manufacture of sewing thread; whilst other descriptions, employed almost entirely for weaving, are produced in Oldham and other towns. The weaving branches of the industry are chiefly conducted in the northern half of Lancashire-most of it in such large boroughs as Blackburn, Burnley, and Preston.

Here, again, there is differentiation. Preston and Chorley produce the finer and lighter fabrics; Blackburn, Darwen, and Accrington, shirtings, dhooties, and other goods extensively shipped to India; whilst Nelson and Colne make cloths woven from dyed yarn, and Bolton is distinguished for fine quiltings and fancy cotton dress goods. These demarcations are not absolutely observed, but they are sufficiently clear to give to each town in the area covered by the cotton industry a distinctive place in its general organization.

There are obvious advantages in all this differentiation. One of them is that it facilitates excellence of quality and abundant production; the workpeople and the whole of the staffs employed at the mills-from the managers downward-becoming trained and highly skilled in the manufacture of the particular classes of goods to which their attention is exclusively and continuously directed. Indeed, this mode of organization is absolutely essential to the success of the British cotton industry, because of the great diversity of taste, of climate, and of buying power of the numerous races and peoples in the world-wide markets to which British cotton manufactures are sent.

In the processes following that of weaving to which the fabric is submitted, except when it is exported in the "grey" state, there is also much further separation of processes. These are, chiefly, calico printing, bleaching, dyeing, mercerising, and finishing; that is to say, the further final process required in many cases to give

the completed fabric the exactly appropriate appearance and touch needed to tempt and satisfy the taste of the buyer.

But the most remarkable separation of functions in the cotton goods trade is the almost complete distinction between the businesses of manufacturing and distributing. Until about the year 1820 the Manchester cotton manufacturers whose productions were sent abroad, conducted their trade directly, having their agents at the principal centres in such countries as were open to receive British cotton goods. Some states-France and Austria, for example-prohibited their importation. In other countries Manchester cottons were, to a large extent, sold at periodical fairs, as at Frankfort, and at other centres in Italy. During the Napoleonic wars this trade was attended with great risk-warlike and financial-and delay. Goods were sent, of course, by sailing vessels, and for a long time these could leave English ports only under the convoy of ships of war.

Such perils disappeared, however, after the reestablishment of peace in 1815; and from 1820 the characteristic trade of Manchester began to expand rapidly, and to undergo a remarkable change in its method. With the introduction and improvement of machinery, both for weaving and spinning, the business of distributing cotton goods gradually became separated from that of producing them. A distinct class of merchants arose-some devoted entirely to foreign, others to home trade. At first the over-sea trade was conducted by English, Scotch, or Irish houses; but these were soon joined by Germans, chiefly from Hamburg or Frankfort, some of whom had previously acted as agents for Manchester manufacturers.

Before 1825 the export of merchandise from England to the Turkish Dominions had been exclusively in the

G

hands of the Levant or Turkey Company, under a Charter granted originally by Queen Elizabeth in 1581. Its trade might be conducted only from the port of London. Adam Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations," describes this Company as "a strict and oppressive monopoly." Its position was certainly a very extraordinary one, for it bore the cost of supporting a British Ambassador at Constantinople and Consuls at Aleppo, Smyrna, and other places. The trading monopoly of the Company extended over the whole of the Sultan's possessions in Europe, Asia, and Africa. After the surrender of its Charter in 1825, Greeks came to Manchester to open up the trade with Turkey. By their energy and commercial skill, as well as their knowledge of the East Mediterranean markets, they gave very considerable aid to the distribution of Manchester cotton goods. Later on, assisted by the wealth they had acquired, some of them launched out into the cotton goods trade with India and other large markets, and their descendants are now in the foremost rank of British merchants. Other foreigners have, in like manner, settled in Manchester, and have contributed greatly during the last half-century toward the extension of its trade to all parts of the world. Mainly, however, this has been the work of English, Scotch, and Irish merchants, who, by devoting themselves exclusively to the work of distribution, have become an important and now indispensable auxiliary to the cotton industry of Lancashire.

II

Hitherto I have endeavoured to fix your attention upon the circumstances-many of them very unfavourable-in which the cotton machine-manufacture of this country was founded, tracing its progress, and pointing out the pre-eminent position which it finally attained, and which it still holds. It was the first, by many years, to abandon entirely the hand-loom for weaving; and in no other great cotton-manufacturing country, except the United States, has the use of that primitive instrument ceased even now. I then described the mechanism, first, of the cotton markets through which the raw material of industry is brought to the mills, and secondly, the mechanism of the distribution of the manufactured product from the primary market in Manchester to the areas of consumption throughout the world.

I now proceed to set before you the salient points in the progress of the industry in other lands where the industry has extended most rapidly during the last thirty years, viz. the United States, the European Continent, and Asia.

Cotton spinning and weaving by machinery began in America almost as early as in Great Britain. From priority of establishment, therefore, the English industry gained little. Indeed, during the Napoleonic wars, at the end of the eighteenth and in the earlier part of the nineteenth century, the advantage was with the Americans, since they were then, and for a long time

afterwards, free from the heavy duties on raw cotton and other materials of production which oppressed the spinners and manufacturers of the United Kingdom. Moreover, the brief war of 1812-15 between the States and the old country gave a strong impetus to the American industry. The prices of cotton goods across the Atlantic rose to four times their previous amount; and cotton-spinning mills there were multiplied so greatly that, after the restoration of peace in 1815, many of them were closed, and became for a time almost worthless. In the following year protective duties were imposed, mainly by the influence of the Northern representatives in Congress, for the purpose of reviving and encouraging home manufactures, the cotton planters of the South being mostly opposed to them. Previously steam and water power had been applied only in the spinning branch, but in 1813 the first mechanical looms were erected. Only a few were then in existence on this side the ocean. In 1816 there were but 2000 power looms in Lancashire. In Switzerland, France, Germany, and even in Austria, Italy, and Belgium, the factory system of spinning was developed almost as early as in Great Britain; but weaving by power looms was only partially established on an important scale by 1830, except in a few particular districts such as Alsace, the Vosges, Rouen, Elberfeld, and two or three Swiss cantons.

Bearing in mind the fact stated in my last lecture that, regarded as a completely mechanical industry, cotton spinning and manufacturing had not become thoroughly established in this country until toward the close of the first thirty years of the nineteenth century, you will have no difficulty in coming to the conclusion that at that period it had not gained an appreciable priority in time over its American rival. Its position in