Full text of "The woollen and worsted industries"

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THE WOOLLEN AND WORSTED
INDUSTRIES

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Diagram

shewing
The Number of Persons employed

in the
WOOLLEN* WORSTED INDUSTRIES

by Counties
1901.

H.B. The total for the United
Kingdom ivaj Z59.9O9

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ENGLISH CHANNEL

-*-

-t-

NUMBER OF PERSONS EMPLOYED IN THE WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES BY
COUNTIES, IQOI

N.B. The total for the United Kingdom was 259,909.

THE WOOLLEN

AND

WORSTED INDUSTRIES

PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS, FORMERLY FELLOW
OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

WITH DIAGRAMS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

METHUEN & CO.

36 ESSEX STREET W.C.

LONDON

First Published in 7907

7130

PREFACE

THIS general sketch of the Woollen and
Worsted Industries is the first of its kind.
Therefore there are sure to be some mistakes and
omissions, though every effort has been made to
make it accurate so far as it goes. But it is a
sketch, not a fully finished picture. I shall be
only too glad to receive criticisms and additional
facts from any source.

I have received help from all sorts and condi-
tions of men and from some women. Most of
the manufacturers, merchants, trade unionists and
others who have given me information prefer to
remain anonymous. But I can thank my col-
leagues, Professor Beaumont and Mr. W. H.
Shaw; Mr. F. Hooper, late Secretary of the
Bradford Chamber of Commerce ; Mr. Frankland,
Secretary of the Ossett Chamber ; Professor Armi-
tage of the Huddersfield Technical College ; Pro-

O O '

fessor Barker of the Bradford Technical College ;
Miss Maud Sellers, and Mr. Howard Priestman,

THE

vi WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

who has read my proofs and given me much valu-
able advice, especially in technical matters where
I have no expert knowledge. For American facts
I am much indebted to Mr. J. B. Macpherson,
Secretary of the National Association of Wool
Manufacturers, and for Belgian facts to Professor
M. E. Bodard of Verviers.

The printed sources of information are exceed-
ingly miscellaneous. I should like to acknowledge
my special indebtedness to the technical works of
Professor Beaumont, Mr. Priestman, Mr. Mac-
laren and Dr. Bowman ; to Dangerous Trades,
edited by Dr. T. Oliver ; to the daily and annual
trade reports of the Yorkshire Observer (formerly
the Bradford Observe^ ; to the Bulletin of the
National Association of Wool Manufacturers and
to I Industrie Textile, for America and France;
to Mr. Hooper's valuable Statistics, published
annually ; to Mr. A. L. Bowley's and Mr. T. A.
Coghlan's well-known statistical writings ; to Gain
or Loss? by Messrs. Ogden and Macaulay of
Bradford; to the wool trade reviews of Messrs.
Helmuth, Schwartze & Co., and to the official
publications of the Australian, New Zealand and
Canadian Governments supplied to me by the
Agents-General and commercial representatives of
those parts of the Empire.

PREFACE vii

Some of the printed sources of information for
foreign countries are referred to in the text.
Besides official publications of various kinds and
our own Consular Reports, I am under special
obligations to Dr. Senkel's Wollproduktion und
Wollhandel im 19'"' Jahrhundert, the publica-
tions of the Verein fur Socialpolitik, and the
article on the Wool Industry in the Handbuch
der Wirthschaftskunde Deutschlands.

For assistance in procuring photographs or
for gifts of photographs I wish to thank Professor
Beaumont; Mr. E. B. Fry of Shipley; Messrs.
Prince Smith, and Robert Clough of Keighley;
Messrs. James Mathers & Sons, Taylor, Words-
worth & Co., and Beaumont & Smith of Leeds;
Mr. H. Dudding of Riby Grove, Lincoln ; Mr.
R. Welch of Belfast, and the Agent-General for
New South Wales.

For the Index and a number of other things I
am indebted to my wife.

J. H. C.

LEEDS
June,

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. INTRODUCTORY i

II. THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 25

III. THE RAW MATERIALS AND THE TRADE IN THEM . . 76

IV. INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL ORGANISATION . . . 126
V. LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 174

VI. THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 221

VII. IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 272

INDEX 35

LIST OF DIAGRAMS AND
ILLUSTRATIONS

DIAGRAMS

THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE INDUSTRIES BY COUNTIES Frontispiece

Facing Page
EXPORTS FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM AND WOOL PRICES . 276

EXPORTS FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM, FRANCE AND GERMANY . 292
IMPORTS INTO THE UNITED KINGDOM 296

ILLUSTRATIONS

MAGNIFIED FIBRES OF MERINO AND CHEVIOT WOOL . . 26

HAND CARDING AND SPINNING IN DONEGAL .... 32

WOOLLEN CARDING AND CONDENSING 34

NOBLE COMBS AT WORK 42

LISTER COMBS AT WORK 44

FLYER SPINNING FRAMES 50

CAP SPINNING FRAMES 52

WOOLLEN MULE 54

TWISTING FRAME FOR FANCY YARNS WITH RING SPINDLES . 56

IRISH COTTAGE HAND-LOOM 58

WOOLLEN POWER LOOM . . 60

xii WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

Facing Page

FLOCK OF MERINO SHEEP, NEW SOUTH WALES ... 88

WOOL IN TRANSIT TO MARKET, NEW SOUTH WALES . . go

BALING WOOL FOR EXPORT, AUSTRALIA 96

GROUP OF PRIZE LINCOLN RAMS 104

THE CONNEMARA SPINNING WHEEL 128

A WOOLLEN WEAVING SHED 190

THE WOOLLEN

AND

WORSTED INDUSTRIES

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY

THE group of industries with which this little
book deals has a long and famous past.
Its development has attracted economists and
historians in an uncommon degree, and rightly ;
for it is connected at all points with the rise
both of the economic and the political life and
strength of the nation. To condense into a
single chapter a story that began before ever
William of Normandy brought Flemish weavers
over the Channel or the Lord Chancellor sat
on a woolsack would be almost irreverent and
altogether unwise. To condense it into an
Introduction would be impertinent. I shall,
therefore, make no attempt to deal with any
but the most recent history, except where the

2 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

past throws direct light on the facts of the
present. And such history as the book contains
will be found scattered throughout the various
chapters where it is likely to be of most use.

In the absence of history, some definition of
the ground to be covered is needed. Grammatic-
ally, anything made of wool is woollen ; but,
technically, the woollen manufacture is but a
part of what one may call, in the absence of
any simple popular name, the wool-working
industries. The technical differences between
woollen and worsted will be dealt with in
Chapter II. Here it is enough to mention that
those differences are primarily connected with
the structure of the yarn and the mechanical
treatment of the wool before and during the
process of spinning. On the Continent this fact
is emphasised in the names given to the two
branches of the industry. The French and
German equivalents of woollen and worsted are
"carded" and "combed" terms descriptive of
the distinctive preliminary processes through
which the wool goes. Our term worsted comes,
as the philologists still think, from a quiet
Norfolk village with a great church, where now
there is no sound of the loom, but where once
fabrics woven of combed wool were produced, in

INTRODUCTORY 3

quantities great enough to make the place famous
throughout England.

When finished and ready for market, worsted
fabrics are usually lighter and finer than woollens.
Most of the softer and lighter materials for
women's dress, the "stuffs," are made in whole
or in part of worsted, more often in part than
in whole. Silk or cotton yarns are the usual
accompaniments. Other typical worsted fabrics
are the fine napless cloth of which men's dress
suits are now made, the smooth fancy "trouser-
ings," and so forth. Among heavier worsteds
are some of the serges and other plain or fancy
" coatings ". a But here the boundary line between
woollen and worsted fabrics is blurred by the now
not uncommon practice of using both classes of
yarn in one piece of cloth. Typical woollens
are the old fine broadcloths, uniform cloths, box-
cloths and the like ; pilot cloths and the stout
materials of which winter overcoats are made;
flannels, blankets and tweeds. Cotton yarns are
used in woollen as well as in worsted weaving,
in the construction of what are known as union
cloths ; but, in spite of the presence of cotton,
such cloths are as a rule fairly heavy. Cotton is
also mixed with wool before spinning, in many
cases, as a cheap and effective substitute.

1 The term serge is now used very widely and loosely.

Thus on the one side the woollen and worsted
industries stand in very close relations with the
cotton trade and industry, and have points of
contact with the silk industry. With these
industries, of course, this book has nothing to
do. On the other side stand the carpet and the
hosiery industries. The former is sometimes
treated not as a distinct branch of manufacture,
but as a mere subdivision of woollen and
worsted. It is so treated in all English official
employment statistics, both those issued by the
factory inspectors and those printed in the
census returns ; also in foreign trade statistics.
Therefore it will have to be included in certain
sections of this book. But its processes are so
different from those of cloth or stuff manufacture,
that no attempt can be made to describe them or
to discuss the organisation of the carpet trade.
Reference to it will be necessary from time to
time, but there will be no pretence of making
these references exhaustive.

The manufacture of hosiery is a distinct trade
from every point of view a trade in which the
knitting machine takes the place of the loom.
It is a great consumer of worsted and woollen
yarns, but in no sense a part of the woollen or
of the worsted industry. To it, therefore, no

INTRODUCTORY 5

reference will be made except in its capacity of
consumer.

In estimating the national importance of any
group of industries various tests may be applied
the number of persons engaged in it, the sum
annually paid in wages, the quantity of machinery
at work, the value and amount of raw material
consumed, and the value and quantity of finished
goods produced. In the present state of our
statistical knowledge, some only of these tests
can be applied to the woollen and worsted
group ; and even those that are applicable must
be handled cautiously, for the group presents
more statistical problems and pitfalls than almost
any other important section of British industry.

The number of persons employed in 1901,
according to the factory inspectors' returns,
was 259,909. This figure covers spinning and
weaving and all preliminary and allied processes,
shoddy-making and carpet-making, but not
hosiery-making. It also includes about 3000
dyers, bleachers or printers, but not the bulk of
these classes of workpeople, since most of them
do not work in what are technically known as
textile factories and are not engaged in handling
woollens and worsteds only. Besides this small
body of dyers and others, the inspectors report

6 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

that 355 persons were employed in all the other
" non-textile " processes in the mills of the United
Kingdom. This is clearly a grotesque underesti-
mate of the miscellaneous employes. 1 1 is a pity that
so misleading a figure should be included at all.

The inspectors' figures are based on returns
from all the registered mills in the country, but
how complete these returns are only the mill-
owners know. It is sometimes maintained that
there is a considerable risk of error, due to
carelessness in filling in the inquiry forms, but a
comparison of the inspectors' returns with the
census returns of occupations which, of course,
are collected in a totally different way shows
that this risk is in all probability not serious.

To illustrate this point reference may be made
to the Yorkshire returns. The inspectors' figure
for "wool, worsted and shoddy" in the West
Riding was 187,204. The census figures in the
same year were : "wool and worsted," 181,004;
and "mixed or unspecified materials," 11,201.
This second heading includes all those textile
workers who merely returned themselves as
spinners, weavers or what not or as workers
with mixed materials. The bulk of them would
certainly be wool workers ; but a minority would
be classed by the inspectors under some other

INTRODUCTORY 7

head cotton, silk, or linen perhaps. When a
reduction of, say, 20 per cent, from the 11,201
has been made to allow for this minority, the
census total of wool wurkers comes to nearly
1 90,000. But in the census all dyers and bleachers
are entered separately, whereas the inspectors'
total includes 3032 of this class. On the other
hand, the census includes employers, the in-
spectors do not, and there are certainly some
thousands of employers. So that the discrep-
ancies are not serious, and the maximum possible
error in the inspectors' figures is inconsiderable.

In the case of machinery we have statements
in connection with which there seems to be no
great risk of error. They are more recent than
the figures of employment, having been collected
in 1904. Woollen, worsted and shoddy mills
are treated separately. There were 1377 wool-
len factories in the kingdom in 1904, containing
329 rag-grinding machines for making shoddy,
6083 sets of carding machinery, 2,613,759 spin-
ning spindles, 211,353 doubling spindles for
twisting yarns together, and 50,357 power looms.
The 161 shoddy mills had 566 rag-grinding
machines, 319 carding sets, 77,815 spinning
spindles, 2520 doubling spindles and 1432
looms. 1 In the 841 worsted mills there were

1 These figures, when examined critically, show that the

8 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

2823 combing machines, 2,937,900 spinning
spindles, 845,166 doubling spindles, and 52,725
power looms. Some of the "woollen" mills
contained a little worsted machinery and vice
versa, but the amount of this overlapping was
small. The items are 101 combs in woollen mills
and 298 woollen carding sets in worsted mills.

Nearly all the machinery is steam driven. A
few mills some of them of considerable size-
use both steam and water power. In out-of-the-
way places water power may occasionally be
found working unassisted a rare relic of the
past. Here and there steam is being displaced
by electricity. The new motive force has so
far made slow progress ; some doubt whether it
will ever win the day. There are technical
difficulties connected with its adoption and the
existing mill-engines are remarkably economical.
But it can be used and it is being used. I have
visited an important woollen mill in which it has
been applied to nearly every process ; and there
seems no reason why this should not eventually
become common.

Since 1889 the number of worsted spindles

main business of the shoddy mills was making the shoddy,
not working it up. There is no hard and fast line between
some of these shoddy mills and some of the woollen mills.

INTRODUCTORY 9

has risen by 22 per cent. ; the number of woollen
spindles has fallen by nearly 16 per cent. The
number of woollen looms has fallen from 61,831
to 50,357; that of worsted looms from 67,391
to 52,725. It should be borne in mind that
during the fifteen years from '89 to 1904, the
pace of both spindles and looms and the average
width of the looms had considerably increased.
The figures of raw material consumption show
clearly enough that a steady increase in pro-
ductive power accompanied this numerical de-
cline in certain forms of machinery.

These consumption figures are by no means
so certain as one could wish. At several points
it is necessary to rely on estimates, which can
never be quite satisfactory, however carefully
they are framed. The certain data are the im-
ports and re-exports of foreign and colonial wool,
the exports of British wool, and the number of
sheep in the United Kingdom. From the last
figure an estimate of the home clip has to be
made, based on the probable average weight of
the fleeces of different breeds of sheep ; and
from the figure thus arrived at must be deducted
the exports of British wool. The greatest diffi-
culty arises in connection with the "home-grown"
rags and the quantity of raw material made from

io WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

rags generally. Another estimated figure is that
of the wool taken from imported sheepskins ;
but this is not entirely a matter of guess work,
and moreover the item is not an important one.
Elaborate figures of consumption, worked out on
these lines, have been published annually for the
last few years by Mr. F. Hooper, late secretary
of the Bradford Chamber of Commerce. For
the year 1906 he estimates that the amount of
new wool retained for consumption was 517'!
million Ibs., 1 the amount taken from sheepskins
32 millions, and the amount made out of rags
190 millions.

For the five years 1900-4 the new wool re-
tained averaged 484*5 million Ibs., the skin wool
29*6, and the rag wool 145 millions. The quin-
quennial averages in millions of Ibs. for the years
since 1870 are as follows :

NEW WOOL
RETAINED.

SKIN WOOL.

RAG WOOL.

1900-4

484'5

29-6

145'

1895-9

SI9-S

33' 6

132-0

1890-4

472-6

32-2

118-0

1885-9

413-4

25-0

lOI'O

1880-4

353-6

2O'O

123-0

1875-9

353-3

2O'I

104-0

1870-4

34i'7

23-0

89-0

1 This includes alpaca, mohair, and other raw materials
akin to wool.

INTRODUCTORY 1 1

This is not the place to comment on the
details of consumption. The chapters which
follow will throw some light on them. But it
should be mentioned here that one possible
source of error connected with the figures has
not yet been referred to. It is that the words
"a pound of wool" are not so simple as they
seem. Wool may be dirty or clean, fine or
coarse. It so happens that in the earlier years
covered by the table, there was relatively more
wool imported clean than there now is, which
means that a part of the increase is but grease
and dirt. But the possible error due to this
cause is not great. Nor need much weight be
given to the fact that the very fine wool from
Australia and elsewhere formed a smaller fraction
of the whole at the end of the period than at
the beginning ; though the fact deserves to be
put on record.

Besides the new wool, skin wool, and rag
wool there is cotton, both spun and unspun, to
be taken into account. Estimates of the quantity
consumed have been put forward from time to
time ; but they are necessarily much more un-
certain than any of the other estimates, which is
saying a good deal. I do not propose, therefore,
to quote any figures ; but to content myself with

12 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

stating the certain fact that the consumption
of cotton has increased of late years.

A calculation of the value of the raw material
consumed in the industries could not be made
with any certainty ; nor would it be of great
use, unless coupled with reasonably accurate
valuations of the output of finished goods from
the mills, and of the total amount paid in wages.
Neither valuation is to be had ; so that these
particular tests of the national importance of the
wool manufactures cannot be applied.

Everyone is more or less familiar with the way
in which the industries are distributed over the
face of the country the primacy of the West
Riding, and the importance of the parts of
Lancashire round about Rochdale, the signi-
ficance of the Tweed towns and of Kidder-
minster, the continued activity of the famous old
"West of England" manufacturing district in
Gloucester, Wiltshire, and Somerset. The map
which gives the distribution of the industry by
counties to a large extent speaks for itself. It
shows how widely scattered the business of wool
manufacturing still is, in spite of the fact that well-
nigh 80 per cent, of the workers in it live in the
comparatively narrow bit of hill country between

INTRODUCTORY 13

the valley of the Wharfe and the valley of the
Irwell. The scattering would be still more
apparent if the map included Ireland and the
Highlands; for the 3523 Irish woollen mill
"hands," reported in 1901, were spread over
twenty-six counties, and in Scotland the 2976
work people not accounted for on the map were
divided among eleven northern counties.

The mills of Ireland and the north of Scot-
land are without exception woollen mills well,
not quite without exception : twelve worsted
looms are reported from Monaghan. So are
the Welsh mills and all the mills they are not
very many in Northumberland, Hereford, Mon-
mouth, Oxford, Essex, Sussex, and Cornwall.
These are in most cases the remnants of old
local industries from the days when there was no
power-driven machinery and manufacturing was
but little concentrated. In a few instances they
have risen, under the new order, to positions of
national importance, as in the case of the blanket
industry of Witney in Oxford. But in many
cases they have even now only partially adopted
power and have retained much of their old
character. Some of the Welsh and Scotch and
Irish mills still provide yarn for domestic
weavers. In the four counties of Cardigan,

i 4 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

Carmarthen, Glamorgan, and Pembroke, for
example, there were in 1904 a hundred and six
" factories " that did nothing but spin. They had
on an average one set of carding machinery
and 116 spindles each. It is true there were
some other "factories" thereabouts that did
nothing but weave, and that with power looms
too ; but no doubt much yarn from the spinning
mills went to the cottage looms. The factories
of all kinds in the four counties numbered 191 ;
the workpeople, three years earlier, exactly
1259. A simple division sum reveals the size
and probable character of these quaint little
mills. There are other Welsh counties whose
industry is of much the same type as this.

So also in Ireland. There are ninety-nine
Irish mills all told Some are fair-sized concerns
of the English type. But thirty-four of them
six in Cork, six in Kerry, and the rest divided
among eleven other counties are spinning mills
of the type just described, though slightly larger,
with one or two carding sets and from 150 to
200 spindles each. The same type is to be
found in parts of Scotland, though there it is far
less common, and perhaps it still survives in the
English counties along the Welsh border.

These are the curiosities of the industry, the

INTRODUCTORY 15

survivals of an earlier time. Elsewhere are to
be found relics of what once were great con-
centrated industrial districts, that have declined
under the stress of competition. East Anglia
was the chief of the worsted districts down to
1800. Her industry had little in common with
the parochial woollen manufacture of the Welsh
and Irish hills ; it was of national and inter-
national importance. But it has disappeared
utterly, save for a few worsted spindles and a
handful of workpeople in Norwich. Devon has
fared rather better. She has some half-dozen
mills, mainly for woollens. But she has fallen
from her high place. In 1800 Exeter was
"essentially a manufacturing city ". It was, we
are told, "the emporium for the thinner kinds
of woollen goods, such as serges, druggets,
estamines and long ells ; which being spun and
woven in the towns and villages around were
dyed and finished in the city, whence they were
shipped to Spain, Portugal, Holland, Italy and the
East Indies ". It was reckoned that 80 per cent,
of Exeter's population of over 16,000 was in
one way or another connected with the trade.
By 1831 this had all ceased; and in the factory
age the ground lost has never been recovered. 1

1 Second Report of the Health of Towns Commission,
1845. P- 354-

1 6 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

Somerset, Wiltshire and Gloucester also lost
much ground, as compared with the North, be-
tween 1800 and 1900. Fashion was unkind to
them towards the close of the century, so that
in some districts decline has been almost con-
tinuous up to the present time. In Somerset
there are ten factories woollen with just a little
worsted spinning. The familiar headquarters of
the trade are at Wellington. In Gloucester and
Wiltshire the valleys on either side of the Cots-
wolds and the upper valley of the Avon, where
most of the mills lie, form an idyllic manufacturing
district, that one instinctively contrasts with the
hard-edged grey moorlands, fouled rivers and
grimy air of the West Riding. It is a woollen
district altogether, so far as spinning is concerned ;
and some of its thirty mills turn out the finest
woollen cloth in the world. The chief of them
are on the Gloucestershire side, round about
Stroud. Those on the Wiltshire side seem to
have suffered more from outside competition
than those in Gloucester : it is from the neigh-
bourhood of Bradford-on-Avon that one hears
most of firms going out of business and factories
deserted or turned to other uses.

The manufacturing industry of the Midlands
centres about the carpets of Kidderminster and

INTRODUCTORY 17

the hosiery of Leicester. Worcestershire, thanks
to the carpet trade, comes next after Yorkshire
and Lancashire as a wool-working county. War-
wickshire also does a little spinning and weaving
about Coventry. As has already been men-
tioned, the figures given on the county map
include carpets but exclude hosiery. This ex-
plains the comparatively low figure for Leicester-
shire. Besides its 2869 woollen or worsted
operatives, it had over 19,000 hosiery makers,
and there were another 10,000 or so in Derby-
shire and Nottingham. Those returned for
these three counties under "woollen and wor-
sted" are the spinners in mills that supply the
hosiery trade. Nearly all these mills are in and
about Leicester itself, though there are a few in
Derbyshire and Notts. Some are of first-
rate importance. The majority of them are
classed as worsted mills ; but there is a good deal
of overlapping in the hosiery yarn trade, mills
classed as woollen containing worsted machinery
and vice versa. There was no weaving machinery
returned from the whole hosiery district, with the
exception of fifteen worsted looms from Leicester.
The three figures on the map of Yorkshire show
the relative manufacturing importance of the Rid-
ings. As is well known, the factory district covers

only a part even of the West Riding. North of
the course of the Wharfe, south of the courses of
the Calder and the Colne, and east of a line
drawn north and south just beyond Wakefield,
there are but few mills. Roughly speaking, wool-
lens are made principally in the east and south,
worsteds in the west and north of this area.
But there is no sharp line of division. There is
very little woollen spinning or weaving in Brad-
ford, Halifax, Keighley or in Wharfedale, very
little worsted in Batley or Dewsbury ; but there
is now a good deal of worsted in and about
Leeds, and the Huddersfield neighbourhood has
long practised both branches.

Inside the district there is a vast amount of local
specialisation. Bradford is the chief seat of wool-
dealing, yarn-dealing, and of all things commer-
cial. Its supremacy is unquestionable ; though
it by no means holds a position in Yorkshire
analogous to that of Manchester beyond the
Pennines. Leeds, a much larger city and an
older seat of the textile industries, naturally does
not stand to Bradford at all as Oldham stands to
Manchester. Halifax and Huddersfield would
hardly be prepared to admit that Bradford was
more than primus inter pares. They have their
specialities, which are not those of Bradford, their

INTRODUCTORY 19

commercial as well as their industrial activities,
and their ancient renown. Yet Bradford is ac-
tually by far the greatest wool-working city in
the Riding or, for that matter, in the world ; al-
though, owing to its having so little to do with
woollens, it can hardly be called the centre of
the woollen and worsted industries. It is the
headquarters of wool-combing and of the manu-
facture of worsteds for women's wear. At Hud-
dersfield are made the best worsteds for men's
wear and some fine woollens. Halifax is best
known in connection with the carpet trade,
though it also spins various kinds of worsted
yarns including hosiery yarns and makes
stuffs. The Colne valley above Huddersfield
now specialises in tweeds and other woollens,
of the cheaper but not the cheapest sorts. Dews-
bury and Batley are in the old "heavy woollen
district," which might perhaps now better be
called the "cheap woollen district". It was the
first home of the shoddy trade. Its business is
now miscellaneous, as is the woollen trade of the
Leeds neighbourhood. The latter ranges from
the lowest tweeds, with little or no new wool
in them, up to some excellent substantial wool-
lens of the soundest, if not quite the most finished,
workmanship. The old Leeds broadcloth trade,

which still figures in some commercial geographies,
is now almost extinct. Wakefield, at one end of
the district, and Keighley at the other, are largely
spinning towns, though their yarns have not very
much in common ; and so on.

Of the worsted industry, especially of combing
and spinning, Yorkshire has almost a monopoly.
All the combing machines of the United King-
dom except 280 are in the West Riding. Its pro-
portion of the worsted spindles is much about
the same. So is its proportion of the looms ;
but in this case the figures cannot quite be taken
as they stand, because a good deal of worsted
yarn is woven in woollen mills, both in Yorkshire
and out of it. Considerable quantities of York-
shire worsted yarn go into other parts of the
country, for hosiery and carpet-making, as well
as for weaving.

In the woollen branch Yorkshire occupies a
different position. It contains only a little over
half the spindles and just under three-fifths of the
looms in the kingdom. And although the West
Riding is by far the greatest woollen district in
the country, it could hardly claim to be the best.
It is the most economical and the most highly
organised, of that there is no sort of doubt. And
it produces some of the very best qualities of

INTRODUCTORY 21

cloth. But, taken as a whole, it has never won
a reputation for such fine workmanship as that
of the Tweed towns or the Cotswold mills. Your
tailor still calls his best woollen cloths Scotch or
West of England, and often enough he is right ;
though it may well be that what he sells under
those names really come from somewhere about
Huddersfield or even about Leeds. It is as a pro-
ducer of sound, ordinary, woollen" materials, and
of all the cheaper grades away down to the least
sound and flashiest, that Yorkshire is mainly
known. With worsteds it is otherwise. The
very best that England can produce are York-
shire made.

The Lancashire industry is concerned mainly
with woollens and its centre is at Rochdale.
There is a little worsted spinning and a very
little weaving in Manchester itself, where cotton's
seat is. But all the worsted of Lancashire is of
no great account ; some six or seven businesses
exhaust the list. Rochdale alone has six-and-
twenty woollen mills, and there are others at
Bury and elsewhere in the neighbourhood. All
told there are nearly eighty mills in the county,
somewhat larger concerns as a rule than the
woollen mills of Yorkshire. The average spin-
ning department in Lancashire contains 4258

22 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

spindles, in Yorkshire 3182 ; the Lancashire
weaving shed averages eighty-six looms, the
Yorkshire shed sixty-three. Flannel, with its
variants and derivatives, is the staple product of
the Lancashire woollen district.

Northward of the great manufacturing area
lies a tiny outlier of the worsted industry, on the
Durham side of the Tees, at Darlington. It is
one of the many products of Quaker enterprise
in the north-east ; but it has never shown much
vitality. To the west and north are remnants of
the old and once famous manufactures of Kendal,
and a few mills in Cumberland.

Across the Tweed the woollen industry retains
its scattered character and spreads into nearly
every lowland county, besides those Highland
counties already referred to. Of worsted there
is but little in Scotland, only some 70,000 spindles
and 1000 looms. The latter are mostly in the
neighbourhood of Glasgow, Paisley or Edin-
burgh ; the former also at Paisley and about
Ayr and Kilmarnock. Hosiery yarns are ex-
tensively spun, and are worked up by over 4000
operatives in ten different counties. It should
be added that worsted yarn is now used in the
Scotch woollen factories, and that a good deal of
worsted machinery combs and spinning frames

INTRODUCTORY 23

is employed in the woollen yarn mills of Alloa
in Clackmannan. 1

The true " Tweed " and " Cheviot " trades,
upon which the fame of the Scotch woollen
industry depends, is principally found in the
three counties of Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles,
at Hawick and Jedburgh, Galashiels and Sel-
kirk, Peebles and Innerleithen. But it spreads
into Dumfries, Edinburgh, and other neighbour-
ing counties. Lanark has a considerable weav-
ing industry, in the Glasgow neighbourhood,
though it does little or no spinning. So has
Clackmannan. All kinds of woollens are pro-
duced, blankets and flannels, as well as cheviots
and tweeds ; but it is from the latter that the
Scotch industry derives its international reputa-
tion. Judged numerically, it is a relatively small
industry after all. Selkirk, the most important
tweed county, has only about 1200 looms.
Lanark, with a more miscellaneous trade, has
about the same number. Roxburgh comes next,
with just under 700, followed by Clackmannan
and Ayr. Peebles has barely 500 ; and no other

1 See below, p. 150. Only thirty-one combs were re-
ported from Scotch worsted mills in 1904, and twenty-five
from woollen mills. The latter were all in Clackmannan,
where there were also 12,000 worsted spindles.

24 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

county has so many. But it is more to quality
than to quantity that the south of Scotland looks
for its success.

Having completed this rough preliminary
sketch of the dimensions and the distribution of
the woollen and worsted industries, we are in a
position to handle, with rather more detail, some
of their chief technical, industrial, commercial and
social features, and from these things to pass to
the condition of the industries abroad and the
course of international trade.

CHAPTER II
THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES

WRITTEN accounts of mechanical opera-
tions are apt to be both dull and mis-
leading, save when they are of great length and
fully supplied with diagrams. To avoid if possible
both dangers, no attempt will be made in the
present chapter to describe in full technical detail
any, much less all, the long series of processes
which go to make up the woollen and worsted
industries. The object of the chapter is not to
instruct the manufacturer or the technical student,
but to indicate as clearly as may be the broad
principles and results of the leading processes and
their relations to one another, in order that the
commercial and economic aspects of the busi-
nesses in which they are carried on may be the
better understood.

The wool which the woollen and worsted in-
dustries employ is of two kinds that which has
been "through the mill" once before and that
which has not. It is only the woollen branch

26 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

which regularly uses the first kind ; but that use
is now great enough to justify this preliminary
division of wools. Wool made from rags is no
longer an occasional ingredient of a few despised
fabrics, but a standard raw material for a con-
siderable section of the trade ; and, as in this
case the raw material itself has to be made, some
account of how it is made should come early in
the list of manufacturing processes. But, first of
all, the distinctive properties of wool must be
mentioned ; for it is the lack of some of these
properties which differentiates the twice -born
from the once-born wool. Both nature and the
manufacturer draw a line between wool and
hair ; but fibres of an intermediate character grow
and are used, since nature makes no leaps and the
manufacturer no objections. Hair, human hair
for instance, has a smooth surface of fairly uniform
texture ; but the surface of the wool fibre is dis-
tinctly broken up into a series of overlapping scales
or serrations. Intermediate fibres, such as goat's
hair and camel's hair, have these serrations less
clearly marked. All wools have more or less of
wave or curl, are very elastic, and can only be
straightened with difficulty. To the combination
of curl, elasticity and serration wool owes the
clinging property, which enables even its shortest
fibres to be spun into a continuous thread. The
best wools, for most purposes, are those whose

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 27

fibres are very fine, very wavy and elastic, very
close growing, and covered with the maximum
number of serrations to the inch. Such is merino
wool, which can be spun into the finest of yarns
and woven into the softest of fabrics.

Wool that has seen service as cloth is apt to
have its fibres broken ; it loses much of its curl
and spring ; its scales are in part worn away ;
and with these things it loses a measure of its
spinning and felting properties. This explanation
bears directly on the problem, Why do cheap
trousers so quickly get baggy at the knees?

The method by which woollen rags are turned
back into wool again is fairly simple. A diffi-
culty arises at the outset from the fact that so
many rags contain cotton as well as wool. Such
are usually treated with a mixture of acid and
water, raised to a high temperature, and well
shaken in a revolving cylinder through which a
strong air draught passes, to remove the car-
bonised vegetable fibre. "Extract," as the rag
wool made by this process is called, is naturally
inferior to the other varieties ; for the wool has
been more roughly handled. Pure wool rags are
sorted and "seamed," that is to say, have all
seams cut out by hand, and are then put into the
rag-grinder, a machine of which the main work-
ing part is a short thick-set roller, covered with
thousands of curved teeth and driven at several

28 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

hundred revolutions a minute. It rapidly tears
the rags, as they come within its reach, held be-
tween two feed-rollers, into a fluffy mass of fibres,
which an amateur cannot easily distinguish from
short new wool that has gone through some of
the processes preparatory to spinning.

There is of course very little resemblance be-
tween rag wool and wool as it comes from the
sheep's back ; and among wools there are infinite
variations in length, fineness, serration and wave.
Admirable wool exists in which the average length
of the fibres in a lock is about an inch ; in others
it may be upwards of a foot. In the short fine
Saxon wool there are 50 per cent, more serra-
tions to the inch and a much more pronounced
curl than in the long, relatively coarse Leicester ;
and so on. All characteristic properties, except
length, are more or less retained in the rag wool ;
but the wear and tear of the first life tends to re-
duce the fibres to a dead level of mediocrity at
their second birth. They have lost also the greasi-
ness conspicuous in new wool.

Sorting is usually the first distinct process to
which new wool is submitted, though large quan-
tities of wool are scoured before they come on to
the sorting board. Every fleece contains locks
of very varied quality, from the coarse, fouled
covering of the legs and breech to the fine wool
of the shoulders ; and these various sorts must be

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 29

picked out, for they are put to different uses.
The care with which this work is done, and the
names given to the different grades of wool, vary
so much from time to time and from place to
place, that short accounts of sorting practice are
apt to mislead. The grades may be described by
fine old traditional English names, or merely by
numbers, or by the description of the yarn into
which they will spin. The writer has even met
with a case in which Spanish terms are still in use,
a curious relic of the time over 100 years ago
when the true merino wool from Spain was
the recognised raw material of fine English cloth.
Generally speaking, sorting tends to become a
more summary business than it was in the past.
A great quantity of wool is now hardly sorted at
all, and most w r ool is sorted rapidly and rather
roughly. If it is of good uniform quality and
if it has been " skirted," that is to say, has had the
dirty edges of the fleece removed, before being
sold, the process may be dispensed with alto-
gether. Very elaborate sorting is now confined
to the more conservative sections of the two
industries.

The fleece in its natural condition necessarily
contains an immense amount of grease, and a
varying amount of dust, vegetable matter, and
miscellaneous impurities. One of the main ob-
jects of the careful flockmaster is to keep down

30 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

the foreign matter ; but all flockmasters are not
careful, and in many cases no amount of care
will ensure freedom from certain vegetable im-
purities, which become entangled with the wool
while it is yet on the sheep's back. An instance
of foreign matter due to unscientific management
is the tar with which British and Irish sheep are
still sometimes marked. The presence of frag-
ments of hemp or jute among the wool may be
traced to careless packing. Against these prac-
tices merchants and Chambers of Commerce in
the manufacturing districts have constantly waged
war. The grease, on the other hand, is not with-
out its value. For one thing, its presence keeps
imported wools supple and workable throughout
their long journey. The accumulated sweat and
the fatty secretion of the hair follicles are its in-
gredients, substances which in their turn are made
up of animal fat and a variety of salts that do not
concern us. As a rule it represents from a quarter
to a third of the total weight of an unwashed
fleece. When to this are added the other im-
purities, it will not seem surprising that in extreme
cases the yield of clean wool from a fleece may
be as low as 30 per cent, of its original weight.
A yield of 45 to 50 per cent, is about normal.

Most classes of wool must be beaten or shaken
in some way before they are washed, and in ad-
dition to this it may be advisable to open out the

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 31

locks mechanically. The machine employed for
the purpose, the willey, is one of the many appli-
cations of the principle of the toothed roller ; but
it is by no means so drastic in its operation as the
rag-grinding machine, its object being to shake,
dust and disentangle the locks with the minimum
of damage.

The chemical problems which come up for
solution in connection with wool washing are too
complex to be handled here. The composition
of soaps or other cleaning materials, the hardness
or softness of the water, its temperature, the char-
acter of the wool and the chemical composition of
any accompanying impurities, all have to be taken
into account. Wool thoroughly cleaned but in no
way damaged is the ideal product of the washing
process, and to secure this infinite care and no
little knowledge are essential. Only during the
last twenty years has the work been done mechanic-
ally. The old "bowls," in which the wool was
stirred about with long forks, are still in use here
and there ; but the washing is done for the most
part in a series of troughs, through which the
wool is moved steadily by mechanically driven
forks to rollers which squeeze it out and pass it on.
After washing it may be dried artificially by one
of many competing hot air processes. But not
all wool requires this artificial treatment ; for the
shorter and finer grades the pressure of the rollers
is generally regarded as sufficient.

32 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

By this time grease and dirt are gone, but vege-
table impurities may remain. Scraps of hemp and
jute too often escape detection, until their refusal
to take the dye suitable for wool makes them
show up as scars on the face of the finished
material. But such things as seeds and burrs
are visible and can be removed. The burr, which
is the special plague of comber and spinner, is not
the great, spiny English burr, but a thing from
the southern hemisphere no bigger than a pea,
consisting of a neatly rolled-up length of spiked
vegetable fibre, which, whether coiled or uncoiled,
sticks to the wool like a leech. Should the wool
be able to stand the process, the burrs may be
removed by carbonisation with acids, much as
cotton is extracted from rags. But this is apt to
damage the fibres, so that mechanical methods
are now generally preferred. The wool is some-
times put between rollers, set so close together
that the burrs are cut and crushed ; but in this
method, if the wool is at all "lumpy," it may be
cut too. More commonly, while the wool is
slowly moving in one direction, on the surface
of a roller set close with wire teeth, the burrs are
knocked out by the wings of another roller, whose
section resembles a wheel without its rim, moving
in the opposite direction. The revolving wings
come close to the teeth and the burrs cannot
escape. Instead of the clothing of sharp wire

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 33

teeth, the carrying roller may be closely wrapped
with flattened steel wire cut into blunt teeth and
placed edgewise on the roller, in the interstices of
which the fibres lie safe, while the wings of the
burr extractor are knocking out the burrs. Mech-
anical burr extraction may be undertaken by a
distinct machine, but " burring" rollers are gen-
erally attached to the carding engine which has
now to be described.

Here, at the starting point of the manufacturing
processes proper as distinguished from the cleans-
ing processes, the difference between woollen and
worsted yarn arises ; and the methods of preparing
the two yarns must be followed separately. As
the woollen processes are far shorter and simpler,
it will be well to take them first. The essence
of woollen carding can best be understood by
reference to the way in which it was carried out
in the days before machinery. Two boards fitted
with handles and covered with bent wire teeth
set in leather were the simple tools of the old carder.
Between them went the wool ; and as the carder
moved one board over the other by hand, some-
what as maidservants make butter balls, the wool
was opened out into a sheet of interlacing fibres
of uniform consistency. The more varied the
positions taken up by the fibres, the better suited
are they for woollen yarn.

In modern carding, rollers working on one

34 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

another take the place of the old hand boards.
The rollers are covered over with the "card
clothing" of bent wire teeth, so set in leather that
they may "give" a good deal when at work
Carding machines are huge erections of many
horizontal rollers and cylinders moving at various
speeds in different directions. The number and
arrangement of the rollers varies a good deal in
different classes of machines. The main cylinders,
"swifts" as they are often called, are the carriers
of the wool, and move fairly rapidly. Their num-
ber varies from one to four. Above them lie a
number of "working" and "stripping" rollers in
pairs. The former move slowly in the same
direction as the swifts, but the teeth of the two
are opposed ; while the strippers move faster
than the workers, with teeth inclined in the same
direction, and clear them of their wool, returning
it subsequently to the carrying swifts. Wherever
two rollers meet, moving in different directions or
with different surface velocities, there the wool is
opened and worked by the teeth of the "clothing"
the amount of working depending on the velo-
cities of the rollers, their nearness to one another
and the closeness of the teeth on their surfaces.
In the earlier stages of the process, the teeth
are set wide and the rollers not too near. The
work gets closer and more thorough as it proceeds.
Two or three machines in a team do the work,

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 35

as a rule, 1 and the wool comes on to the last
carrying roller as a gauzy film of fibres, whose
power of cohesion is a standing marvel to the
layman. As it leaves the last roller it is "con-
densed" into "slivers" or "rovings" ready to
be spun. The operation of condensing is
singularly ingenious and effective. First the
carrying roller is cleared of wool in continuous
strips, by a pair of "doffing" rollers, the surface
of each of which is composed of alternate rings
of "card clothing" and smooth leather. The
clothed rings on one correspond in position to
the smooth rings on the other, so that between
them they effectually clear the carrying roller.
They are stripped in their turn and the narrow
bands of wool film then pass between two broad
leather belts, which work on one another like a
pair of rubbing hands, reducing the bands to round,
loose ropes of untwisted fibre, which are wound
on bobbins and go to the spinning mule. This is
perhaps the most usual method of condensing, but
there are several others. Very recent improve-
ments in carding machinery, involving a more
exact adjustment of all parts and an increase in
the number of working and stripping rollers, bid
fair to diminish the expense and add to the speed
of the whole operation in the near future.

1 The first machine is usually called the " scribbler," the
last the carder.

The series of carding processes serves, not
merely to disintegrate the locks of wool and to
distribute the various classes of fibre that they
contain throughout the whole mass, but also to
complete any desired mixture of wool with other
materials, or of different coloured materials.
Manufacturers of all but the best woollen fabrics
constantly mix rag wool, cotton, or waste from
the various processes with the new wool. There
are yarns which contain no new wool at all, others
which contain a very small proportion, used to
give spinning power to the substitute or substitutes
for all sorts of combinations are possible. Where
wools already dyed have to be mixed so as to
produce a composite colour, thorough blending is
also necessary. The method employed is to
spread layers of the materials or shades on the
floor one above another in the required propor-
tions ; then to put the mixture through one or
two preparing machines of the willey type, and so
to send it to the carding engines. Whether the
material is mixed or pure, it is always oiled before
being carded, to facilitate the operation. The
oil varies from fine olive downwards through a
long list of cheaper substitutes, according to the
quality of the wool and the cloth. It is still often
applied with a watering-can, in some sections
of the woollen industry, though more efficient
mechanical methods are available and are, I
believe, universally employed in the worsted trade.

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 37

Before spinning itself is dealt with, it will be
well, by way of contrast, to sketch the long series
of processes which come between washing and
spinning in the preparation of worsted yarn.
Worsted was originally made entirely out of long
wool, such as that of Lincoln and Leicester sheep,
from which the short fibres were removed by
combing ; and although to-day wools of all classes
are employed, the preliminary processes are in-
variably regulated with a view to securing the
maximum of length and parallelism in the fibres,
when they come to be spun. Anything that tends
to break a long fibre, to preserve or accentuate
the full natural wave of the wool, to arrange the
fibres cross ways, or to leave the shortest fibres
mixed up permanently with the longer ones is
avoided. Short and long are relative terms ; for
a fibre that might be short in a Lincoln wool
would be fairly long in a Port Philip merino.

All ordinary worsted yarns are combed ; but
the treatment of the wool before combing varies
with its length and character. Short, soft, fine
wools are carded. Long wools are "prepared"
by a separate process. Merino wool is always
carded ; long English wool is always prepared ; in
the case of many intermediate types either method
may be adopted. Long wools are not carded,
because the risk of their fibres being broken,
rather than merely straightened out, between the

38 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

teeth of the carding rollers is much too great.
This risk is always present ; but in the case of
fine, short wools, it does not counterbalance the
advantages of carding. Such wools require to be
opened, their different classes of fibre require to
be uniformly distributed throughout the mass, in
order to produce a uniform yarn, in worsted as in
woollen. Further, the carding can be so arranged
as to facilitate one of the main objects of the pre-
paratory worsted process the straightening out of
the fibres.

In general character the worsted carding engine
resembles its fellow in the woollen trade. The
"clothing" and speeds of all the rollers have to be
adjusted so as to treat the wool with the utmost
consideration, to avoid breakages, and so far as
possible at this early stage begin the process of
combing. Work between two sets of opposing
teeth starts far more gently, owing to a judicious
regulation of speeds, in a worsted than in a woollen
carder. The fibres have, as it were, to be coaxed
apart and, if possible, smoothed in one direction,
not merely reduced to a film in which uniformity
of direction is immaterial. When the carding pro-
cess is over a certain number of knots and very
short fibres are left sticking in the teeth of the
cards and the longer fibres are partially straightened
out. At the finish, wool destined for worsted yarn
is condensed into a single, thick, untwisted rope

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 39

or "sliver". These ropes are then cleansed of
oil and other impurities, by being passed through
bowls of suds, between squeezing rollers and over
hot metal drums in a " backwashing " machine.

For long wool a series of "preparing boxes" or
"gill boxes" take the place of the carding engine.
Their task is to comb and straighten out the wool,
without definitely removing the short fibres, and
their working parts are fairly simple. There are
two pairs of horizontal rollers, and between them
a number of actual combs, their teeth in a vertical
position. The trade does not use the word comb
in this connection, but it applies strictly. " Faller"
is the technical term a word which describes the
motion rather than the character of these combs ;
for each in turn moves forward along a pair of
screws, with and through the wool, falls as it
reaches the second pair of rollers, is carried back
on a low-level pair of screws, raised by a lever to
its former position, and so da capo. Before enter-
ing the first pair of rollers the locks of wool are
laid parallel and roughly straightened by hand.
As the fallers move faster than the front rollers and
the back rollers faster than the fallers, the wool is
at the same time dragged straight and combed
straight. The boxes are of course graduated.

In the first there may be two pins to an inch on
the fallers ; the last has fourteen or sixteen.

Long wool usually goes through half a dozen

40 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

boxes, is then washed, oiled again and put
through at least two more boxes before it is sent
to be combed, in the technical sense of the word.
The "slivers" are joined together and drawn out
finer than before, again and again during the
process ; so that the last sliver of all is sure to be
uniform in structure from end to end.

Carded wool has also to go through a couple of
gill boxes, as the sliver when it leaves the card is
not yet straight and level enough to be quite fit
for combing. These boxes closely resemble the
final preparing boxes for long wool, and the prin-
ciple on which they work is identical.

The main end of combing is the separation of
the long from the short wool of the "top" from
the "noil". The "noil," as its dialect name im-
plies when translated, is a waste product from the
worsted standpoint ; though "noils" are often
spun up into woollen yarn, where length of fibre
is relatively immaterial. " Tops " apparently owe
their name to the methods of the hand wool
comber, who was accustomed to hang the wool
on a post and comb it with a downward motion.
Short wool came away in the comb, long wool
remained on top. As performed by hand the
process was perfectly simple, but no part of mo-
dern textile machinery gave the inventors more
trouble than the comb. In exact proportion to
the difficulty of overcoming the mechanical pro-

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 41

blem in the first instance, is the difficulty of de-
scribing concisely the working of the modern
combs. Three types have to be dealt with : the
Noble comb, which is the one most used in Eng-
land ; the H olden or square motion comb, the
use of which has always been almost confined to
the various firms at home and abroad that bear
its inventor's name ; and the Lister or nip comb,
which was the first type that met with great suc-
cess, but is now not very extensively employed.
At least one other important type of comb exists,
the Heilmann, but it is seldom used in this country.
All English combs have certain structural fea-
tures in common. The central portion of each
contains a horizontal, circular band of metal, some
four or five feet in diameter over all, upon which
are set rows of vertical teeth or pins. In among
these teeth the wool is pressed, by one device or
another, as the circle rotates, and from them the
long fibres of the top are drawn off by one or
more pairs of rollers, which grip those fibres as
they come within reach. All combs are heated,
and the temperature of a combing mill is neces-
sarily high a direct inheritance from the old hand
trade, in which the workman warmed the steel
teeth of his combs over braziers of charcoal, whose
fumes made his occupation an unattractive one,
when carried on in small, ill-ventilated rooms.
Why wool combs better when the steel teeth are

42 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

hot has not been fully explained ; but the fact
is certain. Right through the preliminary pro-
cesses, indeed, a high temperature is a technical
advantage.

The Noble machine is a compact, circular
structure, in which the main circle stands at a
height of about two feet from the ground, with a
steam box below it. Inside this circle are two
smaller ones, about a foot and a half in diameter,
each touching the main circle at opposite points on
the interior of its circumference. All rotate in
one direction. The slivers of wool to be combed
are rolled up in creels attached to the outer side
of the great circle and travelling with it. They
move up automatically in turn and fall on to the
pins of the circles at the points where the outer
one touches the two inner ones. A brush, rising
and falling rapidly, dabs the wool down among
the two sets of pins, and there true combing
begins. Short fibres and miscellaneous impuri-
ties stay where the dabbing brush puts them.
Long fibres, already straightened by the prepar-
ing processes, also fall across both circles. As
the latter revolve and draw apart, the long fibres
are further straightened and are finally left pro-
truding from the inside of the outer or the outside
of the inner circle. They travel thus, until they
meet the vertical rollers set to catch them, towards
which their points are steered by a leather strap.

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 43

Any fibres too short to reach the point where the
rollers grip are denied the honour of becoming
tops. Each inner circle has one pair, the outer
circle has two pairs, of these dra wing-off rollers.
After passing the rollers, the pins of each circle
run between a series of knives, fixed strips of
steel gently inclined upwards until, at their further
extremity, they are as high as the tops of the pins.
In the case of the outer circle, the wool which
these knives lift from between the pins is fed
again on to both circles as at the first. What
is lifted from the inner circles is the final un-
combable material, the noil. It is carried away,
down a funnel and out of the worsted trade alto-
gether. The four ribbons of combed fibres, two
from the outer and one from each of the inner
circles, are condensed by tubes and rollers in the
centre of the machine into a beautiful, even band
which coils itself softly in a revolving can.

In the Noble machine all the actual combing is
done between the two circles of the machine and
inside it, so to speak. With the Lister and
the Holden machines this is not the case. Both
have the great, toothed circle ; neither has the
internal circles ; in both the combing is largely
done by mechanism external to the circle. Some
way from the circle of the Lister comb stands a
so-called " feeding head," which resembles an ord-
inary gill box, except that the fallers are curved

44 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

downwards in the middle and that the place of
the final rollers is taken by the "nip," from which
the machine takes its second name. The nip
consists of a pair of curved metal jaws, fitting the
fallers. These jaws close on the wool as it leaves
the fallers, stretching and combing it. Short
fibres which do not reach the jaws get left behind.
Those whose points are in line with the points of
the longer ones are taken on towards the circle ;
for the jaws swing forward some 30 degrees
with their mouthful of wool. There they meet
another movable portion of the machine, the
curved carrying comb at the end of a jointed
metal arm. Now the jaws open and the carry-
ing comb, at this point in an almost vertical
position, takes their load and begins its task. It
turns over into a nearly horizontal position and
places the wool on the circle. Evidently, for the
machine to work smoothly, the curves of fallers,
nip and carrier must correspond to that of the
circumference of the circle ; and there must be the
most delicate adjustments at each point. The
circle has many rows of teeth. Into these the
combful of wool is pressed by a dabbing brush.
Short fibres are imbedded among the teeth ; long
ones form a fringe outside the circle. The circle
is, of course, in motion, and in time the long
fringe is gripped and drawn away by a pair of
horizontal rollers. Steel knives between the pins

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 45

lift out the noil, as in the Noble comb, and the
work is done. The Lister comb is best suited to
long wools and mohair. For short wools it can-
not do as good work as its competitors.

The feeding mechanism of the H olden comb
is outside the circle, but has nothing else in
common with the Lister feed. First, two slivers
are drawn up between a pair of fixed rollers.
From these rollers to the circle they are carried
by two other pairs of rollers, each on the end of
a movable arm. These arms work alternately,
i.e., when one is feeding the circle the other is
being fed by the fixed rollers. The effect is
rather that of a pair of fists striking out in turn.
As the wool is in no way combed when the fists
deliver it on to the circle, and as it hangs down
outside the circle, arrangements have to be made
for combing it there. This is the task of the
so-called "square motion". It consists of a
series of elaborately toothed fallers, or combs,
outside the circle, moving upwards through the
fringe of wool and then backwards away from the
circle. Obviously such fallers, being tangents,
although they have a slight horizontal curve, are
nearer to the circle at one point than at others.
Thanks to this, each section of the fringe is most
thoroughly combed. First the coarse teeth of
the end of a faller lift and comb the tips of the
long fibres ; then the finer teeth of the centre of

46 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

another faller dig deeper into the lock as the circle
carries it on ; lastly, the very fine teeth of the
further end of the faller pass through the roots of
the lock close to the pins of the great circle. To
counteract the pull of the fallers and prevent the
wool from being dragged out "by the roots," it
is pressed down between the pins of the great
circle at the point where the fallers get to work,
by a plate or knife from above.

Even then the combing is not complete. Just
before the combed fringe is drawn off by the
rollers, there descends into it from above and
just outside the main circle pins another row of
pins, fixed to a "segment," i.e., a bar curved
exactly like the main circle. These pins prevent
any knots, which may have escaped the fallers,
from being drawn away with the long wool.

Besides thus making noil in the main circle, the
Holden comb makes what are called "robbings"

in the fallers. These are recarded and recombed,
for they may contain fibres useful for worsted.

After combing it is customary to put the top
through gill boxes once more, a large number of
combed slivers being put up to each gill box and
drawn out into one. Thus any irregularities in
the arrangement of fibres are got rid of, and that
uniformity of structure which is essential to suc-
cessful worsted spinning is secured. On leaving
the second of these finishing gill boxes, the top

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 47

is built up, by an automatic balling process, into
coiled, flat ended balls of equal weight, each con-
taining the same length of sliver. At this stage
it is usual to moisten the wool, so as to produce a
uniform condition of humidity throughout. There
is a standard condition, now officially recognised,
according to which a top in the combing of which
oil has been employed must not contain more
than 1 6 per cent, of water, or more than 2^- per
cent, of oil. Oddly enough a top that has not
been oiled absorbs less moisture than one that
has, so that the standard percentage of water is
in this case rather lower. The coiled tops ought
to be kept for some time before being unwound
for use, in order to preserve the straightness that
by this time has been imparted to the fibres.

Even now the worsted sliver is not ready for
the final spinning operation. It has to be drawn.
Drawing, like some other worsted processes, con-
sists in the repetition of a simple treatment, under
slightly varying conditions. The object is to
attenuate the combed sliver and render it more
and more uniform, until it is fit for spinning. The
later drawing processes are, in fact, a sort of pre-
paratory spinning. Many machines are employed,
the number varying according to the char-
acter of the wool. In each the general principle
is the same two pairs of rollers revolving at
different speeds and drawing out the sliver. In

48 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

every case two or more slivers are welded into
one, finer than either ; and a sliver is never drawn
twice in the same direction. The first two or
three machines are gill boxes once more, with
fallers as well as rollers. From the first of these,
and in some cases also from the second, the com-
bined sliver is delivered into a can. Then comes
a gill box, from which the sliver is delivered on to
bobbins running on vertical spindles. Here it
acquires a certain amount of twist. From this
point onwards fallers can no longer be used, for
they would tear the roughly-twisted rope of wool.
So, in all the later machines, the essentials of the
mechanism are the two pairs of horizontal rollers,
naturally set closer together than in the gill boxes,
the vertical spindles and the bobbins. The bob-
bins run freely on the spindles. Above them and
fastened to the spindle is the "flyer," a pair of
metal arms projecting horizontally from the spindle,
with their ends bent downwards. The sliver is
passed through a hole in the top of the spindle
and then through an eye at the end of one of the
arms of the flyer and so carried to the bobbin.
As the flyer rotates, the bobbin is dragged round ;
but as it moves more slowly than the flyer, it
is always winding the thread on to itself. The
spindles get lighter, the bobbins smaller, the
thread thinner and more twisted from machine
to machine ; until at last, in what is called

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 49

the roving box, it is already a partially spun
yarn.

This short account of ordinary drawing is ade-
quate for present purposes, since the general
principles of drawing are most simple ; and no
attempt is here being made to refer to all details.
It should, however, be pointed out that there are
two main methods of English drawing, namely
"open" and " cone " drawing, and also what is
known as French drawing. The difference be-
tween "open "and "cone" drawing is a highly
technical one, connected with the method of wind-
ing the sliver on to the bobbins ; but the dis-
tinction between English and French is clear,
important and easily grasped. It consists in the
fact that the French system puts no twist what-
ever into the thread, which is wound on to hori-
zontal bobbins. Further, in the French system,
fallers are not used ; but in every drawing frame
the sliver is supported by a spike-covered cylinder,
or "porcupine," between the back and front rollers.
Rubbing-leathers like those of a woollen con-
denser are employed to give firmness to the un-
spun thread.

In its essentials ordinary worsted spinning dif-
fers but little from the last of the drawing pro-
cesses. There is however in spinning no combining
of threads, and there is a vast deal more twisting
than at any previous stage. The oldest type of

50 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

spinning-frame, the "flyer" frame, resembles the
roving machine very closely. Frames are usually
made double, that is, they have rows of spindles
on each side. The rovings, wound on bobbins,
are placed on pegs on the upper part of the frame.
Each thread passes, as it has so often passed
before, between two pairs of drawing rollers, re-
volving at different speeds, and is stretched as
much as the length and cohesion of the fibres will
permit. Between the drawing rollers are two
pairs of small " carrying " rollers, whose main
business is merely to conduct the thread to the
front rollers. The surfaces of the carriers move
rather faster than those of the back rollers. Twist
is given to the thread between the " nip " of the
front rollers and the arm of the flyer, to which it
goes direct from the rollers, by the rapid revolu-
tion of the flyer ; and the spun thread is wound
on to a second bobbin running freely on the
spindle. The bobbin is made to rise and fall
automatically in order to secure accurate winding.
Very great speed is impossible in flyer spinning ;
for as the flyer is fixed to the spindle some dis-
tance from any point where the latter can be
supported, high speeds lead to excessive vibration
and so are undesirable. The two other types of
frames regularly used in worsted spinning are free
from this objection. These are the cap and the
ring frames. So far as the drawing work is con-

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 51

cerned, these frames are identical with that just
described. It is the spinning and winding me-
chanism that differs.

The cap spindle, unlike the flyer spindle, is
fixed a mere peg of metal. The cap from
which it takes its name is also fixed. It is a
steel tube, closed at the top, where it receives
the head of the spindle, over which it fits. Just
above the point where the spindle is fastened to
the rail that carries it, it passes through a " whorle "
or small, solid, horizontal wheel with a grooved
edge on which a driving belt works ; so that it is
the whorle that rotates, not the spindle. To the
whorle is attached a brass tube that fits the spin-
dle closely ; and the bobbin rests on the whorle.
Thus the bobbin is driven round, not dragged
round ; and twist is imparted to the yarn between
the rollers and the point where it is being wound
on the bobbin. The business of the cap is to
direct the thread to the proper point on the sur-
face of the bobbin. A "lifter plate" causes the
bobbin to rise and fall, so as to secure accurate
winding, just as in flyer spinning. In cap spin-
ning, there is a perpetual rubbing of the yarn
against the edge of the cap, round which it is
travelling at an immense speed. There are also
other causes of friction that cannot be dealt with
here. Consequently this type of spindle is best
adapted for very fine yarns of high-class wool,

which can stand the friction and which are re-
quired to have a smooth surface. In the spindle
mechanism itself there is comparatively little
friction or vibration, so that cap frames can be
driven far faster than flyers.

In ring spinning the spindle rotates and the
bobbin with it ; for the latter is attached to a
plate on the former. But the spindle has no
arms and rotates in a long metal "sleeve," so
that it can be driven rapidly with little vibration.
The ring mechanism, from which the name comes,
is responsible for steering the yarn to its place.
All the spindles on one side of a frame pass
through holes in a horizontal ring rail. Round
the upper edges of these holes are fixed the rings,
vertical steel circles with a flange at the top. On
the ring runs the "traveller," a small steel hoop
with a gap in it, that can be squeezed over the
flange of the ring, and will then run on -it freely
round and round and can only be pulled off with
difficulty. The thread passes through the travel-
ler to the bobbin, the motion of which drags the
traveller round. Twist is put into the thread
between the rollers and the traveller, just as in
the flyer frame it is put in between the rollers
and the flyer arm. But whereas on the flyer
frame the bobbin is dragged, in the ring frame
the bobbin does the dragging. Lastly, with this
spindle, the accurate winding of the yarn on the

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 53

bobbin is due, not to any movement in the spindle,
but to the rise and fall of the whole ring plate,
with its rings and travellers.

The three methods of spinning just described
are all developments of the old water frame or
throstle that Arkwright perfected. Very different
in principle is the machine invariably used for
woollen and occasionally for worsted spinning
the mule. The special feature of the mule is the
movable carriage, on which the spindles are
fixed, a feature which makes the machine occupy
a great deal of floor space. In a woollen mule,
bobbins of condensed sliver are placed in a fixed
frame, and the sliver passes between a pair of
rollers to the spindles. These stand, sloping
slightly backwards towards the fixed frame, in a
long row upon the carriage ; and on the spindles
are fixed the tubes or spools on which the yarn is
to be wound. At first the spindles' tips are close
to the rollers. Then the rollers pay out sliver
and the carriage moves outwards, the spindles
rotating meanwhile and imparting twist. At this
stage no yarn is wound up ; for the tubes move
with the spindles, and the backward slope of the
latter and the position of a long horizontal guide
wire, placed just below their tips, prevent the
rotatory motion from doing any winding work.
The thread passes from the tip of the spindle to
the rollers. It does not gyrate, as in frame

spinning, but remains taut while it is being
twisted. When the carriage has moved part of
the way out, the rollers cease to supply fresh
sliver, the spindles turn faster than before, and
the thread is thus elongated and twisted at the
same time. The twisting generally continues for
a few seconds, when the carriage has moved out
its full distance ; but of course the amount of
twist put into yarns varies. When enough twist
has been given, the spindles take a few turns in
the opposite direction to that in which they have
previously been moving, in order to unwind the
short stretch of thread nearest the spindle, which
has become over-twisted and wrapped about the
spindle point. Then the guide wire drops and a
second wire descends on the threads from above,
forcing them down, so that they no longer
run to the tip of the spindle, but to a point on
the surface of the tube or spool ; and as the
carriage moves in again, a slow turning of
the spindle winds up the finished yarn. After
that more sliver is given out and the whole pro-
cess is repeated.

The mule, when used for worsted yarn, has
two pairs of fixed rollers on the stationary frame,
between which the sliver is drawn out, just as on
a throstle. The front pair pay out the drawn
sliver all the time that the carriage moves, while
the spindles are imparting the necessary twist.

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 55

Mule spun worsted yarns, though by no means
unknown in this country, are not so common
here as on the Continent. They are common-
est in the hosiery yarn trade. It is generally
admitted that the combination of the so-called
French drawing with mule spinning produces a
yarn whose softness and fulness cannot easily
be attained by any other method ; for in mule
spinning the friction and drag on the yarn, in-
cidental to flyer, cap and ring spinning, are very
largely avoided.

Yarns are usually described by numbers or
"counts," indicating their fineness ; but there is
still a variety of local customs in this matter, at least
so far as the woollen trade is concerned. The
worsted practice is simple and uniform. Its basis
is the hank of 560 yards. The count is the
number of hanks that go to a pound avoirdupois.
Hence a high count, such as 6o's, means a fine
yarn, a low count, such as I2's, a coarse. In
most systems of reckoning woollen yarn a high
count also means a fine yarn ; but the starting
point is never the hank of 560 yards. Some-
times the calculation is based on the number
of yards or skeins to the dram, sometimes on
the number of yards to the ounce. Both these
methods are employed in Yorkshire. In Scot-
land the usual basis is the "cut" of 300 yards,
in the West of England the "snap" of 320

56 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

yards. Uniformity is obviously desirable, and,
failing anything more systematic, there seems
no reason why the worsted system, which is
very widely known, owing to the extensive
dealings in worsted yarn, should not be generally
adopted.

There is no need to describe the machinery
employed, both in the woollen and worsted in-
dustries, for twisting finished threads together.
In the worsted industry there is about one doubling
to every 3^ spinning spindles, and in woollen
about one to every" 1 2^. Twisting is used either
to strengthen the yarn or give it variety, or for
both purposes. It is carried out in very much
the same fashion as spinning, with no mechanism
of special interest. It is, however, a most im-
portant process in relation to cloth designing, all
sorts of colour effects being produced by the use
of double or treble yarns, especially in the manu-
facture of fancy woollen cloths ; but the details of
design lie outside the scope of this chapter. It
should, however, be noted that new materials
may be introduced at this point, it being, for
instance, not unusual to twist threads of silk with
threads of woollen or worsted, in order to produce
fancy yarns of the best class. In other cases
threads of wool and cotton may be twisted to-
gether. Then, too, the method of twisting is
important as an element in the finished cloth,

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 57

irregular twists being often employed to produce
the bizarre effects which from time to time catch
the public taste.

All yarns that are to be used in the production
of fancy coloured fabrics, whether woollen or
worsted, must of course have received their colour
before they go to the loom. The yarn itself may
be dyed, but more frequently the yarn is made of
dyed material, the dye being applied to the un-
carded wool in the case of woollen and to the
combed top in the case of worsted. Many yarns
destined for use in self-coloured cloths are also
made of dyed materials, almost all the finest blue,
black, and scarlet woollen cloths being what is
called wool-dyed, as opposed to piece-dyed. In
some cases there may be a double dyeing process,
that is to say, both the raw material of the yarn
and the finished piece may be dyed, this double
dyeing being due either to the desire for a singu-
larly fast colour in fine cloths or to the need
for separate treatment of the vegetable and
animal fibres in goods made of mixed wool and
cotton.

Weaving in Great Britain is not entirely done
by power looms ; but the power looms predominate
so greatly, that any separate account of the hand
loom would be out of place in this short sketch.
Not that the hand loom is extinct or likely to be-
come so. It survives not merely as a curiosity

58 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

in out-of-the-way districts, or as a means of weav-
ing a few elaborate and expensive fabrics, of which
only small quantities are required, but also as the
indispensable tool of the best textile designers
and pattern weavers. New designs can be and
are worked out on the power loom, and it may
be that in time the hand loom will disappear al-
together ; but this seems improbable, for the older
appliance is both economical and convenient for
experimental purposes.

The modern power loom is a well-known
triumph of automatism, into which have been
condensed the inventions of many centuries,
but especially of the last century and a quarter.
The shuttle moves without human aid. The
proper warp or longitudinal threads are raised
and lowered to let it pass. Each cross or weft
thread, as it is left by the shuttle, is beaten home
against the growing stretch of cloth behind. That
cloth slowly winds itself on a beam at one end of
the loom, while at the other end the parallel threads
of the warp are paid out from a second beam.
The breaking of a thread in warp or weft brings
the loom to a standstill. In some of the latest
types of loom even the refilling of the shuttle with
weft yarn is performed automatically. And these
are only the main motions. It is altogether im-
possible to give a complete account even of a
simple type of loom ; so here as in other parts

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 59

of the present chapter, no attempt will be made
to do more than call attention to certain features
of outstanding importance.

When once the loom is set agoing, human
agency is reduced to mere supervision ; but in
the "mounting" of the loom much elaborate
hand labour is still required. This accounts for
the fact that the economy of power over hand
weaving only becomes marked when a long piece
of material is woven every time the loom is
mounted. The first and most complex task is
the arranging of the warp. In fancy weaving,
each one of many hundreds of distinct threads
must be in its place, or the pattern will be spoiled ;
and in all kinds of weaving careful handling of
the warp is necessary. Sometimes this work is
still done entirely by hand. Usually the assist-
ance of one of a variety of different types of
"warping mill" is called in. But in any case
much elaborate arranging of the threads is re-
quired. In connection with or immediately after
the business of warping, the threads are dressed,
that is to say brushed and sometimes treated with
size, the object being to keep them smooth and
prevent projecting fibres from catching, while the
loom is at work. Throughout these processes
their relative positions must be retained, and they
are eventually wound up on the beam at the back
of the loom, at uniform distances one from another

60 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

and with a uniform tension. In all these opera-
tions the amount of work done by purely automatic
means is small, though the tasks of warpers and
beamers are facilitated by various implements
and appliances.

To understand the next process in loom mount-
ing it is necessary to return to the structure of
the loom itself. It is essential to all weaving that
the warp threads running the length of the piece,
should be lifted in sections, so that the shuttle
may pass over some and under others. In the
simplest type of weaving, for example, such as is
seen in plain calicoes, linens and cloths, the shuttle
passes at one stroke over the odd and under the
even threads of the warp, and at the next stroke
over the even and under the odd. Different
"weaves" are secured by varying, almost ad in-
finitum, the way in which weft and warp cross
and recross each other. In the construction of
very elaborate figured fabrics, it is necessary that
each warp thread, or at any rate that very many
small series of warp threads, should be under sepa-
rate control ; but in the majority of fabrics the warp
threads can be raised or lowered in large series.
In the elementary weave just referred to the
threads fall into two groups, and simple arrange-
ments for raising and lowering them will suffice.
The work is done by means of the healds and
heald shafts, which must now be briefly described.

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 61

The healds are vertical wires, each with an eye-
let hole in the middle, fixed at the top and bottom
into horizontal shafts. Another and older method
is to attach the eyelets to the shafts by means of
stout yarn. The shafts are placed in the loom
between the front beam round which the cloth is
to be wound, and the back beam, which carries
and pays out the threads of the warp. For plain
weaving only two sets of healds are required.
Through the eyelets of one set are passed the
even threads of the warp and through the eye-
lets of the other the odd threads. When the
healds containing the even threads are raised
and those containing the odd threads lowered, a
V-shaped space is made through which the shuttle
passes. This space is known as the "shed," and
the various mechanical devices for raising and
lowering the threads of the warp are known as
shedding motions. Where only two sets of healds
are employed, they have only to be raised and
lowered alternately to do all that is necessary.
This alternate raising and lowering need not take
place after each passing of the shuttle. The
weave may be varied by putting two or more
weft threads over the even threads of the warp,
before the healds that carry those threads are
raised and the weft is allowed to pass over the
odd threads. But the various weaves possible
with but two sets of healds are strictly limited.

62 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

In the construction of complicated patterns a large
number of shafts five, ten, twenty, or even more
may be used ; for only those warp threads which
can always be raised and lowered together can
pass through the healds of a single shaft, and for
fancy weaving there will be very many such series
of threads. It is clear that, beyond a certain
point, the multiplication of shafts in the loom
-quite apart from the mechanism for moving
them will become exceedingly cumbrous and
inconvenient. This is specially the case in the
weaving of figured fabrics. For these the Jac-
quard loom, invented just over a hundred years ago
for use in the Lyons silk manufacture, is invari-
ably employed. It is quite impossible to describe
here the wonderfully ingenious methods by which
this loom does its work. Moreover, its use in
the woollen and worsted industries is limited
strictly to certain specialised tasks. But the way
in which it is mounted can easily be understood.
Instead of shafts and healds it has so-called har-
ness cords, hanging in several rows from a
framework above the middle of the loom. Each
cord has an eyelet at the level of the warp threads
and each is kept taut by a weight. Every warp
thread has its own cord just as each has its own
heald when shafts are used. These cords can be
attached in groups to vertical wires in the upper
framework, which are raised and lowered in the

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 63

proper order automatically. Even in a simple
Jacquard loom, it is perfectly easy to have a
hundred such wires, all moving independently of
one another and doing work which, in the ordinary
type of loom, would require a hundred shafts an
altogether impossible number. Thus the threads
of the warp can move up and down in the most
complicated manner, allowing designs of any
degree of elaboration to be successfully executed.
It may be added that in the weaving of some
complex figured materials both shafts and harness
cords are employed ; this is naturally an unusual
arrangement.

In the hand looms of the old days a simple
mechanism of treadles, cords and levers, worked
by the weaver's feet, effected the raising and de-
pressing of the shafts. The treadles being each
connected by cords with two sets of levers, the
pressing of one treadle pulled one shaft up and
the other down, and so produced the shed. Only
straightforward work could be done on such a
loom ; for the multiplication of shafts carried with
it the multiplication of treadles. This is true also
of the "tappet" power loom, which is worked on
the treadle system and requires a separate treadle
for each shaft. The treadles are automatically
depressed by the "tappets" wheels which re-
volve on a horizontal shaft about a point which is
not their centre and therefore only depress their

64 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

respective treadles at regular intervals. The
mechanism for lifting the shafts differs consider-
ably from that in the hand treadle loom ; but the
general principles of the shedding motion in the
two looms are very similar. A tappet power loom
can be made to carry ten or twelve sets of healds,
though it rarely contains more than five or six ;
and as the mechanism is relatively simple, it is
very largely used for the quick-running looms
that do the plainer kinds of weaving.

Where a large number of shafts are required,
some variety of what is known as the "dobbie"
shedding motion is usually employed. The main
principles of this motion were worked out in the
hand loom days, and have been subsequently mo-
dified and improved. Like the Jacquard motions,
the dobbie motions are too complex for detailed
description ; but a few words of explanation as to
their essential features may be given. The rais-
ing and lowering of the heald shafts is done by
horizontal lifting bars in the upper framework of
the loom. In one way or another, the wires or
levers that work the shafts are connected with
these lifter bars. But the connection is not per-
manent. By means of a series of pegs on the
surface of a revolving cylinder, placed close to
the lifter bars, the connection between the heald
shafts and the lifting mechanism can be severed,
and the shafts can be lifted or not as desired.

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 65

The arrangement of the pegs regulates the
weave ; and as a single lifter bar can control a
very large number of shafts, this intricate but
effective shedding mechanism is preferable to the
more cumbrous tappet motion, for fancy woollen
and worsted weaving.

From the account just given it will be clear
that healding or drawing in that is to say, pass-
ing the threads of the warp through the proper
eyelets in the healds or harness cords is a task
that requires much patience and accuracy. In
power-loom weaving it is customary to remove
the warp beam and the heald shafts from the loom
in order to carry out the operation. A well-ap-
pointed mill will have a quiet and well-lighted
room set apart for the work. The last delicate
operation in loom mounting sleying is con-
nected with a part of the loom which has not yet
been described, the oscillating "fly" or "batten,"
which contains several important features and
performs a variety of functions.

This batten was, in its oldest form, a wooden
frame placed in the middle of the loom, at right
angles to the warp and free to be moved back-
wards or forwards by the weaver's hand. In its
upper part, at the level of the warp threads, was,
and is, fixed the sley or reed. This consists
simply of a large number of delicate upright
shafts or wires the "reeds" between which

66 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

the threads of the warp are passed, after leaving
the healds and before arriving at the beam which
receives the woven cloth. Several warp threads
are usually passed through each gap or split in the
sley. The sley's first function is to ensure that
the threads shall retain their proper positions and
distances from one another, throughout the whole
process of weaving. Where many sets of healds
are being used, each containing some of the warp
threads, this precaution is very necessary, in order
to avoid irregularity in the position and movement
of those threads. The work of sleying, therefore,
closely resembles that of healding and calls for
equal accuracy in execution. If the only function
of the sley were to keep the warp threads in their
places there would be no need to have it movable.
But it has also to drive home each weft thread as
it is placed in position ; hence the name of batten
for that part of the loom in which it is fixed. Im-
mediately after a weft thread has been sent across
the shed, the batten and sley are moved sharply
towards the weaver, by hand or power driven
mechanism as the case may be, until the numer-
ous uprights of the comb-like sley come against
the weft, driving it hard into its place in the
growing mass of the cloth. Before the shuttle
passes again, batten and sley move out to make
room for it. Just below the sley, the batten
carries the "race," a horizontal ledge along which

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 67

the shuttle can run. When a new weft thread
is just about to be inserted, the warp threads
moving with the heald shafts are making their
V-shaped shed immediately beyond the edge of
the woven cloth, and the depressed threads of the
warp are resting on the race, ready for the shuttle
to pass over them.

The shuttle is driven across the loom by the
stroke of a hinged arm, the so-called "picking
arm," which is dragged back by a strong spring
after delivering its blow. In hand looms the
weaver himself jerks a cord which is connected
with the picking arms ; in power looms the stroke
is of course delivered automatically, the mechan-
ism varying with the size and character of the
loom and the weight of the shuttle that has to
be driven. For ordinary weaving, the arms on
either side of the loom have merely to work in
turn, throwing the shuttle from side to side, just
as it was thrown by the weaver from his right
hand to his left and back again, before the first
mechanical picking motion was invented. But
in fancy weaving arrangements have to be made
whereby shuttles can be thrown from either side
several times running. For in work of this kind
a number of shuttles, each carrying a different
type of weft thread, have to be brought into
play. The motions by which a series of shuttle
boxes are made to rise in turn into position, so

as to allow the picking arm to strike the right
shuttle out of them, are among the most ingenious
things in the whole loom ; but they cannot be
described in a few words.

The pace at which weaving is done depends,
apart from breakages and blunders, upon the
width of the loom, the weight of the shuttles, and
the complexity of the fabric under construction.
When there are many sets of healds, several
shuttle boxes and a loom from six to eight feet
wide, the number of picks, that is traverses of
the shuttle, to a minute is comparatively low.
A narrow loom, with but two heald shafts and
a single shuttle, such as is regularly used for
ordinary calico weaving, can work almost in-
credibly fast. Two hundred and fifty to three
hundred picks a minute are quite practicable in a
loom of this class. But in the woollen and
worsted trades, looms running over a hundred
and fifty picks a minute are only met with in
simple and light worsted weaving. For quick
fancy work, between eighty and a hundred is a
fair average pace. The heaviest and broadest
looms will put in about one pick a second or at
times a good deal less. Even that pace can
only be termed slow by comparison with the
extraordinary speed of the light looms. The
vast majority of woollen looms are very wide,
from five to eight feet. Those less than five

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 69

feet wide form only about one-eighth of the total
number. Half the worsted looms are under
five feet, and one-seventh of them are under forty
inches.

A very large number of ordinary heavy cloths,
both woollens and worsteds, and many mis-
cellaneous fabrics such as tapestries and woollen
rugs, are either made double with two warps and
two wefts, or are backed, that is to say, have an
entirely different appearance on the reverse side
of the material, owing to the presence of a second
warp or, perhaps more frequently, a second weft
thread. Naturally the back is often coarser than
the front, one of its main uses being to give a
material weight, without sacrificing that fine tex-
ture which can result only from the use of light
yarns. As cheap and heavy low grade yarns
are usually tender and not adapted for use as
warp, a backing of weft is the more economical ;
though for fancy backings an extra warp is the
more effective. If the backing is inferior to or
widely different from the face warp and weft, the
weave will be so arranged that the face threads
may cover the back threads, as far as possible,
when the latter appear on the upper surface of
the cloth as they of course must at intervals, if
back and front are to form one fabric. With a
weft backing there must be two shuttles, and
with a warp backing there should be two warping

70 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

beams. Double cloths with two warps and
two wefts are often of very fine quality, the
back being in many cases elaborately designed.
Familiar instances of this structure are afforded
by travelling rugs and the like ; but there are also
plenty of plain double cloths, where the doubling
is intended to secure weight and warmth, and de-
sign is relatively unimportant.

After leaving the loom many woollen and wor-
sted fabrics have to be dyed, and all have to
undergo several finishing processes before they
are ready for the warehouse. It was at this
stage of the manufacture that power-driven
machinery first appeared. Centuries before the
flying shuttle was invented, before even the
spinning wheel had been perfected, there were
noisy fulling mills, driven by water, on almost
every considerable stream in the country, mills in
which the woollen cloth was pounded in fuller's
earth and water, in " the stocks," by rough
wooden hammers, until it shrank and thickened
and felted into a stiff, wear-resisting substance of
a type not often met with in these days. The
old-fashioned stocks are still used, though now
they are driven by steam. Fulling or milling
the name of the process tells its history is still
the most important finishing operation in the
case of woollens ; but its importance varies with
different classes of materials. In some it pro-

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 71

duces a thorough change of character, in others
but a slight modification in appearance. Wor-
steds of many classes, especially the light women's
dress goods, are not milled at all, and no worsteds
are heavily milled. For, as has been already
pointed out, whereas the woollen yarn has in-
numerable fibres, projecting in all directions and
ready to grip with their serrated edges the fibres
of neighbouring threads in the woven piece, dur-
ing the milling process, the worsted yarn is not
constructed with a view to milling. However
much a worsted fabric were milled, it could hardly
reach a uniformly felted consistency, in which no
trace of woven pattern remained, such as is often
seen in woollen goods.

The first finishing process in all cases is the
examination of the piece with a view to finding im-
perfections and removing them by hand. Scour-
ing the piece, to get rid of the dirt, is another
early operation. Where the work of finishing is
long drawn out, several scourings may be neces-
sary at different stages. Fulling is now done
partly or entirely in closed boxes, within which
the material passes between rollers and through
abundance of liquid soap or soap and water. The
length of the process is regulated by the extent
to which the cloth has to be shrunk and felted.
Where the object is to secure a material with a
thick nap and no visible pattern, fulling will be

72 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

long and thorough. If it is desired merely to add
body to the cloth, without sacrificing the effect of
the weaving, a brief stay in the fulling mill is
sufficient. Thorough fulling will reduce the size of
the piece by a quarter or more ; and it is possible
to make a reduction of a half. The process itself
puts no nap on the cloth, but prepares it for the
production of one. The nap is the outcome of
the operation known as raising.

Fulling, raising and the associated processes
of cloth-working -as the old term was -are most
elaborately carried out in the production of fine
broadcloths, uniform cloths and the like. Im-
mense care and much time are spent on the best
fabrics of this class. The fulled piece is raised by
being made to revolve in contact with the surface
of a great drum set over with teazle heads. This
is an operation that must be performed with the
utmost care, and it is often long drawn out. The
cloths of the class just referred to are always
damped before raising. Then the raised fibre is
cut or cropped in a machine working somewhat
on the principle of the ordinary garden mower.
There may be several of these raisings and crop-
pings. Between two of them the piece may be
wrapped on rollers and boiled, a process that
facilitates the production of the "face". Finally,
the material is heated and mechanically pressed ;
then steamed, in order to get rid of the glazed

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 73

and somewhat stiff surface that pressing imparts ;
then perhaps pressed again, but this time without
artificial heat. Various stretchings and dryings
and mendings and beatings take place in the
intervals of the more serious operations, and at
last the work is done. Many types of woollen
cloth, besides the fine broadcloths, are finished
with a napped surface that conceals the weave. In
their case the processes are less elaborate, and, at
certain points, different from those just sketched,
but their general character is similar. But in a
large class of woollens and in all worsteds to con-
ceal the weave would be a defect. Their treat-
ment is therefore different. Most fancy woollens
and many worsted "coatings" and "trouserings"
are more or less fulled, to give them strength and
body, but the shrinking and felting are compara-
tively slight. Then, too, the raising of such cloths
is not so serious an operation as in the case of
the woollen "faced" cloths. It is carried out
in a different way and with a different object.
Worsteds are, as a rule, only slightly raised, since
their close, firm texture would not allow of the
rather drastic application of the teazle which
some woollens undergo. And the raising of both

o o

woollens and worsteds of the type now under
consideration is carried out while the fabric is
dry. Its aim is to ruffle up loose fibres, which
are subsequently cut off short by the cropping

74 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

machine, the net result of the two processes being
to show up rather than to conceal the weave. The
nap is raised in order that it may be got rid of,
not in order that it may be retained. Steaming,
pressing, stretching, and mending are important
parts of the treatment in these cases also, and
many processes may be repeated at different stages
in the work of finishing.

Indeed, the variety of "finishes" is singularly
great. New ones are constantly being devised,
many of which are kept more or less secret. It
has already been mentioned that light worsted
dress materials are not milled at all. Their general
treatment naturally diffei s widely from that of the
tougher woollens and worsted "coatings". The
introduction of silk or cotton in serious quantities
may modify the treatment in all cases ; while piece-
dyed goods must undergo preliminary finishing
processes before, and final finishing processes after,
they go to the dye vat. Generally speaking,
worsted materials are altered but slightly at this
stage. As they appear in the loom so they appear
in the warehouse, colour, of course, excepted in
the case of piece-dyed goods. They may look
smoother, more compact, more attractive, but
their essential character is not changed. With
woollens the reverse is often true. Only an expert,
in these cases, could identify the finished cloth
with the loose and altogether different substance

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES 75

that came out of the loom. In one case finishing
is a subsidiary, in the other a primary, process.
It is for this reason that in the preceding- pages
the finishing of woollens has received what might,
at first sight, appear undue attention.

CHAPTER III

THE RAW MATERIALS AND THE TRADE
IN THEM

A LT HOUGH there is hardly an animal or
-_L vegetable fibre that can be spun and
woven which may not find its way into the
woollen and worsted mills, yet there is neither
space nor need, in a book dealing with those in-
dustries, to follow the production and marketing
of cotton or jute, silk or china grass. We are
concerned with wool, with those animal fibres
most nearly akin to it, and with woollen rags.
Even thus limited the field is wide enough, for
there is no country where wool is not grown, few
from which it is not now and then brought into
England. We grow it largely at home and it
comes to us from Iceland and Russia, Persia and
Peru, from China, Switzerland, Canada and the
West Indies, as well as from the great wool-
growing lands, such as Australia, New Zealand
and the Argentine Republic. The rags, too,
come from many countries. However, the main
lines of the international and domestic trades are

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 77

tolerably simple, though the details are curiously
complex.

Every nation of importance is at times both a
buyer and a seller of wool ; but the purchases of
foreign wool greatly exceed the sales of the wool

o o J

grown at home in every European country ex-
cept Spain, in Canada, the United States, and,
of late years, in Japan. The more temperate
lands of Asia all have a regular excess of ex-
ports, as have many tropical countries ; but the
tropics as a whole are not specially fitted for
sheep rearing, although the industry may yet
develop on a large scale upon the equatorial
highlands of Africa and South America. The
southern temperate zone, on the other hand, has
proved itself admirably fitted to meet the grow-
ing needs of the manufacturing North ; so that
to-day the southern continents and the islands of
the southern seas furnish the bulk of the immense
surplus imports of Europe, North America and
Japan.

With the exception of South Africa, none of
the great pastoral lands of the South possessed
an indigenous breed of sheep when European
settlement began. The story of the creation of
their flocks is long, interesting and involved. It
is part of the still longer and more intricate story
of the way in which two classes of sheep the
fine-wooled merino of Spain and the English

78 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

long-wooled sheep of the Leicester, Lincoln and
kindred breeds have spread from their original
homes, mingled with other stocks and with one
another, and built up almost all the most im-
portant flocks of the earth.

Until the latter part of the eighteenth century
the Spanish government, following a commercial
policy universally adopted in early modern times,
prohibited the export of so valuable a source of
wealth as the merino to any foreign land. But
the Spanish-American colonies were allowed to
draw on the flocks of the mother-country ; and so
it came about that the first sheep of the merino
type were driven over the Andes from Peru into
what is now the Tucuman district of the Argen-
tine Republic in, or shortly after, the year 1550.
There, together with an inferior long-wooled
breed, also of Spanish extraction, they ran wild
and deteriorated for over two hundred years ; so
that eventually the Argentine flocks were as
sorely in need of new blood as were those of
France, Germany or Russia, which until the
middle of the eighteenth century had never had
the benefit of a cross with the old Spanish strain.
Between 1760 and 1840, thanks to a change in
the commercial policy of Spain, such crossing
took place in almost every country of Europe
and in many European colonies. The govern-
ments of England and France, of Prussia, Saxony,

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 79

Austria and Russia to mention only the chief
countries concerned all encouraged the work,
some directly, some indirectly ; and from the
numerous crosses sprang varieties of the merino,
whose wool in certain cases rapidly surpassed
that of the parent stock in the estimation of
manufacturers. The most important of these
new varieties, so far as the English industry
was concerned, were the Saxon, the Silesian, the
South African and the Australian all of which
came into existence round about the year 1 800.
At the same time pure-bred rams from Spain
were brought into the La Plata states ; and these
were followed, between 1820 and 1860, by heavy
importations not only of the old Spanish, but also
of the new Saxon and French stocks. In Aus-
tralia the conditions of climate and food proved
most favourable to the growth of a close, fine,
wavy and much serrated wool. Even flocks
whose blood was not entirely pure soon furnished
a clip superior to that of Spain, though in-
ferior, from most points of view, to the improved
merino wool of Germany. These mixed flocks
sprang from the crossing of merinos with a poor
East Indian stock, which was the first breed
introduced into Australia, and with various Eng-
lish breeds.

The Australian fleeces began to appear in the
English market before 1830, but only in small

8o WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

quantities. At that time approximately a quarter
of the wool used in the country was foreign grown
almost entirely German and these foreign
wools were mainly used by the fine cloth manu-
facturers of the West and North. Between 1830
and 1860 Australia, Tasmania and the Cape dis-
placed Saxony and Silesia, and became the chief
sources of English imports ; though the fine Ger-
man wools are still bought in small quantities
for English consumption, as their felting properties
are remarkable. Meanwhile the slow and difficult
task of improving the South American flocks
went on, and before 1840 the import of Buenos
Ayres and Monte Video wools, to continental
and even to English ports, had begun. But
England was so well served by her own colonies
that she paid little attention to the South Ameri-
can supplies, the trade in which became mainly
a continental one and a continental trade it is
still. By 1850 the export of the improved wools
of South Africa was well established. Between
1850 and 1870 New Zealand took her place
beside Australia and the Cape as a great exporter
of wool. The dry Eastern parts of the south
island were well suited to the merino, which was
found to yield a heavier fleece there than in
New South Wales. But the New Zealand
squatters soon ceased to concentrate their atten-
tion on this single breed. In the '6o's systematic

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 81

crossing with long-wooled English sheep, at the
outset mainly Leicesters, began throughout Aus-
tralasia. The movement was encouraged by
the Bradford Chamber of Commerce for there
chanced to be a short supply of long wool on the
Bradford market and the results were specially
successful in New Zealand, where the conditions
of pasture and climate suited the English strain
in the new flocks. The cross-bred sheep is far
heavier in the carcase and generally better suited
for slaughtering than the merino ; consequently
when, shortly after 1880, the preparation and
transport of frozen mutton became regular bran-
ches of trade, while the demand for cross-bred
wools continued, New Zealand found herself in a
most favourable situation. Since that time her
flocks have become mainly cross-bred, the breed
being now a complex one, in which the pure
merino strain plays no great part. Of late years
breeding for mutton has been taken up eagerly
in the Commonwealth ; and already the cross-
bred is to be found in many parts of Victoria
and South Australia. But the flocks of New
South Wales, which produces about three-fifths
of the wool of the Commonwealth, and of Queens-
land are still mainly merino.

In the La Plata states, much of the low alluvial
land near the river had always been ill suited for
merino breeding, since the merino, a product of

82 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

the sunny uplands of North Africa and Spain,
thrives best in a dry climate and on a dry soil,
and is apt to deteriorate in rank pastures. So it
is not surprising that experimental crosses with
English varieties began there almost, if not quite,
as early as in Australia. But for years such
crossing was unpopular ; for the imported Lin-
coins had some superficial resemblance to the old
breed of long-wooled pampas sheep, a wretched
stock against whose influence the Argentine
breeders had long been struggling. Twenty
years ago, however, a fall in the price of merino
wool and the beginning of the frozen meat trade
converted the flockmasters ; hence at the present
time fully three-quarters of the Argentine sheep
are of the so-called Lincoln cross-bred type,
though the proportion of true merino is greater
in Uruguay.

Taking the whole mass of Australasian, South
African and River Plate wools, it appears that
almost exactly a half is now merino and a half
cross-bred. Ten years ago the proportions were
two-thirds merino to one-third cross-bred.

When first the merino wools came to Europe
they were employed almost exclusively in the
woollen cloth manufacture, for which their fine,
short, wavy and easily felted fibres perfectly fitted
them. But, as was pointed out in the last chapter,
the perfection of the combing and allied processes,

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 83

during the course of the nineteenth century, made
it possible to employ such wool for worsted yarn ;
and now the greater part of the merino and cross-
bred wools go into the worsted branch of the
industry, although the short "noils," which are
the waste product of the combing process, re-
gularly pass back into the woollen manufacture.
The better grades of woollen cloth, especially
those that are heavily milled, are of course made
largely of merino ; but these goods are not in
demand to anything like the extent that they
were, in the days when " to wear broadcloth " was
the mark of a gentleman.

In connection with the wool supplies from the
Southern Hemisphere, reference may be made
here to an interesting development that has taken
place, during the last ten or fifteen years, in the
far extremities of the Argentine and of Chili.
Terra del Fuego and the adjacent coasts and
islands have been turned rapidly into sheep runs,
just as were the neighbouring Falkland Islands
long ago. Punta Arenas, the port of shipment
on the Straits of Magellan, has been changed
from a mere waterside hamlet into a town, better
paved and lighted, so our consuls report, than
any in Chili. The sheep in these moist and
stormy lands of the far South are naturally not
merinos. Besides long-wooled breeds, there are
short or medium-wooled Norfolks and Cheviots,

84 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

the latter brought by Scotchmen either from
home or from the Falklands. For here, as else-
where, both sheep and flockmasters are largely of
British origin.

The present state of the world's wool supplies
presents most fascinating problems to the outside
observer. To manufacturers and merchants it
has proved difficult and sometimes discouraging ;
but it has brought, and may continue to bring,
great gain to many sheep owners. In most
countries of Europe, though not in Great Britain,
a remarkable fall in the stock of sheep took place
during the last twenty years of the nineteenth
century. Germany to take the most extreme
case contained about 20,000,000 head of sheep
in 1880, and less than 10,000,000 in 1900.
Even in European Russia the fall was consider-
able ; though in France, which with England and
Russia raises about two-thirds of the wool of
Europe, it was not very marked. From 1895
to 1902 a fearful drought afflicted Australia
and swept away about half the flocks. There
had been 106,000,000 sheep in the country in
1891 ; there were but 53,000,000 in 1902. Re-
covery has been rapid but is not yet complete.
War has interfered with the growth of the South
African flocks. The trade in sheep and mutton,
and above all the trade in lamb, have limited
those of New Zealand and South America. It

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 85

is not easy to increase the numbers of the flocks
and at the same time to export as New Zealand
does upwards of a million and a half carcases of
lamb every year.

Other causes are at work in the same direc-
tion. In the Argentine a rough and greedy agri-
culture, whose single crop system finds no room
for sheep, is spreading in the old pasture lands of
the province of Buenos Ayres, and forcing flock-
masters to seek fresh pastures in the provinces
to the south and south-west. In some districts
cattle and not corn crops are supplanting sheep.
Further, malignant diseases are prevalent "foot
and mouth disease," and the more deadly and
persistent "lombriz" or bronchial worm. The
prevalence of this latter pest is said to be due to
the overworking of the natural pastures ; and it
is believed that the disease will decline with the
partial ploughing up and resting of these pastures,
together with the more frequent use of fodder
crops of various kinds. However that may be,
the fact remains that the shipments of wool from
the River Plate have declined appreciably since
1903 ; and there is at the present time (1906) no
reason to anticipate a rapid recovery in the near
future.

The situation in the United States further com-
plicates the problem of the world's wool supply.
In spite of its vast agricultural resources, the

86 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

Union at present only contains about twice as
many sheep and lambs as the United Kingdom,
in round figures sixty as against thirty millions
and in consequence it is very far from supplying
its own needs. Every breed and mixture of
breed is represented in America ; but the most
important flocks, by far, are the merinos and
Lincoln or Cotswold cross-breds of the dry moun-
tainous western States and Territories. Until
recently large stretches of free pasture have been
at the disposal of the flockmasters, and the sheep
have migrated to the mountains in summer, re-
turning to the lower land for winter. But various
circumstances have checked this type of sheep
ranching in such States as Utah, Wyoming, Col-
orado and Arizona. These circumstances are
the conversion of pasture lands into arable, owing
to the growth of population, competition for the
use of the remaining pastures between sheep-men
and cattle-men, the extension of forest reservations
which cannot be freely used as ranches, and the
legal restrictions on indiscriminate migration.
So the flocks of the Union show a tendency to
decline in numbers ; and the American manufac-
turer, like his European colleague, has to buy more
and more in the international markets. There
is thus a contraction of supplies all the world over,
a contraction which produces abnormally high
prices in seasons of brisk demand, such as the

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 87

years 1905 and 1906. This contraction is likely
to make itself felt for some years to come ; though
the enormous amount of substitution possible in
the woollen and worsted industries, and the varia-
tions of demand, prohibit any confident prophecy
that the present high level of prices will be main-
tained. That the "shortage" is likely to be per-
manent is most improbable ; but, as some of the
restricting causes have by no means spent their
force, it will only be gradually overcome. In a
country like the United Kingdom, with a highly
developed system of mixed farming, which can be
adapted to varying phases of demand, good wool
prices are apt to bring about an increase in the
flocks so far as the demand for mutton and lamb
will permit. But the experience of the whole
nineteenth century renders it improbable that any
very great increase in numbers an increase of
five millions, let us say will take place in this
country ; for the consumption of meat grows
steadily. Farmers in the lowlands are not likely
to run the risks incidental to an excessive concen-
tration on sheep breeding, and the available moun-
tain pastures are already fully stocked.

Australia can never again be free from the
spectre of drought ; but another great drought need
not be apprehended for many years, and when
(or if) it comes there will be means at hand for
limiting the harm it may do, that were not avail-

88 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

able in 1895. The sinking of artesian wells in
the dry uplands of New South Wales and Queens-
land, and the storage of water in reservoirs, although
they will not make the wilderness blossom like the
rose, as some sanguine engineers would have us
think, should at least greatly add to the supplies
both of water and fodder in times of need. But
unfortunately the pastures suffer from that plague
of rabbits, with which Australia and New Zealand
have been contending for years, a plague which
is a really important factor in the problem of the
world's wool supply. Then, too, account must
be taken of Australia's obvious anxiety to share in
the profits of the frozen meat trade, which will act
as a check on the growth of the flocks. The
policy of breaking up the large estates and so
enabling the land to carry a denser stock of men,
a policy popular throughout Australasia, would also
if generally adopted tend to discourage sheep
rearing as at present carried on ; but it need not
in the long run produce those disastrous effects on
the pastoral industry, that its critics sometimes
assume to be inevitable. For the squatter and
the rancher have no monopoly of the power to
rear sheep.

We are here at the heart of the problem for the
future. The question is this : How soon and how
completely can and will the great exporting lands
and the United States comebin with the existing

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 89

system, in which the flockmaster is as a rule a
distinct type, something of a capitalist and not a
general farmer, the characteristic English systems
of comparatively small grazing farms and farms on
which sheep rearing is only a part of a general
scheme of farming? The conditions of surface,
soil and climate will not allow of this change in
every case ; but over avast area in North America,
South America and Australasia it is certainly
possible. The States of New York, New Jersey
and New England, for instance, are almost as
large as Great Britain, and have a soil and climate
well enough suited for the English type of farming.
They contain, all told, about a million and a half
sheep. Yet, if sheep farming were profitable and
popular, they might be made to carry ten times
that number at least. Again, the United King-
dom, in spite of its towns, still contains far more
sheep than New Zealand. No doubt it will
always be impossible to introduce English farm-
ing in the drier parts of Australia, in the dry
Western States of the Union, or in the com-
paratively rainless tracts of the West Central
Argentine ; but when every doubtful acre has
been subtracted from the available territory,
thousands of square miles remain open and fit for
the change. It is a change which certainly will
not come to-day or to-morrow ; and its ultimate
arrival depends on such a complicated series of

factors that no business calculations could safely
be based on it. Among those factors are the rate
at which population thickens in the new countries ;
the relative strength of the demands for wool,
mutton and other forms of live stock, or agri-
cultural produce ; the level of general prices ; the
success with which substitutes for woollen clothing
can be devised, and so on. Yet it is well to
remember that the world does possess this great
reserve power of sheep rearing. For the present,
however, additions to the wool supplies are more
likely to come from the revival and extension of
pure sheep farming in Australia, round the Straits
of Magellan, in Buenos Ayres, and elsewhere, than
from the rapid spread of small and mixed farming
on the young continents.

When first the Australian wools came to this
country the commercial organisation for handling
them was naturally clumsy and imperfect, and the
trade was a slow and risky one. The squatters
sent their wool by track or river to the ports a
process which in Australia might take several
months and consigned it to London dealers for
sale, the voyage being a matter of another six
months. Regular auctions for the colonial wools
began in 1835, an< ^ from that time onwards the
trade assumed a more uniform course a course
which still continues. As commerce and banking
developed in Australasia, the custom arose among

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 91

the squatters of entrusting all the technical work
connected with the shipping, and insuring of the
wool in transit, to mercantile firms or banking
houses ; these in their turn being prepared to
advance to the owner 70 per cent, or 80 per cent,
of the probable value of the wool, and thereby
relieve him of the inordinately long wait for his
money which the pure consignment system neces-
sitated. Wool shipped in this way remains the
property of the grower until knocked down at the
London sales. For two generations those sales
have been the centre of the international wool
trade ; and, though they are now to some extent
losing that position, they remain one of its most
important features. Very little colonial wool is
disposed of by private contract in London ; all, or
almost all, comes under the hammer at the Wool
Exchange, Coleman Street, E.G. Of the wool
sold there, fully two-thirds now comes to this
country "in the grease ". A very small and declin-
ing quantity is of the type known as "washed
fleece" wool carefully cleansed while yet on the
sheep's back. The remainder is scoured wool and
"slipe" or skin wool that is, wool from the hide
of the slaughtered sheep. The use of scouring is
to save freight charges, especially when the bales
come from a remote inland station ; for the yield
of pure wool from a greasy bale is not often more
than 50 per cent, of the weight, and may be much

92 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

less. The scouring process, however, reduces the
value in England. The scoured wool often gets
unpleasantly felted, when compressed in the bale,
and in many of the scouring establishments the
work is carelessly carried out. The skin wool has
naturally increased in quantity with the growth of
the frozen meat trade ; but the greasy wool is
much the most important class, the most popular
with home dealers and users.

Australasian wool has always been the staple
article at the London sales. For many years,
however, wool from the Cape and the Falkland
Islands has been sold together with that from
Australia. Of late years consignments from
Punta Arenas, the River Plate, and elsewhere,
have also been disposed of at these "Colonial,"
or " Fine Wool " sales. The sales are divided
into six series January, March, May, July,
September, and November. Generally, as has
been said, the Australian wool is despatched to
England by the financier, who has advanced
part of its value to the owner ; but a certain
quantity has already been sold out and out to
dealers in the colonies, who put it up for re-sale
in London "speculators' wool" it is sometimes
called.

In the case of the growers' wool, shipping
documents come to the financier's London office
or bank, and the wool is warehoused to await sale.

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 93

The selling brokers, a small group of old and
eminent firms -not ten in all are authorised to
take samples of the consignments which they are
to put up for auction, and they circulate cata-
logues as the sales draw near. Intending buyers
select from these catalogues consignments of
wool likely to meet their requirements, and in-
spect them in the warehouses, before going to the
sale rooms. This inspection is of such vital im-
portance that frequently the sales have to be
postponed, in November and January, should a
heavy fog settle over the city and the docks.

Corresponding to the selling brokers are the
buying brokers, who do most of the actual bid-
ding. They are, as a rule, connected with wool-
dealing firms and, through regular attendance, are
familiar with the procedure at the sales and have
good seats in the sale room. They have no
monopoly of bidding, but buyers especially those
who do not buy in very large quantities gener-
ally find it convenient to employ them. Members
of selling firms often act as buying brokers. The
selling brokers secure, as a rule, a commission
of -| per cent., advanced by the importer on
behalf of his client, the grower. They are further
entitled to a fee of one shilling, "lot money,"
paid by the purchaser for each lot of wool knocked
down. The buying brokers charge % per cent,
or thereabouts, in return for the loan of their ex-

94 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

perience and the slight risk which they run, by
becoming legally the owners of the wool for a
short time.

Strict cash terms are the rule at the London
sales the buyer being required, under ordinary
circumstances, to pay cash within seven days,
and to remove his purchase from the warehouse
within a fortnight. Should he fail to remove it,
the selling broker is at liberty to resell the wool
by auction or private contract, and charge all ex-
penses and losses, incidental to the resale, to the
defaulting buyer. The absence of credit thus
renders it difficult for any but strong buyers, with
a good supply of free capital, to make use of the
sales extensively and as a regular thing.

Very early in the history of Australasia, small
quantities of wool were sold by the growers before
shipment, either to local firms scouring firms in
some cases or to agents of English wool mer-
chants ; but this business remained an insigni-
ficant one until about twenty-five years ago. Its
rapid growth of late, a growth that is registered
by the increasing importance of the auctions at
Melbourne, Geelong, Sydney, Adelaide, and in
New Zealand, now seriously threatens the busi-
ness in London. It is true that part of the wool
disposed of at the local sales comes up again for
auction at London, but it is a relatively small
part. Every year the proportion of the total

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 95

Australasian clip that misses the London market
altogether becomes greater. The quantities sold
at the various Australasian auctions grew from
205,000 bales in the season 1880-1, to 535,000
bales in the season 1890-1, 770,000 in the season
1900-1, and 1,056,000 in the season 1904-5.
The process continues steadily, so that now
about three-quarters of the Australian and half of
the New Zealand wool passes out of the growers
hands before leaving the country.

Various causes have been at work to bring
about this state of things. Provided good prices
can be obtained, it is an obvious convenience to
the grower thus to be able to complete his sale
at home. And as a rule prices in Australia are
fairly related to those in London, thanks, in the
first place, to the rapid dissemination of market
news, since the laying of the ocean cables, and,
in the second place, to the eagerness of wool
buyers from all the manufacturing nations to
secure supplies at the fountain head. Before
1880 the direct buying that took place in Aus-
tralia was entirely for English account. Almost
all foreign users of colonial wools had to buy in
London, though there was some direct trade
between the Cape and Germany. Since 1880
however the situation has changed completely.

According to the best Australian opinion, the
international exhibitions at Sydney and Mel-

96 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

bourne in 1879 and 1880, by revealing the
resources of the country, greatly stimulated
direct trade. But there can be no doubt that
many years earlier Frenchmen, Germans and
Belgians had resented their dependence on the
London market, and sought opportunities to do
away with it. This was not easy, so long as
there was no direct and regular steamship com-
munication between Australian and continental
ports. But that difficulty no longer exists. In
1883 the vessels of the Messageries Maritimes of
Marseilles appeared in Australian waters. In 1 887
they were followed by those of the Norddeutscher
Lloyd of Bremen. In 1888 a line of German
cargo boats started regular runnings between
the Australian wool ports and three of the chief
landing places for wool on the Continent Dun-
kirk, the port of the Roubaix district, Antwerp,
the port for Verviers and the Rhine, and Ham-
burg, the mouth of North Germany. A Belgian
line followed shortly. Then British lines began
to run direct to continental ports. Later still
Japanese and United States lines made their
appearance ; so that now the facilities for direct
trade are ample. This does not mean that for-
eign buyers are no longer to be found in London
merely that foreign as well as English firms
have two strings to their bow ; they can buy in
the colonies or in London, as is most convenient.

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 97

In fact the shares of the wool taken by the home
and the foreign trade respectively, at the London
sales, have not varied to any considerable extent
for over thirty years. The foreigners, European
and American, usually take half, or rather more
than half, the quantity varying with the state of
fashion and trade generally. Not infrequently
the very best lots are thus bought for foreign
account.

Purchases in Australia in the early days were
made exclusively, and are still made very largely,
on behalf of wool-dealing firms in Europe. But
it is possible, and indeed frequent, for such pur-
chases to be made on behalf of large spinners
and manufacturers. In every case a professional
buyer is employed. The buyers may belong to
firms whose sole business is wool dealing on com-
mission. More frequently they are connected
with some large house, that does business in wool
on its own account, but they are still free to exe-
cute buying commissions for others its rivals,
perhaps. They keep in touch with both the de-
mand and supply sides of the market, by means
of constant journeys to and fro, between England
and Australia. Their commissions vary from
i to 2, or even 2\ per cent. As cash terms are
the rule at the auctions, in the Commonwealth
as well as in England, it is necessary for the actual
purchaser to open a credit with an Australian

98 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

bank, upon which the professional buyer may
draw, to an amount previously agreed upon.

Such, in outline, is the organisation for the
purchase and sale of Australian wool. Much of
what has been said in this connection applies to
all classes of wool dealt in at the London sales ;
but there are some special customs and peculiari-
ties, in other important branches of the trade,
that deserve notice. The Cape wools, for in-
stance, were never all consigned for sale to
London, as the Australian wools were before
the days of direct imports. The large squatters
of Australia could afford to wait for the whole or
part of their money ; the smaller farmers at the
Cape, especially the native flockmasters, very
seldom could. Such growers have always sold
their wool locally, in many cases to storekeepers.
These in their turn dispose of it to buyers for
European firms, or to export houses at the ports
houses which frequently do business of a very
general character, in which wool dealing forms
but a single item. A certain amount of Cape
wool is knocked down in London, together with
the consigned wool from Australasia ; but about
four-fifths of the clip is never catalogued at the
sales. Purchases in South Africa are not made
at auctions, but by private treaty, between the
buyer and the grower, or the local middleman.
England still buys River Plate wools so spar-

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 99

ingly, that a detailed account of the history and
organisation of this branch of the trade would
be out of place here. It is enough to say that
the bulk of the trade, more than nine-tenths it is
believed, is direct ; that purchases are made by
buyers on commission, or by representatives of
European firms, in open market at Buenos Ayres
and Monte Video ; that occasionally the buyers
visit the ranches and make their purchases on the
spot ; and that only a small quantity of wool is
consigned unsold to the auctions at Antwerp,
Liverpool or London. It should be added that
much wool sold out and out in America comes
again under the hammer at Antwerp, and some
at Liverpool. During the last few years since
1900 the use of South American wools in this
country has increased perceptibly ; and it may
well be that, before long, they will form an im-
portant section of the raw material for the British
trade. It is however impossible to measure the
growth in their use statistically ; for the direct
imports from Uruguay and the Argentine repre-
sent only a part of our purchases. Owing
to the earlier and more perfect development of
dealing in these wools on the Continent than
in England, the English purchaser frequently
applies at Antwerp, Roubaix or some other
accessible foreign market, for any supplies of
them that he may require. In 1904 rather less

ioo WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

than 600,000 worth of wool came to us direct
from the River Plate, while over ,1,000,000
worth came from France and Belgium ; and
there can be no doubt that a very large portion
of the 1,000,000 probably a great deal more
than half was spent on South American wool.

Besides the colonial sales, there are also held
in London the "low wool" sales, at which com-
paratively small quantities of inferior wools
mostly from the East together with camels'
hair, cashmere and mohair are put up to auction.
At Liverpool the regular sales, like the London
colonial sales, are held in six annual series,
and the wools bought and sold at them are of
an exceedingly miscellaneous character. Low
grade, rough wool that goes largely into the
carpet, cheap blanket and rug trades comes to
Liverpool from the ends of the earth ; above all,
from Asia, all parts of Asia between China and
the Levant. Every variety of South American
wool, both from the east and west coasts of the
continent, is landed there ; and Liverpool is also
the great landing place for two classes of raw
material with which we have not yet dealt
alpaca and mohair. The quantity of sheep and
lambs wool brought into Liverpool, which is not
of course the same thing as the quantity sold
there, is now about one-fifth of that brought into
London ; but the imports by way of the Mersey

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 101

show a steady growth of late years, whereas those
by way of the Thames do not. There are few
points of special interest in connection with the
dealings at Liverpool. Sales by private treaty
are common, in addition to the regular auction
sales. Further, owing to the miscellaneous char-
acter of the wool and the nature of the countries
from which much of it comes, only a small part
remains the property of the grower on arrival ;
for sheep owners in Persia or India or East
Africa, in Peru or Iceland or Syria, have not the
credit facilities of a New South Wales squatter.

Owing to the decreasing importance of the
London sales, and the long railway journey from
London to the chief manufacturing districts, there
is every reason to anticipate a steady if slow-
decline in the shipments of wool of all types by
way of the Thames. There is no reason why
direct imports from any country should pass
through London, if a more convenient route
can be found. And such routes exist. Already
Hull, Goole and, to a small extent, Grimsby are
used as landing places for wool going to York-
shire ; and efforts are now being made to regu-
larise the traffic between Australia and the
H umber. The quantity of wool landed at
Hull increased greatly between 1904 and 1906.
Liverpool is a natural terminus for the growing
trade with the River Plate. Her import figures

102 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

have improved considerably since that trade
began to expand. A little wool even goes up
the canal to Manchester. It is just possible that
a further curtailment of the London trade may
result, in the near future, from the suspension of
one or both the winter series of London sales.
Those sales, in November and January, clash
with the chief summer sales in Australasia ; and
it is now being suggested from the Australian
side that they should be dropped. It is a sugges-
tion which the London brokers and the English
trade generally are not likely to welcome ; but as
the Australian sales now rule the situation it may
in time bear fruit.

So far nothing has been said about the home
supplies of raw material. For it is right that the
more important branch of the trade should be
handled first ; and it is very many years since the
home trade occupied that position. At the pre-
sent time not much more than a fifth of the new
wool spun and woven in the United Kingdom is
home grown ; though if no British wool were
exported in the raw state the proportion might
be greater. It so happens that during the ten
years since 1895 tne exports have been heavy,
continuous and extensive purchases having been
made, largely for the United States. On an
average over a fifth of the home clip has been sent
abroad every year. It has been stated already

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 103

that the stock of sheep in the country has, on the
whole, been well maintained, thanks to the joint
demand for wool and mutton. The highest
figure that the flocks of the United Kingdom
have ever reached, in the last forty years, was
35,600,000 in the year 1868, at the time when
the heavy demand for English wools started the
cross-bred movement in the colonies. The lowest
point was 27,400,000 in 1882. Since 1895 the.
figure has only varied between 29,000,000 and
31,600,000. The present high prices of wool
are certain, other things being equal, to lead to
an increase ; though reasons have already been
given for the belief that that increase can only be
slight. Even now, Great Britain and Ireland
carry more sheep in proportion to their area than
any other country ; and nothing short of a revolu-
tion in agriculture could add very greatly to the
number.

The greatest sheep-rearing county is naturally
Yorkshire, with nearly if millions of sheep.
Lincoln and Northumberland each contain over
a million, Devon and Kent over 800,000. The
flocks of Wales number about 3^ millions, those
of Ireland nearly 4, and of Scotland nearly 7
millions. Very few counties, some seven in all,
contain less than 100,000 sheep. The number
of sheep is not, however, a sure indication of the
wool-growing power of a county or country, owing

104 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

to the very great variations in the weight of the
fleece of different breeds and in different districts.
The great Lincoln sheep, for instance, yield a
fleece whose average weight is reckoned at from
nine to ten pounds ; while the fleece of the light
Welsh breeds is little more than a third, that of
the South Down sheep of Sussex about a half,
of that weight.

Any full account of the breeds of British sheep
and the characteristics of their fleeces would
require a book to itself ; for the matter is com-
plicated by a great deal of cross-breeding, and by
the fact that the sheep named after a particular
district are rarely confined to that district. So
it is necessary to be brief. Our flocks are
roughly divided into the long and short wooled
varieties, of which the former are the more im-
portant not numerically, but owing to the unique
characteristics of their wool, and the fact that, as
has been seen, many of the flocks of the New
World are descended from them. By far the
most prominent of the long- wooled breeds are
the Lincolns and the Leicesters, which have often
been crossed with one another. Of less import-
ance are the Cots wolds and the Romney Marsh,
which have also been freely crossed with the
Leicesters. The old pure Lincoln wool was the
longest grown in the country ; and the more or
less cross-bred Lincolns of to-day frequently yield

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 105

wool a foot or more in length. Long-wooled
breeds are common in parts of Yorkshire, in many
Midland counties, and in the south-western
counties particularly Cornwall as well as in the
districts from which the chief varieties take their
names. The wool, besides being long, is rela-
tively coarse, and always more or less lustrous ;
it is invariably combed and spun by the worsted
process, and is mainly employed for women's
fabrics which require a bright surface, for stout
cloths of the serge type, and for braids.

The mountain sheep of Great Britain and Ire-
land, belonging to various breeds, yield wools
of medium length, the classification and uses of
which vary considerably. The roughest and most
primitive of these wools are turned into carpet
yarns, or stout Scotch and Irish tweeds, which
are not spoiled, as more delicate fabrics would be,
by the frequent occurrence in these coarse moun-
tain fleeces of "kemps," that is to say, misgrown
fibres, which will neither felt nor absorb dyes
properly. The tendency to produce these
" kemps" is a recognised test of a low breed ; but
fine breeds may produce them at times, though in
the finest they are very rare. Of all the mountain
breeds, the most valuable and important are the
Cheviots and their various offshoots. They have
in part displaced the rougher sheep of the High-
lands and have spread over the English border

io6

counties. Crossed sometimes with the Leicesters,
and sometimes with the short-wooled breeds, they
yield a fleece which has in the past been largely
employed both in woollen and worsted spinning,
though it is now mainly used for woollens. The
best breeds of Welsh and Irish mountain sheep
bear a soft and fairly short wool, from which ex-
cellent flannels can be made.

Much the most important variety of the fine,
short-wooled sheep is the South Down, a breed
which stands in much the same relation to the
other short-fleeced sheep as does the Leicester
to the long-fleeced. Its offspring are spread all
over the country, especially on the chalky uplands
of the East and South, where they have in many
cases either driven out or greatly modified the
primitive stocks. The true South Down fleeces
once upon a time supplied the material for the
finest woollen cloth made in England ; but fully
200 years ago they began to be displaced by the
Spanish merino, which in its turn gave way to the
Saxon merino, just as that has been almost en-
tirely supplanted by the fine wool from Australia.
As in the case of many other English breeds, the
South Down wool suffered in quality owing to
the attention paid to the carcase ; but under no
conditions, so far as one can tell, could English-
grown wool have rivalled merino as a material for
the best woollens and the softest worsteds. At

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 107

the present time the various types of Down wool
are not very freely used in the woollen trade,
except in the manufacture of flannels ; the greatest
demand for them comes from the hosiery trade.

The trade in the home-grown wools varies con-
siderably in its organisation from district to district.
As in all trades, there is a tendency to keep down
the number of hands through which the raw
material passes ; but the process of "getting rid
of the middleman " is not so simple as it might
appear, and is certainly not always economical.
In some ways the dealer has gained rather than
lost ground of late years. The most direct method
of purchase, that in which the agent of the spinner
goes round to the farms in person, is rare, though
some of the wool grown near the manufacturing
districts is still sold in this way. A much commoner
method, the commonest of all in fact, is that of
the local wool auction, to which the farmers of the
country side bring their fleeces after the shearings
of the spring and early summer. Such auctions
are held all over the country, in the manufacturing
districts at Leicester, for instance, and at Bradford
as w r ell as in the purely agricultural counties ; and
the results of the earlier sales of the new season
are anxiously awaited both by farmers and manu-
facturers as an index of the general trend of prices.
At the present time (1906) such indications are
of special interest, owing to the sharp rise in the

io8 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

prices of all grades of wool that has taken place
in the last three years. The purchases at these
sales may be made on behalf of spinners and
manufacturers, or and this is more usual at the
rural sales on behalf of dealers in the manufac-
turing districts at home and abroad. The buyer
is at times a member of the firm on whose account
the purchases are made ; at times a travelling agent
of the firm who goes round from sale to sale ; and
at times a man living on the spot who buys on
commission, perhaps also doing a little dealing on
his own account. All kinds of circumstances may
determine the method of buying adopted in any
particular case.

Besides purchasing at such sales, dealers or
their agents buy largely by private treaty, either
direct from the farmers or from some local middle-
man. The method adopted depends to a great
extent on the size of the farms in the district
concerned. In North Lincolnshire, for instance,
where farms are normally large and the clip of a
single farm forms in itself a considerable pur-
chase, the buyer goes straight to the farmer,
meeting him and arranging a price on a market
or fair day in the nearest country town, and after-
wards visiting the farm to see the wool packed in
sheets for delivery. Where farms are small, such
direct dealings would be neither easy nor econo-
mical, and in consequence of this there is room

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 109

for a local dealer or collector, standing between
the farmers and the buyers for the trade.

In the home trade, as in the import trade, there
is an almost complete absence of dealings in
anything but actual clipped wool, which can be
carried away as soon as it is bought. Occasion-
ally, however, a more speculative type of transac-
tion is met with in sales by private contract a
farmer agreeing to dispose of his whole clip,
before the flock has been shorn, at a given price
per Ib. or per todd. Such transactions arise either
from the farmer's financial necessity, or from his
desire to profit by what seems to him at the time
a good offer, and so safeguard himself against the
price fluctuations which usually accompany the
regular selling season. They are exceptional in
this country, though common in Germany.

There is another most important point of re-
semblance between the trade in British and that
in imported wools namely, the prompt terms of
payment. The mass of the sales are made for
cash down, or cash in a few days ; and this is the
dealer's opportunity. Few firms of spinners or
manufacturers care to lay in a year's stock of
wool in the sales season ; for such an operation
involves a long and costly locking up of capital.
Quite apart from any consideration of this kind,
spinners cannot often be certain in advance w T hat
grades of wool, and what quantities of each grade,

WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

their business will require. The dealer who is
prepared to supply a great variety of grades, and
with whom somewhat easier terms of payment
can often be arranged, is therefore a necessity
of the industry ; and his functions have become
more indispensable with the more frequent fluc-
tuations of fashion and the decline in the practice
of manufacturing standard yarns or fabrics from
standard materials for stock.

The vague term dealer has been used de-
liberately to describe the whole class of business
men, some of whom are known as wool mer-
chants, some as wool staplers, some, in the
worsted trade, as top makers. Both the com-
position and functions of this class are so interest-
ing as to deserve special attention. Wool stapler
is its oldest name ; but it is a name that is dying
out in the worsted trade, in favour of that of top
maker, a change in terms which rightly indicates
a change in function. The stapler of the old
days bought in person from the farmer, and
either sold the wool as he bought it, or much
more generally had the fleeces sorted into their
different qualities, and sold this sorted wool to
spinners. Hence his name ; for in the language
of the trade a lock of wool is a ''staple," and it
was his business to have the wool sorted into the
long and short, fine and coarse, locks. To him
also fell the work of blending wools to meet his

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM in

customers' needs, a delicate and responsible task.
As the staplers extended their operations, with
the general adoption of imported wools, some of
them became merchants on a very large scale
with buyers at home and abroad, large staffs of
sorters in their employ, clients in both the woollen
and the worsted trade, and a financial position
that enabled them to give long credit to manufac-
turers. Bat at the same time the ease with
which manufacturers could buy at the sales took
away part of the merchant's work ; although it
remained and remains convenient to employ
the merchant as a buying broker and, from time
to time, as a giver of credit. To-day, the mer-
chants who merely buy, sort and sell have become
scarce. There is but little room for them in the
woollen trade, except in those branches of it
which only employ pure, new wool in small
quantities, and so get their supplies locally, in-
stead of buying in London or at the rural auctions.
And in the worsted trade, the custom among
spinners of buying not wool but tops has grown
steadily ; so the stapler or merchant has generally
added to his other work that of getting the wool
combed ; in short he has become a "top maker".
He may own some combs himself, thus ceasing
to be a mere dealer and taking part in the actual
work of manufacture ; but the bulk of the comb-
ing is done by one of the many commission firms,

ii2 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

the comber returning everything top, noil and
waste -to his client. The noil is then sold for
use in some branch of the woollen trade the
finest qualities, combed out of merino wool, often
going into fancy woollen cloths or superior blan-
kets. The waste too may find its way into low
woollens, or possibly into felts ; and the top,
labelled according to the fineness of the yarn
into which it is expected to spin, as a 30*5, 4o's,
6o's, or whatever the number may be, is disposed
of to the worsted spinner.

Top making forms a part at least of the busi-
ness of almost every wool merchant who sells
largely to the worsted trade and is in a position
to avail himself of the work of the commission
combers, though some staplers of the old type
remain in the English wool trade. Worsted spin-
ners who buy and sort their own wool are still
numerous, but all spinners occasionally, and some
invariably, buy tops. The great drawback to this
division of functions is that the spinner who buys
tops has no means of knowing their exact com-
position. Once the wool has been combed the
most competent expert cannot distinguish the
component parts of the blend ; and friction is
likely to arise should the top not draw and spin
as its description and appearance have led the
buyer to expect. To the dealer the arrangement
is obviously convenient. He can blend freely;

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 113

can, for instance, mix with colonial wool unpopular,
but really sound, brands from South America, which
might not find a ready market under their own
name. But it is equally obvious that the system
is liable to abuse. It is an outcome of specialisation
whose value to the trade as a whole is at least
doubtful.

Dealings in wool, tops and noils are carried on
by firms of all sizes and descriptions. Many of
the smaller dealers are agents rather than mer-
chants. For as their lack of capital prevents them
from holding large stocks, they sell from samples
secured perhaps from the London brokers or from
the larger dealers and only buy in when they
have secured an order. Some specialise in noils
and the various kinds of waste, a trade which offers
greater opportunities to the small dealer than the
wool trade proper, owing to its purely local char-
acter.

It has already been pointed out that one of the
functions of the wool dealer is to ease for spinners
and manufacturers the rigid cash terms of the first
stage in the wool trade. Formerly he did so by
giving very long credit freely ; but of late the long
credit system has been in part broken down. It
dies hardest in the Scotch trade, presumably
because the fine Scotch tweeds and cheviots
eventually come into the hands of that type of
tailor who is apt to wait a very long time for his

cash, and this involves delay in payment all along
the line. The old custom in this branch of the
trade, a custom not yet quite extinct, was four
clear months' credit, after which the manufacturer
usually accepted a four or six months' bill, so that
payment might be delayed for nearly a year.
Generally speaking, the dealer now requires cash
in fourteen days, but he may arrange to draw upon
firms of unquestioned stability at four or even six
months.

In the top market contracts for future delivery
are common, the top maker undertaking to furnish
so many packs of tops per month for a given period
at a fixed price. It remains for him, if he has not
wool enough in hand, either to cover his contract
by prompt purchases of raw material the safest
course or to take the risks of price fluctuations
at the London sales and in the country, which
may render the contract unprofitable. This is the
only form of "future" dealings known to the
English wool market, unless we are to include the
selling of the wool of undipped sheep already
referred to. It does not come within the defini-
tion of " future " or "terminal " dealings properly so
called, since those terms imply a highly organised
trade such as the "future" trade in cotton or
corn in which the qualities, standard units and
periods and conditions of delivery are carefully
defined. Proposals have recently been made before

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 115

the Bradford Chamber of Commerce to imitate in
England some of the regulations which already
exist in the terminal top markets of the Continent ;
but hitherto the scheme has met with no support,
for there is a strong feeling in the English trade
that such rules, by doing away with the necessity
for expert knowledge on the part of buyer and
seller, open the door to the outside speculator and
exercise a disturbing influence on prices. Whether
this be true or not is doubtful. Price fluctuations
on the organised continental markets are not
greater than those on the unorganised market at
Bradford ; it has, indeed, been argued that they
are less, and there is a good deal of evidence
in support of this view ; but the strong feeling
remains, and is not likely to decline as yet.

Before passing from the wool trade, to speak
of the trades in alpaca, mohair and rags, refer-
ence should be made to the very extensive deal-
ings in sheepskins and skin wools dealings which
have increased greatly since the establishment of
the frozen mutton business. There is little that
is remarkable about this branch of the wool
trade, so it may be handled in a few words.
Large quantities of Australian and South Ameri-
can skins are stripped of their wool by fellmongers
before export. About one-twelfth of the Austra-
lasian wool that was put up at the London sales
of 1905 was of this class. Besides these imported

n6 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

skin wools, skins come into the country from all
parts of the world with the wool still on them ;
and these, together with the skins of the sheep
killed at home, provide work enough for the
English fellmongers. The imported skins are
put up to auction mainly at London and Liver-
pool and are largely bought by wool merchants,
who have them stripped and then sell the skin to
tanners. Some British skins are also sold by
auction at various wool-dealing centres. The wool
from others comes into the hands of the mer-
chants by more round-about methods, through
butchers and fellmongers. From the merchant's
hands the skin wools find their way into all
branches of the trade, according to the character
of the fleece and the method by which it has been
separated from the hide. Least damage is done
to the wool when it is "sweated" off the skin.
In this process the fell is soaked and carefully
heated, until slight fermentation sets in on the face
of the skin, when the wool can readily be detached.
Such wool combs well and so is in considerable
demand. The alternative method a very com-
mon one is to treat the fell with lime or some
other chemical reagent. This is quick, cheap
and effective. But wool removed in this way
is generally not easy to comb or card ; also the
chemicals may interfere with the washing, and if
carelessly applied they may damage the fibre.

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 117

Nevertheless skin wools as a class form a valu-
able raw material, as well as an important item
in the world's total supply of wool. It should be
added that enormous quantities of them are
handled on the Continent, the imports of wooled
skins from the River Plate into France and Bel-
gium being particularly heavy. The stripped
wool is often sent across the Channel to this
country.

Less than two generations ago, alpaca was
added to the raw materials of the worsted trade,
largely through the initiative of one man the late
Sir Titus Salt. It remains an interesting and
valuable commodity, though the whole quantity
used is trifling when compared with that of true
wool. In 1904, for example, when the imports
of wool into this country were worth upwards of
^20,000,000, the whole stock of alpaca and
kindred fibres was valued at less than ,300,000.
The alpaca, llama and vicuna are, as is well
known, the American representatives of the camel
tribe. Their wool, or rather their hair, was spun
and woven by the Indians of the Central Andes,
before ever Pizarro left Spain. To this day the
imports come exclusively from Peru and Chili,
whence they are shipped via Liverpool to
the Bradford district. Outside this country the
United States are the only considerable buyers.
Everywhere the worsted trade is the sole user of

n8 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

these long smooth fibres, which have little felt-
ing property, but possess that remarkable lustre
which from time to time renders them a popular
ingredient in certain fabrics for women's dress.

The hair of the Bactrian camel coming to
us almost entirely from the Chinese and Russian
empires also enters into some classes of goods ;
but its use is limited and its importance small.
Goat's hair, on the other hand, is a raw material
of the first importance. The varieties used in
this country are mohair the long silky hair of
the Angora goat of Asia Minor and cashmere,
the soft down that grows beneath the hair of the
goats of Tibet and the Western Himalayas. Of
these, mohair is by far the more important. Its
name, by the way, is a corruption of the French
form of an Arabic word for hair-cloth, and has
nothing to do with the English word hair. Up
to about the end of the first quarter of the nine-
teenth century, the spinning and weaving of
mohair was confined to Asia Minor and Turkey.
Then the raw material began to be imported into
England ; and from that day to this the comb-
ing and spinning of it have remained almost
monopolies of the Bradford district. For mohair,
like alpaca, is never used in the woollen trade.
Mohair yarn is largely consumed abroad, and raw
mohair is now being imported in considerable
quantities into the United States. Between 1850

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 119

and 1870 the demand for mohair was so keen
that the price was rarely below 35. a pound,
whereas to-day fair average samples fetch about
is. 4d. In consequence of the high prices forty
years ago, attempts were made, with the reluctant
consent of the Turkish government, to acclimatise
the Angora goat in British colonies. Between
1870 and 1880 this task was successfully carried
through at the Cape. Now, rather less than half
the imports into Great Britain are Turkish, rather
more than half South African all other sources
of supply being for practical purposes negligible.
The trade in mohair is beset with difficulties.
Asia Minor still yields the very finest quali-
ties, and Asia Minor is not a country with which
trade runs smoothly. The Government levies a
tax on the goats ; the peasant owner does a good
deal of false packing, and sometimes waters his
goods generously to increase their weight, before
delivering them to the exporting firms at Con-
stantinople. Impurities of all sorts are common
in the mohair bales, and the work of sorting them
is both unpleasant and unwholesome. In the
case of Cape mohair, the main difficulties are the
relative inferiority of the breed and the habit of
shearing twice instead of once a year, to which
the South African farmers cling. First rate
Turkish stock to breed from is hard to get ; and
nothing short of diplomatic representations suf-

120 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

fices to secure it. With regard to the double
clip, Cape farmers have generally maintained that
the conditions of climate necessitate it. Its con-
tinuance is encouraged by the fact that, from
time to time, a turn of fashion drives up the
value of the short Cape fibres, as compared with
that of the longer and generally better Turkish
mohair.

Mohair yarns have a great variety of uses.
They are a common material for shoe laces and
braids ; so much so that a fashion for braids
sends a flutter through the whole mohair trade.
They go into " Astrachans" and plushes, and, as
fashion swings, into many other fabrics, whose
names no one but a worsted - weaving expert
could either enumerate or understand.

The rag trade remains to be considered. It is
a trade of much greater importance than that in
either alpaca or mohair, in its relation to the wool-
working industries of the country as a whole.
With the worsted industry it has little, if any,
connection ; but there is hardly a branch of the
woollen industry that does not make use of rag
wool. Nearly fifty years ago the local historian
of the shoddy manufacture noted that the indus-
tries of Halifax, Huddersfield and Leeds as well
as those of Batley and Dewsbury, the head-
quarters of the rag trade were being " in some

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 121

measure inoculated with the materials, shoddy
and mungo ". The stage of inoculation has long
been passed, and rag wool is now used even in
the fine cloth districts of the west of England.
In consequence, the quantity of rags consumed
in the country is enormous, though no exact
figures as to the relative proportions of rag wool
and new wool can be given. The estimated
annual consumption of the former is now (1905-6)
over 180,000,000 Ibs., an estimate that is cer-
tainly not excessive, seeing that about 90,000,000
Ibs. of rags and rag wool are imported annually,
in addition to which, account must be taken of
the whole immense "home grown" supply.
Against this estimate can be placed the ascer-
tained average annual consumption of new
wool, alpaca and mohair rather more than
450,000,000 Ibs. for the period 1900-5. It
should be added that the scarcity of wool of late
years has brought the two figures much nearer
together than they were at the end of the nine-
teenth century. In 1899, for instance, they were
125,000,000 and 520,000,000 respectively.

It must not be thought that shoddy is necessarily
an adulterant, in the bad sense of the word. In
fact its use, which is now nearly a century old,
was one of the first illustrations of the principle
of the employment of waste products upon which
much of the economy of manufactures depends.

122 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

Moreover the best qualities of the material are
considerably more valuable than the lower grades
of wool, and are employed not merely because of
their relative cheapness, but also because they are
believed to improve the surface of certain types
of fine cloth. Generally speaking, rag wool is
used because of its cheapness ; but when judici-
ously blended with other materials it will make a
cloth which, although not of first-rate quality, is
good at its price. Rag wool also, of course, en-
ters into cheap flashy cloths, whose production
requires great ingenuity on the part of the
manufacturer, but has no other merit worth con-
sidering. But that in no way justifies compre-
hensive denunciations of shoddy.

In the language of the trade, shoddy is "a
special type of rag wool, that which results from
tearing up, or "pulling," soft woollen rags, stock-
ings, underclothing and the like. Rags and
tailors' clippings of cloth are made into a second
type, known as "mungo". These two terms are
sanctioned by official usage and to be found in
Board of Trade publications. Two other terms
are, however, now in regular use, though the
uses vary somewhat, namely "merino" the rag
wool made from women's dress goods and other
soft worsted rags of good quality and " worsted,"
the torn-up remnants of men's worsted clothing of
a close texture. This worsted is really a variety

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 123

of mungo, just as "merino" may be called a
variety of shoddy. There is, no doubt, a natural
tendency to extend the use of the polite word
"merino"; for shoddy can never be made to
sound well. " Merino " is indeed a popular term
far beyond the rag trade ; and the goods that bear
it have often no very clear connection with the
merino sheep, or with one another.

The rag trade is one from which the middle-
man cannot under any circumstances be excluded ;
and as a rule the rags pass through several sets
of hands before they come to the cloth mill. It
is not practicable for the manufacturer, or even
the wholesale rag dealer, to come into touch with
the producers. These producers are too numerous
and their products too miscellaneous. Ordinary
domestic rags of all sorts go into the bags and
carts of the humblest class of business men in
the country. From them they often pass to that
curiously named type of social scavengers, the
marine store dealers. As these men usually
carry on business of a very small and general
type, they hand on their goods to larger dealers
of the same class, in important centres, of which
London is the chief; and it is from these large
dealers that the woollen rag merchants generally
buy. The domestic rags of the manufacturing
districts, the tailors' and clothiers' clippings, and
some other raw materials of the shoddy manu-
facturer pass through fewer hands.

Abroad, the rags are collected in much the
same fashion as at home, the trade, both on the
Continent and in England, being to a great extent
in Jewish hands. The chief sources of supply
are France and Germany, which together send
five-sevenths of the imports. Then come, and
in the order named, Holland, Belgium, Denmark
and Russia ; and then a long list of countries that
send small consignments, including Portugal, Tur-
key and the United States. The rags on arrival
in Yorkshire, whether from other parts of the
country or from abroad, have usually been roughly
sorted already according to qualities and shades.
This used not to be the rule ; but as the trade
has extended and become more specialised, the
practice has increased. They may be bought
by private contract or at the Dewsbury auction
sales, which are to the rag trade what the Lon-
don colonial sales are to the wool trade with this
exception, that the woollen manufacturer who
uses rag wool, seldom, if ever, buys his rags at
this stage. In the first place, only a few manu-
facturers make their own rag wool ; and secondly,
the sorting of the rags is as yet far from complete.
They are usually bought by specialist rag dealers,
or by shoddy and mungo makers. These classes
overlap to some extent ; for the dealers often own
rag- pulling machinery. In their hands the rags
undergo a most thorough sorting, shades and

RAW MATERIALS AND TRADE IN THEM 125

qualities being elaborately matched, so that the
dealer can supply rags, and the "puller" rag wool,
of an almost endless variety of grades and colours,
at prices varying from ^d. to is. a pound.

As a rule the manufacturer buys his rag wool
dyed as well as pulled. Sometimes the original
colour of the rags is good enough for the purpose ;
and the puller may exercise very considerable
skill in so blending his materials, as to yield a
respectable tint. In other cases, the original
colour is reinforced by dyeing, or an entirely new
tint is produced, the dyestuffs being applied to
the rags before they are torn up. The largest
shoddy makers card the wool after pulling it ; but
about two-thirds of the shoddy factories contain
no carding machinery. No section of the woollen
industry is more strictly localised than the manu-
facture of rag wool. Out of 908 rag-grinding
machines in the United Kingdom in 1904, 88 1
were in Yorkshire; and most of these 88 1
machines could be found inside a circle, with
Dewsbury as a centre and a radius of six or
seven miles. Into that circle come at last the
rags of the Frenchman, the German, the Turk
and the Yankee, to start again on their journey
about the world in a new form.

CHAPTER IV

INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL ORGANI-
SATION

ANY industry the organisation of which is
simple and rigid has either arrived at an
uncommon state of perfection or is in danger of
decay. The wool industry is neither perfect nor
decadent, hence its organisation is complex and is
always undergoing slight alterations and readjust-
ments. The variety and intricate structure of
the goods produced, the constant changes in the
character and cost of raw materials, the shiftings
of fashion, and the openings and shuttings of
markets serve to keep it flexible and adaptable,
though maybe it is not flexible enough. Firms
or districts that stiffen themselves against change,
decay and disappear ; the adaptable survive.
There are not merely perpetual variations in the
fabrics made that goes without saying but also
frequent modifications in the character and func-
tions of the manufacturing and distributing busi-
nesses. Every now and then some new branch

of the trade sprouts from the main stem ; though

126

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 127

this is rare. Or again, functions at one time
united, as for example, combing and spinning, may
fall more and more into separate hands. And
the relations between manufacturer 1 and merchant,
or rather between manufacturing and "merchant-
ing," are particularly liable to change, as in the
case of the top makers referred to in the last
chapter.

The lines which divide the various sections of
the trade are seldom quite clearly drawn. The
most important division of all that between wool-
len and worsted is itself not absolute, thanks to
fashion and the intricacy of manufactured
fabrics. Very frequently a woollen manufac-
turer will employ worsted yarns and some wor-
sted manufacturers regularly use woollen. In a
weaving shed, pieces of cloth that are in one case
all woollen and in another all worsted may some-
times be seen side by side on the looms. The
user of shoddy, as we have seen, may be also
a maker of shoddy, or he may not. The worsted
spinner may comb all his own materials, which
is rare, or some of them, which is common, or
none at all, which is also common. In a few ex-
ceptional firms machinery is made on the pre-
mises, though the vast majority buy from tex-

1 In the language of the trade a manufacturer is an em-
ployer who makes cloths or stuffs. The word is here used
in its broader sense, to describe all who are not simply dealers.

tile machinists. Dyeing, nominally a gigantic
separate industry, is often found combined with
woollen manufacturing, occasionally with worsted
manufacturing, sometimes with rag-pulling.

These few illustrations are introduced at the
outset, because in describing the organisation of
any industry there is always a danger of producing
a false impression of simplicity and uniformity.
And the wool-working trades are most emphati-
cally neither simple nor uniform.

The absence of simplicity and uniformity is in
part due to the very gradual way in which the
factory system has conquered the various branches
of the industry. There is still well-known uncon-
quered territory in the ' ' Celtic fringe " of the United
Kingdom domestic spinning and weaving in re-
mote Scotch and Irish and Welsh cottages. It

is not so generally known that the hand-loom
woollen weavers, working at home, formed a
class, though a very tiny class, in the Yorkshire
census of 1901. They may be extinct before the
census of 191 1 is taken. But five-and-twenty or
thirty years ago, they were still an important body
of men, in the small towns and villages about
Leeds, Huddersfield and Dewsbury. In one
large Yorkshire woollen manufacturing business,
as I have been told, no weaving was ever done
by power down to the year 1877, when the busi-
ness came to an end. Many manufacturers con-

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 129

tinued to give out some classes of work to the
domestic looms for long years after that date.
To-day the hand-loom weavers are mainly to be
found making patterns and sample lengths, in
those mills which produce goods of the best
quality. The two or three hundred who still
work at home make a queer assortment of things
fancy waistcoats, rugs, flannels and what not.

In some branches of the industry the factory
system has been well established for three full
generations. Worsted spinning is a case in point.
In other branches the factory had hardly begun
its conquest two generations ago, and has only
completed it in the generation which is now clos-
ing. Nor did the factory always spring into life
complete, the property of " a capitalist millowner ".
Many of the early woollen factories were " com-
pany mills," owned by groups of small master
clothiers, who clubbed together and bought ma-
chinery, which carried out for them on commission
those manufacturing operations which it was no
longer economical to perform by hand. And
although this type of mill is now practically extinct,
mills that accommodate more than one manufac-
turer and firms that start in a humble way by
working on commission for their neighbours are
still common enough. The small employer may
rent a few rooms or a whole floor in a spinning mill.
Looms belonging to two different manufacturers,

1 30 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

driven by engines which belong to neither, can
often be found running in one weaving shed.

Small masters of this class may be working
quite independently or on commission. There are
commission firms at every stage in both industries
commission combers, spinners, weavers, dyers
and finishers and they are by no means all small
firms. The largest combers, dyers and finishers
all work on commission. The commission
spinners and weavers, on the other hand, are, as
a rule, in rather a small way of business, though
some of the commission firms in the worsted trade
could not be called small. The small master,
however, whether working on commission or not,
exists more or less in all sections of the trade. The
older the factory system in any particular section,
the fewer chances are there for men of this class.
A small-scale worsted spinner, for example, is a
rare creature. It is in the trades subsidiary to spin-
ning and weaving that the small firm best holds its
own. Rag-pulling and the pulling of the tangled
ends of waste from the spinning machinery and the
looms are often carried on in buildings which would
not be classed as factories in popular language,
though they are factories "within the meaning of
the Act ". Small combing businesses, again, are not
uncommon. There is, in short, still room for the
small employer, although his sphere of action tends
to get narrowed year by year.

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 131

Side by side with these small businesses are to
be found others of great size, each of which gives
employment to one or two thousand people, possibly
even more. Some of the large mills confine their
attention to a single process, or, more strictly speak-
ing, to a single group of processes such as combing,
spinning or "manufacturing" ; but several of the
greatest are of a composite character ; that is to
say, they are in a position to carry on all, or almost
all, the processes of the industry. But, as we shall
see, disintegrating tendencies have been at work
of recent years in the worsted trade, where these
great concerns are most common. Cases in which
a single employer or firm owns two or more mills
of the same type are also not infrequent, and may,
of course, be found in any branch of the industry.

When the woollen and worsted industries of the
United Kingdom are compared with one another,
two points of contrast are apparent in their general
organisation in the first place, the scale of opera-
tions in woollen is generally smaller than in worsted,
and, secondly, specialisation has gone much further
in worsted than in woollen. Taking the first point,
one finds that in the year 1899 there were 1918
woollen and shoddy factories of all sorts in the
United Kingdom, employing 153,232 persons;
that is to say, as nearly as possible, 80 persons to
a factory. At the same date there were 753
worsted factories, with 148,324 workpeople, which

132 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

gives almost 200 to a factory. More recent and
more exact figures yield similar results. For 1901
we have employment statistics not merely for
factories "in bulk," but for the various depart-
ments in the different classes of factories. From
these figures it appears that in the average woollen
spinning factory or woollen spinning department
only 22 persons were employed in spinning and
all incidental processes. In the case of worsted
spinning the corresponding figure is 140. In
weaving the difference is much less marked. The
average woollen weaving shed, whether it is a
separate business or a department, employs 50
workers in weaving and incidental processes ; the
average worsted weaving shed 106. It may be
added that the employment figure for an average
combing department or combing mill is 60.

The machinery statistics of 1 904 bear out the
employment statistics of 1901. The average
number of woollen spindles working together in
one place is 2354, of worsted spindles 8000.
The average woollen weaving shed contains 49
looms, the average worsted weaving shed I25. 1

Thus it appears that a woollen mill, which con-
tains both spinning and weaving departments,

relation between machinery and employment sta-
tistics is too intricate to discuss here. The amount of
machinery watched by one employee is the key to the
difficulty.

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 133

employs as a rule only about half as many hands
as a worsted mill that only spins, and about two-
thirds as many as a worsted mill that only
weaves. The figure for combing requires further
consideration. Confining our attention for the
moment to spinning and weaving, it should not
be forgotten that the woollen industry, as was
pointed out in the Introduction, is far more
scattered than the worsted. Whereas in the case
of worsted we are dealing with a trade that is
carried on almost exclusively in active manufac-
turing districts, in that of woollen the figures in-
clude many small and many tiny mills in Wales
and Ireland, Scotland and out-of-the-way parts of
England. If the West Riding of Yorkshire and
the woollen districts of Lancashire only were
taken the disparity between the two sets of
figures would be less marked. But even then a
very great disparity would remain. It is not easy
to illustrate this from the employment figures,
but the machinery figures make the situation
fairly clear. Whereas for the whole of the king-
dom the average number of woollen spindles
working together in one place is 2354 and of
looms 49, in Yorkshire the spindle figure is 3182,
and the loom figure 63. In the case of worsted
the Yorkshire figures are higher than those for
the whole kingdom, but only by a small amount.
The latter are 8000 spindles and 125 looms, the

134 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

former 8052 spindles and 135 looms. Thus the
situation is not greatly altered by narrowing the
field of comparison.

A contrast has just been drawn between the
woollen mill that both spins and weaves, and
worsted mills that do one or the other, but not
both. This contrast was drawn because the
typical woollen mill does, as a matter of fact,
contain both spinning and weaving departments.
Its owner may not spin all the yarn that he uses ;
for some of that yarn perhaps is cotton and some
worsted, and these he will naturally buy. But so
far as it is woollen which of course does not
mean made of pure wool but made by the
"woollen" processes it will generally be spun at
home. There are however important exceptions
to this rule. In the Scotch tweed trade, for
instance, the buying of yarn from specialist
spinners is common. In Wales and Ireland there
are many mills that sell yarn, and in England
also weaving yarns are sometimes spun for sale
in mills where there are no looms.

Carding normally goes with spinning. In a
sense carding is the primary function of the
woollen mill ; for it was the process first taken
over completely by modern machinery. The
early company mills were mainly carding mills ;
and for many years after carding had entirely
ceased to be done by hand, large quantities of

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 135

yarn were spun in the weavers' cottages on the
hand jenny. The introduction of mule spinning
was almost as gradual as that of power weaving.
It took place for the most part between 1820 and
1860, but was not completed, even in York-
shire, in the latter year. And quite recently
there were plenty of old hand mules at work, in
which the carriage was pushed in by the weaver's
knee. To this day the great carding machines are
sometimes spoken of in the Leeds districts as
"the engines," without further qualification or
description a reminder of the time when they
were the chief if not the sole wool-working
engines that the mill contained.

What is probably the commonest type of wool-
len mill, does not merely combine carding, spin-
ning and weaving. It combines all processes,
from opening the new wool or rag wool on a willey,
to dyeing the cloth when it is piece-dyed and
finishing it. In some cases, as we have seen,
the rag wool itself is made on the premises. In
others, wool dyeing also is done at home. At
any point in the manufacturing process outside
help may be required, either in emergency or as
a regular thing. Rag wool is frequently bought
dyed. If the shoddy or mungo maker owns
"engines," he will card the rag wool before he
disposes of it to the manufacturer. Wool and
yarn dyeing may be done by a firm of profes-

136 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

sional dyers. Woollen yarns, English or foreign,
may be bought. At seasons of high pressure, a
manufacturer who has difficulty in carrying out
his orders to time, may give out spinning and
weaving to be done by a neighbour whose
machinery is less fully occupied than his own.
Piece dyeing and finishing may also be done on
commission, either for the manufacturer himself,
or for a merchant to whom he has disposed of
his unfinished cloth. But when all has been said,
it remains true that combination of processes in
the hands of a single firm is characteristic of the
woollen industry.

The worsted industry, on the other hand, is
marked by specialisation. At the bottom of the
scale of processes comes the great specialised
branch of wool combing, to which reference has
already been made more than once. Combing
was the last of the main processes in the worsted
manufacture to be taken over by machinery. It
was only between 1842 and 1853 that the inven-
tions of Lister, Heilmann, Donisthorpe, H olden
and Noble raised machine combing from the
experimental stage to the stage of commercial
success. At that time the combing of fine merino
wool was in its infancy, and the task of organising
the combing process, together with the associated
processes of washing and carding, was heavy
enough to occupy all the attention of a single

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 137

firm. Moreover, in the early days, combing was
an unusually profitable business, and the inven-
tors, or some of them, were in a position to
exploit their own patents, patents which were
vigorously defended by much ligitation. So it
came about that, although patented combs were
sold at most remunerative prices, a large portion
of the combing, both at home and abroad, was,
from the outset, in the hands of firms which
worked their own combs on commission for spin-
ners. Now they work on commission for spinners
and topmakers, more often the latter. Whenever
possible, the combing mill runs day and night.
Thanks to this and to the specialised knowledge
of a very delicate and complicated series of pro-
cesses that its managers and foremen acquire, it
is able, if skilfully directed, to work more economi-
cally than a combing department in a spinning
or general manufacturing mill can, as a rule, hope
to do. The recent growth among spinners of
the practice of buying tops instead of wool, has
also tended to encourage the further organisation
of combing as a distinct industry ; while at the
same time this practice owes its existence to the
fact that combing was already in part so organised.
Yet a good deal of combing is still done in
mills which also contain machinery for other pro-
cesses, as the comparatively small number of
workpeople employed in the average combing

138 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

mill or department shows. The number, it will
be remembered, is sixty a figure which would
be ridiculously low if it represented the average
staff of a large number of specialised combing
mills, the more so if we were to assume that those
mills worked double shifts. It is the continued
existence of combing departments in spinning
mills or combined mills that keeps down the
average ; for only a large concern would itself
consume all the wool that sixty pairs of hands,
regularly employed, could pass through the pre-
paring machinery and the combs. In many cases
a mill will contain a small combing plant, while
at the same time its owner has wool combed on
commission and buys tops. He may be in a
position to keep this small plant at work con-
stantly, preparing certain classes of wool, although
it would not be worth his while to lock up capital
in combing machinery enough to meet all possible
demands upon it in busy seasons ; at such times
he can always fall back on the cheap services of
the commission combers. In the same way, a
topmaker may run a few combs, but rely on the
commission firms to deal with the bulk of his wool.
The materials most frequently combed "at home "
are long English wool, mohair and alpaca. Fine
merino combing is the speciality of the greatest
commission firms. Passing from combing to
spinning, we come to a branch of the industry in

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 139

which for many years small scale businesses, or
even small departments, have been unknown.
The average worsted spinning mill or depart-
ment is very little inferior in size to the corre-
sponding concern in the cotton industry, the
former employing 140 and the latter 145 work-
people. It should be pointed out that these
figures and all others of the same type quoted
in the present chapter refer strictly to the group
of processes included under spinning, combing, or
weaving, as the case may be, and to no others.
They would not include, in the case of a spinning
mill, the men employed about the engines, the
office staff, packers, carters, or other miscellaneous
employees.

The causes that have brought about the
specialisation of worsted spinning into a separate
industry are numerous ; but the chief of them are
fairly clear. Before dealing with them, however,
I may repeat that spinning and manufacturing,
as well as spinning and combing, are still often
found in combination ; but the specialised system
may be regarded as the typical one, and it has
been gaining ground of late at the expense of the
combined system. The combined businesses,
however, include some of the largest and best-
known firms in the trade. Yet at times they
have, as it were, a bias towards one side or the
other that is to say, either spinning or weaving

1 40 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

predominates. And sometimes when one firm
controls two or three departments, they are really
separate businesses, working independently of
one another. Suppose, for instance, that spin-
ning and weaving are combined, the spinning
department need not confine itself to making
yarns for the looms, nor need the weaving de-
partment consume only yarn spun on the pre-
mises. Such strict combination is opposed to
the swift, varied, highly competitive and econo-
mical working of the worsted industry of to-day.
It would tend to throw a good deal of machinery
idle periodically and to lock up too much of the
circulating capital of the business, in the form of
wool waiting to be spun or yarn waiting to be
woven for heavy stocks would have to be kept
on hand to meet the varying needs of the weaving
department. The spinning section requires to
be in a position to take any order that seems
advantageous, and to specialise on those types of
yarns for the production of which its machinery
and the qualifications of its staff may fit it. Simi-
larly the weaving section must buy its yarns
where they are to be had best and cheapest for
its immediate purposes, and not to be tied down
to a single source of supply. When this stage of
semi-independence has been reached, financial or
other considerations may bring about the actual
disruption of the business without its technical

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 141

operations being appreciably interfered with.
Just as spinning and weaving might in this way
break apart, so might spinning and combing, and
for similar reasons. Such things have happened
in Yorkshire of late years, separations of spinning
from combing having been fairly numerous owing
to special circumstances. 1

But the specialised worsted spinning mill is by
no means the outcome of recent conditions only.
It has always existed. In the early days of the
factories it was found that worsted lent itself in a
way that woollen did not to the process of frame
spinning worked out by Arkwright. The early
spinning frames, no doubt, left much to be de-
sired, but they were at least more satisfactory
than the early mules ; so that twenty years before
the latter machine had made any considerable
progress in the woollen industry, and twenty
years before the power loom had got a real foot-
ing in Yorkshire, water or steam-driven worsted
spinning mills were fairly numerous. There was
a steady demand for their yarns, independently of
the local manufacture ; and it is the continuance
of this external demand in various forms which,
more than anything else, has favoured specialisa-
tion. At the beginning of the nineteenth century

J When the woolcombers' combination was formed a
number of spinning firms sold their combing plants to the
new company. See p. 157, below.

142

the Yorkshire "mill yarn" went in considerable
quantities into the old worsted manufacturing dis-
tricts of East Anglia. As the manufacture in
those districts decayed, in face of northern com-
petition, the demands from the hosiery trade and
from abroad sprang up demands which, roughly
speaking, have increased ever since. These de-
mands are not, and never were, entirely met from
Yorkshire ; since worsted yarn for hosiery is
largely spun in the mills of Leicester and Scot-
land. But spinning and knitting are such distinct
processes that those mills are specialised, just as
are so many in the West Riding. So far as the
latter are concerned, the foreign yarn demand
alone has given work enough to occupy many
spinners for almost two generations. In 1905
our exports of worsted, alpaca and mohair yarns
were valued at nearly five and three-quarter
millions sterling ; against which has to be set an im-
port which probably does not exceed one million.
Then again, the set of fashion, towards the end
of the last century, favoured the worsted spin-
ners. Fine broadcloths for men's wear went
down before fine worsteds. Rougher types of
woollen cloth to some extent gave way to worsted
serges. Knitted underclothing, made of worsted
yarn, gained ground ; and so on. The effect of
this substitution was twofold. In the first place,
it caused a steady export of yarn from worsted

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 143

into woollen districts, as the woollen manufac-
turers were obliged in many cases to turn their
attention to weaving worsted fabrics. In the
second place, it encouraged the foundation of
worsted mills or worsted spinning departments,
outside the boundaries to which they were at one
time confined. The latter process has naturally
not been very rapid ; though its results are con-
spicuous in the West Riding, worsted being now
of first-rate importance in the Leeds district,
which was once almost entirely given over to
woollen. In the West of England, on the other
hand, worsted spinning has made very little pro-
gress, though there is a considerable demand for
worsted yarns in weaving. These yarns must
be drawn either from the W T est Riding or from
abroad. There has been some reaction lately in
favour of woollen, for years of dear wool are not
favourable to the advance of worsted ; but the
ground lost by woollen has never been completely
recovered. It does not necessarily follow that,
because what might be called the external de-
mand for worsted yarns is heavy, therefore
spinning and weaving must be in separate hands
in the worsted districts ; but clearly the situation
absolutely prevents, and always has prevented,
spinning from being regarded as a mere subor-
dinate process to weaving, and gives free play to
all the forces which tend to encourage specialisa-

144 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

tion. We shall see when we come to deal with
the fluctuations in the export trade of the United
Kingdom, how the check given to the expansion
of our foreign trade in piece goods, by the de-
velopment of manufacturing and of tariffs abroad,
has further encouraged the tendency to treat
spinning as an end in itself and not only as a
step in the production of woven goods.

What has already been said throws a good
deal of light on the reasons for the specialised
character of weaving, or manufacturing, in the
worsted industry. The existence of specialisation
there is in part also due to the great variety of
the yarns used, especially in the oldest branch of
the trade, the " Bradford" trade in women's dress
materials. Worsteds for men's wear, whether
they are plain, like the modern dress coat, for
instance, or fancy, like the modern " trousering,"
are made almost entirely of wool. The light
women's dress goods on the other hand, have
very generally a cotton warp and a worsted weft.
They often approach cotton goods in character ;
and the quick, narrow looms on which they are
mostly made can readily be used for the weaving
of pure cotton fabrics, linings and so forth, and
constantly are so used when wool is dear, or
when, for any other reason, fashion turns towards
cotton. There was, for instance, great activity
in this line of business in 1905. Or again, the

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 145

materials woven by the " worsted " manufacturer
may be half silk ; and the use of silk in the best
products of the West Riding is likely to become
more common in the future, owing to recent
improvements in the dyeing and finishing of
mixed fabrics. It would therefore be no great
exaggeration to say that the average dress goods
manufacturer draws half his materials from out-
side the worsted industry ; and this state of
things is not a new one, for silk and worsted were
woven together more than a century ago, and
cotton warps have been a feature of the Bradford
trade for seventy years.

These things being so, the separation of manu-
facturing from spinning is natural, and, from most
points of view, desirable in the dress goods trade.
The dress goods manufacturer is only one among
many possible clients of the worsted spinner ;
and the spinner, in his turn, can at best only
supply some of the manufacturer's needs. The
case of the worsted " coating " manufacturer is
rather different, as plain worsteds, at any rate,
require no great variety of yarns. Combined
businesses are in fact fairly common in this
branch ; though as the manufacture of " coatings "
and " trouserings " is very widely spread, and is
mixed up with other classes of weaving, it is
generally found separated from worsted spinning.
As further reasons for the prevailing specialisation

146 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

we may note, in the first place, that the variety
and complexity of woven fabrics increases rapidly,
and the direction of weaving operations becomes
every year a more and more exacting occupation ;
and, secondly, that the capital needed to start or
carry on a manufacturing or spinning business,
with fair chances of success, is obviously less than
is needed for a combined business.

The comparative scarcity of specialised spin-
ning and weaving businesses in the woollen in-
dustry requires some further explanation. There
is clearly no room for a threefold division of the
work, such as one finds in worsted ; for the pre-
liminary processes in the manufacture of woollen
yarn are short and relatively simple. The wool
goes straight from the carding engines to the
mule, and there is nothing that corresponds either
to combing or drawing. But, at first sight, there
seems no special reason why the separation of
spinning and weaving should not be as usual
in woollen as in worsted. It exists, more or less,
in all the main manufacturing districts ; it is fairly
common in Scotland ; but, taking the country as
a whole, it is the exception. Moreover it seems
to be declining, and certainly it is not on the
increase. Specialised spinning mills are far less
numerous now than they were eighteen years
ago ; though the decline in spindles is not nearly
so great as the decline in the number of mills, the

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 147

number of these mills having fallen 28 per cent
between 1889 and 1904, and the number of their
spindles only 1 2 per cent. This of course means
that the great decline in mills is mainly due to
the ordinary working of industrial concentration.
Those that have gone out of use were, in the
majority of cases, small and out-of-the-way con-
cerns, of the type described in the Introduction.
But there has also been some decline in the
demand for the work of spinning mills, in the main
manufacturing districts, except when that work
consists in spinning yarns for other purposes than
ordinary woollen weaving. Here we have the
exact reverse of the worsted situation, and it
claims attention.

The demand for woollen weaving yarns was
never great in the West Riding, most manu-
facturers having always spun their own. Neither
has there ever been a large export, nor have
spinning mills in one district been called upon, to
any great extent, to feed the looms of another.
There is some " import " of Scotch woollen yarns
into Yorkshire, for use in the coating trade of the
worsted districts ; and Bradford coating mills may
buy from Huddersfield spinners but such pur-
chases are not very important. When woollen
yarn is brought from a distance, it is generally of
foreign origin Belgian or German. Thus the
absence of an export and the existence of an im-

148 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

port discourage independent spinning, just as the
reverse situation in the worsted industry encour-
ages it. Why there should be an import at all,
and why a large export has never grown up, are
pertinent questions that could only be answered,
if at all, in a long technical and historical discus-
sion, for which there is no room here.

An important technical impediment to the
spread of specialised spinning in the West Riding
is the complex character of most of the woollen
yarn. The manufacturer's success depends so
largely on the skilful composition of his yarn,
that it must as a rule be made under his own eye
and not bought from a neighbour. He is perhaps
scribbling new wool and rag wool, or wool and
cotton together, in proportions nicely calculated
so as to produce the maximum of effect in the
finished cloth at the minimum cost. Or maybe
he is twisting a tender coating of shoddy about a
core of cotton yarn that will stand the tension of
the loom and of subsequent wear. These are
tasks which a Yorkshireman, least of all, would
care to trust as a regular thing to an outside
spinner. It is interesting to notice that most of
the worsted and woollen weaving yarns, which are
regularly bought and sold, are made of pure wool.
Some risk, of course, is run in purchasing these ;
the wool may be an inferior blend ; and ignorance
as to the exact composition of one's tops or yarn

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 149

is rightly regarded as one of the drawbacks to
specialisation in the worsted trade. But the risks
would be far greater in the case of the cheaper,
but more ingenious, yarns used in medium and
low-grade woollens.

In my opinion the typical organisation of the
woollen industry is partly due to tradition, as well
as to commercial and technical causes. The
master clothier or master manufacturer of the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries habitu-
ally supervised all the processes of the manu-
facture ; though when he was in business on a
.large scale, he gave out wool to be spun, or yarn
to be woven in the cottages, before machinery
took over these processes. And just as the small
masters of Yorkshire survived in considerable
numbers some forty years ago, so the type of
organisation which they represented survives to
this day. But mere tradition would not have
kept the combined businesses in existence, had
technical and commercial considerations favoured
subdivision.

So far we have been dealing with the case of
woollen cloth and the relation of spinning to
weaving in the various branches of the cloth trade.
But woollen yarns are also used in the manufac-
ture of hosiery and shawls and in all kinds of
knitting and amateur wool work. Yarns of this
class are regularly produced in specialised spinning

150 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

mills ; and these mills may also turn out weaving
yarns. This combination is fairly common in
Scotland. The reasons for specialisation in the
case of knitting and hosiery yarns are obvious :
there is no weaving process. Spinners of these
yarns not infrequently own both woollen and
worsted machinery ; for while some of their yarns
are carded and spun on a mule, others are drawn
and spun in the worsted style, and, it may be,
combed as well. A hybrid process, consisting of
carding, drawing and frame spinning, is also con-
stantly employed in the production of carpet yarns,
which like the knitting yarns are often made in
specialised mills. It is natural enough that the
rather complex business of carpet weaving should
have become separated in many cases from that
of spinning the carpet yarns. The fact that
carpets often have a foundation of tough jute,
which forces the manufacturer to go into the
market for some of his yarn, helps to account for
the partial specialisation in this instance.

A few words may here be said as to the re-
lation of dyeing and finishing to the other
processes, on its business, as distinct from its
technical side. In the case of worsted, spinners
and manufacturers as a rule have nothing to do
with dyeing. Whether the wool be dyed in the
top, the yarn or the piece the dyeing is generally
done on commission, either for the spinner, the

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 151

manufacturer or the merchant. The chief ex-
ceptions to this rule are to be found in the worsted
coating trade. Finishing also is often done at
home by the coating manufacturer particularly
in Huddersfield whereas dress goods are almost
invariably finished on commission by the great
dyeing firms of the Bradford district. These are
the firms which were welded in 1898 into what
is probably the most successful of British indus-
trial "combines," the Bradford Dyers Association.
The Bradford Dyers are primarily piece dyers
and finishers. A second combination, which has
had a less successful career, the British Cotton
and Wool Dyers Association, is concerned mainly
with the dyeing of raw material and yarns. Its
constituent firms are scattered over Yorkshire,
Lancashire and the Glasgow district.

In the woollen trade, as has been already men-
tioned, dyeing and finishing are frequently asso-
ciated with the other manufacturing processes.
There is, however, plenty of dyeing on com-
mission here also, and the raw material often
comes dyed into the manufacturers' hands. The
fancy woollen manufacturer, whose goods are
necessarily wool or yarn dyed in a great variety
of shades, is less likely to include a dyeing de-
partment in his works, than is the manufac-
turer who is mainly concerned with self-coloured
fabrics such as uniform cloths, and plain blue or

152 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

black materials of all sorts. Manufacturers of
this latter class almost always do some at least of
their own dyeing, though indigo dyeing is gener-
ally done on commission. The finishing and
dressing of woollen cloth and worsted coatings

o <->

forms an important specialised business in the
Leeds and still more in the Huddersfield district.
Generally speaking, it is the finer cloths which
are handed over to the specialist to go through
these final processes, as would be expected ; for
cheap goods can as a rule be adequately prepared
for market by the original producer. The part
which merchants take in the task of getting both
woollens and worsteds dyed and finished will be
explained in connection with the commercial
organisation of the industries.

Two important matters connected with the in-
dustrial organisation remain to be dealt with.
These are joint stock enterprise and industrial
combination. But a few years ago in the early
nineties of the last century companies that
issued reports and balance sheets, whose shares
were regularly bought and sold, were rare in all
branches of the woollen and worsted and asso-
ciated industries ; though private companies of
course existed. Even now, after the outbreak
of company promotion in the late nineties, the
number of spinning and manufacturing com-
panies, whose shares are quoted on the West

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 153

Riding Stock Exchanges, is comparatively small.
It is never possible, for example, to gauge the
general prosperity of worsted spinning by com-
paring the balance sheets and dividends of scores
of limited mills, whereas this is regularly done in
the case of Lancashire cotton spinning. Worsted
weaving and woollen manufacturing are in much
the same situation as worsted spinning. Latterly,
a number of large concerns have been turned into
limited companies, and their shares have been
taken by the public ; but the family business,
though it may have assumed the company form,
is still the prevalent type.

Whether this state of things will last very much
longer is doubtful. Joint stock companies are on
the increase, and combination in various forms
has been making steady, though not always noisy,
progress during the last ten years. There is
already vague talk of general combinations among
both the Scotch and the West of England manu-
facturers. The cause which is said to render
combination necessary is the same in both cases
the need to protect genuine West of England
cloth and genuine Scotch tweed, by means of a
stamp affixed by the associated manufacturers
and by organised campaigns of advertisement,
against imitations from Yorkshire. Although
there has been one disastrous collapse of a large
combination and a number of doubtful successes,

154 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

only a man unable to read the signs of the times
would maintain that we have heard the last of
large textile amalgamations. It is true that in all
branches of the trade the promoters of a combina-
tion have to deal with special obstacles, not the
least of which is the strong local feeling and pro-
nounced individualism of the manufacturer ; but
these things have been overcome before, and may
be overcome again, when there is gain to be made
or loss to be avoided. Another obstacle is the
great variety of yarns and fabrics turned out by
the various mills. For as a rule only the pro-
ducers of articles that come into fairly direct com-
petition with one another are easily moved to set
bounds to the force of that competition by means
of joint action.

Hitherto combinations have been commonest
in the dyeing industry. Besides those already re-
ferred to the Bradford Dyers and the British
Cotton and Wool Dyers there are others in
Yorkshire of less importance, such as the York-
shire Indigo Dyers and the Leeds Worsted Dyers.
The Bradford Dyers' Association does an im-
mense business, dealing not only with worsted
and all sorts of mixed fabrics, but also very
largely with pure cotton goods. So strong has
the Association become, and so important is the
maintenance of friendly relations between it and
the manufacturers and merchants for whom it

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 155

works, that the Bradford Chamber of Commerce,
with the concurrence of the dyers, established in
1901-02 a permanent committee, known as the
Bradford Piece Dyeing Board, to discuss and, so
far as possible, adjust all differences between the
two parties. The Board is composed of twenty
representatives of the Chamber, one of whom is
chairman, and three representatives of the As-
sociation. There is also a standing arbitrator,
but his services have been but little used. A
few quotations from the printed reports of the
Board will illustrate the general character of its
work.

The Chamber of Commerce members pro-
tested against the appointment as manager of one
of the branches of the Association of "a gentle-
man who is also a merchant and manufacturer," on
the ground that he might make unfair use of the
knowledge he would thus acquire of the styles of
dyeing and finishing ordered by other merchants
and manufacturer's. " The Association's repre-
sentatives assured the Board that the styles of
customers were not and would not be seen by the
gentleman named, but that the views expressed
by the Board with regard to the appointment
should be borne in mind in the future."

The Association announced a surcharge of
35. per shade " for dyeing travellers' pattern
lengths". After discussion on the Board, "the

156 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

representatives of the Association promised to
reconsider the matter ".

Attention was called to the cheap dyeing of
cotton goods in Italy, which enabled Italians to
compete successfully in the Levant trade. It
was replied that the Association was alive to this
competition, "and was taking what steps it could
to meet it ; further, that the great bulk of the
goods were dyed by the manufacturers themselves,
and that it was therefore impossible to say what
rates were actually charged for dyeing ".

" A complaint was made that the Association
was competing with Bradford firms in the selling
of piece goods." It was replied that, "with one
exception, all the pieces sold by the Association
were damaged- ' jobs ' in fact, and that the As-
sociation was compelled to dispose of them ; but,
as far as possible, the Association would endeavour
to avoid competing or interfering with merchants ".

These quotations have been given at length to
show that the main work of the Board is to give
opportunity for the explanation of misunderstand-
ings and the checking of possible abuses at an
early stage. It oils the wheels of commerce, and,
to mix metaphors, acts as a safety valve for
grievances. To pronounce it an unqualified suc-
cess would be premature, for it is still young, but
it marks an important step in the direction of that
better and more rational organisation of industry

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 157

and commerce towards which the manufacturing
nations are feeling their way.

Outside the dyeing trade, combinations have
been either unsuccessful or comparatively small ;
yet they are fairly numerous. It was natural
that the amalgamation of the commission dyers
should be followed by a combination among
the commission combers, whose trade is very
strictly localised. But the combers' combination
has had a disastrous history. It never included
the greatest firm in the trade ; after a few years
of precarious existence it had to reorganise with
some discredit and great loss ; and it is as yet
too early too speak of the success or failure of
the reorganised business. Proposals have from
time to time been made for large scale combina-
tions of manufacturers or spinners in Yorkshire,
as well as in Scotland and the West of England ;
but the misfortunes of the combers, and the
reaction against the exaggerated combination
movement of the closing years of the nine-
teenth century, have effectually checked such
ambitious schemes for the time being, at any
rate. There have been, however, important
combinations of comparatively small groups of
firms in certain specialised branches of spinning,
such as the making of hosiery yarns and of car-
pet yarns ; there has been one combination of
considerable importance in the rag-wool produc-

158 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

ing trade; and some few manufacturing (i.e.,
weaving) combinations. But manufacturing has
not been seriously affected, there having been no
amalgamations of any large number of firms, but
merely fusions of a type that have long been
familiar in English business. Combination is of
course here taken to mean not a mere association
of employers, with a view to watching the in-
terests of the trade and dealing with organised
labour, but either a close alliance of firms pur-
suing a common business policy or an actual
financial amalgamation. All the important cases
of combination just referred to are of the latter

type-
Some account was given in the last chapter

of the dealers and dealings in the raw materials
of the woollen and worsted industries. It now
remains to complete what was there said by
examining briefly the organisation of the trade
in yarns and piece goods. Before doing so,
however, reference should be made to a very
important public institution, that was called into
existence to promote the smooth working of the
trade in tops and worsted yarns the Bradford
Conditioning House. The Conditioning House
was established by the City Corporation in 1891,
and by a recent arrangement its working is super-
vised by a joint committee of the Council and
the Chamber of Commerce. Its business is to

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 159

test and certify authoritatively the "condition,"
that is to say the percentage of moisture, of tops
or yarns submitted to it by members of the trade.
Also it is prepared to certify the weight of
consignments of tops or yarn, and the counts
and lengths of yarns. Its certificates are re-
cognised as final in cases where a dispute has
been referred to it for decision. The standard
condition for tops was explained on page 47. For
woollen and worsted yarns the standard condition,
according to the practice of the Conditioning
House, is between 15 and 16 per cent, of mois-
ture. In testing, the yarn is first completely dried
and then allowed to regain moisture to the extent
of 1 8^ per cent, of its dry weight. Moisture thus
represents 15-16 per cent, of the total weight
of the marketable yarn. For cotton yarns the
regain is 8^ and for silk yarns 1 1 per cent, of
the dry weight. During the last two years
(1905-6) conferences have been held between
the Bradford authorities and those of the similar
Conditioning Houses in the great continental
worsted centres of Roubaix, Verviers, Elberfeld
and Leipzig ; and an attempt is being made to
secure uniformity of testing and measuring
methods throughout Europe.

In the home yarn trade there is no regular
class of merchants coming between the spinner
and the manufacturer. Yarn is sometimes bought

160 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED .INDUSTRIES

through dealers, for there is always room for
middlemen in certain classes of transactions. But
generally speaking, and especially in the York-
shire worsted trade, where yarn buying is most
frequent, spinners and manufacturers come into
direct relations with one another. The indepen-
dent yarn agent, who invariably appears as an
intermediary between spinner and manufacturer
in the cotton trade, is scarce in the wool trade ;
although sales in a comparatively remote district
say from Yorkshire to Scotland may be con-
ducted through an agent of this class. The
manufacturer, when buying, can either stipulate
for delivery on a given date or for " delivery as
required". If he does the latter, or if no time
for delivery is specified, it is understood in the
Bradford district -according to the Yarn Con-
tract Rules that "at least two-thirds of the
contract must be completed within six months,
and the remainder within a further three months ".
Terms of payment vary considerably, even with-
in single districts, but they are generally short
and have a tendency to shorten. In Brad-
ford monthly settlements with a discount are
common.

The export of yarn lies mainly in the hands of
a considerable group of firms in Bradford ; for
the bulk of our yarn exports come from the West
Riding worsted district. The names of these

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 161

firms frequently indicate a foreign origin. Some
of them deal in pieces as well as in yarns, but
more usually the yarn trade is specialised.
Generally speaking, spinners in the near neigh-
bourhood of Bradford have no direct relations
with foreign purchasers, but sell to the mer-
chants. Spinners for export in other parts of
Yorkshire often deal direct with the foreign
buyer ; and there is a tendency for the largest
and strongest businesses to see to their own
" merchanting " both at home and abroad. When
the spinner sells to an export merchant, the or-
dinary terms in the Yorkshire worsted district
are that all yarns delivered in the course of any
month are paid for with i\ per cent, discount, on
the second Thursday of the following month, in
a fourteen days' draft on a London bank. No
such custom is of course absolutely hard and fast.
It is impossible to make any general statement
as to the terms on which the merchant, in his
turn, disposes of the yarn to foreign customers ;
for credit periods and discount rates vary very
greatly. But it may be pointed out that the
yarn merchant, like the majority of English ex-
porters, does not often draw bills on his foreign
correspondent.

The organisation of the trade in finished goods,
the piece trade, underwent considerable changes
during the latter part of the nineteenth century,

1 62 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

and is at present intricate and interesting. For-
merly there existed an important class of special-
ised merchants, woollen merchants or worsted
merchants as the case might be, in the manufac-
turing districts above all in Yorkshire through
whose hands all the goods passed, whether they
were intended for the home or the foreign trade.
This mercantile class was absolutely indispens-
able, so long as a large part of the manufacturing
was carried on by the small master clothiers ; for
the clothiers laid no claim to commercial know-
ledge. They sold their goods to the merchants
in the cloth halls of Halifax, Huddersfield, Brad-
ford and Leeds, buildings erected at various
dates in the eighteenth century for the conveni-
ence of the trade. The oldest of these halls, that
at Halifax, was built in 1 700 ; the second the
Leeds white cloth hall 'in 1711. An important
feature of the old trade is recorded in the name
of this latter building ; for it was the place to
which the clothiers brought their undyed cloth
and disposed of it to the merchants, who either
had it dyed and finished on commission or them-
selves controlled finishing establishments. There
was a separate market place for coloured cloths
in Leeds, known as the "mixed cloth hall".
With the decline of the small clothiers the cloth
hall business slackened. This was first notice-
able in the worsted trade. Dealings in the cloth

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 163

hall at Bradford came to an end in the early
'50*3 ; they lasted longer at Huddersfield, while
r at Leeds they continued far into the last quarter
of the nineteenth century. In the West of Eng-
land, where really small manufacturers were
scarce even in the eighteenth century, the rela-
tions between manufacturing and merchanting
were of a different character. Many of those
who controlled the industrial operations were in
the first instance merchants, who bought wool,
had it spun, woven, dyed and finished, and then
sold the pieces. That is to say, the industrial
organisation was capitalistic before the factory
age began, and the industrial and commercial
organisations were not quite clearly separated
from one another ; though clothiers not infre-
quently sold to merchants, particularly to Lon-
don merchants.

As the factory system was adopted in the
North, a somewhat similar state of things arose
there. Many of the first mill-owners were men
who had acquired capital as merchants ; indeed
for a considerable number of years they were
regularly described as "merchant manufacturers ".
The old clothiers regarded them with jealousy as
commercial men who were intruding into the
manufacturing business ; though as a matter of
fact, before the days of machine spinning and
steam, merchants had occasionally controlled full-

1 64 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

ing and finishing mills, and so had had a hand in the
true work of manufacture. All through the nine-
teenth century this transference of capital from
commerce to industry continued, though not in so
rapid and dramatic a fashion as in the early days,
mercantile firms buying or building mills, or per-
haps absorbing manufacturing businesses with
which they had previously had close relations and
which could no longer stand alone. In very few
such cases, if any, was the commercial work
abandoned. The firms remain " merchant manu-
facturers," though the name is no longer current ;
while many other firms, which were not originally
founded by merchants, now find it convenient to
deal directly with large, and sometimes even with
small consumers of their goods. This state of
things is perhaps commonest in the Yorkshire
woollen industry, but it is found in all branches
of the woollen and worsted trades. There is not
much work left for the old type of specialised
merchant in the home market. For one thing,
the rise of the great wholesale clothing industry
in Yorkshire and elsewhere, during the second
half of the nineteenth century, has provided for
the manufacturers regular customers at their very
doors, who can buy in large quantities. There is
no room for a middleman between the mill-owner
and the "clothier" in the modern sense of the
word, that is to say, the maker of clothes. Then,

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 165

too, small retailers, tailors, or drapers or "cos-
tumiers," like to deal with mercantile houses
that handle a great variety of goods worsteds,
woollens, silks and cottons rather than with a
number of specialists. Large, miscellaneous re-
tailers of the class that to-day controls so much
of the clothing and furnishing trades can, if
necessary, deal with the manufacturer. And the
tailor who is in a large way of business may at
times go direct to the mill. There is also, as is
well known, a general tendency in modern busi-
ness for very large retail firms to do some or all
of their own manufacturing. But this tendency
has as yet affected the wool textile industries but
slightly. Its existence, however, shows clearly
how little room is left for an intermediary be-
tween the manufacturer and the large retailer.

Thus, although there are many important mer-
cantile firms in the manufacturing districts which
do a considerable home trade, that trade is not
usually of a specialised character. The woollen
merchant and the worsted merchant as separate
types have become scarce. Most firms combine
home with foreign business ; for in the foreign
trade the sphere of the merchant is far less liable
to invasion. Much of the large scale, miscel-
laneous, mercantile business for the home trade
gravitates to London. The London houses keep
in touch with all the manufacturing districts, and

1 66 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

they stand at the centre of the world's greatest
consumption of clothing. They play a specially
important part in the work of distributing the
best classes of woollens and worsteds, such as
the Scotch tweeds, the West of England cloths,
and the finest goods from Yorkshire. These
fabrics for the most part pass into the hands of
the " West End " type of tailor in England, or
in those foreign countries and they are many
where English materials and what claims to be
English tailoring are popular among the well-
to-do. There are few important commercial
firms, either in the West Country or in the
Scotch tweed manufacturing districts ; though
there are, of course, a number in Glasgow.

Not many manufacturers regularly manage their
own export business. Here, at least, the British
merchant is usually employed as intermediary in
all branches of the trade. In some cases foreign
import houses deal direct with the British mill-
owner, sending round buyers to the mills at
regular intervals to choose among the new season's
goods. A considerable amount of the trade be-
tween the Scotch tweed districts and Germany,
for instance, is carried on in this fashion. Or
again, manufacturing done on contract for colonial
or foreign Governments, such as the making of
uniform and army cloths, may be arranged for
directly between the agent of the purchasing

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION l6^

Government and the manufacturer. But, as a
rule, there is room for the merchant.

The bulk of the export trade, in the nature of
the case, is with civilised and temperate lands or
their colonies and dependencies. Your savage
easily acquires a taste for cotton ; he soon be-
comes a purchaser of cheap blankets ; as he
unlearns his old habits he may begin to use ready-
made clothing, though it will probably not come
to him at firsthand ; but he rarely becomes a
good customer of the woollen and worsted piece
merchant. The chief buying countries are, like
ourselves, subject to fashion. There is little of
that class of business in which the merchant
steadily buys standard qualities of goods, for dis-
tribution among uncivilised peoples or peoples
with conservative tastes. Such business is not
unknown ; but it is rare and it grows rarer.
There is nothing- in the woollen or worsted trade

comparable to the demand for plain cotton goods
from India and the tropics. The thing that most
nearly resembled it was the American demand
in the old days for what were known as slave
cloths ; but that has been dead these forty years.
A great deal of export work is in the hands of
houses in London and the North that do a varied
trade in many types of textiles ; but there are
also a number of firms whose business is entirely
in woollen and worsted goods ; and others which

i68 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

confine themselves, generally speaking, to either
woollen or worsted after the old fashion. But as
the public taste abroad, as well as at home, runs
at times towards worsteds, and at other times to-
wards woollens, strict specialisation on the part
of merchants has long been declining.

A distinction is sometimes drawn in Yorkshire
between the export merchant, properly so-called,
and the shipper, who does merchant's work, but
not quite in the merchant's way. Shipper and
merchant stand in different relations to the manu-
facturer and perform rather different functions in
the task of distribution. The latter takes greater
risks and requires more capital. He receives the
manufacturer's patterns season by season, makes
his selection and orders his pieces, trusting to his
knowledge of the markets with which he deals to
insure him against loss. The shipper, on the
other hand, gives no orders to the manufacturer
until he himself is provided with orders from
abroad. He sends the patterns to his customers
and places his orders in this country accord-
ing to the results of this canvass of the foreign
market. Naturally he is somewhat behind the
fair, as far as patterns are concerned ; for before
his orders come in, the merchant who has a stock
of new materials may be selling them in competi-
tion with him. On the other hand, as he takes
few risks and has not to keep much money locked

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 169

up in goods, he can afford to quote low prices to
the foreign buyer ; and in markets where it is
not necessary to offer the very latest English
patterns this is an important consideration. All
this applies chiefly to fancy goods, or at any rate
to goods which are not of standard types. But a
very large proportion of our exports now belongs
to the class which is made from fresh patterns
year by year. In the case of standard goods and
repeat orders, the shipper's position is but little
different from that of the merchant. He is sure
to be able to get the former at short notice, and
the latter can be executed as quickly for him as
for any one else.

From what has just been said, it will have
been gathered that making to order rather than
making to stock prevails in the woollen and
worsted industries to-day. There are, of course,
in each section of the trade some classes of goods
which could be made to stock to a limited extent
without too great risk. Plain and self-coloured
materials of all kinds are cases in point. Blankets
or blue serge or billiard table cloth might be made
to stock more safely than worsted trouserings or
Scotch tweeds. But it is not safe to 2fo far with

such work, so that, generally speaking, it is
avoided. Twenty years ago a Scotch tweed
manufacturer mentioned in evidence before a
Royal Commission that "all the goods made

170 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

in the South of Scotland trade were made to
order " ; and a mill-owner from the Yorkshire heavy
woollen district told the Commissioners that in
his neighbourhood, owing to the frequent changes
of fashion, they were "cautious not to overstock,
. . . hence the difficulty of keeping themselves
going with orders that came in a retail way, instead
of in the large wholesale way which characterised
the business when all the goods were plain ; and
this hand-to-mouth style of business . . . pro-
duced a good deal of cautiousness ". The state
of things described by these two representative
manufacturers has become more pronounced since
1886 faster shiftings of fashion and an increased
taste for fancy materials of all sorts ; hence less
and less opportunity of making for stock ; more
and more small orders, and greater demands on
the technical skill and organising capacity of the
employer.

It has already been mentioned that the work
of the old type of Yorkshire woollen and worsted
merchants included the purchase of undyed ma-
terials goods "in the grey," as they are called
in the worsted trade, or "in the balk," as the
woollen phrase is. These were dyed and finished,
and sold both at home and abroad. This class of
business has never ceased, but it is not as import-
ant as it once was. Certainly the old custom
of handling large stocks of material in this way is

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 171

on the decline. The pure shipper does not under-
take this work, as his business is more that of
an agent than that of a risk-taking capitalist,
and the merchants do less of it than they did. But
it should not be forgotten that, though the pure
merchant may be disposed to avoid this particular
form of risk, there are some important manufac-
turing firms that, besides undertaking it cheerfully,
do their own merchanting at home and abroad
into the bargain.

The terms on which manufacturers sell to mer-
chants and others vary very greatly ; but some
account of them cannot be omitted, although it is
impossible to make such an account complete.
Long credits were a feature of the old-fashioned
business, and they still survive in certain branches.
Where the tailor has to wait for his money, he is
apt to make the merchant wait too, the merchant
in his turn exacting generous treatment from the
manufacturer ; and a custom of long credit once
established, whether on this or on less reasonable
grounds, is not easily got rid of. In the Scotch
tweed trade one hears of six months' credit, with
a four months' bill on top of that and a discount
of 2\ per cent, at the finish, as a regular custom.
The manufacturers, not unnaturally, grumble at
such terms, but have not yet broken them down.
In Yorkshire things are managed differently, and
when a clothier not a merchant is the buyer, busi-

172

ness is often exceedingly prompt. It is a common
arrangement, especially in the Bradford district,
for the clothier to pay cash within seven days,
with a substantial discount of course. Monthly
payments, also with a discount, are very common
in all parts of the West Riding. A member of a
clothing firm outside Yorkshire once spoke to
me almost plaintively of the Yorkshireman's per-
sistence in this monthly demand for cash. Another
arrangement, frequent in the Leeds and Hudders-
field districts, is for the clothier to pay for spring
goods in May and winter goods in November, in
each case with a small discount. As the former
would be delivered about the beginning of the
year and the latter about July, this amounts to
some four months' credit. This method of pay-
ment by seasons is also common as between
merchant and manufacturer, but in this case the
periods may be rather longer. Spring goods are
delivered by the manufacturer between, say, Sep-
tember and February, and are paid for, again
with a small discount, in April ; winter goods being
paid for in similar fashion about October. Two
payments yearly and a 2\ per cent, discount may
be considered a normal arrangement, but cus-
toms vary from firm to firm and in the different
branches of the trade. Some mercantile firms
prefer monthly payments and heavier discounts ;
while repeat orders that do not fall fairly into either

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION 173

of the two seasons will be paid for under some
arrangement different from that which applies
to regular season goods. Lastly, the terms be-
tween manufacturer and shipper differ from those
between manufacturer and merchant, as would
be expected, for the shipper neither waits so long
for his money nor takes so much risk as the
merchant who carries large stocks of goods. In
this case the monthly payment with a small dis-
count is the ordinary arrangement.

CHAPTER V
LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES

difficulties connected with any attempt
_L to determine quite accurately with our
existing statistical material, the number of per-
sons employed in the woollen and worsted in-
dustries were pointed out in the Introduction to
this book. As to the indirect employment which
these or any industries give that is a thing
which can never be put into figures. A great
staple trade draws into the circle of its depen-
dents railwaymen and miners, landowners and
farmers, makers of machinery and makers of
houses, bankers, lawyers, accountants, and pro-
fessional football players, besides the large com-
mercial class that is engaged directly in the work
of collecting its raw material and distributing its
products. The figure of 259,909 which repre-
sents the total number of persons employed in
the year 1901, according to the returns made to
the factory inspectors, is no doubt somewhat
inexact. It certainly does not include all those
employed about the mills, though not in the

174

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 175

actual manufacturing processes ; it only includes
those dyers, bleachers and printers some 3,000
all told who serve in the mills and not in
separate works ; but it is as accurate a return as
we are likely to get of those engaged in the
primary processes described in Chapter II.

The West Riding of Yorkshire is the only
county area in which a really considerable section
of the people is occupied in these processes. Of
all the men and boys in regular work in the
Riding, one in every twelve, and of all the wage-
earning women and girls rather more than one
in every four, is so occupied. At Bradford the
figures are naturally far higher more than one
working boy or man in five, and nearly one
working woman or girl in two, being employed in
the actual task of manufacture in the worsted
mills. Those indirectly dependent on the trade
must form almost the whole of the population of
a town like Bradford, and maybe a quarter or a
third of the population of the Riding.

The total body of wool workers is composed of
men and women in the proportion of two-fifths to
three-fifths, almost exactly. Of the 106,598 men
more than 83,000 and of the 153,311 women
more than 114,000 are (or were) eighteen years
old and upwards full grown according to the
standard of the factory acts. Some 54,000
boys and girls between twelve and eighteen were

176 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

working full time ; while 7475 children between
twelve and fourteen were serving as half-timers.
This latter class, the ignorant subject of so much
controversy and of two generations of factory
acts, is now on the high road to extinction, per-
haps soon to be legislated out of existence alto-
gether. More stringent education and factory
laws, combined with other circumstances, reduced
its numbers very rapidly during the last decade of
the nineteenth century. From nearly 23,000 in
1889-90 they had fallen in 1901 to the figure just
quoted, and there has no doubt been a further
fall since that date. What half-timers remain are
employed almost entirely in the Yorkshire worsted
spinning mills, where their services and those of
the other young children whom the raising of the
school age keeps from work, have long been
valued, and where their loss is sometimes re-
gretted the more so as it is not always easy to
get their simple tasks performed by the older
boys and girls, who naturally aim at better paid
work.

Another section of the mill-workers, whose
numbers deserve special attention, is that of
the married women. In Yorkshire the typical
county wives and widows make up about a sixth
of the women workers, that is to say some 19,000.
How many are wives and how many widows the
census returns do not state, but it may be as-

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 177

siimed that the percentage of widows is high ; for
a woman who loses her husband naturally goes
back to the mill in which she worked before
marriage. There can be no doubt, however,
that many thousands of wives are in regular work,
to the detriment of their health and that of the
next generation. According to an apparently
well-founded opinion, their number has declined
considerably of late years, but the question has
not been tested statistically. Their continued
presence in the mills, even in reduced numbers,
is a source of disquiet to the best employers ; but
in existing circumstances it is not easily avoided.
Legislation alone could effectually bar the mill
doors against the wife of the idler, the out-o'-work,
or the under-paid ; and what the effect of such
leofislation would be cannot be discussed here.

Only one more point of interest can be indicated,
namely, that although two-thirds of the married
women are weavers, yet the highest percentage of
married women is found in the combing mills.
The reason for this seems to be that heavy tasks
in these mills, of a kind not usually given to
women, are frequently undertaken by sturdy Irish
women ; and among the poor Irish the wife more
often goes to work than among the English.

Except at certain points, the line between
men's and women's work is fairly well marked,
although not with absolute precision. Broadly

178 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

speaking, a woman neither sorts nor washes the
raw wool, at one end of the scale, neither dyes
nor finishes the pieces, at the other. She may
serve as a back washer or fill some subordinate
post connected with the first washing. About
the carding rooms few women are to be seen ;
though in the woollen trade they are fairly often
employed to feed the engines. This is a light
and simple task, particularly when an automatic
feeding mechanism is introduced. All that the
human feeder then has to do is to heap wool into
a trough. The machine does the rest. Women
regularly tend preparing boxes and combs. At
this stage men fill only the few more responsible
posts, except of course on the night shift.
Women constantly handle and sort rags ; but
they are not likely to be in charge of rag-grind-
ing machines or to have anything to do with the
task of blending raw materials. Worsted spin-
ning rooms are full of young women and girls,
with only a sprinkling of male overlookers ;
whereas woollen mules always give a good deal
of employment to men, though girls and women
may be engaged about them. Weaving is
curiously mixed. The Bradford trade, in the
technical sense, is the home of the girl weaver ;
men have been well-nigh forced out of it. In the
worsted coating trade, and in most branches of
woollen weaving, the sexes work side by side;

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 179

but there is a tendency for the heaviest and
most complex looms to be tended by men. In
Huddersfield and district, for example, the per-
centage of male workers is unusually high, just
as in Bradford it is unusually low. Everywhere
the general oversight and direction of weaving,
as of all operations, is in the hands of men.

Without entering into the statistical contro-
versy that has raged rather bitterly of late years,
it may be stated definitely that, since about the
year 1890, there has been a decline in the num-
ber of persons employed directly in the woollen
and worsted manufacturing processes ; although
this decline has been accompanied by increased
employment in some of the associated trades,
such as dyeing, and in the commercial pursuits
connected with the industry. The bald figures
of the factory inspectors are: 1890, 301,556;
1896, 284,441 ; 1901, 259,909. The census
figures tell much the same story ; and the slow
growth of those towns which are most completely
given up to the industries, during the last decade
of the nineteenth century, is a further bit of
evidence in support. It is, however, most im-
portant to note that there has been no appreciable
reduction in the demand for adult labour. For
England and Wales, the number of persons over
twenty employed in the trade was in 1891, 161,394
and in 1901, 160,999. The decline is there-

i8o WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

fore mainly a decline in the employment of half-
timers and young persons. That there has been
no counterbalancing growth may be traced in part
to the steadily growing efficiency of machinery ;
in part to the increased use of cotton yarns and
cotton materials ; in part to the rise of factories
and of tariffs abroad. These last points will be
dealt with in later chapters. Here I am only
concerned to make it clear that actual mill work
in this great branch of the textile industry does
not demand an increasing number of hands year
by year ; rather the reverse. " It's a good thing,"
as a working spinner from the heavy woollen
district once said to me, "that these electric
trams have come to give the lads work." For-
tunately other things have developed besides
trams.

Employment in almost all branches of the
industries is apt to be somewhat irregular, and
the present industrial, commercial and political
situation in some ways tends to increase irregu-
larity. Seasons, fashions, fluctuations in the
price of raw materials and foreign tariffs are the
special causes of irregularity, that operate in
addition to those ordinary alternations of good
and bad trade which affect all industries alike.
There is a normal fluctuation of employment, due
to the alternate demands for summer and winter
goods ; and there are abnormal fluctuations, due

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 181

to mild winters or cold summers and the resulting
changes in the demand for the different types of
materials.

Fluctuations of employment due to fashion
are of frequent occurrence. They affect whole
districts and even whole countries. "When
crinolines went out," said the late Sir Jacob
Behrens to the Commissioners on the Depression
of Trade and Industry in 1884, "the fashion set
in for very soft and nicely draping goods, which
the French were far better able to supply than
we were ; and as many of our mills were not
prepared to follow the fashion, there was an
enormous competition for the reduced home and
foreign demand for Bradford mixed goods."
"When the taste for mantle cloth is in smooth-
faced goods," said a witness before Mr. Cham-
berlain's Tariff Commission in 1905, "then this
cloth is largely made on the Continent, but when
the taste ... is for tweeds, then the H udders-
field cheap tweeds come in and hold their own."
Or to quote another of Mr. Chamberlain's
witnesses " The West Country people . . .
suffered when the worsted cloth came in. We
Yorkshirermn are really the culprits, because we
introduced a new kind of cloth that knocked out
the West of England people. " These are merely
illustrations of the working of fashion inside the
industry itself, given in the words of men who

1 82 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

know. There is also room for fashion to work
between wool and other materials. Cases in
point are the recent popularity of cellular under-
clothing, which has in part superseded wool
fabrics, and the immense use of mercerised cotton
in place of some of the mixed products from the
Bradford stuff looms.

Fashion is not always mere whim. It may
have a simple economic origin ; the fluctuations
of employment which at first sight seem due to
fashion, may be seen to depend on fluctuations in
the price of raw material. For the public at
large becomes more and more accustomed to
dressing at a price; and if "our half-guinea
skirt" or "two guinea suit" cannot be made of
the old materials at that price, so much the worse
for the materials and for the fashion which dic-
tated them. A few years ago, when Australian
cross-bred wool was abnormally cheap, light "all-
wool " worsteds for women's wear, made in
Bradford, were beating out the cheaper and
flimsier varieties of those soft, but not always
honest, French materials that came in after the
crinoline days. These light serges and such like
were sent largely to the colonies and South
America, as well as to the home n-arket. But
the rise in wool, 1903-6, altered rie situation.
The price of the all-wool worsteds became pro-
hibitive. Their place began to be taken by

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 183

" woollen " serges of varied materials, from Leeds
and Morley. With dear wool also has come the
prosperity of the Colne valley tweed maker, and
of manufacturers of all those various cotton mat-
erials, which may on occasion be substituted for
worsted or mixed fabrics. There is thus no sort
of certainty that employment will be all good or
all bad at one time throughout the wool industries ;
and there is every probability that in any given
branch it will be subject to frequent changes.

The tariffs make things worse. Markets upon
which the activity, if not actually the existence,
of the trade of whole districts depended have at
times been shut as it were in a night. Where
the closing of a market is due to the growth of
a local industry, the process is likely to be slow,
and the adjustment in this country need give no
great trouble ; but dramatic fiscal events, such as
the McKinley tariff, are bound to have disorgan-
ising effects, although those effects are not
necessarily permanent. And wool textiles have
been experimented on by protective tariff makers
more freely than most commodities, perhaps
more freely than any except silks.

There is as yet no trustworthy means of test-
ing whether or not irregularity of employment is
on the increase. Confident assertions have been
made on both sides in the course of recent con-
troversy, but they cannot be put to the test of

1 84 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

statistics. An exact average of truth for the
whole trade cannot be struck out from the con-
flicting assertions of experts from different towns
and different political parties ; and there are no
comprehensive Trade Union figures, such as
some industries can show. But the fact that the
total amount of employment has ceased to grow
is some argument in favour of increased irregu-
larity, at any rate locally ; for a population
accustomed to enter a certain trade does not
lose the habit all at once ; and if employment in
the trade is not expanding, there are likely to be
more people qualified to earn a living in it than
there are posts for them to fill.

That a surplus body of reasonably qualified
workers exists is shown by the comparative ease
with which night work can be resorted to in an
emergency, in some branches of the trade. As
the factory acts forbid such work for women
the night shift must be all men. This is a bar
to night work in worsted spinning and stuff
weaving. But in the Yorkshire woollen and
worsted coating districts about Batley, for in-
stance, and about Huddersfield there has, as a
rule, been no great difficulty in arranging for
night work of late years ; for mule spinners are
men and a large number of male weavers is still
available. The simplest method of organising
night weaving is to turn all the male weavers on

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 185

at nights, giving them extra pay, and take on
more women for the day. These are more likely
to be married women, who are tempted back to
the mills for a time in the hope of extra earnings,
than regular working women who, but for the

O O

double shift, would be seeking places in vain.
But these complete night and day shifts, when
they are not a regular institution, must contain
some who in normal times would be otherwise
occupied, or not occupied at all.

Work outside factory hours may of course be
done by men at any season and in any trade.
Looms are mounted, carding engines "fettled,"
repairs executed and other jobs performed in this
way, in all branches of the industries. In one
branch only is night work a regular institution
in the combing mills. A regular institution but
very far from a regular trade ; for the fluctuations
of the whole industry are, as it were, handed on
with interest to those who comb at night. There
are first the ordinary fluctuations, which affect
combing as well as spinning and weaving. Then
too, any temporary shortage of combing work is
felt most acutely in the commission mills, for the
spinner who runs combs naturally works his own
machinery to the utmost in slack times, and dis-
penses with commission work so far as he can.
The comber, when work is slack, keeps it up by
day and cuts down the night work, though he

1 86 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

never suspends night work altogether if he can
help it. When the sales are on in London or on
market days at Bradford he may not know up to
the last moment how much wool he will have to
handle during the next few days. There may or
may not be full work for the night shift. Hence
it often happens that the night comber, like the
docker, comes to see if there is work in the even-
ing, and, finding none, returns. This is a great
hardship and a great grievance ; but the attempts
made by combers to regularise employment have
not yet got rid of it. Without some fundamental
change in the character of the trade it is hard to
see how it could be entirely got rid of, for at
present the employer cannot always tell his men
in advance when they will or will not be wanted.
What the average amount of employment for a
night comber is has never been authoritatively
determined. In the course of an inquiry carried
out in 1897-8 by the Bradford labour organisa-
tions, three and a half nights a week was given
as about the average throughout the trade.
This may have been an under-statement, as in all
industries there is a tendency for the men's
organisations to exaggerate and for the masters
to minimise irregularity, in the absence of
accurate statistics. But it is certain that the
night comber's position is an unsatisfactory one.
And it is not surprising that the question of

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 187

night combing is a storm centre in Bradford
labour politics.

The night comber, it may be added, is not
necessarily a comber in the narrowest technical
sense. Women make excellent comb minders,
and are often preferred for that task. Also the
carding and back washing of a given quantity of
wool take longer than the actual combing in
some cases twice as long. So it is possible to
do all the combing by day and confine the night
work to the preliminary processes, though this
practice is not universal. Work in the combing
mills has another drawback it is exacting, owing
to the high temperature at which the operations
are always carried on. This is, of course, es-
pecially trying to the night shift, who are ex-
posed to extremes of heat and cold, but it renders
all combing rather unwholesome, though not
definitely dangerous. Profuse perspiration is
almost inevitable, so that both men and women
work lightly clad. Scandalous allegations as to
the conditions of work were made during the
controversy of ten years ago ; but they proved to
be grossly exaggerated, although the sanitation
and conveniences of some of the older mills left
much to be desired.

Taken as a whole, wool working in all its
departments is a reasonably healthy occupation.
But at some points dangers exist which require

WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

special precautions, and at others dirt and dis-
comfort, if nothing worse, are almost inevitable.
One very horrible danger hangs over the wool
sorter and the "willeyer," when dealing with
certain classes of material the risk of anthrax,
"wool sorter's disease" as it was called when
first it made its appearance in the industry, some
seventy years ago. The need for special pre-
cautionary measures in dealing with dangerous
wools was recogTiised in Bradford lon^ aoxx and

O O -T"*

suggestions for the guidance of masters and men
were drawn up locally in 1884. These rules
were taken over by the Home Office and turned
into legal enactments in 1889, and have since
been revised and expanded. They affect the
Bradford district almost exclusively : for the chief
materials scheduled as dangerous are Van mohair,
alpaca. East Indian cashmere, and camel hair,
all of which go primarily into the Bradford trade.
Bales of Van mohair and "Persian locks," the
most dangerous substances of all, may not even
be opened until they have been thoroughly
steeped in water. The less dangerous wools on
the list must be opened over a wire work screen
"with mechanical exhaust draft, in a room set
apart for the purpose ". The willeying machine
must also have an efficient exhaust draft. All
the details of the operations, the dress of the
operatives, the conditions under which they take

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 189

their meals, the very nail brushes in the lava-
tories, come within the scope of the law so
completely has the State become the official
guardian of those whose daily occupations in-
volve risk.

Rags like wool have their dangers, but the
rag sorter's task is offensive and laborious rather
than risky ; though, as much of the work is done
by women, cases of internal injury resulting from
the handling of heavy bales are more common
than one could wish. Unless disinfected, rags
may carry disease, and are certain to carry para-
sites ; but there is no definite ailment to which
those who deal with them are specially liable.
While being ground in the ''devil," however, the
rags fill the air with an unpleasant dust, half
wool, half dirt, which is intensely irritating to the
throat and often brings on "shoddy fever," a
disease not unlike epidemic influenza in its
symptoms and course. Yet, provided the mills
are reasonably well looked after, the rag worker's
life need not be unhealthy. I never saw a
more wholesome-looking set of factory girls
than the sorters and seamers in a certain half-
rural Yorkshire "merino" mill of my acquaint-
ance in spite of its sickly, sweaty smell and the
incrustation of unwholesome-looking grey fluff
on beams and brick work, beyond the reach of
the broom.

1 9 o WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

For the rest, there is little to say. All factory
work has its monotony, its noise, its dangers to
the health of girls and especially of married
women, due to long standing and unremitting if
not serious strain. No trade is without defects
of sanitation and construction in mills and work-
shops, or without numerous processes involving
some slight degree of risk. Such things are
found neither less nor more in the woollen and
worsted industries than in others. The condi-
tions of work for spinners, weavers and indeed
for most types of operatives are normally good,
and in the best of the mills they leave nothing to
be desired. Only a small group of worsted and
a very few woollen spinners are subject to the
inconvenience of an artificially produced humi-
dity, so common in flax and cotton spinning.
There are few heavy tasks that demand great
strength and endurance, such as are found so
often in the iron and steel industries. One such
task, that of "blanket stoving," has sometimes
been reckoned risky, but was definitely left out
of the list of dangerous trades, after careful in-
quiry, some few years ago. The heavy part of
the work consists in carrying great bundles of
blankets to and from the stoving houses, where
they are bleached and dried by exposure to
sulphur fumes, and in stretching them between
posts on the "tenter fields".

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 191

In spite of exposure to alternations of sul-
phurous heat and damp cold, the stovers are a
healthy and hardy set better developed and
less anaemic-looking than many textile opera-
tives. For it must certainly be admitted that the
mill hands of the towns, as a class, are not a fine
race physically. Those who remember well the
old type of cottage weavers and their half-rural
life, sometimes speak bitterly of the deterioration
that the mills have brought about. But pro-
bably any deterioration that there may have been
and its existence, one must remember, is as-
serted rather than proved is due more to the
towns than to the mills. The merit of the old
order was not that work was done at home, but
that the workers' houses usually lay as many of
them fortunately still lie in small towns and
big villages on the windy flanks of the Yorkshire
and Scottish moorlands. When the hand-loom
weaver, bent over his loom sixteen hours a day,
or the hand comber with his brazier and charcoal
fumes, chanced to be a real townsman, his lot was
unenviable enough as the reports of the Hand-
loom Weavers' Commission in the thirties of the
last century bear witness.

In dealing with wages among the wool workers,
generalisation is absolutely impossible, unless
each district is treated separately ; and even then
it is far from easy. Within the limits of the pre-

1 92 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

sent chapter such an exhaustive treatment of all
the manufacturing districts would be both impos-
sible and undesirable. Attention will be con-
centrated on the West Riding, the headquarters
of the trade ; and it will be hard enough to get
at the whole truth even there.

Woollen and worsted wages are neither very
high nor very regularly earned. Of the irregular-
ity something has already been said. It introduces
an element of the greatest uncertainty into wage
calculations. There is often difficulty enough
even in finding out what is a full week's wage for
an average weaver or spinner, comber, sorter,
fuller, or warper ; but what is the average number
of weeks worked per year ? That is a question
the answer to which varies from year to year,
as well as from mill to mill, and with which no
statistician has been able to deal in a satisfactory
fashion. One can sometimes get rough estimates
from the workers themselves ; but they do not
claim to be more than estimates. It is stated in
Bradford labour circles, for instance, as has been
already mentioned, that night combers as a class
cannot get work more than two-thirds of their
time. Employers admit considerable irregularity,
but point out that some combers at any rate will
not take full work when it is to be had. What
the inevitable amount of unemployment for an
average comber under present conditions is we

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 193

cannot know with any certainty. The discrep-
ancies which constantly occur between the wage
estimates of masters and men are usually connected
with this question of irregularity. The masters
generally quote the wage for a full week's work ;
the men often quote what they believe to be the
wage for an average week's work. When esti-
mates from both sides agree, we are on safe
ground. Such concordant estimates usually re-
late to a full week's work.

This is not the place to grapple with the difficul-
ties of a wage census. Twenty years ago, in 1 886,
such a census was taken. Though far from com-
plete, it has formed the starting point for all later
inquiries. The figures and facts given here may
be taken as some slight contribution to the ques-
tion. They were collected from employers and
representative members of trades societies during
the years 1904-6. These figures have been
checked by comparison with all other available
statistics, especially with those quoted in the report
of an inquiry into the conditions of work in
combing mills, carried out by Bradford labour
organisations in 1897-8. Only the larger groups
of workers can be dealt with ; for to follow the
trade in all its ramifications is impossible. Unless
otherwise stated, the figures refer to a full week's
work. Taking first men's wages in the worsted
trade of the Bradford district we find that the
13

i 9 4 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

wool sorter earns from 285. to 325. a week, the
higher rates being secured when working by the
piece, the lower being the standard rate. Washers,
who are subdivided into steepers, feeders and
washbowl minders, make from 2Os. to 26s. 6d.,
the upper rate being rare. Night washers are
paid more than day washers, 243. by night and
22s. 6d. by day, being the respective average
rates in one case. The average rates for the
whole trade are probably rather lower than these.
Overlookers in carding, drawing, spinning and
weaving usually make upwards of 305., but not
often more than 355. or 365., though an overlooker
in a position of special trust, in any branch of the
trade, may at times earn very high wages.
Among the overlookers the spinners are gener-
ally the worst paid, their wages in some cases
falling below 305.

Ordinary night workers in the combing mills
make from i8s. 6d. or 193. to 235. a week,
according to the nature of their tasks. During
the day the work is done at lower rates ; but
much of it then falls to women and boys. The
average earnings of the night workers always
be it remembered for a full week's work are
not much above 205. ; the best paid classes being
the back washers and " card jobbers " with 225.
or 233. This does not include the washers, but
does include their assistants and auxiliaries, who

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 195

do what in the daytime is women's or boys'
work. 1

Two small, but fairly well-paid classes are the
twisters and warp dressers. They usually work
by the piece so that their earnings are not very
easily reckoned ; but the normal standing wage,
i.e. the time rate, for both classes is 305. When
on piece work their earnings may run up to 365.,
or in single weeks, a good deal higher. In this
case much depends on the class of materials to
be handled, and of course on the skill of the
men. There is also a common practice of assign-
ing warp dressers their jobs by lot, which leads
to considerable inequality, but presumably works
out with tolerable fairness in the long run.

Women at work in the combing mills, picking
impurities and lumps from the washed wool,
back washing and minding combs or boxes, earn
from us. to 1 4.5. The former figure is a low
wage for an adult ; and the average probably lies
between 125. and 135. Girls may be employed
at i os. or less. The average earnings of women
and girls in the spinning mills are harder to as-
certain than in most departments ; for the number
of " sides "-sides of frames that is which one

1 A number of the largest combing firms have agreed to
raise the wages of all those who earn over 153. by is., and of
all those who earn less than 153. by 6d. a week, from July,
1907.

196

person minds varies, and the wage naturally varies
with it. Perhaps the most satisfactory method of
illustrating the wage levels will be to quote the
average figures of a single representative mill for
the leading classes of women workers. They
are drawers, IDS. 2^d. ; spinners, 95. 3^d. ;
half-timers from 2s. 9d. to 45. according to skill.
The odd figures are arrived at by averaging to-
gether different sub-classes of workers, with dif-
ferent rates of wages. Thus the figure for draw-
ing is made up from the following list two
girls at us. 6d. ; two at us. ; six at IDS. 3d. ;
and six at 95. 6d. In this particular mill all, or
almost all, the drawing and spinning "hands"
are " young persons " and this is the general
custom. For warping and reeling women are
employed, at rates of pay varying from 125. to
1 6s. 6d.

In dealing with weavers, too, it may be well to
start from a single mill. It is a mill doing a
high class of work in the dress goods trade,
so that its figures may be taken as typical of
the best Bradford earnings in this branch. For
twelve weeks in 1904, including minor stop-
pages but no slack work, the weekly takings of
the weavers averaged 145. 8Jd. This figure
covers a great variety of individual earnings,
from the 123. or so of the worst weavers to the
175. or more of the best. For the power loom

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 197

by no means reduces all to one level of skill and
wage, and weaving is always paid by the piece.
From the side of labour it is maintained that
i2s. 6d. is about the average for the whole trade,
but, seeing that the best paying firms are generally
also the largest, it is almost certain that this is an
under-statement. Yet the average for full work
is not likely to exceed 145., and is probably nearer
135. 6d. A return from 109 Bradford firms,
quoted before the Labour Commission by Mr.
E. P. Arnold Foster in 1892, gave an average
actual wage of 135. $d. for nearly 12,000 weavers
during the years 1 890 and 1891. It was estimated
that had they been fully employed the wage would
have been nearly 8 per cent, higher, or say 145. 6d.
These figures, however, did not refer only to
dress goods weavers, but included some at least
of the better paid class of "coating" weavers.
The "coating" weavers in Bradford and district

are often men, and their work and pay approach
those of the worsted weavers of Huddersfield and
the best woollen weavers of Yorkshire and Scot-
land. Weavers of dress goods always mind two
looms, and if the looms are very narrow they may
mind even more. The worsted coating weaver,
on the other hand, when he is engaged on fine or
fancy work usually minds but one. In the higher
branches of woollen weaving, also, one loom to a
weaver is the rule, and throughout the woollen

198 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

industry the practice is prevalent ; for the yarn
used in low-grade work may be so tender as to
require a world of care, and the woollen loom,
as we have seen, is normally very wide. But
plain or cheap worsteds and some of the simpler
woollens can be produced successfully on the two-
loom system.

It is the custom in the Bradford district to pay
the same rates for weaving coatings to both men
and women rates which vary from 145. or 155.
to 2 is. or 22s. for the full week's work. The
average is probably not far from i8s., though in
labour circles it is believed to be considerably
lower. But in the present state of our statistical
information average weaving rates are extraordin-
arily hard to ascertain ; since the payment varies
with almost every variation in the goods pro-
duced, and these variations are infinite. The high-
class worsted weavers of the Huddersfield district
mostly men make from i8s. to 245. a week.
In a worsted weaving mill, where only women
are employed, in the Leeds district the average
is 195. 6d. It may be added that pattern weavers
in mills, that turn out the finer fabrics, can earn
considerably more than the rates here quoted for
ordinary weavers, but they are a very small class.

Worsted dyers are employed almost exclusively
by the great dyeing firms, and so their wages are,
strictly speaking, outside the scope of this book.

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 199

But they may fairly be put on record here. In
their case there is little room for uncertainty or
conjecture. By contract between the Bradford
Dyers' Association and the Unions of the working
dyers, the average standard wage for thirteen
separate tasks in 1905 was as nearly as possible
245. 6d. at Bradford, 233. 6^d. at Leeds and
Halifax, and 225. 7^d. in country districts. The
actual rates ranged only from 22s. to 26s., and in
Bradford only from 245. to 265. There are, how-
ever, a number of unscheduled tasks, which are
sometimes paid for at lower rates. At the begin-
ning of 1907 a 10 per cent, rise all round was
agreed upon.

As reference has already been made to woollen
weaving, it will be convenient to take weaving
wages first in dealing with that branch of the
industry. Here men and women often work
together, though the higher branches mainly em-
ploy men. In some districts men and women
are paid on different scales for the same work ;
in others the sexes are on an equal footing. About
Huddersfield, for example, men are paid 15 per
cent, more than women both in woollen and
worsted ; but in places where the male weaver
is rare such a privilege cannot be maintained. As
the fabrics range from the simplest and cheapest
shoddy cloths up to the best "dress faced" plain
materials and most complicated fancy ones, there

200 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

is naturally a most varied wage scale. Before
the Tariff Commission a Huddersfield tweed
maker said that his firm "expected" their weavers
all women "to earn i a week each on the
average when fully employed ". A witness from
Galashiels gave the weaving wage for his district
as 2 is. Five important mills, all within six miles
of Leeds, yield this list 12s. gd., 135. 6d.,
1 6s. io^-d., 175. gd., 2 is. It may be worth while
to mention, as an illustration of the difficulties of
an amateur wage census, that on making inquiries
from the side of labour, I was told that wages in
the fourth of these mills in the case of which my
information from the employer's side happens to
be particularly full and trustworthy would not
average above 145., even for good weavers. The
earnings of the worst paid and least competent
weavers are said to fall to 75. 6d. and less ; and
it is claimed in Trade Union circles that an
average of 135. 6d. for Leeds and its neighbour-
hood, together with the heavy woollen district,
would be, if anything, rather too high. Unfor-
tunately, those employers who pay the lowest
wages are the least likely to aid inquirers with
figures ; so that the definite figures quoted are
generally too high for the whole trade. Nothing
short of a stringent official wage census would get
at the absolute truth and rid us once for all of
guess work.

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 201

Outside weaving there is fortunately less room
for error, though wages vary from place to place,
and work is not arranged on a uniform plan in all
mills. The figures given here apply to "good"
mills in the Leeds district. Rates in other districts,
except Huddersfield, are usually somewhat lower.
Much the best paid class are the carding fore-
men. For them $ is no uncommon wage.
When not in a position of great responsibility they
may be only given 355. to 403. ; but for picked
men in responsible posts three pounds need not
be the limit. The weaving overlooker or tuner
earns from 355. to 405., perhaps rather more, the
foreman spinner from 403. to 503. Spinners'
wages depend on the character of their work.
For a man who minds one pair of mules 303. is
the rule, or rather more when the work is paid
by the piece. Two pairs of mules bring the
spinner from 355. to 405. Sometimes, though not
actually in Leeds, the spinner has a male assistant
known as a mule-head minder ; at other times
all his assistants are girls, "chain minders" and
"piecers".

The willeyers and fettlers, that is to say, men
who "fettle" the carding engines, are classed
together and have a common Trade Union.
Their Union rate in Leeds is 5^d. an hour, or 6d.
when working overtime, and their earnings run
from 235., with an average of about 26s. Where

202 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

much overtime is worked they may make upwards
of 305.

There remain sorting, washing, dyeing, and
the various finishing processes. Owing to the ex-
tensive use of rag wool, noils and other materials,
sorting is not carried on at all the woollen mills
by any means. Where sorters are employed they
receive about 305. Ordinary washing and dyeing
jobs bring in 235. on an average. This is the
Union rate, but rather less is paid in some cases,
and for certain jobs rather more. For the finish-
ing processes pay varies considerably with the
quality of the cloth. In the case of ordinary
materials that call for no special skill, scourers,
raisers, steamers and the like will not make more
than from 205. to 223. With more delicate tasks
wages rise towards 303. There are always some
highly paid men in the finishing department
foremen fullers and press setters for instance,
who earn from 315. to 375. ; but the staff and the
distribution of work among the staff is hardly the
same in any two mills, owing to the variety of
materials produced. This would render the task
of averaging exceptionally difficult. The finishing
of fine cloth is a trade in which wages are good,
but it is a small trade, and with small trades and
exceptional circumstances we are not here con-
cerned.

In the absence of really satisfactory statistics,

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 203

it is not surprising that a somewhat inconclusive
strife has been waged over the question of the
rise or fall of woollen and worsted wages in recent
years. It is clear enough that there has been
no general fall, though it is possible that here and
there, owing to special circumstances, some group
of wage-earners may have suffered. But it has
been maintained that there is no conclusive evi-
dence of a general rise since 1886. The figures
just given, when compared with those of 1886,
do, however, point to a slight general rise, and to
a very definite rise in certain cases. Weavers are
the most doubtful class, and, as weavers form the
largest group, this is important. But if it is hard
to prove a definite rise in their average earnings,
it would be impossible to prove a fall. Neither
the figures of twenty years ago, however, nor the
figures available to-day will bear the weight of
confident inferences. The change in the ratio of
men to women weavers and the changes in the
character of the work done introduce further
difficulties. On the whole, bearing in mind the
fact that the demand for weavers has certainly
not increased, it is safe to accept the opinion that
their wages have at best advanced by but a small
fraction. It is evident, too, that there has been
no rise in the cash earnings of the average wool
worker comparable to the rise in the earnings of
the average coal miner or bricklayer, let us say.

204 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

To discuss the causes of this contrast would take
us too far afield ; it must suffice to have called
attention to it. Nor is it possible to touch on the
question of the growth of real wages ; that is
to say, the increase in the purchasing power of
cash earnings. What improvement there has
been here is, of course, common to all trades.

The woollen and worsted industries properly
so called have never been strongholds of Trades
Unionism. There is, indeed, no great branch of
industry of equal importance, except agriculture,
in which the Unions have made less headway.
Out of the 260,000 operatives nearly 200,000
of whom are eighteen years old and upwards a
mere 7673 are entered as Union members in the
latest official figures (1904). This excludes dye-
ing, pressing and warehousing, but covers all the
true manufacturing operations. In the West of
England there is not a single Union, large or
small. In Scotland there is one at Galashiels,
containing 40 men and 74 women ; another at
Alva north of Alloa -with 70 members, all
women; a third at Glasgow, numbering 164 men.
These last are warpers, some of whom handle
cotton yarns. And this completes the list for
Scotland.

The list for Yorkshire is longer and more
varied ; but its very variety is a weakness from
the point of view of the labour strategist. There

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 205

are a few fairly strong Unions in specialised
branches of the trade, such as the National Union
of Wool Sorters, with over 900 members ; the
Bradford and District Warp Dressers, with up-
wards of 600 ; and the Yorkshire Twisters and
Drawers-in, with rather less. Among the weav-
ing overlookers there are several small compact
Unions, with an aggregate membership of about
1250. The warp dressers have other societies
besides that at Bradford, and there is more than
one society of twisters. If only for the sake of
its long life, the Amicable Society of W T oolstaplers
also deserves mention. I ts officially recognised ex-
istence dates from 1785, and it has 45 members.

Few of these Unions can show more than
one branch. Even the Yorkshire Twisters and
the National Woolsorters have only three each.
But the General Union of Weavers and Textile
Workers is exceptional in this and in other re-
spects. It has six branches and a membership
of over 1500, of whom 631 are women. As in
the whole of the United Kingdom there are
barely 1000 women Unionists in the woollen and
worsted industries, this society is of some im-
portance, but it is not really powerful, and its
membership fell off markedly between 1902 and
1904. It has some trouble in keeping up the
number of its male members, as might have been
expected, seeing that it is primarily a weavers'

206 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

society. Further proof of the weakness of Union-
ism would be superfluous. The reasons for that
weakness have long been under discussion, but
have hardly yet been fully explained. No ob-
server has ever failed to notice the striking con-
trast between wool and cotton in this respect, and
it is natural to seek an explanation by the use of
the comparative method. The map which shows
the distribution of the wool industries partly ex-
plains the contrast. Widely-scattered trades are
seldom highly organised ; and the woollen and
worsted industries are far less concentrated than
the cotton industry. There is concentration
enough in the West Riding, however, and yet
it has not begotten a vigorous Unionism. Other
causes must be at work. One of these is the great
cleavage between woollen and worsted, to which
there is no parallel in Lancashire. Woollen and
worsted men, whether employers or employed,
are often unconscious of common interests ; and,
indeed, their interests are very frequently not com-
mon, but diametrically opposed one to another.
This cleavage of interests and sympathies is re-
peated within the trades. The outsider does
well to avoid confusing the woollen trade of
Huddersfield with that of Batley. He must
understand that the Leeds trade is not as the
trade of Morley, which is five miles away, or as
that of Guisely, which is nine miles away. The

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 207

worsted stuff trade of Bradford is distinct from
the worsted coating trade of Huddersfield, and
Halifax carpet making has little in common with
either. Real and important lines of cleavage, due
to differences in processes and products, are
accentuated by that local feeling which is perhaps
the strongest force in the life of the West Riding,
and, thanks to which, places but a few miles
apart each work out their own salvation in their
own way. That which is done in Bradford is no
precedent for Leeds. Pudsey does not learn of
Cleckheaton, nor Ossett of Wakefield.

But the endless subdivisions of the industries
and the intensity of local life do not explain every-
thing. Weight must be given to the frequent
survival of what are commonly called patriarchal
relations between masters and men. In some of
the old family businesses strikes are unknown.
Two of the largest employers in the worsted
trade stated in evidence before the Labour Com-
mission, in the nineties, that there had never been
a strike at their mills, and that so far as they
were concerned Unions might have been non-
existent. Nor has the situation altered greatly
since their evidence was given. In the country
mills especially, the old relations of employer and
employed survive, and the Unions make little
headway.

Combination generally develops its most strik-

2o8 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

ing features in places where not only are there
concentrated many men of one craft, but where
the men work together in large bodies. Now,
owing to the decline in the number of male
weavers, this last condition is not often realised
in the West Riding. It is realised least where
there is most concentration, that is to say, in
worsted. At Bradford, the point of greatest con-
centration, the men in spinning and weaving mills
are largely, though not exclusively, employed in
positions of trust and authority. The rank and
file of the workers are women and girls.

It is very significant that the only Spinning
Union in the Bradford district is the Overlookers'
Provident Society. The Union of Weavers and
Textile Workers is represented in Bradford, but
it includes only a small minority of the weavers ;
whereas the Weaving Overlookers' Society is
a strong and compact body, with between 700
and 800 members from this small and "aristo-
cratic " group of workpeople. The Warpdressers
and the Twisters, who also have unions of some
strength, carry on the responsible business of
preparing the warp and mounting the loom.
So one might go on enumerating highly-skilled
trades of this kind whose members never repre-
sent any considerable proportion of the staff
of any particular mill. Their Unions are not
large popular organisations. They are, as a rule,

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 209

unlikely to initiate strikes. They seldom cover
the whole trade. Often their main concern is
friendly society work. And their members are
separated by occupation, position and sex from
the rank and file.

In combing mills and dyeworks men of the
same grade of skill work together in large
numbers, and the division of sex does not coin-
cide with the division between the overlookers
and the "overlooked". There are practically no
female dyers. In the combing mills there are,
roughly, three men to every two women. Brad-
ford alone contains over 3000 male combers.
Yet of these but 210 were members of the Brad-
ford Machine Woolcombers Society in 1904.
The dyers, on the other hand, are strongly
organised. The Huddersfield, Bradford and
District Dyers and Finishers Union has some
1300 members. The Amalgamated Dyers
one of the great Unions of the country are well
represented in the worsted trade ; while some
of the less skilled men in the dyeworks belong
to the Gasworkers and General Labourers
Union, a far greater society even than the
Dyers. The local Dyers Union the Hudders-
field and Bradford has been in existence over
fifty years. In short, dyeing is a typical organ-
ised trade in which, during the last ten years,
collective bargains have taken the place of the

210 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

individual wage contract between master and
man, and in which the associated employers and
the men's Unions may meet in pitched battle.
Such a battle was only just avoided by conces-
sions on both sides, at the end of 1906. The
small and exclusive craft of stuff pressing is even
more highly organised than dyeing. Like dye-
ing it is a man's trade ; and the pressers, like
the working dyers, treat almost as equals with
the powerful Bradford Dyers' Association.

That the labour organiser has met with so
little success in the combing trade may in part be
explained by reference to the very low position
that the combers hold in the scale of textile
operatives. It is notoriously difficult to form per-
manent organisations among bodies of ill-paid and
half-casual labourers ; and such, unfortunately, the
combers are, especially the night men. More
difficult tasks than the organising of such a class
have, no doubt, been solved by labour leaders in
the last eighteen years. The failure must not
be ascribed altogether to overmastering economic
circumstances. It is due in part to the absence
of any strong tradition of Trade Unionism in the
woollen and worsted trades ; in part, one may
fairly assume, to personal, and what may be
called accidental, causes. But the purely econo-
mic factors dominate the situation.

Turning to the woollen industry, one finds

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 211

that here also men of the same grade rarely
work together in large numbers, but that men
form a greater proportion of the rank and file
than in worsted spinning and weaving. Yet
the Unions are few, and with one exception
unimportant ; some purely local, some composed
of overlookers and other picked men. There is
no very obvious reason why this should be so.
Mule spinning is a man's task, and there is no
more efficient organisation in the Trade Union
world than that of the Lancashire Cotton Mule
Spinners, with 18,000 or 19,000 members. It
is true that owing to the smaller size of the
woollen mills, the spinners are more isolated than
their colleagues in Bolton and Oldham. But
none of these things suffice to account for the
fact that there is no regular Woollen Spinners'
Union. Local circumstances and local character
have to be called in to explain the matter. It is
a case of economic backwardness, pure and
simple, not the result of some specific economic
cause. To account for this backwardness would
require a treatise which might be made interest-
ing enough on the economics and psychology of
the West Riding.

The Weavers and Textile Workers is in part
a "woollen" society; but its importance is re-
lative, not absolute. In woollen, as in worsted,
it includes but a small fraction of workpeople ;

12 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

its position is not very strong, and it cannot be
said to exercise a decisive influence on the course
of affairs.

A few words must be given to the noteworthy
failure of Trade Unionism to take root among
the women of the Yorkshire mills. There are
nearly ten times as many women Unionists
among the linen and jute workers as there are
in all the wool industries. And the contrast
between wool and cotton is of course even
more striking ; for there are nearly 100,000
women in the cotton Unions, whereas in wool-
len and worsted there are barely a thousand
all told. No doubt girls, who do not expect
to spend their whole lives in the mills, are
always less attracted by such advantages as a
Union can offer, than men are. But that does
not explain the curious contrast between Lanca-
shire and Yorkshire. The explanation must be
sought in those general circumstances, briefly
referred to already, which have hindered the
growth of Unionism of all sorts eastward of
the Pennine Hills; since it may be taken as an
axiom that the organisation of women is never
likely to be complete where that of men is de-
fective. A rate of wages that is relatively low,
as compared with the cotton trade, has also
acted as a hindrance to Unionism in Yorkshire ;
for, although Unions certainly sometimes help

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 213

to make high wages, it is even more certain
that high wages in their turn favour the growth
of Unions. And as the effective organisation of
women is almost confined to the cotton trade,
which contains nearly 97,000 out of 125,000
women Unionists in the country, perhaps the
real problem for solution is not why the organ-
ised women in other industries are so few, but
why in that particular industry they are so
many. For such a discussion this is not the
place.

The weakness of Unionism, among both men
and women, carries with it as a matter of course
a lack of uniformity both in wage rates and
methods of paying wages. Time and piece
rates, different time rates, and different piece
rates for similar jobs exist side by side. In part
this is due, not to the weakness of the Unions
but to the variety of raw materials, of manufac-
turing processes, and of finished goods. There
are so many similar but not identical tasks in
weaving, for instance, that it is no easy matter
to draw up standard lists of piece wages. When
an attempt of this kind was made some years ago
in Bradford, there were first of all five separate
rates of pay for dress goods weavers, and then
no less than seventeen headings under which
additional payments might be made such as
the use of mohair weft, of extra shafts, extra

2i 4 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

shuttle boxes, extra beams, of the Jacquard
shedding motion, and so forth. Each of the
numerous classes of wool has its special diffi-
culties for sorters, combers and spinners. It
would be no light matter even for the most
capable Trade Unionists to come to an agree-
ment among themselves and with the employers
as to piece rates in all these varying cases. And
as piece payment is well established in most
branches of the trade, any attempt to force
employers to adopt time wages would be equally
difficult. Nor are such attempts either desirable
or likely to be made. The piece list difficulty
is no doubt one that could be got over ; it has
actually been got over in some cases ; but the
work is very far from easy.

Time and piece work exist side by side, as has
already been mentioned. Most Leeds woollen
spinners are paid by time, but some by the piece.
Exactly the reverse is the case with the Bradford
warp dressers. Weaving is normally paid by the
piece ; but there are cases in which the weaver
is paid a " standing '' or time wage. This is
likely to occur when some new material is being
produced. In such a case perhaps neither the
weaver nor the employer know at first exactly
how a piece rate will work out. Here, again, it
would not be easy to standardise such time rates ;
for they are based on the class of work usually

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 215

done in that particular mill, and these classes
vary almost indefinitely.

There is naturally, in each district, a rough
approximation to equality in the wages earned
by men or women of any given level of skill,
when in full work. "In every shop there is a
different level for piece-workers," writes the secre-
tary of a certain Union. "There are not two
exactly alike." But, he adds, "In comparing
some of the lists, which I often do, I find they
work out within coppers of each other ". " There
is no regular scale," says an employer in another
branch of the trade, "but the mills work more
or less together ; we know what others are giv-
ing for any particular class of work." Striking
differences in earnings are due, generally speak-
ing, rather to differences in the level of skill re-
quired in the various mills, and to differences in
the regularity of work, than to actual discre-
pancies in the rates of pay for tasks of a given
type whether those rates are time or piece
rates. There are such discrepancies. Labour
is not absolutely mobile because the workers
are not perfectly intelligent. It does not flow
quite automatically, as some old economists held,
to the towns or the mills where its remuneration
is the best ; but it is easy to make too much of
the resulting inequalities in earnings.

A weavers' piece list has been in existence in

216 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

the Huddersfield trade for over twenty years,
since 1883. It appears not to be followed
strictly in all cases ; but it forms the basis of
payment throughout the trade, and is regarded
as a satisfactory arrangement by Labour leaders
in the neighbouring districts. Its main principles
are fairly simple, and may be summarised thus :
for weaving a piece of cloth with a warp sixty
yards long, the weaver receives 3d. multiplied
by the number of picks per inch, when the
material is fancy, and 2d. multiplied by the
number of picks per inch, when it is plain. The
picks vary from about twenty to sixty or seventy,
and even more in some cases. A low number of
picks to the inch means a thick weft yarn and a
rapidly growing piece : so that the discrepancy
is far less than appears at first sight, when these
rates are translated into weekly earnings. Extra
payments for complicated work form part of the
scheme, as in the case of the Bradford list quoted
above.

This Bradford list was the result of prolonged
discussion between two committees, representing
the Chamber of Commerce and the other the
Trades Council. It was drawn up in 1895, and
is divided into two parts, one dealing with dress
goods, the other with coatings. But it never
met with general acceptance ; for neither the
Chamber nor the Council was in a position to

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 217

force manufacturers to adopt it. The men took
the view that it was unnecessarily complex ; and
one of their leaders told me that a simpler and
in every way better scale, which was at the time
in operation in one of the chief Bradford mills,
might well have been adopted as a basis. How-
ever this may be, the lists as finally drafted were
not agreeable to the trade as a whole ; and to this
day each firm arranges its weaving payments in
its own way, although there is of course a general
resemblance in methods. Similarly in spinning
both woollen and worsted, there is no officially
recognised system according to which piece rates
are reckoned.

Throughout the West Riding one meets with
surprisingly little indirect payment of wages.
Woollen mule spinning is the chief exception.
When this work is paid by the piece, it is
common for all payments to be made to the
spinner. He will hire what piecers he wants,
though there may be a general understand-
ing between the spinner and his employer as to
the earnings of the piecers. In worsted spinning,
on the other hand, the overlooker is not a small
employer after this fashion, and the women and
girls are paid directly by the firms. In some
branches of woollen weaving the weaver may
hire a lad or girl to act as "nipper," that is to
say, to do odd jobs about the loom ; but this is

2 i8 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

by no means common. Practically all sorting,
washing, combing, preparing, carding, dyeing,
and other jobs are paid for directly. Here and
there exceptions might be found ; but direct
payment is the rule of the trade. In no case, so
far as I know, is an adult paid indirectly.

There has never existed any organised sys-
tem of apprenticeship or training for the rank
and file of the woollen and worsted workers,
since the advent of the factories. Nor was
apprenticeship universal even in the pre-factory
days. Domestic spinning was naturally never
under regular apprenticeship rules. In weaving,
such rules had to a large extent broken down
before the rise of the mills. " I don't know of
any workmen who have served a regular appren-
ticeship," was the testimony of Nathan Murgat-
royd, a small Bradford stuff manufacturer, before
a House of Commons Committee in 1803. He
himself had learnt to weave in three months and
had "supported himself from twelve years of
age". Combing he had learnt "in less than
three months," and he saw no reason why others
should not do the same. From that day to this
things have not greatly changed. In some cases
boys and girls pick up their knowledge, while
engaged about the mills in inferior capacities-
half-timers, "nippers," or underlings of some
sort. In other cases |they are put straight to

LABOUR IN THE INDUSTRIES 219

work, of course making but small earnings at the
outset. Thus a girl weaver, who is leaving the
mill to marry, may secure the vacant loom for a
sister or friend, who has perhaps watched her at
work and so is in a position to learn easily. If
fortunate, the capable weaver may make her way
up the trade, passing from simple to more diffi-
cult tasks, or from a low grade to a higher grade

o o o

mill, as her skill advances. In worsted spinning,
a girl learns to take more and more sides ; in a
combing mill, she may be promoted from mind-
ing a preparing box at ios., to minding a comb
at 133. ; and so forth. So too, boys work their
way from simple and relatively unskilled to more
remunerative jobs. Even in the higher walks of
the industry there is little or no formal, though
a good deal of informal, apprenticeship. The
weaving overlookers, for example, form a dis-
tinct trade, into which lads generally enter
as overlookers' assistants ; though where male
weavers are common, a man may be promoted
from the ranks. At Bradford, where such pro-
motion is practically impossible, the Overlookers
Union is in a position to enforce fairly strict con-
ditions of apprenticeship. The situation of the
weaving overlookers corresponds with that of
most of the more highly skilled sections of wool-
workers. Their crafts must be regularly learned
and can hardly be picked up anyhow. But

2 2 o WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

formal entrance rules to these crafts are seldom
to be found, and it is nearly always possible for
a man of sufficient ability to rise in them,
whether or no he has learned them as a lad in
the recognised way. Sorting, until very recent
years, was an industry guarded by strict entrance
rules, including the old seven years of learning,
at Leicester. Yorkshire has long been more
lax in this respect ; but even there at least three
or four years were invariably required, though
neither in Yorkshire nor in Leicester was there
any system of indenturing apprentices. Latterly,
with the decline in careful sorting and so in the
demand for highly trained sorters, the entry to
the trade has become easier ; and complaints are
heard from the side of the men that its old
position as a skilled craft, relatively difficult of
access, is passing away.

CHAPTER VI
THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD

AS there is no single civilised or half-civilised
country without wool manufactures, a full
account of the industries abroad would be inor-
dinately long. They must be described only in
part and that briefly. Three groups of nations
claim attention. First there is a group of
the chief manufacturing nations, our neighbours,
clients and competitors. These deserve special
attention. In their case it is particularly inter-
esting to contrast foreign types of industrial
organisation with those of this country and to
estimate, so far as possible, the factors of com-
peting strength. Secondly, there is a group of
nations that have recently developed manufactures
on modern lines and are pushing forward towards
the first rank. These countries are, in some
cases, not such good clients of the English
manufacturers as they were. It is natural to ask
whether they are destined to become competitors
at home or abroad. Thirdly, there are the
wool-growing nations of the South, obviously

222 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

and not unnaturally discontented with an econo-
mic system, whereby the wool that they grow
goes half-way round the earth to be turned into
the clothes that they wear. They mean in course
of time to do their own manufacturing. Are
there any signs that the day when they will do so
is at hand ? That also is a question worth asking.

Among the nations of the first group France
has long held the foremost place. Her industry,
like ours, is organised largely with a view to ex-
port. Specially important as articles of export
are the women's dress materials, in the manufac-
ture of which the French excel. It has recently
been estimated that France sells 30 per cent, of
her total output of this class of goods abroad.
We in Great Britain have always imported far
more wool manufactures from France than from
any other country. In the past our industry has
been indebted to the French more than to any
nation, except the old Flemings. And it can still
learn from them. Although the French industry
has not expanded of late years so remarkably as
have the industries of Germany and America,
yet it maintains its reputation as the most finished
and artistic section of the wool manufactures of
Europe.

Exact statistics of employment and machinery
in France are not to be had, and those given in
the present chapter are estimates, to be accepted

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 223

with a certain amount of reserve. For employ-
ment, the figure adopted by our Board of Trade
is 199,400 for the year 1896 the last date at
which inquiry was made. This excludes dyeing
and finishing, which are estimated to occupy
another 14,500 men. The number returned in
1896 as actually employed in the "Industrie
lainiere " was 177,270. The Board of Trade
figure is arrived at by adding to this an estimate
of those returned under some other heading say
"textile industries not further specified" who
were really wool workers. For machinery there
are no recent official statistics ; but we have
some figures given in evidence before the French
Parliamentary committee that inquired into the
state of the textile industries in 1904. They are
avowedly only rough estimates, and they seem
remarkably low, as a comparison with the Eng-
lish figures given on page 7 will make clear ;
but they are useful for certain purposes and so
are worth quoting. 1 They run thus combs,

1 The English industry employs about 30 per cent, more
workpeople than the French, and yet if these figures are
correct it runs more than twice as many spindles and nearly
three times as many looms. The spindle figure is very likely
accurate ; for spinning forms a great part of our industry,
and the English spinner minds more machinery than the
French. The figure for looms probably does not include
the hand looms.

224 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

1600; worsted spindles, 2,000,000; woollen
spindles, 390,000 ; looms (some of which are
used for cotton as well as wool), 35,000. The
very great importance of worsted is the most
obvious fact here indicated It is in the manu-
facture of worsted fabrics, and fabrics into which
worsted enters, that France excels ; and so it is
to her worsted industry that most attention will
here be given.

The French worsted manufacture is concen-
trated to a high degree ; not to so high a degree
as the English, it is true, but conspicuously
enough nevertheless. Its headquarters lie in
the allied towns of Roubaix-Tourcoing, near to
Lille, on the extreme edge of the Department of
the North. Of combing, that Department has
an almost complete monopoly. It contains 87
per cent, of the combing operatives, and in 1901
Roubaix-Tourcoing alone turned out fifty-two out
of a total for the whole country of sixty-one
million kilos, of tops. The greater part of the
remainder came from the two half-English firms
of Isaac H olden & Sons and Jonathan H olden
at Reims, and some from Fourmies, sixty miles
S.E. of Roubaix but in the same Department.
Both Fourmies and Reims are declining as comb-
ing centres, and Roubaix absorbs the business
that they lose.

For spinning and weaving it is impossible to

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 225

give such precise figures. The Department of
the North contains 5 1 per cent, of all the working
spinners (both worsted and woollen) and about
50 per cent, of all the weavers in France. These
are for the most part worsted workers, but there
are some woollen firms at Roubaix and elsewhere
in the Department. The Reims district is second
in importance to the Roubaix district as a worsted
producer. The majority of the mills are in and
about Reims itself, but some are scattered far
and wide over the Departments of the Marne,
the Aisne and the Ardennes. All told, these
Reims worsted mills have 155,000 spinning spin-
dles. Both they and the mills 6T Fourmies have
been suffering of late from Roubaix competition,
largely because the two former towns are accus-
tomed to work pure merino wools, and have not
easily adapted themselves to use cross-breds and
to turn out the more quickly made and cheaper
materials that popular taste demands. Com-
plaints of stagnation, the shutting of mills, and
the loss of trade, were freely made before the
Committee in 1904.

The general organisation of the Reims and
Roubaix trades resembles that of Bradford in
many ways. Combing is a distinct industry and
the work is almost always done on commission.
Few spinners ever did their own combing, and
there is at present, as with us, a tendency for the
15

226 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

two trades to become absolutely distinct In
the Reims area, for example, there is now only
a single firm that both combs and spins. As in
England again, spinning and weaving are to a
large extent specialised businesses. Taking
the Reims district once more for which exact
figures happen to be available it appears that,
out of thirty worsted firms, five do nothing but
spin, twelve do nothing but weave, thirteen both
spin and weave. At Roubaix the proportion of
specialised firms is probably even higher.

Both in spinning and weaving, commission
work is at least as common in France as in this
country. The trade of Fourmies and the neigh-
bouring town of Le Cateau is largely dependent
on this class of work ; there is a certain amount
of it at Roubaix ; but in and around Reims it is
not found The "manufacturer" who gives the
commission is, in many cases, a man in a very
small way of business, who owns no machinery
himself but buys wool and sells yarn or pieces.
It is said that the spinners of Fourmies have
done harm to themselves and the French trade
by trying to spin too fine yarns, from the inferior
wools furnished them by these small men.

Closely connected with this commission spin-
ning and weaving in factories, is the practice
of getting yarn woven on the rural hand looms
the extensive survival of which further dif-

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD

ferentiates the French from the English in-
dustry. The hand loom has been almost com-
pletely driven out of the great manufacturing
towns and the old staple trades. But it still
survives in the villages round about Cambrai and
Le Gateau, southward towards St. Ouentin. and
in other parts of the departments of the North,
the Aisne and the Somme. The skilled
hand-loom weavers mainly produce novelties
for women's wear, of the type that are made only
in small quantities and of ever-varying pattern.
Thanks to these constant changes, to the economy
of life on the land and to their capacity for giving
character and individuality to their work, the
hand-loom weavers hold their own in competition
with power-driven machinery ; though their
sphere of action is being narrowed by the t -
for "tailor-made" clothes among women, and the
increasing popularity of moderate-priced and
serviceable machine-made goods. Yet villages
with two. three and four hundred weavers are
still to be found There can be no doubt that
the cheap skill and taste of these village crafts-
men is a valuable aid to the French industry ; for
the goods that they make are very largely ex-
ported to meet the demand fa Aact on the Lon-
don and other metropolitan markets. Sometimes
the cottage weaver works directly for the manu-
facturer or perhaps one should say the merchant

228 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

of Fourmies, St. Quentin, Reims or Roubaix.
His loom is his own ; but of course the yarn and
very often also the Jacquard harness, or some
part of it, are furnished by his employer, a custom
which had its parallel in this country in the hand-
loom days. Much of the business is done through
a class of middlemen known as contremaitres,
facteurs or coureurs who get the yarn and agree
on a price with the export houses and then make
their own bargains with the weavers. In his
spare time the weaver works on the land, as for
that matter do some of the Roubaix combers, when
trade is slack a curious contrast with Bradford.
In most branches, both of the worsted and
woollen trades, in France, hand-loom weaving
and domestic work generally have been rapidly
disappearing in the last five-and-twenty years.
There are few hand looms left about Reims
or in the Ardennes. At Elboeuf in Nor-
mandy, an ancient centre of the woollen trade,
the whole industry has been going through a
rapid process of concentration. There are still
hand looms, water-driven fulling mills in the val-
leys near the town, and other small concerns ;
but there has been an extraordinary change in
the general character of the industry since about
1880. "Twenty-five years ago," said the presi-
dent of the Chamber of Commerce of Elboeuf
before the Committee of 1904, "we were 250

THE|INDUSTRIES ABROAD 229

manufacturers. . . . We have been forced either
to start large establishments or vanish. Those
who had not the necessary capital have vanished.
. . . To-day there are but thirty-five concerns."
Moreover, worsted thread from Roubaix has
largely replaced the local woollen yarn ; and the
Elboeuf district, instead of turning out special
classes of woollens as it once did, now does a
miscellaneous trade somewhat after the style of
Leeds.

The same story of the disappearance of the
small concerns and the "family workshop " comes
from Vienne on the Rhone, a centre of what the
Englishman would call the shoddy trade, but what
the more tactful Frenchman has very gracefully
named "the manufacture of Renaissance cloth".
In this class of work and in the production of low-
grade woollens generally, Vienne has to compete
with other southern towns, such as Castres, Maza-
met and Lodeve, as well as with some of the
northern centres. Complaints are also made, and
that loudly, of the pressure of competition from
Germany and from the rising industry of Italy,
despite the tariff.

These and other complaints made before the
Committee throw useful light on the competitive
strength of the French industry as a whole.
Grievances brought forward by manufacturers,
before legislators who are held to have interfered

2 30 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

unduly with trade, must be taken with reserve ;
and this was the situation in 1904. But they
show how the wind blows. Complaints of de-
cadence are remarkably common. Sedan, the
old seat of the fine woollen cloth manufacture, is
now forced to take a very humble place. It
might be called the French "West of England,"
and it led the whole trade of the country a century
ago. But times have changed. Reims, Four-
mies, Elbceuf, all complain of growing difficulties ;
and even at Roubaix it is alleged that there has
been a decline of 70,000 spindles, and a slacken-
ing in the employment of those that remain, of
recent years. Complaints of heavy taxes and of
the factory acts, that have reduced the working
day, are universal. Recent legislation has indeed
cut down the working hours in France nearly to
the English level, and there is not a difference
between the two countries in the matter of wages. 1

1 For working hours see the table at the end of this
chapter. The following wage estimates are extracted from
figures given in evidence before the 1904 Committee, and
may be compared with the English figures in Chapter V.
Of course a mere comparison of wage rates does not tell the
cost of labour to the employer, unless we know also the
amount of work done in each case for a given wage. It is
not possible to give any exact statistical comparisons of work
done ; but it is probable that, in spite of rather shorter hours
and wages that are in some cases higher, British factory

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 231

On the other hand, in Belgium, Italy and Ger-
many hours are longer, and in Belgium and Italy,
at any rate, wages are lower than in France.

The French trade has two grave hardships to
face in dear coal and dear machinery. The coal
question is of the greatest importance for places
like Reims and Vienne, that lie off the coal

labour is not really dearer than French. This however is a
point that needs further examination.

In the table below, the wages are given in francs per week.
For combing, the week is reckoned at 60 hours, which has
been the legal factory week in France since 1904. The
other figures refer to 1903, and are in some cases for a 63,
in others for a 66 hours' week. The cheapness of some
classes of labour at Roubaix-Tourcoing is due to the fact
that Belgians, from across the frontier, are very largely em-
ployed there. They are cheaper than Frenchmen. Except
where otherwise stated, the wages are those of grown men.
In combing they are day rates ; night rates are somewhat
higher.

Roubaix-Tourcoing. Sorters, 30 to 36; head spinners
(mule), 36; washers, 177 to ^0-4; weavers, men, 24 to
33, women, 18 to 24, learners, 15 to 21 ; carders, 18 to
19*65 ; comb minders (men and women), 18. These are
employers' figures. The Weavers' Union gives a different
series, namely : coating weavers, 15 to 25; dress-goods
weavers, 9 to 16 ; furniture-materials weavers, 12 to 25.
The Roubaix weaver minds two looms.

Elbceuf. Washers, dyers, etc., 19*50 ; carders, 24 ;
spinners, 27 to 30; weavers, men, 27, women, 18; fullers
and pressers, 21 to 24. The Elbceuf weaver minds one
loom.

232

measures ; but even in places on or near the coal-
fields, the French purchasers do not get such
good value for their money as the Englishmen,
the Germans or Belgians. The machinery
question is vital to all. In spite of her manufac-
turing skill, and mainly in consequence of the
relative dearness of coal, iron and steel, France
imports textile machinery over her tariff fence in
great quantities. Alsace was the chief seat of
textile engineering up to 1870 ; and from Alsace
mules and other machines still come. English
looms and some English spinning frames are
also imported, and purchases are likewise made in
Belgium. It was maintained before the Com-
mittee by manufacturers from Elbceuf, that the
Frenchman pays 20 or 30 per cent, more for his
machinery than his foreign competitors. This
may be an exaggeration, but there must be
some fire where there is so much smoke.

With an almost stationary population, the
home demand is not very expansive. While it
expands slowly the foreign market for French
manufactures contracts. The causes are the
familiar ones tariffs and growing foreign in-
dustries. The story of recent years can best
be told in a short table of figures:

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 233

ANNUAL VALUE OF YARN VALUE OF PIECES

AVERAGE. EXPORTED. EXPORTED.

1893-5 26 '9 million francs 2817 million francs

1896-8 277 2 6o-8

1899-1901 31-9 234 - 9

1902-4 347 219-3

The modest rise in the value of exported
yarn goes but a little way to balance the decline
in fully manufactured goods. 1 With the export
and re-export of raw wool, and with the very
considerable export of tops from Roubaix, we
are not here concerned. But it may be men-
tioned that the German demand for French
tops, once considerable, has greatly declined of
late years ; although Belgium, Austria and Italy
are still good customers. Seeing that England
is the chief buyer of finished goods, there is no
need to prove that the French manufacturer
fears Tariff Reform.

In the matter of access to raw material, the
French industry has nothing of which to com-
plain. Wool is admitted free of duty, except
when it comes by way of some non-French con-
tinental port, in which case it pays the so-called
surtaxe d'entrepot. This fiscal device, started
in 1892, is responsible for the diversion of a
large part of the trade once done vid Antwerp.

1 It should be noted that the movement in the prices of
raw materials was on the whole upward during this period.
See the diagram facing page 276.

234 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

Roubaix now buys direct from South America
and elsewhere, and also on the London market.
Its situation is excellent. It is actually nearer
to London than Bradford is, and it has in Dun-
kirk an accessible and handy harbour. Whether
the possession of a great future market in tops
is or is not a gain to Roubaix-Tourcoing, con-
sidered as a manufacturing centre, is a matter
for argument ; but there can be no doubt that
the top market has added to the commercial
importance of the sister towns. The supply of
home-grown wool is considerable ; and although
France, like every other nation, depends mainly on
imported materials, her 20,000,000 sheep many
of them yielding fine wool are a valuable asset
to the manufacturer. The best of the flocks are
in the north-east Departments, within reach of
Sedan and Reims, the old headquarters of the
woollen and worsted industries respectively.

Another important factor affecting the supply
of raw material is the existence at Mazamet, in
the hilly Department of the Tarn, of a highly
specialised, localised and efficient fellmongering
industry {Industrie de dtlainage}. Out of the
fifty-eight French firms which, in the year 1903,
were engaged in this business of stripping sheep-
skins of their wool, no less than fifty-four were
at Mazamet. The work is done entirely with-
out the use of chemicals, by soaking and heating

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 235

the fells, so as to make them part readily with
their wool, without damage either to wool or
leather. For the most part the fells treated
come from South America, by way of Bordeaux,
Cette, or Marseilles ; but Australasian and other
skins are also handled at Mazamet. As a con-
sequence of the skill and care of the Mazamet
strippers, and the excellent chemical properties
of their water supply, the export of skin wools
from France to England, Belgium, Germany
and elsewhere has become an important branch
of the international wool trade.

There are certain conspicuous technical dis-
tinctions between the French and English worsted
industries which demand a brief reference. In
Chapter I. it was pointed out that " French draw-
ing" is a process widely different from English,
in that it gives no twist whatever to the roving.
Like the woollen yarn, the French one might
almost say the continental worsted yarn comes
to be spun in the form of a soft, untwisted band of
wool fibres. Then, too, the combing process is in
many cases carried out on the Heilmann comb,
or some one of its derivatives, although the
H olden comb does a vast amount of work at
Roubaix and Reims, and the Lister and Noble
combs are not unknown. Further, much of the
combing is "dry," that is to say, oil is not used
at all or is used only to be washed thoroughly

236 WOOLLEN' AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

out of the top after combing and before a final
gilling. Lastly, the great majority of French
worsted yarns are mule spun and always have
been. These combined processes put less strain
on the wool than do the typical English worsted
processes ; so that short and relatively inferior
wools can often be spun to finer counts in France
than in England. Moreover, the resultant yarn
is normally softer than frame spun yarns, and is
excellently fitted for use in dress materials that
are wanted to hang in smooth folds. In coat-
ings it is of less value; and in this branch of
the trade England has, as yet, no serious com-
petitor, whereas for many years Bradford has
been exercised in its mind about the competition
of the dress goods, made by the skilled French
weavers from these soft mule-spun yarns, and
dyed and finished by the equally skilled French-
men engaged in those industries. For the re-
putation of the French dyers stands high.

The wool-working industries of Belgium are
in close touch and keen competition with those
of France. They gave employment in 1896
the latest date for which complete figures are
available to 23,000 factor)' workers and 7900
domestic workers, besides 2200 employers,
managers, clerks, and so forth. Venders is the
headquarters for most branches of manufacture,
the Province of Liege, in which Verviers lies,

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 237

containing 14,300 out of the 23,000 factory hands.
The rest are widely scattered near Brussels and
Antwerp, at Dinant, Tournai and in East Flan-
ders. Flanders is also the home of the hand-loom
weavers, who form the bulk of the domestic
workers to whom reference has just been made.
Belgium owes her high position as a wool-manu-
facturing nation mainly to her success in the
preparatory process, and in the spinning both of
woollen and worsted yarns. Lying between Eng-
land, France and Germany, she is in a position
to do work for all three, and she does it. Her
raw material is almost all imported, for she has
no flocks worth mentioning, and it comes to her
through Antwerp. Near Antwerp at Hoboken
stands her only combing mill, which provides
the material for the Antwerp top market, a market
where future dealings in River Plate tops play
an important part. It should be added that the
Hoboken mill is not a purely Belgian concern,
but practically a branch of the great Leipziger
Wollkammerei, and that it works largely for the
German trade an instance of the close connection
of the industries of Belgium with those of its con-
tinental neighbours. Combing is also carried on
in worsted mills, chiefly in Verviers. Almost all
the combs are of the Heilmann type. Two-thirds
of the wool combed in Belgium is exported, very
largely into Germany and the inner parts of the
Continent generally.

238 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

More important and characteristic than the
combing trade is the washing and carbonising
industry of Verviers. 1 This industry may be said
to take the place occupied in other countries by
specialised combing. It owes its existence and
its success to commercial and chemical enterprise,
good water, and the fact that Belgium lies across
important trade routes from the sea into Europe.
The cleansing of the wool is done with the greatest
care and thoroughness, by processes differing con-
siderably from those employed in England. All
the "washeries" work on commission, and their
clients are as often foreigners as Belgians. Mer-
chants and spinners in Germany, Austria and
even Russia import large quantities of wool
through Belgium. When doing so they often
find it convenient to hand the greasy bales over
to the washers of Verviers. They receive their
wool back carefully cleansed and 30 to 60 per
cent, lighter than it was in the grease. Appreci-
able economies in the cost of carriage on the long
overland journey are the result.

The Verviers district is the headquarters of
the spinning as well as of the washing trade. In
both woollen and worsted, spinning is largely a

1 See page 2 7 for the process of carbonising, which is
one of the methods of disposing of vegetable impurities in
wool.

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 239

specialised business. Owing to the heavy exports
of yarn rarely falling below ,1,500,000, and
sometimes rising to .2,000,000 per annum it is
of more importance than weaving, for the export
of finished goods does not exceed .5-600,000.
Belgium contains 242,000 worsted spinning,
340,000 woollen spinning, and 87,000 twisting
spindles, the last mostly for worsted. As the
worsted mills are not in a position to do all their
own combing, and as a great part of the wool
combed in Belgium is exported, tops have to be
drawn from Roubaix, or wool combed there on
its way into Belgium. It is said that two-thirds
of the tops used in Belgium are the product of
the Roubaix mills ; while at the same time two-
thirds of the tops made in Belgium are exported
a curious situation.

The Belgian worsted yarn is generally made
by the "French" processes, though frame spin-
ning is not unknown. Between 35 and 40 per
cent, of the yarn spun is for export, and England
is the best customer. The exports of woollen
yarn are even greater, amounting to 50 or 60 per
cent, of the total output. Here, again, England
is the chief buyer, the Belgian yarns going both
into the weaving and the hosiery industries. The
manufacture of "Vigogne" yarns, that is to say,
yarns of mixed cotton and wool, forms an im-
portant section of the Verviers trade. Some of

2 4 o WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

these come to England with the rest. A couple
of figures will serve to illustrate the importance
of the English market for the Belgian spinners.
In 1904 yarns were consigned from Belgium to
this country to the value of ,1,314,946. Our
total import of yarns in that year from all sources
was ,2,352,482.

Weaving, as has been pointed out already, is
more widely spread than spinning, and is still in
part domestic. There is, however, nothing of
special interest connected with this branch of the
industry, although the Belgians carry it on with
considerable success.

At the present time the manufacturers of Rou-
baix-Tourcoing are in some anxiety about the
possible transference of a part at least of their
industry to Belgian soil, owing to the special
economic advantages presented by such towns as
Mouscron and Tournai, which lie but a few miles
distant from them across the plain. Land, build-
ing materials, coal and labour are all considerably
cheaper than in Roubaix. Transport facilities by
land and water are excellent and not expensive.
The cost of living is lower than on the French
side of the frontier, hence the lower wages.
Lastly, the duties on imported textile machinery
are not so high in Belgium as in France, and the
State takes less care of the factory workers.
Hours are longer, and night work is common in

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 241

all sections of the Belgian trade, 1 whereas in
France it is usual only in combing. It is not
surprising that the easy movement across a fron-
tier that is only a "conventional sign " has already
begun, or that the President of the Tourcoing
Chamber of Commerce threatened the Parlia-
mentary Committee with further migration, should
the French Government go too far ahead of the
Belgian in imposing regulations on textile fac-
tories.

Like most things German, the German woollen
and worsted industries have developed and thriven
astonishingly since the foundation of the Empire.
Although of late years the export trade has in-
creased comparatively little, owing to those diffi-
culties which all manufacturing nations now have
to face in the international market, the home
trade continues to expand, for the population has
grown steadily both in numbers and in average
purchasing capacity. Protective tariffs keep down
foreign competition, and the mass of the new
demand must be met from the produce of the
German mills. The growth is most conspicuous
in the case of worsted, where the figures tell a
remarkable story. In 1885 there were 35 large
spinning concerns engaged in the production of
worsted weaving yarns. They turned out between

1 See the table at the end of the chapter.
16

242 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

them the bulk of the yarns of that type spun in
the Empire. They employed 1 1 ,000 workpeople,
and ran 668 combs and 573,000 spinning spindles.
In 1902 the number of firms of the same class
had grown to 47, with 28,000 workpeople, 1425
combs and 1,634,000 spindles. Taking woollen
and worsted together, it appears that the number
of power looms grew from 30,500 in 1875 to
77,000 in 1895. It should be added, however,
that the hand looms during the same period fell
from 47,000 to 23,000. At the later date there
were 3,335,000 spinning spindles of all sorts in
the country.

With regard to employment, the size of busi-
nesses and the like, very full accounts are given
periodically in the elaborate German census
figures. Unfortunately, the last such account
at present available dates from 1895, smc e when
many things have happened. And it does not
properly distinguish woollen from worsted. Still
it is instructive ; it shows that in the year named,
there were 262,000 men, women and masters in
the industries, including dyeing and finishing.
Of these, in round figures, 16,000 were washers,
combers and others engaged in the preparatory
processes ; 63,000 were woollen and worsted
spinners ; 7000 were makers of mungo and
shoddy; 153,000 were weavers; 23,000 were
dyers and finishers. About four -fifths of the

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 243

spinners and nearly two-thirds of the weavers
were employed in mills containing fifty work-
people and upwards in large scale modern
factories, that is to say. But nearly 28,000
weavers were working at home. Domestic
weaving has declined considerably since 1895;
yet the hand-loom weavers are still a large
army, scattered more or less over the Empire
and to be found in nearly every manufacturing
district, but concentrated especially in Western
Saxony, round about the twin towns of Glauchau-
Meerane, where they do work of much the same
class as their French colleagues of the Cambrai
and St. Quentin neighbourhood. They are
specially numerous also about Solingen and in
Northern Bavaria.

This scattering of the hand-loom weavers is
typical of the whole German wool industry. It
has so many " centres " that it has no true centre ;
every State has a hand in it. There is only one
of the ninety administrative districts of the Empire
in which absolutely nobody is engaged either in
spinning or weaving wool. Commission comb-
ing, to take a striking example, which in Eng-
land and France is one of the most localised of
all industries, has five headquarters, each with
a single great mill of outstanding importance.
They are B lumen thai near Bremen, Hamburg,
Leipzig, Dohren near Hanover, and Mylau

244 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

near Reichenbach. Worsted spinning again is
anything but concentrated. Leipzig, Zwickau,
Plauen in the Saxon Vogtland and Mtihlhausen
in Alsace each have a number of important mills ;
but there are others spread far and wide over
the country, some at great distances from any
other textile factory whatsoever, others in com-
paratively small groups in the neighbourhood of
kindred trades, as in the Rhenish textile districts.
Nor are woollen and worsted districts sharply
divided. Saxony and Alsace are prominent
worsted producers, but they are also known
for their woollens. Westward of Saxony, the
little territories of the house of Reuss, with their
capitals Gera and Greiz, are mainly given over to
weaving of the Bradford type ; yet they too do
some woollen weaving. Aachen and its neigh-
bourhood are best known for their woollens, but
they do not neglect worsted. Berlin and its
suburbs do a most miscellaneous business. So
do the towns and villages eastward and south-
ward, in Brandenburg and Silesia ; but there
woollens predominate, though Liegnitz and Bres-
lau spin worsted yarns. At the other end of the
Empire, most branches of the trade are repre-
sented in the great industrial area within a
twenty-five mile radius from Diisseldorf about
Cologne, Solingen, Elberfeld, Barmen, Munchen-
Gladbach and Rheydt. The overlapping of

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 245

woollen and worsted weaving, to be found now
in all countries, still further increases the diffi-
culty of describing accurately the distribution of
the industries in Germany.

Besides domestic weaving there is still a good
deal of small scale manufacturing of different
kinds, to be found up and down the country.
In the district of Upper Franconia round about
Bayreuth there were in 1895 thirty-one houses,
one cannot say mills, where spinning of sorts
was carried on, and there were 107 spinners; in
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha there were five such estab-
lishments with 52 spinners; in the district of
Magdeburg 58, employing 219 workers; and so
on. On the other hand, the average spinning mill
in Upper Alsace contained 383 operatives ; at
Gera, thirteen worsted weaving mills together em-
ployed more than 6400 hands ; and the Bremen
Wollkammerei at Blumenthal now employs over
3000. Such contrasts render generalisations about
German industrial organisation particularly diffi-
cult. The statements made below must be taken
as applying to those sections of the trade that
are organised on modern lines, which after all
form the vast majority.

The worsted industry is the most completely
modernised, and is specially interesting to us, for
it is a great purchaser of English yarns. This
shows that it is not yet full-grown, as has already

246 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

been pointed out, but it is growing fast. Its
growth began with the acquisition of Alsace ; for
in the sixties it was of no account. The Alsatian
spinning firms generally do their own combing,
and so do many of the largest "spinneries" else-
where. But they also buy tops, sometimes from
abroad, or have part of their wool combed on
commission. The five great commission firms
already referred to do almost half the washing
and combing work for the trade ; some washing
of both combing and carding wools is done in
separate " washeries," like those of Verviers.
The remainder of the preliminary work falls to
the large spinners. Small and medium-sized
firms rarely either wash or comb, but buy from
topmakers (Kammzugmacher), as in England.
Before the great commercial depression of 1900-2
the big combing firms had done business ex-
tensively on their own account, buying wool,
combing it and holding it for the rise. But they
suffered severely during the price collapse of
1900-1, and latterly they have been confining
themselves more strictly, though not yet entirely,
to commission business. When they sell their own
tops, they now do so through the regular dealers.
Combined spinning and weaving businesses
are rare in the German worsted industry, 1 rarer

1 The Germans have a convenient name for such a busi-
ness Spinnweberei, a " spin weavery ".

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 247

than in any other European country. There are
various reasons for this peculiar to Germany,
over and above the general causes that make
for specialisation. With us the combined busi-
nesses are generally the older ones ; in Germany
really old businesses are scarce. Moreover the
spinners have never been able to supply all the
needs of the weaving firms, so that in many cases
combination has been quite impracticable. At one
time, mule-spun merino yarn came largely from
France. This trade has now declined, but our
frame-spun yarns of long English and cross-
bred wool, alpaca or mohair, are imported yearly
in immense quantities. As there is every year a
greater demand for yarn of this class, the German
spinners are now hard at work putting in frames,
ring frames for the most part.

Formerly the equipment was of the French
type, specially adapted for handling merino wool
and turning out soft yarns. For some time the
Germans have sent considerable quantities of
these yarns to England, largely for use in the
hosiery trade. But now a few firms have adopted
frame spinning exclusively, and they hope in time
to dispense with our yarns altogether. Whether
they will do so or not remains to be seen. As
yet the signs hardly point that way, but the tariff
may be called in to hasten the process.

The German combing and worsted spinning

248 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

mills are generally companies, not family busi-
nesses ; and there has developed of late a
good deal of common action among them, though
regular Kartells have not been formed. As long
ago as 1889 the leading spinners agreed on uni-
form terms of payment and delivery. They
collect and publish statistics of stocks and output
for their mutual guidance. Since 1897 tne Y have
more than once agreed to work short time, as
our cotton spinners do when trade is slack. The
larofe commission combers have fixed uniform

scales of charges and appear to be tending to-
wards a Kartell organisation. But the spinners
have made no attempt to fix prices ; and among
the weaving firms there is no regular and organ-
ised co-operation whatever.

Woollen as usual shows less specialisation
than worsted. Half the woollen yarn spun
in Germany in 1897 was f r use " on the
premises," as in the English woollen mills.
The rest came from specialised mills. Both here
and in the worsted trade, some considerable por-
tion of the yarn from mills of this latter class
goes to feed the hand looms ; for in Germany
simple woollen materials as well as fancy worsteds
and mixed fabrics are extensively woven by hand.
For the rest, the German woollen industry has
taken very kindly to mungo and shoddy adopt-
ing the names as well as the things and succeeds

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 249

in sending into this country quantities of cheap
cloths of the type known as "mantle cloths" and
other miscellaneous goods. It is not in a posi-
tion to compete successfully with the higher
branches of the English industry. Nor for that
matter are the German worsted manufacturers.
German dress materials come into England, it is
true ; sometimes they are made of English yarn ;
but the quantity is as yet comparatively small,
although the quality is often very good and the
dyeing excellent. In the manufacture of worsteds
for men, England's position is undisputed.

Sixty years ago, Germany exported quantities
of raw wool. To-day no important manufactur-
ing country except Belgium is so completely
dependent on imports. The wool grown at
home does not supply a tenth of her needs, and
the old wool fairs have lost much of their import-
ance. South American wool is the staple raw
material, but Australasian is also extensively
used. Direct buying is now the rule, though
large purchases are still made in London, and
tops are imported from England, France and
Belgium. Bremen, Leipzig and Berlin are the
leading markets. Until 1899 Leipzig had an
organised future market for tops ; but the
Government has suppressed it at the request of
a majority of those engaged in the industry. As
many of the spinning districts lie far from the

250 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

coast, railway carriage adds something to the
cost of materials, though through rates are gen-
erally moderate. Coal is good and tolerably
cheap. All classes of textile machinery are made
at home, combing and mule-spinning machinery
coming mainly from Alsace. But for spinning
worsted after the English fashion, it is customary
to use English machines.

And what of wages? This is a question to
be answered with caution. A high German
authority is of opinion that, although some
English wool workers are better paid than any
in Germany, "the centre of gravity in Ger-
many" is somewhat higher than in England. 1
Factory wages rose greatly during the last two
decades of the nineteenth century. In Alsace
between 1885 and 1902 mule spinners' wages, in
a representative mill of this representative dis-
trict, rose from 24*48 to 31*08 marks per week,
and the wages of women doublers from 14*50 to
1 5 '48, and that in spite of the fact that working
hours were reduced from twelve to a little over
ten hours a day during the interval. It is at
least certain that the money wages of German
factory workers are not conspicuously lower
than ours.

1 Professor Hasbach, who knows England well. Quoted
in Ashley's Progress of the German Working Classes, page

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 251

The fourth country that will be dealt with
here in some detail is the United States. Hol-
land, Switzerland and Austria must be passed
by, although they are competitors in certain
branches of the trade. The Americans do not
compete with us in the home market, and their
competition in other markets is not yet of any
great account ; but they must certainly be classed
among the great manufacturing nations, rather
than among the nations who have but recently
developed manufactures on modern lines, though
of course the boundary between the two groups
cannot be sharply drawn.

The American wool industries are concen-
trated in the states of the north-eastern sea-
board. A few factories are to be found in the
central and western cities. The ranching states
and territories have some wool-scouring estab-
lishments. In out-of-the-way corners of such
states as Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennes-
see, old-fashioned woollen mills still make cloth,
flannel and blankets for the local farmers from
the local wool. There is even a little domestic
spinning and weaving in these up-country dis-
tricts, where the mills card the farmers' wool on
commission and return it to them to be spun.
But fully 90 per cent, of all the capital in-
vested in the industries is in the New England
States, together with New York, New Jersey

252

and Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania and Massa-
chusetts united produce more than half the wool
manufactures of the Union. Philadelphia alone
was responsible for nearly a fifth of the national
output in 1900. In 1890 its position was even
stronger than this. Lawrence, Massachusetts,
conies second, and Providence, Rhode Island,
third. But the trade of Philadelphia in 1900
was more than twice as great as that of Law-
rence, and three times greater than that of Pro-
vidence.

The woollen and worsted industries properly
so called, including shoddy making but exclud-
ing the carpet and hosiery manufactures, em-
ployed just over 135,000 workpeople at
the census of 1900. There were 1451 combs,
1,939,709 woollen spindles, 1,191,406 worsted
spindles, and 61,253 power looms, of which
34,881 were in woollen and the remainder in
worsted mills. The figures for spindles include
both spinning and doubling. 1 These are not

1 There were 315,000 hosiery yarn spindles, reckoned
separately in the census. Of these all but 21,000 were for
woollen yarn. There were also 225,000 spindles in carpet
and felt mills. Machinery statistics for 1905 are now avail-
able ; but it seemed best to use the complete figures of
employment and machinery for 1900. The 1905 figures
show a total increase of 14 to 15 per cent, in spindles and
of nearly 5 per cent, in looms.

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 253

very high figures for a nation of about seventy-
six millions, with a stiff tariff; but it must be
remembered that the climate sets limits to the
demand for such things as overcoats and blan-
kets in the South, that there is no serious ex-
port trade and that the tariff, though high, is
still often crossed by ,4,000,000 worth of wool
goods in a year. Relatively low the figures
may be, but they are uncommonly high when
compared with those of 1890 or of 1880. The
main growth, as in Germany, has been in wor-
sted. There were nearly six times as many
worsted spindles and nearly three times as many
combs in the country in 1900 as in 1880. Dur-
ing the same period the number of worsted
operatives rose from 18,000 to 57,000. In
woollen, however, the number of spindles in-
creased only by about 8 per cent. ; the number
of looms declined slightly; and the number of
wage earners fell by 18,000, owing to the con-
centration of the industry and the disappearance
of the primitive local mills. 1

Characteristically enough, the American wor-
sted mills are now larger than those of any other
country. On an average each establishment
dealt with in the census employed over 300 hands,
a figure which England certainly cannot equal.

l ln 1880 there were 1990 separate woollen establish-
ments of all sorts; in 1900 only 1035.

254 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

This is in part due to that absence of specialisation,
which differentiates America from the whole of
Europe. The familiar division of combing from
spinning, and spinning from weaving, is the ex-
ception, not the rule. Combing as a distinct
trade does not exist. "I do not know that a
single establishment in the country makes only
tops," writes a high authority in answer to a
question on this point. 1 He proceeds to mention
mills which make tops for sale, but notes that
they all do something more than that. One
"makes tops for sale and also yarns for sale, . . .
but the largest part of their business is the
weaving of fabrics for women's wear ". Another
"makes tops and spins yarns for sale, but weaves
no cloth ". Here we have the division of spinning
and weaving ; but combination is the rule, a
combination that even includes dyeing, "but very
few piece goods being dyed by special establish-
ments ". During the last ten years a tendency
to division has shown itself, but it has not yet
altered the general character of the industry.
Such being the situation in worsted, it is in no
way surprising that the large woollen mills are
almost, if not quite, invariably of the combined
type that buys raw wool and sells dyed and fin-
ished cloth. Shoddy making however is a distinct

1 Mr. J. B. McPherson, Secretary of the National Associa-
tion of Wool Manufacturers.

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD

255

trade with 105 establishments and nearly 2000
workpeople ; although some of the woollen mills
make what shoddy they require on the premises.
There is no territorial distribution of the indus-
tries in woollen and worsted districts. The three
great combing states, Pennsylvania, Massachu-
setts and Rhode Island, are also the chief wool-
len producers. For the worsted industry, which
is substantially a growth of the last thirty years,
has simply established itself wherever wool-
working was previously well developed. Worsted
mills were built in the old manufacturing localities,
and woollen mills were sometimes converted to
meet the growing demands for worsted goods,
caused by the change of fashion and the increas-
ingly rigid exclusion of European manufactures.
The combination or Trust movement touched
the wool industries in March, 1899, when the
American Woollen Company was formed, with
an authorised capital of $65,000,000, to take over
twenty-six woollen and worsted businesses, for
the most part in Massachusetts and Rhode
Island. Many of the combining firms had suffered
severely during the period of relatively low
tariffs, from 1894 to 1897, and were g^ ad to se ^
to the promoters. The company is not and
never has been in a position of monopoly in any
line of production, although it is interested in
most lines, from broadcloth to French-spun

256 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

worsted yarns. In 1901 the various mills con-
tained 212 combs, 426,000 spindles and 6500
looms, and they employed from 20,000 to 21,000
workpeople. The company maintains its own
selling agency in New York and imports its own
wool when necessary. In the early days its fin-
ancial methods were sounder and more cautious
than those of some of the great combinations.
Its preference shares have in consequence always
been a paying investment ; though the same
cannot be said of the ordinary shares. The scope
of its operations has widened somewhat in the
last few years ; but it still only controls a part of
the trade.

As a competitor in the international market
the American industry suffers from dear labour,
dear raw material and an inability to produce
the finest classes of goods. The tariff alone pro-
tects the manufacturers from destructive foreign
competition at home. The tariff is also respon-
sible for the dearness of raw material, owing to
the wool duty, reimposed in 1897, after a three
years' experiment with free wool. Merino and
other fine wools pay 5^d. per Ib. ; long combing
wools 6d. ; low grade carpet wools 2d. if worth
less than 6d. a Ib., 3^d. if worth more. America,
as we know, herself produces a great variety of
wools; but they do not meet her needs. Since
1897 s h e has on several occasions imported over

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 257

a third of her total consumption, and the present
tendency is for imports to increase. In the free
wool years the imports rose from 40 to 57 per
cent, of the consumption. At this point the com-
plaints of the wool growers secured the high rates
of the Dingley Tariff.

The following short list illustrates the level of
wages in New England woollen mills in 1900 :

(a) Males above sixteen years of age. Bobbin
hands and doffers, $5 per week ; card tenders,
$6 ; beamers, $8 ; dyehouse hands, $7 ; loom-
fixers, $13*50; head foremen, $19*50 ; spinners,
$9*50 ; weavers, $9 ; sorters, $12*50. (b] Females
above sixteen years of age. Bobbin hands and
doffers, $4 ; drawers-in, $8 ; general hands, $5 '50 ;
spinners, $6 ; weavers, $8'5O. 1

The occupations are not in all cases quite com-
parable with those in English mills, but the table
brings out the general level of wages clearly
enough. It must be repeated that the amount
and character of the work done for the weekly
wage are of course not identical in the two coun-
tries. The American workman probably produces

1 These figures, taken from the 1900 wage census, are not
averages, but " medians " ; i.e., $8*50 for women weavers
means that there were as many women earning more than
$8 '50 as there were earning less, in the wage lists sub-
mitted to the census officials.

258 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

more than the English ; how much more has not
been accurately determined.

It is not possible to deal with the second
group of nations, to which reference was made at
the beginning of the chapter, in anything but the
most summary fashion. All over the civilised
world textile industries of the West European
type were being developed at the close of the
nineteenth century, in some cases with striking
rapidity. In Europe, Italy furnishes a remark-
able instance of an old and famous country who
has thrown herself into the work with vigour.
Textile progress has played a great part in her
recent economic revival ; and although that pro-
gress is most conspicuous in the case of the
cotton industry, wool manufacturing has shared
it in no small degree. The headquarters of the
industry are in the north, in the cities of Lom-
bardy and Piedmont and along the foothills of
the Alps. There water power is available in
abundance, and the mills round about Biella
make extensive use of it, both as a direct motor
and as a generator of electricity. The goods
which they produce are mainly of a simple char-
acter, plain cloths, flannels and so forth, suited
to the demand of the people. Already, as has
been seen, they have come into competition with
the similar products of the mills of the south of
France ; and an examination of the import and

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 259

export figures shows that Italy is ceasing to be
dependent on her neighbours and is in a fair
way to become an equal. With modern equip-
ment, such as she now possesses, her chances
of success are great ; for the labour of the
northern Italians is not only cheap, but good.
And the Italian, of whatever class, has an artistic
sense denied to the Teuton and the Slav.

Other statistics than those of foreign trade

are available, but they are not very satisfactory.
Figures of employment for 1894 an d 1901 l point
to a great increase at the close of the century ;
but the two series are of such a kind as to render
close comparisons impossible. In 1894 there
were 128,000 spindles mostly woollen in small
spinning mills, 2700 looms in 103 little weaving
mills, 217,000 spindles and 7600 looms in com-
bined mills, and 18,500 domestic looms. Of the
looms in the mills, over a third were worked by
hand. At the same date more machinery was
driven by water than by steam. Things have
been changing fast since 1894 5 but these figures
give some indication of the character of the
industry at the time when Italy began to rank
as a considerable manufacturing nation.

1 The latter from the 1901 census ; the former from an
inquiry of which the results are given in the Annuario
Statistico Italiano, 1904.

260 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

Statistics of foreign trade yield the following
interesting results :

IMPORTS. AVERAGE VALUE PER ANNUM IN MILLIONS OF LiRE. 1

1891-3. 1894-6. 1897-9. 1900-2. 1903.

Raw wool and waste . 25-3 28*8 37-8 49-7 57-2
Yarns . . . .7-6 7-3 4-7 2-8 2-6
Pure wool piece goods . 37-6 27-7 22^4 20-5 23-6

The quantity of manufactures exported an-
nually- measured by weight increased very
little between 1886 and 1895, but rose sharply
in 1896-7; and for the period 1898-1903 was
between two and three times what it had been
in 1886-95. How far these changes are due
to tariffs, and how far to increased industrial
efficiency cannot well be determined. But the
growth of the exports clearly proves the exist-
ence of increased efficiency, though as yet the
value of these growing exports is inconsiderable.

Recent events have interfered with the eco-
nomic development of Russia ; but before the
beginning of the present troubles, her manu-
factures were growing fast, in the hot-house
atmosphere of an exaggerated tariff system ; and
although neither the growth nor the tariff pre-
vented an increase of imports, they succeeded in
confining the imports within very narrow limits.
So far as woollens are concerned, Russia has

1 It should be noted that the exchange value of the lira
rose during the later years covered by this table.

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 261

long been practically self-sufficing ; although
some of the finer sorts have always been im-
ported in small quantities for use among the
well-to-do. Her flocks, which are far greater
than those of any European country, supply
most of the raw material, which is still worked
up to some extent by the peasants themselves
for their own use. But the factories of Poland
and the Moscow neighbourhood, nursed by
Government, have killed this primitive system
in many districts ; though the peasant still makes
his own felt boots and gloves as a rule. The
worsted manufacture is new. It has grown up
during the last five-and-twenty years, tariff-fed,
of course. For the most part it is a Polish
industry, with its seat round about Lodz and
Warsaw ; but most of the manufacturers are
Germans and Austrians, with a few Englishmen.
In the early days of its growth, large quantities
of yarn had to be imported, and the yarn imports
are still considerable. But spinning and comb-
ing made great progress towards the end of the
nineteenth century, although Russia remains a
good customer of foreign top makers and com-
mission combers. In 1903, for example, she
bought nearly ,374,000 worth of prepared wool,
mostly tops, from this country. Her purchases
of raw wool in the international market have
also increased. Her imports of piece goods are

262 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

small, though the tariff has failed to stop the
slow growth which has been noticeable for some
years past. She is not formidable as a com-
petitor in neutral markets, except in some of the
inaccessible parts of Central Asia ; for her fiscal
system and the relative incompetence of her
workmen make the cost of production high.

The main features of the Russian import trade
are shown in the following table, which gives
both the annual average value and the annual
average weight of the raw wool, and the value
of the woollen and worsted yarns and piece
goods imported :

1891-3. 1894-6. 1897-9. 1900-2. 1903.
Raw wool

Millions of poods * . '628 i'io8 1^053 i'3i2 1786

Millions of roubles . 9*3 i5'o 147 ly'i 22*1

Yarns : millions of roubles iro 15-5 17-2 14-7 15-2

Piece goods 3-5 5-7 6-5 7-7 9-1

It is natural to pass from the trade of Russia
to that of Japan. The fact that they have no
wool of their own has not diminished the deter-
mination of the Japanese to master the art of
wool-working, together with the rest of the useful
Western arts. They can buy in the best of all
markets far more easily than any other nation,
for there is now regular steamship communication

1 The pood is 36 Ibs. ; the rouble up to 1897 was worth 23.,
and after 1897 25.

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 263

between Yokohama and the Australian ports. It
is only a few years since the Japanese buyers first
came to the Australian sales, but their purchases
are already considerable. At the outset they
always bought scoured wool. But in 1906, for
the first time, they extended their operations to
"wool in the grease". "If this is to be per-
manent," wrote the Sydney correspondent of the
Yorkshire Observer, then the scourers must say
good-bye to the lucrative business which they
have for some time done with Japan." Probably
it will be permanent. When Japan learns an art
she practises it ; and the purchases indicate that
some of her manufacturers at any rate are con-
fident that they have learnt to scour. They are
securing first-rate equipment. Government as-
sistance is freely given. Japanese students are
making prolonged studies in the textile schools
of Europe and America. In short, an industry
is being created with that method and delibera-
tion which have made the Japanese army and the
navy what they are.

For the present, however, Japan imports manu-
factured goods in large quantities. Of late years
the Tokio War Office has been one of the best
customers of the West Riding manufacturer.
Both in 1905 and 1906' Japan bought more
English woollen cloth than any other country,
and she also took blankets and a good stock of

264 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

worsteds. In what is commonly called the course
of nature, this state of things might be expected
to continue for many years to come. That is
perhaps a good reason for thinking that it will
shortly terminate, since the Far East now habitu-
ally upsets all comfortable generalisations based
on either western or eastern experience. But
so far as it is possible to weigh the matter, it cer-
tainly seems that Japan is not likely to be in a
position to supply all her own needs, much less to
export, during the next decade or two.

Canada should certainly be reckoned among
the nations who have recently developed manu-
factures on modern lines. But the development
has not been very rapid during the last five-and-
twenty years. The old-fashioned carding and
fulling mills in the long-settled provinces of the
East have been dying out, and are now practically
extinct ; there has been a great concentration of
the industry in mills of considerable size ; but
the growth in productive power has not been
comparable with that in the United States, so far
as one can judge from available figures. The
average woollen mill appears to contain only about
forty workpeople. The estimated value of the
goods turned out from all the mills, excluding
hosiery, was about ,3,000,000 in 1901, and about
,2,000,000 in 1 88 1. These estimates of pro-
duction, which are popular in Canada and the

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 265

States, must not be taken too seriously ; but they
serve as rough indicators of the growth of an in-
dustry. It is interesting to compare with them
the figures of imports, in order to contrast the
relative importance of the home-made and the
imported wool goods. The latter, including
hosiery in this case, came to nearly ,2,000,000
in 1901, and just about .3,000,000 in 1905.
The output of Canadian hosiery was valued in
1901 at about ,750,000.

The industry is widespread and varied in char-
acter. Montreal and Toronto each contain a
number of mills. Others are to be found scattered
among the towns of the Ontario peninsula
Peterborough, Brantford, Guelph, Chatham and
elsewhere. There are a few in the provinces of
Quebec and Nova Scotia, and a very few in the
western provinces. Most classes of woollens are
produced, but not many worsteds. There is no
such thing as a specialised worsted mill, so far as
one can ascertain ; all those that make worsteds,
and they are but seven or eight, also making other
things. Spinning mills are scarce, the combined
mill being the regular type. A few specialised
dyeing and finishing works exist, and there are
three firms at least which make textile machinery
one at Hespeler in Ontario and two in Toronto.
In short, an industry with most of the necessary
branches and allied trades.

266 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

Yet an industry which, in spite of generous
protection, has not been able to cope with the
immense expansion of the home demand of recent
years. Imports increased 50 per cent, between
1900-1 and 1904-5, and they are not likely to fall
again. Some say that Canada's dry, hot summers
and dry, cold winters unfit her for the practice of
the textile trades, and certainly these things are
not favourable to spinning. Still she has her
humid provinces on the eastern seaboard, and
there seems no reason why they should not in
time rival New England. But the time is not

yet.

The last group of nations to be dealt with here
are the pastoral lands of the Southern Seas. Only
a small fraction of the wool that they raise for the
world's use comes back to them in the form of
cloth or clothing ; yet, if they were to supply all
their own needs, a valuable outlet for the manu-
factures of the North would be stopped once
for all. In 1906 Great Britain sent just over
,3,000,000 worth of woollen and worsted tissues
not to mention yarn, hosiery, blankets, and
clothes to Australasia, South Africa, and the
shores of the River Plate. This is the trade
which Great Britain stands to lose in proportion
as manufactures develop in the South. The risk,
from the British point of view, is not yet very
great. It is no easy thing to start textile trades

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 267

where machinery and plant have to be brought
from the other side of the earth, and where, as
in Australia, there is not that rapid rise in popula-
tion which drives nations to explore new fields
of economic activity.

But in some cases the start has been success-
fully made, and in all the great pastoral lands
the governments are fully prepared to give what
assistance they can. Australia and New Zea-
land, whilst admitting machinery free or at
nominal rates, levy protective duties varying
from 15 to 25 per cent, on all but certain selected
types of woollen and worsted fabrics, such for
instance as bunting. In New Zealand there is
something serious to protect ; her woollen mills
in 1904 gave employment to 1692 workpeople,
and turned out goods whose value was esti-
mated at between .300,000 and ^400,000.*
Nor were the goods lacking in variety. Tweeds,
woollen cloth, flannel, blankets, rugs and shawls
some of excellent quality were all included in
the list ; and the consumption of wool by the
mills was over 3,000,000 Ibs. For a popula-
tion of some 800,000 in a new country, this is
already a considerable achievement. But it has
not as yet stopped the steady growth of the im-

1 The value of the woollen and worsted piece goods ex-
ported from this country to New Zealand in 1906 was

268 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

ports, which more than doubled between 1892-4
and 1902-4. The Australian Commonwealth
cannot match this sturdy "infant industry" of
New Zealand. It is true her woollen mills con-
tain some 1 900 workers ; but then her popula-
tion is nearly five times that of New Zealand.
Only in Victoria are there any mills of import-
ance. New South Wales, the foremost wool-
growing State in the world, had in 1 902 but four
mills, each employing about sixty hands. More-
over, although the produce of the Australian
mills is as varied as that of the New Zealand
mills, it is not so evenly divided among the
different branches. Flannels are the staple
goods ; rugs, tweeds and cloths are compara-
tively unimportant. In several cases the woollen
mills are combined with clothing factories, show-
ing that the textile industry proper is not yet
strong enough and specialised enough to stand
alone. Probably the difference in climate is in
part responsible for the relatively greater suc-
cess of the New Zealand manufacture ; but there
is no reason to suppose that the Commonwealth
might not conceivably be able to do her own
spinning and weaving in the long run. To-day
she supplies only a small part of her needs, and
her textile trade grows very slowly.

South Africa has hardly yet begun to think of
herself as a manufacturing nation in the true

THE INDUSTRIES ABROAD 269

sense of the word. And as the agricultural and
metallurgical industries are likely to occupy all
her attention for many years to come, there is no
reason to anticipate any textile progress com-
parable with that of New Zealand. There has
always been some domestic wool manufacture
among the Boers and other up-country farmers ;
but there have been singularly few attempts to
start woollen mills. One or two unsuccessful
enterprises of this kind are on record. It may
be that some have succeeded and survive, or
that fresh starts have been made since the war.
If so the work is being done very quietly. I
myself do not at present know of any working
mill in South Africa. No doubt fresh attempts
will be made. A country full of sheep is not
likely to forget the value of spindles and looms.
There is an excellent market among the natives
for the plain goods that a young industry can
most easily turn out, such as blankets ; and the
object lesson of the Rand should keep South
African statesmen alive to the value of a diversi-
fied national industry. But labour of the right
sort will be hard to find for many years to come ;
so that one can prophesy with some confidence
that, of all the greater wool-producing lands,
South Africa will be the last to develop a manu-
facturing industry of international importance.
The Argentine Republic, like Australasia,

270 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

already possesses a few woollen and other textile
mills. For the most part they employ foreign
yarn, and the whole textile industry is still weak
and raw. Stock-rearing and agriculture absorb
the best strength of the country ; and hitherto the
chief industrial developments have been con-
nected with milling, meat-freezing, sugar-refining
and the like. But government, here as else-
where, is ready to foster promising branches of
manufacture. Quite recently special rewards
have been held out to induce some competent
foreigner to introduce the worsted manufacture
into the country. With a population that grows
rapidly and is full of enterprise, there should be
no difficulty in developing a respectable manu-
facturing industry as time goes on. But for
the present Argentina, like her fellow pastoral
nations, affords a widening market rather than
a dangerous competitor for the produce of the
European mills to which she sends her wool.

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CHAPTER VII
IMPORTS AND EXPORTS

BEFORE the rise of the modern cotton
industry, during the last thirty years of
the eighteenth century, the export of wool manu-
factures was by far the most important branch
of Great Britain's foreign trade. In 1770 it was
valued at .1,000,000 out of a total export of
some .4,000,000. This state of things came
to an end during the years of the first great
industrial revolution. Not that the wool indus-
try declined very far from it but cotton grew
with incredible rapidity and soon pushed its way
to the place which it now holds at the head of
the list of exports. Iron, steel and machinery
followed hard after cotton, as the means of trans-
porting bulky goods improved. In the second
half of the nineteenth century came the vast
extension of the export trade in coal. Mean-
while miscellaneous exports of every conceivable
type were increasing in importance, as compared
with the old staple commodities. As a result of

these changes the export of wool manufactures

272

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 273

has become a secondary branch of our oversea
trade, although it has never lost its importance.
At present these manufactures, including yarns
and partially worked wool, make up from a twelfth
to a fourteenth of the total exports of British
and Irish produce. For example, in 1906 the
total exports were worth ^"375,000,000, and the
woollen and worsted exports ^31,745,000.

What proportion this figure of ^"31,745,000
bears to the whole value of the woollen goods

produced in the United Kingdom, no one as yet
knows with certainty. It is clear enough that
in the wool trades the home market, and in the
cotton trade the foreign market, is the more im-
portant ; but the relative importance in either
case will remain a matter for estimation, or in
other words intelligent guessing, until England
has her census of production. An estimate that
is probably not far from the truth makes the
United Kingdom consume two-thirds and export
one-third of the annual output of its woollen and
worsted mills. But of course the proportions vary
from year to year and have varied from decade to
decade. It is fairly certain that, during the last
five-and-twenty years, the home demand has
increased in relative importance, owing to the
growth of population and of spending power at
home and of mills and tariffs abroad. For the
total quantity of wool, mohair, rag wool and so

274 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

on, annually used in the United Kingdom during
the period 1880-4 was j ust under 500,000,000
Ibs. ; from 1895 to l %99 it was 685,000,000 Ibs. ;
from 1900 to 1904, 659,000,000 Ibs. ; in 1905,
685,000,000 once more. Meanwhile the number
of yards of woollen and worsted exported had
fallen, and the increased exports of ready-made
clothing, yarns and tops had not been nearly
great enough to absorb the huge balance of raw
material. 1 The bulk of this balance must have
gone into the home market in the form of finished
goods.

The difficulties of testing with perfect accuracy
increases or decreases of exports are now well
known. In some industries, such as coal and iron,
quantities as well as values may easily be measured.
For the textile industries figures of quantity are
misleading, unless they are calculated with a
nicety to which no customs house has yet at-
tained. Before 1890 the quantity figures for
piece goods were simply given in yards ; since
1890 woollens are classed as light and heavy,
and sub-classed as broad and narrow. Worsted
coatings and trouserings are also divided into
broad and narrow. Stuffs are still only returned
in yards. Even with this improved classification

1 See F. Hooper, Statistics of the Woollen and Worsted
Trades, 1906; and a note by A. L. Bowley, Economic Journal,
Dec., 1905.

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 275

a yard is rather a vague thing. It is known, for
instance, that Bradford stuffs are generally wider
than they used to be, so that a given number of
yards will on an average contain more raw mat-
erial and have involved more labour than they
did, say, twenty years ago. The widening of the
average yard of exports in part explains the fall
in the actual number of yards already referred to.
This fall is shown in the following table based
on calculations made by Mr. Bowley which deals
only with piece goods :

YARDS EXPORTED ANNUALLY.
1865-9, 2 55 millions 1890-4, 190 millions

1870-4, 324 1895-9, J 79

l8 75-9> 2 S3 1900-4, 154

1880-4, 244 i95- 6 > J 79

1885-6, 246

For the purpose of the present chapter it is
impossible to discuss all the statistical issues
which are raised by the quantity figures of the
Board of Trade. Moreover, for some classes of
goods there are no quantity figures. The dia-
gram of exports that faces page 276 has therefore
been based on values. Separate curves show
the course of trade during forty years in its three
main lines piece goods and other finished manu-
factures, 1 yarns, tops and prepared wool generally.

1 This includes carpets, tapestry, hosiery of wool and mis-
cellaneous manufactures.

276 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

Besides showing the course of exports the dia-
gram indicates, in broad outline, the fluctuations
in the prices of raw materials. These raw
material curves are of the greatest assistance
in estimating the real significance of movements
in the export trade. 1 It will be seen, for example,
that the abnormally high figures of 1871-3 were
to some extent the result of dear wool. The in-
crease in the value of tops and yarns exported
since 1901 is mainly, and the increase in the
values of manufactures is partly, due to the same
cause. On the other hand the state of the export
trade from 1882 to 1890 was more satisfactory
than the curve of manufactures taken alone would
lead one to suppose ; for while that curve shows
an intermittent rise the raw material curves show
a decided fall.

As is noted on the diagram, the export of ready-
made clothes has not been taken into account. If
it had the manufactures curve would show a slight
improvement in its later course. There is no
question that the bulk of the clothing exported

1 They are not of course absolutely accurate. As was
pointed out in the Introduction, there was relatively more
clean wool imported twenty or thirty years ago than there is
to-day. Clean wool being dearer than greasy wool, the actual
fall in the price of wool generally was slightly less than the
apparent fall shown in the diagram. But the curves register
the broad movements in prices accurately enough.

EXPORTS OF MANUFACTURES YARNS, TOPS, ETC., AND PRICES OF RAW MATERIAL, 1866-1906

Note. Tops, etc., includes Tops, Noils, Flocks, Waste and Shoddy.

The wool prices are (i) the estimated annual average prices of British wool per Ib. (n) tl
annual average prices of all sheep and lamb's wool imported. The estimates are those
of Mr. Hooper, of the Bradford Chamber of Commerce.
The manufactures do not include ready made clothes.

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 277

is either woollen or worsted ; but we have no
exact figures which distinguish clothing made of
wool from that made of other materials, and
therefore this branch of the trade has been
omitted. Mr. Hooper of the Bradford Chamber
of Commerce estimates that up to 1872 the value
of the woollen clothing exported never reached
,1,000,000. From 1872 to 1879 it averaged
about ,1,000,000 ; in the eighties the average was
1,400,000; in the nineties nearly 1,600,000;
from 1900 to 1905 just over 2,000,000. These
figures are the nearest approach that we possess
to an official valuation of this branch of the
trade.

The diagram brings out very clearly the great
importance of yarns and prepared wool and their
increased relative importance since about the year
1886. Right through the period the yarn exports
have been heavy. The staple articles are yarns of
worsted, alpaca and mohair. Woollen yarns have
never been shipped in great quantities from this
country. Only once, during the fifty years covered
by the diagram, has their value risen above
,500,000 and it has fallen below 100,000 several
times. Of late the annual exports of true worsted
yarn have varied between 3,400,000 and
5,000,000, those of mohair and alpaca between
1,500,000 and ,2,000,000. The total value of
yarns exported towards the end of the period is seen

to have been frequently greater than it was in the
fat years of the early seventies, when wool was
considerably dearer than it is to-day. This implies
an export trade of much greater bulk than that of
1871-5. In fact the average weight of yarns ex-
ported in those five years was 40,100,000 Ibs. as
compared with 74,600,000 for the five years
1902-6.

There are special points of interest connected
with the prepared wool trade. Until some twenty-
five years ago it was of no importance, a few hun-
dred thousand pounds' worth of rag wool and flocks
being the chief item. About 1886 the rapid growth
of the trade in tops and noils began to make itself
felt ; but figures by which that growth could be
tested were not available before 1 890. Then it ap-
peared that about ,600,000 worth of each of
these products of the combing mills had left our
ports in the year. During the last sixteen years
the export of noils has grown but little, either in
value or quantity. The highest value figure is
,809,000 in 1906, the highest quantity figure
13,756,000 Ibs. in 1885. The corresponding
figures for tops, on the other hand, are 3,095,000
in 1906 and 42,513,000 Ibs. in 1903. Even in
years of cheap wool, the export of tops is now a
great business, and at the present high level of
wool prices it bulks very large indeed.

From some points of view, however, it is not

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 279

satisfactory. It. means, at any rate in certain
cases, that foreign nations, who perhaps once
bought from us yarn or even manufactures, are
now themselves in a position to spin, leaving to
us only the work of combing. Germany is the
chief buyer, and we have seen that Germany is
determined to render herself independent of sup-
plies of English yarn -if she can. It is true that
her increased takings of tops have not as yet been
accompanied by any shrinkage in the German
yarn trade ; but it is clearly possible that such a
shrinkage may in time set in. On the other hand,
so long as foreign manufacturing nations buy any
wool whether British or colonial in this coun-
try, there is always a considerable probability
that they may prefer to buy it already combed.
A stiff tariff on tops, such as the United States
now levy, would be the only effectual means
of killing the trade. There is of course no
guarantee that the buying nations will refrain
indefinitely from imposing such a tariff. At
present tops are on the free list in Germany.
Sweden, Belgium and Japan, all considerable
buyers, also admit them free. Italy, who in
recent years has been the greatest buyer after
Germany, levies a duty amounting to about two-
thirds of a penny per lb., not a very serious
obstacle to trade at the existing high level of
prices ; for the average value of the tops ex-

2 8o WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

ported in 1906 was nearly 2od. per Ib. Russia
has at times been an excellent customer, in spite
of a duty that works out at nearly 5d. a Ib.
The fact that France is only a small buyer is to
be explained more by the excellence of her own
combing mills than by her duty of IDS. 2d. a
cwt.

Within the Empire, Canada is the only impor-
tant purchaser of combed or carded wool. She
is a new customer and hitherto her purchases
have not been heavy ; but for the three years
1903-5 they averaged over ,40,000. All other
British possessions put together spend less than
^2000 with the English top makers. It should
be added that Canada levies a small duty on
tops. Indeed she taxes all Lincoln, Leicester
and other combing wools, whether combed or
not.

The destinations of the yarn exports do not
differ widely from those of the exports of tops
and prepared wool. These forty years and more
Germany has been the principal purchaser. Some
account of her yarn buyings was given in the
last chapter. It only remains to examine the
trade from the English side and to refer to the
tariffs that affect it. Originally the staple ex-
port was worsted yarn made of English lustre
wool. To this were added yarns of alpaca and
mohair. Latterly large quantities of combed

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 281

yarn spun from the coarser cross-bred wools and
other yarns not quite of the lustre type, have
been shipped on German account. So the old
contention that the trade was based on a natural
division of labour, by which England span and
sold yarns from the lustre wool which she alone
could raise, no longer holds good. German ad-
vocates of an increased duty point to these facts
in support of their demands, arguing that Ger-
many is now as well fitted by nature as Great
Britain for the production of most of these yarns,
and that only a little more protection is required
to make her self-sufficing.

The new German tariff of 1903 gave some
encouragement to this party. Many of the yarn
duties were unaltered ; those on alpaca and mohair
were actually reduced ; but those on the ordinary
"hard combed yarn of lustrous wool, over twenty
centimetres in length" to quote the tariff sched-
ule -were slightly raised. Yet even the raised
duties are very moderate. Single unbleached
yarns pay is. 9|-d. per cwt, double or treble
yarns 2s. o^d. When the yarns are bleached,
dyed or printed the rates are 35. ojd. and 75. i|<I.
respectively. These charges work out at from
about one-fifth of a penny to four-fifths of a penny
per lb., whereas the average value of the yarns
sent to Germany in 1903 a year of moderate
wool prices was about i6d. and in 1906 nearly

282 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

23d. per Ib. The rates on alpaca and mohair are
lower still.

So far there have been no signs of a check in
the German demand for worsted. In the case of
alpaca and mohair no check was to be expected.
For the three years 1904-6 Germany took just
over two-thirds of all the worsted yarn exported,
reckoned by weight. Her proportion of the
alpaca and mohair was as nearly as possible the
same 30,000,000 out of 44,000,000 Ibs. The
values of course ran up very high, owing to the
rise in wool prices, so that in 1906 Germany
owed this country all but ,5,000,000 for yarns.

Those yarns which Germany does not take go
all over the world, so far as tariffs will permit.
France has an exceedingly complicated tariff
schedule, under which the yarns are taxed in pro-
portion to their fineness, dyed paying more than
undyed and twisted yarns more than single.
The very lowest duty on combed yarns is us. 5d.
per cwt. ; from that level the duties run up to up-
wards of 2. In spite of this she buys alpaca
and mohair freely, her purchases at present
amounting to about a quarter of the quantity
taken by Germany. This leaves but little alpaca
and mohair over for all other nations. Worsted
yarns she buys sparingly, rarely taking more than
,150,000 to ."200,000 worth of special qualities
that she cannot easily produce herself. Russia

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 283

in normal times buys a good deal more than this,
in spite of duties ranging from ,4 35. gd. to
,5 i2s. 4d. per cwt. The Scandinavians, the
Dutch and the Belgians all do some trade with
us ; but we have no other foreign customers of
importance. The United States has extinguished
the trade very effectually by means of a character-
istic minimum duty of 27^ cents a pound and 40
per cent, ad valorem. This applies to all yarns
valued at not more than 30 cents a pound. Fur-
ther details are unnecessary.

The Canadian yarn duties do not approach the
exaggerated imposts of the United States, but
they are fairly stiff nevertheless. Under the
latest revision of the tariff, certain classes of yarn
imported by braid, cord and hosiery manufac-
turers, together with alpaca and mohair yarns, are
admitted free. Most other yarns pay either 20
or 30 per cent. ; but when British spun the rates
are reduced to 1 2^ and 20 per cent, respectively.
As yet Canada is not a large buyer, but her pur-
chases have increased rapidly since 1 899 and are
now of some importance. Besides importing
English worsted to the value of from ,100,000 to
,150,000 she is one of the few countries that
takes any appreciable quantity of woollen yarns
from this country. She buys from the States and
the Continent as well as from England ; but the
bulk of the trade is with us.

284 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

Small quantities of yarn are exported to Aus-
tralia, New Zealand and other British dominions
beyond the seas. There is, however, no need to
trace all the minor channels of the trade, or to
call attention to the duties by which those channels
are impeded.

There are no broad, simple features in the
distribution of the finished manufactures, no
country or group of countries which holds a place
at all resembling that of Germany in relation to
the yarn trade, or of India in relation to the trade
in cotton cloth. Literally every country on the
face of the earth every country at least which
possesses trade statistics is a customer of ours.
Nearly all buy piece goods ; one or two are
satisfied with ready-made clothes. Korea used
to belong to this latter class ; so did Siam ; but
both may have left it in the last three years. Of
these innumerable purchasers, the majority buy
in relatively small quantities. Take, for example,
the year 1905. The total exports of wool manu-
factures were valued at .19,600,000. Only one
country, the Dominion of Canada, took more
than ,2,000,000 worth. Two others spent more
than ,1,500,000 but less than 2, 000,000. They
were the United States and Australia. Five
more came between ,1,500,000 and ,1,000,000
Germany, Belgium, 1 France, China and Japan.

1 It is often stated that a great part of the goods shipped
to Belgium eventually go to Germany. This may be so in

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 285

Next in order of importance were the Argentine
Republic and the British East Indies. Then
British South Africa. Some way behind her,
Turkey. Below that Holland and New Zealand

these two between ,400,000 and ,500,000.
And so on and so forth. It is a complex trade
a trade which is always being forced to com-
pensate itself for partial or total loss of markets
in one direction by energetic opening out of
markets in another. How dependent it is upon
the young and rising nations the catalogue just
quoted shows clearly enough. But it also shows
that a good business is still done even with our
full-grown and protectionist neighbours.

The most dramatic vicissitudes of the last
sixteen years have occurred in the trade with the
United States. In 1890 the exports of manufac-
tures to the States amounted to ,5,148,000.
Of these, by far the greater part were worsteds

Huddersfield and Bradford goods. Then came
the M'Kinley Tariff, and next year the exports
stood at ,3,178,000. This precipitate fall was
not all due to the new duties. Heavy con-
signments had been hurried into the country in
1890 before the tariff came into operation, as is

the long run ; but the figures showing the countries of con-
signment, as well as the countries of immediate destination,
first published for the year 1904, make it clear that most of
the goods now sent to Belgium are sent on Belgian account.

2 86 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

always the case under such circumstances ; more-
over, the price of wool was falling, and trade in
general was slackening. Yet the tariff was re-
sponsible for much, very much. It fell on the
worsted manufacturers with crushing force ; for
the M'Kinley Act was framed with a special
view to the trade in stuffs and worsted coatings,
goods which had never hitherto been produced
with much success in the United States. The
shock to Bradford was so great that prophets of
evil talked of the impossibility of her ever re-
covering. But recovery soon set in. Even the
trade with America expanded once more under
the more favourable Wilson Tariff of 1894. In
1897 came the Dingley Bill, a reversion to the
policy of 1890, and once more there was a
calamitous fall in the exports of worsted a fall
of upwards of ,1,000,000. There has been re-
covery again in the new century. Since 1903
the export of worsteds of all sorts to the States
has averaged just over .1,000,000 a year, and
the exports of worsteds and woollens together
have latterly exceeded ,1,500,000; but there is
no prospect that the figures of 1890 will ever
again be approached, for the Americans are
rapidly learning to make their own worsteds,
although for the finest qualities they must still
come to England or to France. Under the exist-
ing tariff woollen or worsted cloths pay duties

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 287

that vary from is. 4^d. per Ib. and 50 per cent.
ad valorem to is. lod. per Ib. and 55 per cent.
ad valorem. Flannels and blankets are admitted
rather more easily. Dress goods and the like
pay from 3^d. per square yard and 50 per cent.
ad valorem upwards ; and any such materials that
weigh more than four ounces to the square yard
pay duty as cloths. This is the tariff through
which ,1,000,000 worth of worsteds break their
way yearly. It is no small achievement.

The export trade in finished goods to France
sprang into life with the Cobden Treaty of 1860,
and grew in satisfactory fashion during the next
decade. After the war of 1870-1 it expanded in
the Free Trade air of the seventies. In 1880, a
year of but moderate commercial activity, it was
still over ,3,000,000. There was no serious
decline in the eighties, for the French tariff of
1 88 1 was not highly protective. For the three
years 1890-2, a time of cheap raw material, the
annual value stood at ,2,540,000, in spite of the
fact that in 1892 the Meline Tariff raised the rates
on all textiles. Subsequently, however, the in-
creased duties began to tell. In combination with
a slight fall in the price of wool, and it may be
some influences from the South African war,
they reduced the annual average to ,1,440,000
for 1900-2. There was a further slight fall to
,1,340,000 in 1903-5, due almost entirely to

288 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

a decline in the export of worsteds during the
two latter years. Considerably more than half
the present export consists of woollens, the pre-
ponderance of woollens having increased during
the dear wool years since 1903 years which
have, to a certain extent, been unfavourable to
the worsted manufacture.

It is impossible to summarise accurately the
history of the German trade, owing to the diffi-
culties already referred to in connection with the
shipping of goods via Dutch and Belgian ports.
The direct exports of manufactures to Germany,
like those to France, were at their maximum in
the early seventies, when they reached ,5, 000,000
and upwards. With the late seventies came
trade depression and tariffs, accompanied and
followed by the great extension and improve-
ment of the German manufacturing industry.
Already in 1880 the direct trade had dwindled
to a little over ,1,200,000, and there was no
recovery in the following decade. Between 1890
and 1904 both the direct trade and the total
trade with Germany, Belgium and Holland
which it is convenient for some purposes to treat
as a single item in our exports remained re-
markably stationary in value. During the period
1890-2 the former stood at ,866,000 per annum,
and the latter at ,2,367,000 per annum. For
the years 1902-4 the corresponding figures were

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 289

"897,000 and ,2,229,000. In 1905 the direct
trade rose above ,1,000,000, and the total rose
to 2,603,000. These increases seem to have
been more than maintained in 1906.

To trace the history of each of the numberless
sections of the export trade would be tedious
and unprofitable. It is enough to mention here
that the foreign markets whose recent histories
have been most satisfactory, from the point of
view of the British manufacturer and merchant,
are the Japanese, the Chinese and the Argentine.
Some further reference to the colonial markets
is however necessary. With Canada there has
been a considerable trade for a generation and
more. It amounted to just about 1,000,000
in 1870 and to over 1,000,000 in 1880, while
wool was still rather dear. In 1890-2, when
wool prices had fallen far below the level of the
seventies, it had grown to 1,315,000. Five
years later the preferential tariff came to help the
British exporter against his foreign competitor,
though it by no means threw the Canadian market
open to him. The tariff for most classes of
finished goods was fixed at 35 per cent., ad
valorem, with a reduction of a third on British-
made goods. There was not a very rapid ex-
pansion of trade with this country immediately
after the introduction of the preferential system.

But if not rapid the extension was steady enough
19

2 9 o WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

to rob the system of some of its popularity.
Whether it was caused by the preference rather
than by the increase of Canadian demand, due
to a rapidly growing population, is a question
too delicate for off-hand solution. Our annual
average export to Canada for 1900-2 was
;i, 618,000; for 1903-5 it stood at ,2,287,000.
The sharp rise after 1902 led to complaints from
the Canadian mill-owners and a raising of the
rate on the most important classes of British
goods to 30 per cent, instead of 23 \ per cent.
Finally the tariff resolutions of November, 1906,
introduced an intricate system of parallel tariffs,
the preferential, the intermediate, and the general.
The intermediate is intended for friends who
treat Canadian produce with consideration, the
preferential is for blood relations, the general
for the world at large. The chief British ex-
ports tweeds, coatings, woollen cloths and so
on are still to pay 30 per cent, the general
tariff on the same classes of goods being 35 per
cent. British flannels, blankets, hosiery, " Italian
linings," alpacas and mohairs pay 22^ per cent. ;
carpets, 25 per cent. ; undyed or unfinished dress
goods and the like, 17^ per cent. In all these
cases except the last the general tariff is again
35 per cent.

The trade with Canada has to face the com-
petition of an important local manufacturing in-

j r>RTS AND EXPORTS 291

dustry, th<a. . , 'Australia has not. But owing
to the slow giowth of Australia's population,
her many economic vicissitudes and a little
foreign competition, 1 this branch of the export
trade is somewhat stunted, though strong. It
was rather larger than the Canadian branch in
the early seventies and again in the early eighties.
For the years 1890-2 the annual average stood
at ,1,549,000; for 1900-2 at ,1,768,000; for
1 9 o 3-5 at 1,545,000. The year 1903, the last
of the drought, proved a particularly bad one in
the Australian trade, as might have been ex-
pected. Seeing that the Commonwealth has
now almost recovered from the effects of the
drought, the quickened growth of 1904-6 may
be expected to continue.

All the remaining colonial markets except the
West Indies, have been markedly better out-
lets for British manufactures in the opening
years of the twentieth century than they were
at the beginning of the previous decade or at
any earlier date. Of foreign countries, some as
we have seen have fallen off while others have
improved. During the three years 1903-5, out
of an average annual export of finished goods
valued at 17,828,000, 6,393,000 worth or
rather more than a third went to markets within

1 Foreign competition is, however, keener in Canada than
in Australia.

292 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED 1

the Empire. The ratio of In 1 . , .o foreign
sales had never been quite so highSjetore. Oddly
enough it coincided almost exactly with the ratio
between the total Imperial and the total foreign
exports of all classes of British and Irish produce,
a ratio which, as is well known, has altered sur-
prisingly little for a long series of years. In the
case of wool manufactures, however, there seems
at least a prospect, one cannot say more, that
the Imperial trade will assume greater relative as
well as absolute proportions in the near future.
The yarn trade, as we have seen, has not yet
entered the Imperial phase.

Before turning from exports to imports it is
interesting to compare the export trade of the
United Kingdom with those of her two greatest
rivals, France and Germany. Such a comparison
is made in the diagram opposite. The notes
on the diagram itself explain the principles upon
which it has been constructed. It would be in-
teresting, were it possible, to trace the fluctuations
over a much longer period ; but statistical diffi-
culties which need not be explained here -
stand in the way. Although it only deals with a
relatively short period, the diagram brings out a
number of interesting points. Much the most
interesting is the similarity of the curves for the
three countries and the extraordinary similarity
of the French and English curves up to 1902.

EXPORTS OF YARNS AND MANUFACTURES FROM THE UNITE!) KINGDOM,
FRANCE AND GERMANY, 1889-1904

Note. The figures cover yarns, woollen and worsteds, hosiery, carpets, etc., but
not tops, etc., or ready made clothing. Francs have been translated into
pounds at 25 and marks at 20 to the i. An exact translation would slightly
reduce the total value of both French and German trade, reckoned in
pounds, but to an extent which would hardly be noticeable on the diagram.

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 293

All three are, of course, subject to certain in-
fluences in common fluctuations in the world
prices of raw materials, expansions and contrac-
tions of the whole volume of international com-
merce, and decisive fiscal or other changes in
important markets with which all deal. The
M'Kinley, Wilson, and Dingley Tariffs, for in-
stance, have left their marks on all. Those
marks are deepest on the English and French
curves, because France and England are speci-
ally interested in the worsted trade, which was
the chief target for the American tariff-makers
in the nineties. The almost absolute coincidence
of years of maximum and minimum exports for
the three countries, during the period covered by
the diagram, is a conclusive proof if proof were
needed that in matters of foreign trade one
country's prosperity is not another's adversity.

France's failure to recover her position at the
close of the period, at a time when German and
English trade were both on the up-grade, is not
altogether easy to explain. It is in part con-
nected with her rather dangerous dependence on
a single market, the market of this country, to
which she sends from a half to two-thirds of all
her goods. Should the demand of this single
market contract or not expand satisfactorily, the
effect on total exports is very conspicuous ;
whereas in the case of England, with her long

294 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

list of important customers, failure in one quarter
can be balanced by successes elsewhere.

Of the three curves the German is certainly
the best and the French the worst. The former,
in spite of vicissitudes, shows a general upward
trend, the latter a trend downwards. 1 The Eng-
lish curve occupies an intermediate position ; its
slight decline is accompanied by great recupera-
tive power. A comparison with the diagram
facing page 276 will show that, if the figures had
been brought up to date, the recovery registered
would have been complete, partly as a conse-
quence of dearer raw material. But that is a
circumstance which affects all parties alike. It
might be pointed out in this connection that the
yarn element is of course greater in the English
curve. Germany and France are, however, both
considerable yarn exporters. Taking the five
years 1 900-4, it appears that, in the case of the
United Kingdom, the value of the yarns was
26*6 per cent, of the total value of the exports
with which the diagram deals. For Germany
the percentage, reckoned on the same basis, was
20 '4 per cent, and for France 12*4 per cent.
This shows that our dependence on the yarn

1 In 1905 England and Germany rose again, France fell
again. But as figures strictly comparable with those for the
earlier years were not available at the time of writing, this
year was not included in the diagram.

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 295

trade is not so exceptional as is sometimes sup-
posed. Germany at any rate is in much the
same position as ourselves.

That Germany has on the whole the most
satisfactory record of the three great exporting
nations is in no way surprising. During the
period under review her population was growing
faster than that of the United Kingdom and
very much faster than that of France. But far
more important than this is the fact that only
since the seventies has she succeeded in establish-
ing a manufacturing industry, so organised and
equipped as to be able to compete successfully
with the older industries of England and France.

On the effect of a nation's fiscal policy upon
its own exports the diagram throws but little
direct light. France, although free to retaliate
and bargain with tariffs, has not managed to force
her goods upon other protectionist nations, who
have shown an increasing disinclination to take
them. In Germany protection is associated with
rising, in France with falling, exports. If any
fiscal moral were to be extracted from the facts,
it might run somewhat as follows : that at times
of fiscal controversy there is a tendency to exag-
gerate the importance of Government action,
both positive and negative, and to underrate the
effects of those deep-working economic forces
over which Acts of Parliament have but a limited

296 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

and an indirect control. That this is a moral dis-
tasteful to the controversialist cannot be helped.

The total imports of woollen and worsted
yarns and manufactures into the United King-
dom, for the forty years covered by the export
diagram, are shown in the curve facing this page.

A comparison between the two is interesting.
There are naturally no great jolts and jerks in
the course of the imports, for neither wars nor
tariffs have impeded it. From 1866 to 1889
there was a very steady upward movement, with
one marked irregularity in 1880 and a second,
less marked, in 1886. Since 1889 there has
been astonishingly little variation throughout a
period of eighteen years. Reference to the wool
prices facing page 276 shows that this stagnation
in the value of imports cannot be explained by
any marked fall in the cost of raw material.
There was a fall, on the whole, up to 1902 ; but
it was slight, and even the swollen wool prices of
the last few years have not had that stimulating
effect on the value of the imports, which is so
conspicuous in the case of the exports. Indeed
it is clear at a glance that the imports of the
years 1 904-6 were at least as low as those of any
other triennial period since 1893. There is thus
no sort of evidence to support the belief that the
close of the nineteenth and the opening of the
twentieth centuries witnessed a disastrous "in-

Imports of Yarns & Manufactur

1 1

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1
(

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c

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1866

1874

1882

1890

1898

1906

Millions of .
^ o> F3

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IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 297

vasion " of our market from abroad. For eigh-
teen years at least all the increase in the home
consumption of wool textiles must have been
met by the produce of the home mills. And
during those eighteen years the national income
in the economist's not the statesman's sense-
increased by something between a quarter and
a third, carrying with it a proportionate increase
of purchasing power throughout the country.

Before these import figures are further ana-
lysed, one modification or correction of them
should be made. They cover each year a con-
siderable quantity of goods which are not consumed
in this country but are re-exported by English
merchants. This re-export trade fluctuates a
good deal. Before 1880 it was comparatively
insignificant. Except in one single year 1871
it never rose above ,3-400,000. A short table
of quinquennial averages will best illustrate its
movement since that date :

1880-4, 552,000 1895-9, 762,000

1885-9, 611,000 1900-4, 883,000

1890-4, 1,208,000 i95- 6 > ,1,098,000

The period 1890-4 is seen to have been one
of abnormally high re-exports. In 1890 the
figure reached a million and a half, the highest of
any year on record. It remained over a million
during the three following years, but never touched
that figure again till 1905. For certain statistical

298 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

purposes it might be well to subtract these re-
exports from the imports, so securing a "net"
import. This operation would slightly increase
the fluctuations in the import curve ; it would
also somewhat lower the general level of the
curve since 1880, as compared with the sixties
and seventies, thus showing the rise in the im-
ports for domestic consumption to have been even
more gradual than the rise in total imports.
But although these re-exports do not enter into
competition with British goods in the home mar-
ket, they do, or at least may, compete with British
exports, and therefore it seems better on the
whole not to construct a "net" import curve
which would ignore their existence altogether.
A brisk re-export trade indicates a pressing need
of some sort for foreign-made goods, in markets
served by English merchants ; and it is relatively
immaterial that those markets happen also to be
foreign.

The present sources of our imported yarns
were described in Chapter VI. More than
a half of those yarns are Belgian. In 1905, out
of a total yarn import of ,2,697,000, Belgium
was credited with ,1,579,000 ; France came
next with ,679,000 ; then Germany with
,414,000. No other country sent any appreci-
able quantity. Both the weight and the value
of the yarns imported in 1905, and again in 1906,

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 299

were greater than they had ever been before;
but the development of the trade has been very
gradual indeed. So long ago as 1863 the im-
ports were already over ,1,000,000. In the late
sixties they were about .1,500,000. Since 1883
they have seldom fallen much below ,2,000,000.
The annual fluctuations do not merit a more
careful examination.

Officially the imports are now nearly all classed
as weaving yarns, though the knitting machines
use them as well as the looms. The imports of yarn
for hand-knitting and wool-work were consider-
able for some twenty years, say, 1878-98. Those
were the palmy days of the true Berlin wool-
shop. The trade has now dwindled to about a
third of its former size. It is not worth more than
,70,000 to ,80,000 a year, and its place has
been taken, so far as Germany is concerned, by
the export of weaving yarns. Up to 1890,
Belgium and France supplied us with almost all
the mule-spun worsted and foreign woollen yarn
that we required. In the early nineties Germany
was sending over some 180,000 worth of the
"Berlin" class of yarns and only ,60,000 to
,70,000 worth of weaving yarn. Since 1900
her exports of weaving yarn to us have never
fallen below ,300,000 and have once risen
above ,470,000. Occasionally she has run
France close for the second place, and it is likely

3 oo WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

enough that she will outstrip her in the near
future.

In the matter of finished goods France still
holds her own. It is from her that we have al-
ways drawn the bulk of our imports. Her share
of the trade fluctuates of course, but roughly
speaking it forms two-thirds, or nearly two-thirds
of the whole. Its character has for many years
been very much what it now is immense con-
signments of stuffs of every grade, the finest and
most workmanlike, the flimsiest and most specious,
all attractive and many beautifully dyed and fin-
ished ; no cloths worth mentioning ; and a list of
miscellaneous fabrics, sometimes long and some-
times short, including carpets, shawls, furniture
materials, tapestries, damasks and what not.
The trade ebbs and flows with the ebb and
flow of fashion ; but France who makes so many
of the fashions can generally profit by them, al-
though at times their movements get beyond
her control.

It is not possible to apportion exactly the re-
mainder of the trade among the nations, over
any long period, owing to statistical difficulties
caused by the import of German, Austrian,
Swiss and other goods through Belgium and
Holland and France. The official return of
the actual as distinguished from the apparent
sources of supply for the year 1904, published

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 301

in 1906, enables us for the first time to measure
with some accuracy the importance of certain
sections of the trade, whose existence was well
known to business men, but whose size was not
known to any one. What follows is necessarily
based on the figures of this single year and must
be valued accordingly. It should be borne in
mind too that in 1904 the manufactures imported
were worth less than they had been in any year
since 1888, except 1903. Yet no doubt the
figures give a good, rough, general impression
of the present state of trade.

The total is ,9,076,000. The subdivisions,
to the nearest thousand, are cloths, ,634,000 ;
stuffs, ,5,641,000; flannels, ,13,000; hosiery,
.307,000 ; carpets and rugs, ,463,000 ; mo-
hair braids and laces, ,102,000 ; and un-
enumerated manufactures, ,1,910,000. Of the
stuffs ,4,922,000 were consigned from France
and .514,000 from Germany. Four-fifths of
the German goods and about ,75,000 worth of
the French were shipped from Belgian and
Dutch ports. Third in the list of exporters
of stuffs came Switzerland with i 24,000. This
is an interesting trade, the existence of which was
first officially revealed in the 1906 return. Pos-
sibly some of the Swiss stuffs were really English
made ; for cases have been known in which goods
were sent all the way from Yorkshire to Switzer-

3 o2 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

land to be dyed a curious instance of interna-
tional division of labour.

The other foreign countries from which stuffs
were consigned were, in the order named, Bel-
gium (,46,000), Austria- Hungary, Holland
and Italy (.4000). British possessions sent
,145 worth. One would like to know what
part of the Empire was responsible for this lonely
figure ; but that is not revealed.

The cloths were mainly German (,455,000)
and Dutch (,1 16,000). These are not cloths for
men's wear, generally speaking, but what are
known as mantle cloths, bought by wholesale
clothiers to be turned into women's golf capes,
and so forth. Belgium sent ,34,000 worth of
cloth, probably of the same class as that from
Holland and Germany. Lastly, Austria- Hun-
gary was credited with ,30,000. This sum
represents, in part at any rate, fine cloth from
Briinn in Moravia, that competes with the goods
from the West of England mills. France ends
the list with ^"2000.

The mohair braids and laces are practically all
Belgian, the flannel is all German, and so are
five-sixths of the woollen hosiery. Switzerland
is the second hosiery exporter (,41,000), and
France the third (,9000). Just half the carpets
are from the Turkish Empire and Persia, as one
would expect. Nearly a fifth (,90,000) are from

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 303

British India. The only exporters of importance
in the West are Germany (,60,000), France
(,37,000), and Austria- Hungary(, i 2,000). The
United States appears under this heading, but
her ,4000 worth of rugs could hardly raise the
bogey of an American Invasion.

The unenumerated manufactures are Ger-
man (,1,223,000), French (,511,000), Swiss
(,6i,ooo) ) Belgian(,47,ooo),Austrian(,32,ooo),
Dutch (,25,000), American (,4000), and Dan-
ish, with ,1000 worth from British possessions.
Fortunately the export figures from Germany
enable us to break up her immense share into
some of its component parts. There were over
,200,000 worth of fringes and trimmings, over
,100,000 of felt ings, some furniture plushes,
embroideries, shawls and mixed fabrics of worsted
and silk. What else there may have been only
the merchants know. Such are the imports.
Except for the French stuffs they are a motley
crew. No wonder that there is perpetual striving
and inquiry in Bradford after the best methods
of meeting and overcoming French competition ;
for if the French were once beaten out of the
field there would be little left to conquer.
We have seen that the home manufacture has
held its own well of late years in the home
market, and that pessimistic statements to the
contrary are not borne out by the facts. But

3 o 4 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

greater familiarity with French methods of manu-
facture and more of the French artistic spirit are
still to be desired. The first need can be met
by education, scientific inquiry and perseverance.
Unfortunately, there is more difficulty about the
acquisition of so intangible a thing as the French
spirit.

SHE EMMA HALE MEMORIAL LIBRARY

tEXINCSTON ST AKD RIVER 3UVD,

INDEPENDENCE. MISSOURI

INDEX

ALPACA, roo, 115, 117, 121, 138,

142, 280, 282.

Argentine wools, 78, 82, 89.
Auctions

Australian, 94-98, 102.

Dewsbury (rag), 124.

Liverpool, 99-101.

Local, 107, 108.

London, 90-94, 98-102.
Australian wools, 79, 80, 84, 87-
90, 92-95.

BACKWASHING machine, 39.
Bradford Chamber of Commerce,

"5, 155, 158.

Bradford Conditioning House, 158.
Bradford Dyers' Association, 151,

154.
Bradford Piece Dyeing Board, 155,

156.
Burr extraction, 32, 33.

CARDING, 33-36, 38, 39, 134, 135.
Camel's hair, 100, 118, 188.
Cashmere, 100, 118.
Cheviot sheep, 83, 105.
Combers' combinations, 157.
Combing, 40-47, 130, 136, 137,

141.

Combing mills, 136-38.
Combs

Heilmann, 41.

Holden, 41, 43, 45, 46.

Lister, 41, 43-45.

Noble, 41-43, 45.
Commission firms, 130, 137, 138.
Condensing, 35.
Consumption of wool, 10.
Cotswold sheep, 86, 104.

DISTRIBUTION of industries, 12 sqq.

Drawing, 47-49.

Dyeing, 57, 128, 135, 136, 150-52,

154-
Dyeing combinations, 154.

EASTERN wools, 100, 101.
Employment statistics

Great Britain, 5, 7, 132, 139,

174-81 sqq.
France, 223.
Germany, 242.
New Zealand, 267.
United States, 252.
English wools, 102-104, 106-108,

138.
Export trade

Great Britain, 272-77, 284 sqq. ,

292.

Piece goods, 167-70, 2845^.
Yarns, 161, 277 sqq., 294.
Tops, etc., 278.
To Australia, 291.
To Canada, 289, 290.
To France, 287, 288.
To Germany, 288, 289.
To United States, 285, 287.
Canadian, 265.
French, 233, 292, 296.
German, 292, 296.
Comparison of export trade of
Great Britain, France and
Germany, 292-96.

FACTORIES, 129 sqq., 141, 146, 147.
Factory laws, table of, 271.
Fellmongery, 116, 117, 234, 235.
Finishing processes, 70-75, 150,

Fulling, 70 sqq.

305

306 WOOLLEN AND WORSTED INDUSTRIES

HAND looms, 58, 63, 67, 128, 129.

Hand looms (France), 226-28.

Hand looms (Germany), 243.

Hand mules, 135.

Healding, 61 sqq.

Health of workers, 187 sqq.

IMPORT trade

General statistics, Great Bri-
tain, 296, 301-4.
From Belgium, 298, 299,

301.

From France, 298-301.
From Germany, 298, 299,

301.

Piece goods, 300 sqq.
Yarns, 298, 299.
Canadian, 265, 266.
German, 249, 280-82.
Italian, 260.
Russian, 262.

Industrial organisation abroad,
221.

America, 251 sqq.
Argentine, 269, 270.
Australia, 267, 268.
Belgium, 236 sqq.
Canada, 264-66.
France, 222 sqq.
Germany, 241 sqq.
Italy, 258-60.
Japan, 262-64.
New Zealand, 267, 268.
South Africa, 268, 269.
Ireland, 13, 14, 134.

JOINT stock companies, 152, 153.

LANCASHIRE, 13, 21, 22, 133, 151.
Leicester sheep, 28, 37, 78, 104, 106.
Lincoln sheep, 37, 78, 82, 86, 104.
Looms

" Dobbie," 64.

Hand. See Hand looms.

Jacquard, 62, 63.

Power, 58 sqq.

Tappet, 63, 64.

MACHINERY statistics

Great Britain, 7, 9, 132-34.

France, 223, 224.

Germany, 242.

Italy, 259.

United States, 252, 253.
Merino, 37, 38, 77, 78, 81, 82, 86,

106.

Milling. See Fulling.
Mixing, 36.
Mohair, 45, 100, 115, 118-21, 138,

142, 188, 280, 282.
Mungo, 121, 122, 135.

NEW ZEALAND wool, 81, 84, 88, 89.
Noils, 40, 46, 112, 113, 278.
Norfolk sheep, 83.

PHYSIQUE of workers, 191.

Piece trade (home), 161 sqq., 170

sqq.
Preparing boxes, 39.

RAGS, 27, 115, 120, 121, 125, 189.

Rag-grinder, 26.

Rag wool. See Shoddy.

Raising, 72, 73.

Re-export trade, 297, 298.

Romney Marsh sheep, 104, 105.

SAXONY wool, 28.
Scotland, 13, 22, 56, 133, 134, 146,
I 5 I i *53, 159, 167, 170, 171, 197,
204.

Scoured wool, 91, 92.
Scouring, 71.
Shoddy, 26, 27, 120 sqq.
Skin wool, 91, 92, 115-17.
Sleying, 65, 66.

South African wool, 79, 80, 84.
South American wool, 80 sqq., go

sqq.

South Down sheep, 106.
Sorting, 29.

Specialised businesses, 144 sqq.
Spinning

Cap, 51, 52.

Flyer, 50.

Mule, 53-55, 150.

Ring, 52, 53-

Woollen, 134, 135, 146-48.
Worsted, 50 sqq., 139 sqq.
Spinning combinations, 157.

INDEX

TARIFFS

Canada, 280, 283.

France, 282, 287.

Germany, 280.

Italy, 279.

Russia, 280, 283.

United States, 256, 279, 283,

285-87, 293.
Tops, 40, 46, 47, 112, 113, 137,

158, 159, 278, 279.
Top makers, no sqq.
Trades Unions, 204 sqq., 213.
Training and apprenticeship, 218-

20.
Twisting, 56, 57.

WAGES, methods of paying, 213,

218.
Wage statistics

Great Britain, 191 sqq.

France, 231.

Germany, 250.

United States, 257.
Wales, 13, 14, 133, 134, 142.
Washed and greasy wool, 91.

Washing, 31, 32, 233.

Warping, 59.

Weaving, 57 sqq., 140, 141.

Welsh sheep, 105, 106.

West of England, 56, 143, 153,

X 57> X 63, 167, 181.
Willey, 31.
Women's dress goods, 144, 145,

151-
Wool staplers and merchants, no

sqq.
Woollen, 3, 26, 33-37, 53, 69, 70

sqq., 127 sqq.
Worsted, 2, 3, 37 sqq., no, 127

sqq., 142 sqq.
Worsted coatings, 145, 151.

YARNS, 55 sqq., 69, 71, 134, 136,

142, 143, 147 sqq., 157 sqq., 277-
80, 298.

Yarn trade (home), 160, 161.
Yorkshire, 18, 20, 56, 128, 133, 142,

143, 147-49, 151, 157, 162-64,
167, 170, 172, 175, 184, 197-99,
205.

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