COTTON MANUFACTURE

In modern times cotton has attained to an importance among vegetables second only to that of corn, and which could not have been so much as dreamed of in former ages. The manufacture of cotton wool into articles of use and ornament appears, indeed, to have been carried on in India from the remotest antiquity; but it \^& not made any very great progre in the East, and obtained no footing worth mentioning in Europe, till last century. The truth is, that this manufacture, though it now affords employment and subsistence to many hundreds of you sands of persons in this and other countries, is almost wholly a consequence of discoveries and inventions made in Great Britain and the United States, since the middle of last century. Previously to that period the manufacture was everywhere confined within the narrowest limits. Owing to the difficulty of separating the wool from the seed, its price, so long as this operation had to be performed by the hand, was naturally high; while the cost of its spinning and weaving by the wheels and looms in use previously to 1760 added so much to its price, that cotton articles were suited only to the use and demand of the better cla es of society; and it seems unreasonable to suppose that the manufacture should have been materially extended without a greatly increased facility of production. But in this respect the most signal and extraordinary improvements have been made. The Jenny invented by Hargreaves in 1767 enabled one individual to spin 80 or 120 threads with about the same facility that a single thread had been previously spun. The jenny, however, was fitted only to spin the softer descriptions of yarn or that used as w^t, being unable to give the thread the firmne and hardne required in that used.as tvarp. But this deficiency was soon supplied: the genius of Ark wright completed what Hargreaves had begun, by inventing the spinning frame, — that wonderful piece of machinery which spins any number of threads of any degree of finene and hardne , leaving to man merely to feed the machine with cotton, and to join the threads when they break! Nearly at the same time that the spinning department was thus wonderfully improved. Dr. Cartwright, a clergyman of Kent, invented the power-loom, a machine which has already gone far to supersede weaving by the hand, and which will, no doubt, in the end bring about this desirable result. While these extraordinary inventions were being made. Watt was perfecting the steam-engine, endowing it with capacity to engrave a seal, to give motion to the most ponderous machinery, or to lift a ship like a bauble in the air; and was thus not only supplying the manufacturers with a new power applicable to every purpose, and easy of controul, but with one that might be placed in the most convenient situations, and amid a population trained to industrious habits. Still, however, something more was nece ary to complete this astonishing career of discovery. Without a vastly increased supply of the raw material at a lower price than it had previously brought, the inventions of Hargreaves, Ark wright, and Watt would have been of comparatively little value. Luckily, however, what they did for the manufacturers, Mr. Eli Whitney did for the cotton growers. This extraordinary person, a native COTTON MANUFACTURE. of the southern states of America, invented a machine by which cotton wool is separated from the seed with the utmost facility and expedition. Previously to 1790 the United States did not export a single pound weight of raw cotton. In 1792 they exported the trifling quantity of 138,328 lbs. Whitney s invention came into operation in 1793;and in 1794, 1,601,760 lbs., and in 1795, 5,276,306 lbs. were exported I And so astonishing has been the growth of cotton in the interval, occasioned by this discovery and the discoveries made in England, that in 1838 the exports from the United States amounted to the prodigious quantity of 595,952,297 lbs.! A cotton mill is probably, all things considered, the most astonishing triumph of skill and ingenuity. All the various operations, from the carding of the wool to its conversion into a texture as fine almost as that of the go amer, is performed by machinery. Each of the workmen at present employed in a cotton mill superintends as much work as could have been executed by 200 or 300 workmen 60 or 70 years ago, and yet, instead of being diminished, the numbers employed have increased even in a still greater proportion! It would be curious to investigate how many persons in the old and new worlds directly depend for subsistence on the inventions and discoveries of Hargreaves, Ark wright, Watt, Whitney, and the other founders and improvers of this great manufacture. They certainly amount to several millions; at the same time that there is hardly an individual in any country, how remote or barbarous soever, who is not indebted to them for an increase of comfort and enjoyment. " It is impo ible to estimate the advantage to the bulk of the people, from the wonderful cheapne of cotton goods. The wife of a labouring man may buy, at a retail shop, a neat and good print as low as Ad. a yard; so that allowing 7 yards for the dre , the whole material shall only cost 2s. Ad. Common plain calico may be bought for 2^. a yard; elegant cotton prints for ladies' dre es sell at from lOd. to \s. Ad. per yard, and printed muslins at from Is. to 4s., the higher priced having beautiful patterns, in brilliant and permanent colours. Thus the humblest cla es have now the means of as great neatne , and even gaiety of dre , as the middle and upper cla es of the last age. A country wake in the 19th century may display as much finery as a drawing room of the 17th; and the peasant's cottage may, at this day, with good management, have as handsome furniture for beds, windows, and tables, as the house of a substantial tradesman 60 years since." {Baines'sHist. Cotton Man if facture, p. 358.) Owing partly to our having had the start in the career of discovery, but more to our command of all but inexhaustible supplies of coal, so indispensable to the cheap and advantageous supply of steam as a moving power, and to the enterprise and invention of our capitalists, engineers,. and workmen, we have continued to keep that lead in the manufacture we early acquired. At this moment it affords employment to not fewer than 1,500,000 individuals in this country; and constitutes, in fact, the grand source of our manufacturing prosperity, and the principal element of our commerce. The following statements give a view of the progre of the manufacture in Great Britain: — Account of the Imports of Cotton Wool, and of the ofScial "Value of the Cotton Goods exported from Great Britain in the following Years, from 1697 to 1764, both inclusive. Official Official Value of Value of Years. Raw Cotton British Cot Years. Raw Cotton British Cot. imported. ■ ton Goods imported. ton Goods exported. exported. Ihs. L. Ihs. L. 1697 1,976,359 5,916 1730 1,545,472 13,524 1701 1,985,868 23,253 1741 1,645,031 20,709 1710 715,008 5,698 1751 2,976,610 45,986 i 1720 1,972,80,5 16,200 1764 3,870,392 200,354 | The spinning jenny was invented in 1767, and Ark wright took out his first patent for spinning by rollers in 1769. The influence of these and numberle other inventions on the trade is exhibited in the following table: — Years. Cotton imported. Cotton Vo „ Cotton ^«"Sim ported. CoUon i exported. | 1 1781 1785 1790 1795. 1800 1805 lb,. 5,198.778 18,400,384 31,447,605 26,401,340 56,010,732 59,682,406 lbs. 96,788 407,496 844,154 1,193,737 4,416,610 804,243 lbs. \ lbs, 1810 132,488,935 8,787,109 1811 91,576,535' 1,266,867 IS 12 6.3,025,936 1,440,912 1813 50,966,0001 1814 60,060,239' 6,282,437 1815 1 99,306,343 6,780,392 The subjoined statement, taken from the circular of Me rs. George Holt and Co., cotton brokers at Liverpool, dated the 3lst December, 1840, gives a very complete view of all the more important particulars respecting the British cotton manufacture in the undermentioned years, from 1816 to 1840, both inclusive. U [s. 302]