The Lancashire cotton industry : a study in economic development

Preface

This essay is intended chiefly as a description and explanation of the typical forms that have appeared from time to time in the production of commodities, the marketing of commodities and the distribution of income, in the Lancashire Cotton industry. It is, therefore, far from being complete as a history or even as an account of the Cotton industry. As a rule I have omitted events which do not bear closely on the industry's internal development, however interesting they might be from the point of view of economic history broadly conceived. Questions connected with the magnitude of the industry and its successes in competing with rivals lay outside the scope of my enquiry though they border upon it. As to foreign trade I have been concerned only with the manner in which it is conducted and the links by which the demand for Lancashire goods abroad is connected with the mill and the factory. My work in short might be taken fundamentally as some notes for an industrial morphology. On the whole I have taken for granted, neither describing nor analysing, the environment and the changes in environment of the Lancashire Cotton industry — for instance those determining its size — whereby some of the developments herein described have been conditioned. Had my study been made comparative it would have been improved, but its appearance would have been indefinitely delayed.

PREFACE

In certain chapters much is said of the opinions held by those who share in the earnings of the Cotton industry. Such opinions, as to the natures and grounds of wages, profits and control, have played some part in settling industrial forms, the actual sharing of wealth, and the quantity of wealth produced. They have varied with the character of the industry and the general lines of social advance. It has been a striking feature in the history of the Cotton industry that the classes of labour (employers and employed) which unite in producing have frequently acted under the influence of different guiding notions as to their relations to one another, and the grounds for their several shares, and have been brought on several occasions to a deadlock in consequence. I have tried to indicate the general outlines of these guiding notions — the fundamental claims of labour and capital as we might say — which are universally operative though seldom explicitly stated, and to explain their variations. A fundamental aim must be distinguished from the proximate ends which are adopted in consequence of its existence.

In the course of my investigations I have been impressed with the close dependence of the forms of distribution on the forms of production. Industrial conflicts have been caused by attempts to enforce old distributive arrangements after they have been rendered inappropriate by changes in productive forms. The problem of distribution ought to be studied not only as a whole in general, but also in connection with typical industries in particular, for the forms of production are not the same throughout the industrial world and they change at different times. The so-called 'labour problem' is complex, like the conditions of industrial life which give rise to it, and its variations are at least as numerous as the types of

PREFACE iii

organised industry. Its solution is complex, varied and progressive. General statements much the same in character might be made as to the most suitable form of production. The right form . is multiform. Private management, joint-stock companies, large and small, labour co-partnership, cooperation, regulated monopolies, to mention only some general forms, have each their respective spheres of operation in an industrial world which was by no means simple in the days of our great-grandparents, and which with the rapid progress of the nineteenth century has become much hiore complicated. There is another interesting case of dependence of one form upon another to which the reader's attention might be specially directed, namely, the mutual determination exercised between the state of industrial organisation and the conditions of marketing.

My obligations are numerous. Many workers in the Cotton industry — employers, operatives, officials of trade unions and eniprdyers' associatidhsTThd^ others cohnecfeH with the trades in cotton, yarn and cloth — have kindly provided me with information, and I have been privileged _ to y|sit___numerous mills and weaving-sheds. More than once Professor Marshall has aided me with counsel and criticism. Portions of the work have been read by Dr. Cannan, Mr. Elijah Helm and Mr. H. Verney, and I have profited from their suggestions. Mr. W. G. S. Adams has been good enough to read for me almost the whole of the proofs. Miss M. Vernon gave me some help in preparing the manuscript for press, and my wife has worked with me in revising the manuscript, preparing tables, correcting proofs, and in all that is involved in bringing out a book. To all who have thus assisted me I hereby offer my hearty thanks, and I have iv PREFACE

also to express my acknowledgements to the Editors of the Economic Journal and the Council of the Manchester Statistical Society for permission to re-print papers which have appeared in that journal and in the transactions of that society.

The researches of which this essay is the result were begun six years ago when I was elected to the Jevons Research Studentship at the Owens College, and two years later my work in an unfinished form was awarded the Adam Smith Prize in the University of Cambridge.

S. J. CHAPMAN.

Manchester,

September 1904

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. Early Forms

RAGK

Establishment of the Cotton Industry in Lancashire and the early

Early form of the industry ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 3

Conduct of foreign trade ... ... ... ... ... .. ... 5

Manchester merchants and other dealers ... ... ... ... ... 6

Various classes of weavers ... ... ... ... ... 9

The process of manufacture ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 12

General lines of development... ... ... ... ... ... ... 14

CHAPTER 11.

The Coming of thi Factory System in Weaving.

Tavo factory systems ...

Development of machinery ...

Hand-loom sheds

Increase of small ma sters

Changes in the form of the industry

The coming of the power-loom

Subsidiary inventions ...

Recent inventions related to weaving

18 18 23 24 26 27 30 32

CHAPTER III. The Hand-Loom Weavers

Conditions in the Eighteenth Century

Early decline in the prices for coarse weaving

Condition of the distressed weavers...

General decline in earnings ...

Town and country weavers ...

Causes of the distress of the hand-loom weavers

Weavers on ' steam-looms '

Note on legislation affecting the British Cotton Industry

V CHAPTER IV.

The Coming of the Factory System in Spinning.

Two industrial revolutions in spinning

Development of machinery ...

The introduction of the water-frame and the water-frame mills

Jennies and mules and the factories in which they are used

Internal arrangements of an early factory. . .

Payment for ' turning ' and spinning on commission

Exportation of yarns ...

Mule-spinning before the invention of the self -actor mule

Coming of the self -actor mule

Throstle- and ring-spinning ...

Development of machinery for processes preparatory to spinning

CHAPTER V. The Attitude towards Machinery

PAGE

Ettect of the new niaeliinery on the spinners ... ... ... ... 74

Ditlerent attitudes towards machinery ... ... ... ... ... 75

Reasons for the opposition to machinery ... ... ... ... ... 81

CHAPTER VI. Factory Legislation

The treatment of chihlren employed in the cotton industry 85

Factory le<,ashition rehiting to the hours of work and the exclusion of

Attitude of the cotton operatives to Factory legislation and the

grounds for their attitude ... ... ... ... ... ... 97

Ettect of the Factory Acts on the cost of production and wages ... 105

Legislation to diminish the dangers arising from the use of machinery 107

Sanitation and conditions of health ... ... ... ... ... 109

The form of State interferences— Statutory provision and Order ... 110 Table of operatives employed in cotton factories in the United

Kingdom at different times and percentages of each class ... 112

CHAPTER VII. Development in Marketing

The Cotton Market in early days, its location and character... ... 113

Effects of the Manchester and Liverpool Railway and of the Manchester Ship Canal ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 114

Conditions of market development... ... ... ... ... ... 118

Effect of telegraphic connection with America ... ... ... ... 123

Futures, options and straddles ... ... ... ... ... .. 126

The Cotton Clearing House and the Cotton Bank ... ... ... 131

The conduct of foreign trade ... ... ... ... ... ... 138

Appendix I. — Statistics as to imports of cotton and exports of cotton

Appendix II. — Market quotations of 'futures' in cotton, 'spot'

CHAPTER VIII. Localisation, Industrial Specialism and Modern Problems

OF Organisation.

Localisation of the Cotton Industry in Lancashire — its causes and

effects 148

Specialism, the localisation of sections of the industry and the

characteristics of different places ... ... ... ... ... 156

Differentiation of the industry and tlie arrangement of its parts ... 161 Conditions of the growth of l)usines.ses ... ... ... ... ... 167

Types of industrial management — joint-stock enterprise and combinations ... ... ... ... ... ... .. •• .. 171

Table shewing the distribution of labour between spinning, weaving

CONTENTS vii

Chapter IX

Trade Unions and Employees' Associations, Early Days AND THE Transition Period.

PAGE

Early combinations among the weavers and their connection with

schemes for friendly benefit ... ... ... ... ... ... 180

The movement for steadying prices (appeals to the Government, the

great strike of 1812, and the position of the masters) ... ... 184

Apprenticeship regulations ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 190

The first combinations among the spinners and the violence in early

days 193

Amalgamations among the spinners and general trades' unions ... 201 Masters Associations and the development of ' tactics ' ... ... 206

The old and the new spirit (the attitude of trade unions to women

New conceptions of the relation of employed to employers and the

conditions of the time ('fining' and ' truck') ... ... ... 216

The trade-union movement becomes a ' labour ' movement, a social

movement, and a political movement (Owenism, Chartism, and

CHAPTER X. Trade Unions and Employers' Associations, Recent Developments

Developments among the spinners (Bolton and Oldham Provinces,

United Movable Committee, Amalgamations and Federations) 233

Constitution of trade unions ... ... ... ... ... ... 241

Fundamental claims of the Cotton operatives ... ... ... ... 249

Policies adopted by trade unions and responses of employers ... 256

CHAPTER XL

Methods of Paying Wages.

Early methods 262

Changes in respect of the weaving lists in use ... ^.. ... ... 265

Changes in respect of the spinning lists in use ... ... ... ... 266

Difierences in structure in the case of spinning lists (analysis of

Oldham and Bolton lists) and methods of applying the lists ... 268

Payment of operatives other than spinners and weavers ... . . 272

Sliding-scales and sliding arrangements between different districts... 274

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Annotated select list of authorities bearing upon the Cotton

Index 305

The

Lancashire Cotton Indtistry

Lancashire Cotton Industry.