction of these, by giving them the appearance of home production, spinning works have been established at Reichenberg, and at a few other places upon the Bohemian frontier. These yarns are woven into nankeens. The cotton goods manufactured in the Austrian dominions are of a stout fabric, and well executed; but they are dear when compared with English goods of a similar description. To give encouragement to the manufacture, the importation of foreign cotton yarn, of numbers below No. 50, and of foreign cotton cloths, is prohibited. Cotton yarn, of numbers above No. 50, is admitted on paying a considerable duty.
Austria, in her present political state, cannot, we apprehend, be made a great manufacturing country. Commerce does not spring vigorously under the uncertainty which belongs to despotic rule; and if successful, the diffusion of wealth, which is its consequence, produces a spirit incompatible with the exercise of arbitrary power. Supposing, therefore, the manufactures of Austria, by factitious encouragement, brought to supply a part of her own consumption, she cannot continue to advance in these pursuits, without involving a change of her political circumstances.
In Saxony, the cotton manufacture, although, perhaps, not of greater amount than in Austria, is more generally diffused over the country, and exists under circumstances which promise a greater probability of future success. The habits and moral condition of the Saxon people are favourable to the successful prosecution of manufactures. They are sober, industrious, well educated, and frugal; and, added to these advantages, the administration of their government is liberal, and does not capriciously interfere with private pursuits. They have been long trained to manufacturing habits, having very early had an extensive linen business; and in introducing the cotton manufacture, nothing more was necessary than to transfer to the one, a part of the industry which had been employed in the other.
In 1799, after many unsuccessful attempts, Messrs Barnard and Brothers, with the aid of an English mechanic, erected, at Chemnitz, the first work which was established for spinning cotton in Saxony.
Their example was quickly followed by others; but from the imperfect knowledge which the Saxons then possessed of the mode of erecting these works, and from the reduction in the profits of spinning, which took place in consequence of the increased competition upon the Continent and from England, the undertaking proved unsuccessful. Those who engaged in it became loaded with large stocks of unsaleable yarn, which they were not able to get quit of until the blockade of the Elbe in 1804, and the subsequent occupation of Hanover by the French, excluded, for a time, the competition of England.
The Berlin decree in 1806, and the enforcement of Bonaparte's continental system, gave great vigour to the spinning trade in Germany. By the year 1808, the German spinners had more than indemnified themselves for the loss they had before sustained; and they continued to prosper, and to extend their business, till the success of the Allies, in the year 1813, put an end to the French yoke, and opened the country to the competition of foreigners.
Their machinery, however, had been greatly improved during this period, and the price of labour in Saxony being uniformly low, the Saxon spinners allege they would be able to compete successfully with the English, but for their greater capital, and the advantage which their geographical situation gives them in the purchase of the raw material.
They spin in Saxony mule yarn of a low quality, from Smyrna cotton, of numbers from No. 16 to No. 40, which they weave into thicksets, cotton velvets, and coloured pocket-handkerchiefs.
They spin likewise a second quality of mule yarn, of numbers from No. 36 to No. 54, from bowed or New Orleans cotton, mixed with Pernambuca or Smyrna cotton, according as they wish the quality to be better or worse. This yarn, which they work into cloths for garments, is unequal in the thread, but is preferred by the Saxon weavers to the English second quality of mule yarn, the cloth produced from it having, they think, more body.
They import, however, a considerable quantity of the second quality of yarn from England. There is very little mule yarn of the first quality spun in Saxony, and none of either quality finer than No. 55.
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* Since this article was written, Dr Bright's Travels in Austria and Hungary have been published; and contain some notices respecting the state of the cotton manufacture of Austria. He mentions that this manufacture is carried on to a considerable extent at Prague and Kuttenberg in Bohemia; and at Lettowitz in Moravia, and Gratz in Styria. He describes some of the establishments belonging to it, in the neighbourhood of Vienna, as upon a most extensive scale; that at Kettenhof giving employment to 14,000 people; and that at Ebreschsdorf; as still greater, giving employment to 20,000 people, spread through Bohemia and Moravia. Their large works, he says, have hitherto all been moved by water; but they have coal at Schauerleiten and Klingensfurt, in this district, and there is therefore a probability that the steam engine will soon be introduced.
He mentions the whole people employed in the cotton manufacture of Austria, as stated to amount to 360,000. But this number, we think, must be greatly exaggerated; although the spinners of cotton by the hand, of which, he says, there are still a great many in Austria, are comprehended in it.
The hand-spun yarn they produce is of the grist of No. 16. Their mule yarns are from No. 24 to No. 80. All the finer yarns, and nearly the whole of the water-twist required in their manufacture, are imported from England. The yarn, whether spun at home or imported, is sold to the weavers, who are scattered over the country, and, by them, is converted into cloth, which they dispose of at the weekly market of the nearest town.
The cotton manufacture is carried on also in Prussia, and there is in the temperaments and habits of that people, what leads us to expect that they may become a manufacturing nation. At present, however, like the Austrians, Saxons, and other nations upon the Continent who have attempted to carry on this manufacture, they are far behind in the knowledge of the means of economising labour, and in that readiness and precision of execution which the workmen of this country possess. But these they will soon acquire, if the business continues to be prosecuted by them. In the meantime, they have labour at a cheaper price than that at which we can generally command it; and in manufacturing for markets which lie near to themselves, they can, better than we at a distance, adapt the fashion and fabric of the goods to the changes of taste, and accommodate the supply to the exact measure of the demand.
In Russia they have begun to manufacture cotton upon a small scale. At St Petersburg there is one spinning work, carried on by the Emperor, of course at a great expense. They also spin some cotton yarn upon the distaff. In addition to these supplies, they import annually from this country about 3,000,000 lbs. of yarn, of numbers from No. 18 to No. 46. The weaving is carried on in Moscow and its neighbourhood; and, latterly, along that line of country stretching towards the Caspian Sea, particularly about Sarepta; where a colony of Moravians has for some time been established. The goods produced are used chiefly for the garments of the peasantry.
Before concluding this article, it will be necessary to take some notice of the premature attempts which have been made to establish the cotton manufacture in the United States of America.
The American Government has evinced great anxiety for the accomplishment of this object; without considering that manufactures are valuable to a country, only in as far as by their means the people can be supplied with the article cheaper than they are able to procure it elsewhere. When a manufacture requires the support of bounties, or of laws prohibiting the importation of similar articles, it is a consumption of the national wealth to encourage the prosecution of a branch of industry incapable of maintaining itself. There is no greater error in policy than this; and yet we see it every day committed, by young nations forcing manufactures, before the circumstances of the country admit of such undertakings; and by old nations persisting in the manufacture of articles which, from natural disadvantages, they cannot produce at so low a price as that at which they might purchase them from others.
The favourite system of a country supplying everything within itself, is alike adverse to individual advantage, and to the increase of national riches. A division of employments among nations, founded upon existing, local, or accidental circumstances, is as much in unison with the sound principles of political science, and as much calculated to promote the general benefit, as is the division of labour and of employments among individuals. It is not by a nation manufacturing every thing it consumes that it is to be made rich, but by its people being profitably employed; and this can only be accomplished by the industry which every individual practises, being what he can, with advantage to himself, exchange with the industry practised by others. Under this order of things, the production of the whole will be the greatest, and every one be best paid for what he produces. If these principles be just, it must be a misapplication of American capital and industry to withdraw them from their present employment, in extending the cultivation of the soil, and in circulating its products—undertakings which the people find profitable—to force them into manufacturing concerns supported by monopolies and bounties.
Before America can be in a state to carry on manufactures in competition with those of Europe, her vast tracks of unoccupied land, into which the growing population of her older settlements is regularly flowing, must be stocked. Until this is the case, her supply of labourers will be kept below the demand, and the wages of labour above those paid in the better peopled countries of Europe. Besides the effect which this state of the supply of labour has in increasing the cost of the article, it is adverse to the proper and advantageous execution of the work. The workmen are too independent, and in consequence too unsettled, to submit to that discipline and course of training, from which alone excellence of quality, and a steady production of quantity, are to be obtained.
In the account we are to give of the American cotton manufacture, we shall chiefly refer to the public documents; in which its growth is studiously detailed, and the difficulties it has had to struggle with, anxiously dwelt upon.
Before the year 1791, any manufacture they had was of domestic production and for family use. But in that year a cotton mill was erected in the State of Rhode Island, as appears from a report from the Secretary to the American Treasury, drawn up in the year 1810. This report farther informs us, "That another mill was erected in the same State in the year 1795; and two more in the State of Massachusetts in the year 1803 and 1804: That during the three succeeding years, ten more were erected in Rhode Island, and one in Connecticut, making together fifteen mills, working about 8000 spindles, and producing about 300,000 lbs. of yarn a-year.
"That returns have been received of eighty-seven mills which were erected at the end of the year 1809; sixty-two of which (forty-eight water and fourteen horse mills) were in operation, and worked at that time 31,000 spindles: That the other twenty-five mills will be all in operation in the course of this year, and together with the former ones (all of which are increasing their machinery) will, by the estimate received, work more than 80,000 spindles at the commencement of the year 1811.
"That the capital required to carry on the manufacture on the best terms, is estimated at the rate of a hundred dollars per spindle; but it is believed that not more than at the rate of sixty dollars is generally employed. Each spindle produces annually about 36 lbs. of yarn from 45 lbs. of cotton, and the value of the yarn may be averaged as worth one dollar twelve and a half cents per lb. Eight hundred spindles employ forty persons, viz. five men, and thirty-five women and children.
"That the increase of carding and spinning cotton by machinery in establishments for that purpose, exclusively of that done in private families, has been fourfold during the last two years, and tenfold in three years. Thirty-six of these mills, working 20,406 spindles, are situated within thirty miles of Providence. The remainder are scattered all over the country."
Morse, in the last edition of his Geography, gives the same account of the state of the cotton manufacture of America, at the end of the year 1810, as this report; and adds, that the cloths manufactured were bed-ticking, stripes and checks, ginghams, cloths for shirts and sheetings, counterpanes, webbing and coach laces, diapers, jeans, vesting, cotton kerseymeres, fustians, cords, and velvets. In the enumeration given of the manufactures carried on in the separate states of the Union, the cotton manufacture seems to be confined to the States of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York.
The spinning works mentioned in the preceding report, appear all to have been upon a very small scale, and the number of hands employed, to the quantity of machinery specified, much greater than is found necessary in this country, where labour is so much cheaper. The capital too, said to be used for carrying on the business, seems unnecessarily large.
The farther progress and recent state of this manufacture, we learn from a report of a Committee of the House of Representatives, presented in the spring session of 1816. This report states,
"That the quantity of cotton manufactured in the year 1815 was 90,000 bales," a quantity nearly equal to that used in the cotton manufacture of France. "That the quantity used in 1810 was 10,000 bales; in 1805, 1000 bales; and in 1800, 500 bales." This statement, the Committee say, "they have no reason to doubt; nor have they any to question the truth of the following succinct statement of the capital which is employed, of the labour which it commands, and of the products of that labour."
| Capital employed | (doll.) 40,000,000 | |------------------|--------------------| | Males employed from the age of 17 and upwards | 10,000 | | Women and female children | 66,000 | | Boys under 17 years of age | 24,000 | | Cotton wool manufactured, 90,000 bales | (lbs.) 27,000,000 |
Cotton cloth of various kinds manufactured, (yards) 81,000,000
Cost, (doll.) 24,000,000
The report proceeds to say, "That the manufacturers of cotton, in making application to the national government for encouragement, have been induced to do so for many reasons. They know that their establishments are new and in their infancy; and that they have to encounter a competition with foreign establishments that have arrived at maturity, that are supported by a large capital, and that have from the government every protection that can be required."
"The committee, from the views which they have taken, consider the situation of the manufacturing establishments to be perilous. Some have decreased, and others have suspended business. A liberal encouragement will put them again into operation with increased powers; but should it be withheld, they will be prostrated. A capital of near thirty millions of dollars will become inactive, the greater part of which will be a dead loss to the manufacturers. The Committee, from all the consideration they have given to this subject, are deeply impressed with a conviction, that the manufacturing establishments of cotton wool, are of real utility to the agricultural interest, and that they contribute much to the prosperity of the Union. Under the influence of this conviction, the Committee beg leave to tender respectfully, with this Report, the following resolution:
"That from and after the 30th day of June next, in lieu of the duties now authorized by law, there be laid, levied, and collected, on cotton goods imported into the United States and territories thereof, from any foreign country whatever, per centum ad valorem, being not less than cents per square yard."
At this time the duty upon cotton goods imported into the United States was 15 per cent. But before charging it, 10 per cent. was added to the invoice, and the duty levied upon the gross sum,—raising it by this means to 16½ per cent. Upon the recommendation of the Committee, in consequence of the above report, 10 per cent. more was imposed, and the whole being charged upon L. 110 for every L. 100 of neat value, brought it up to 27½ per cent. But, besides this, all cotton goods below 13½d. per yard, were ordered to be rated at 13½d., and the difference added to the amount of the invoice before calculating the duty. This regulation was meant as a particular encouragement to the home manufacture of the coarser articles.
The great extent of the American cotton manufacture, stated in the preceding report, is more like what the sanguine views of the parties had contemplated, than what had been actually achieved. Indeed, it would have been impossible, even in a country with an extensive population, and established manufacturing habits, to have reared in the time a manufacture of the magnitude they mention. But whatever prosperity it had attained, was put an end to by the restoration of peace with England; and this, notwithstanding of the heavy tax levied on foreign cotton goods. American capital and industry immediately returned to their former channels, in which they will probably continue to seek their employment, until the settling of new lands becomes less advantageous, and a more abundant population gives a greater command of labour.
That the failure of these attempts, however, was not occasioned by any defect in the plan or general conduct of the establishment, we know from a gentleman who visited the principal cotton works in America in the year 1816. He found the machinery in many of them of excellent construction, and those who had the charge of them, men who had been bred in this country, and who were possessed both of skill and judgment. But the circumstances in the state of America, which we have mentioned, were so adverse to the nature of the undertaking, as to render success, in the opinion of these persons, impossible.
We have now completed our account of the cotton manufacture; a branch of industry which, next to the cultivation of the soil, furnishes, we believe, a more extensive employment to labour and capital than belongs to any of the other occupations of man. Even in the brief statistical details to which we have been necessarily confined, the political economist will, perhaps, be able to discover circumstances, which have retarded or facilitated the progress of industry and improvement. In the history of this manufacture, during the short period that it has existed in Britain, readers of every description will meet with matter to engage their attention; while the display of human ingenuity and talent, in the inventions and discoveries to which it has given rise, and the influence of these upon the human character, are calculated not only to excite general interest, but to furnish valuable and instructive materials for the speculations of the philosopher.