Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub
[graphic][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]

output of pig iron . . . amounted to perhaps 3 to 5 pounds for each person. What this means in the way of general use of iron can only be comprehended if we recall that in the year immediately preceding the world war the outputs of America, Germany and Great Britain ranged from 500 to 1000 pounds per capita each year.1

We live in an Age of Steel. Steel has revolutionised industry. Will it ever render service to art? We must hope with Mr. Wells that it will: Art has scarcely begun in the world. There have been a few forerunners and that is all. Leonardo, Michelangelo; how they would have exulted in the liberties of steel.' 2

CHAPTER XV

THE TEXTILE INDUSTRIES IN TRANSITION

Section I.
Place Names of Textile Products. Section 2. Woollens. Section 3.
Silk. Section 4. Linen and Jute. Section 5. Hosiery and Lace. Section 6.
Cotton. Section 7. The Great Inventions in the Cotton and Woollen
Industries. Section 8. Distinctive Features in the Textile Transition.

Section 1. Place Names of Textile Products

WOOL and flax are the products of temperate regions and therefore native to Britain; silk and cotton are sub-tropical. Many of the textile products bear names which record their original home. Worsted takes its name from Worstead, a Norfolk village, where the fine woollens of the Norwich district were marketed; the jersey from the island of Jersey; merino wool from the Spanish word merino,' Latin major, the royal inspector of sheep walks over which the sheep were driven. Holland is the coarse linen of Holland, which children used to wear as an apron pinned 'afore' their dress. Cambrics are named after the linens of Cambrai, lawns (perhaps) after those of Laon. Cotton, the Arabic qutun' or cotton plant, discloses its Oriental origin. Calico, which in England came to mean plain white cotton cloth, signified originally the group of products imported from Calicut in India and included many kinds of cloth, plain or dyed or decorated, made of cotton or cotton and silk. Decoration took the form of printing on the fabric a coloured pattern. Chintz (from chinta, a spot) signified to the England of 1700 an imported calico printed with flowers or other rich designs. It was used for ladies' dresses and for furniture and bed coverings. 'Bought my wife a chint, that is, a painted East Indian calico for to line

1 E. C. Eckel, Coal, Iron, and War, p. 9.

2 H. G. Wells, Modern Utopia, p. 242.

her new study.'1 Only the gentlefolk could afford imported chintzes: the common people wore home-printed calico. The stylish miss was a Calico Madam.' Muslin, a fine cotton fabric, is derived from Mosul, a town in Mesopotamia. Fustian, a coarse fabric of cotton or cotton and linen mixed, from Fustat, the old name of Cairo. The pyjama, a novelty of the 19th century, signifies leg clothing (pae-jama), the loose trousers of the East.

When place names became names of products, their meaning often altered, the general rule being that the foreign speciality was supplemented by a cheaper home-made product, which finally replaced it. Damasks, originally the flowered silks of Damascus, became in Europe a linen product with a pattern but without contrast of colour, then by adaptation from linen the woollen stuff used in furniture covering and hangings. Similarly velvet, Latin villus, shaggy hair, at first an all-silk fabric, was extended to fabrics with a silk pile on a ground of linen, cotton or wool. The Barcelona napkin which Mordaunt Mertoun wears round his neck in Scott's Pirate was an imitation silk made from the fibre of the prickly pear. They were once largely exported from Barcelona. Drugget (French drogue) and Shoddy signified originally trashy and cast-off (shed off') products, but now they are simply terms for special kinds of rough quality woollen goods.

Section 2. Woollens

As sheep were raised in most parts of England, the spinning and weaving of wool were widely practised arts, but some districts were more favoured than others by natural conditions. By 1700 there were three specialised woollen manufacturing regions in England the south-western counties of Devon, Gloucester, Somerset and Wilts, which was the senior and at that time the premier woollen district; East Anglia; and the West Riding of Yorkshire. By 1800, before machinery had made any visible impression on the industry, the West Riding was as strong as its erstwhile superiors. By 1914 it was far ahead, having 50% of the spindles and 60% of the looms of the British woollen industry; and its nearest rival was the Lowland counties of Scotland.

The West Riding had many natural advantages. It was a hilly country on the edge of great moors, which carried sheep. When it outgrew its local supply, it was centrally situated for the collection of wool from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and the South. It had much pure water for washing the wool and cleaning the

1 Pepys, Sept. 5, 1663.

cloth. It had water power for the wheels which drove the oldtime fulling mills. In addition its people moved in the free and progressive environment of the North. For an outlet it had Hull, a thriving port with a strong grip on the Baltic trade. North of it was the leading coal district of the country, south of it Sheffield and Birmingham, bounding it on the west was cotton, setting the pace from Manchester. No Coke of Holkham bent its genius to agriculture; no estate builders coveted its moors, as they coveted the exquisite vales of Taunton and the Cotswolds. And so this sturdy northern stock, inhabiting bleak slopes which could never feed a considerable population, found that if they were to increase and excel it must be by industry. When the age of power machines arrived the West Riding followed on the heels of Lancashire, partly because coal lay beneath the county surface, but chiefly because it already possessed social and mechanical aptitude for expansion in company with its neighbour. When steam power ousted water power, the degree of concentration increased and the two districts became an all but continuous factory area, with highly developed trade contacts; and these gave the area an advantage over outlying points in the North as well as in the more distant South. Thus Kendal, Westmorland, famous throughout the ages for the Kendal Green' (which was named from the dyeing material Dyers Broom grown in the locality), lost its woollen industry in the course of the 19th century; and the reason was its isolation in the valley of an otherwise agricultural county.

[ocr errors]

The worsted 1 industry of Norfolk surpassed that of Yorkshire in 1700. In 1800 it was barely equal to it, and in 1860 it was extinct, having failed to survive the transition to steam power. The absence of coal was a handicap not so much on account of the cost of carrying it from Newcastle as on account of the lack of that mechanical environment which coal and iron engender. But other factors were against Norfolk. It lived in dangerous dependence on Yorkshire merchants for its yarn; and as power came first in spinning, the power spinners were the first to take up the power loom. Moreover, the Norwich weaving district was an industrial patch in a region of agriculture, and therefore opposition to machinery was more natural and more difficult to overcome. Finally Norwich's excellence lay in luxury goods made of fine wool or of wool and silk; and the 19th century did not dress in kneebreeches, silk stockings, and flowered waistcoats. It was the West Riding which throve on Army contracts during the Napoleonic war and the West Riding which went on from that to clothe the multitude in Victorian uniformity.

1 Cf. below, p. 292, for distinction between worsted and woollen.

In the West country, the ancient home of the broadcloth industry, the story of the decline is substantially the same, with the difference that Gloucestershire and Somersetshire retained by excellence of workmanship a share in the manufacture of cloth of the highest quality. Here again the lack of mineral resources is only a partial explanation of the decline; for it was a short sea trip from South Wales to Gloucestershire. But Bristol in 1800 was a sleepy port, rich and unenterprising and losing foreign trade to Liverpool and Glasgow. In the 30's the citizens of Bristol distinguished themselves by their apathy towards the building of the Great Western Railway; and perhaps Bristol's manufacturing hinterland failed to hold as much of its old trade as it might have done.

While the mechanical revolution was in progress and the older districts were gradually losing their trade to the West Riding, the woollen industry was relieved of an ancient nightmare, the shortage of raw material. For over a century and a half (1662– 1824) the export of wool was prohibited in order that the manufacturers should have an adequate supply. Unhappily Ireland was included in the prohibition. Not only was her woollen industry throttled, but in addition she was forbidden to export her wool to foreign countries. When Parliament in 1739 (12 Geo. II, c. 21) allowed her to export woollen yarn to Great Britain, it was with no thought of fostering an Irish yarn industry, but simply in order to meet the unsatisfied wants of English yarn users. Whereas the taking off the Duties upon Woollen or Bay Yarn imported from Ireland, may be of use to prevent the exporting wool and woollen manufactures from Ireland to foreign parts and may be of use to the manufactures of Great Britain,' etc., etc.-an edifying, though callous, preamble! Enclosure and the art of Bakewell greatly improved the breeds of sheep, but the purpose of the improvers was more mutton and not more wool, for which indeed the grower was not allowed to obtain the natural price. Therefore, while the sheep was being improved as meat, its wool declined in quality. The manufacturers took the home clip at their own price and imported their best wool from abroad-the merino wool of Spain, which entered duty free. On many occasions the manufacturers and the sheep graziers came into fiscal conflict and always the manufacturers prevailed. The ban was not removed until 1824 (cf. p. 57), when with the opening of new sheep raising areas the cloud of shortage was lifting. From 1815 onwards Australia, the Argentine, South Africa and New Zealand gradually displaced Europe as the source of foreign supply. The majority of their flocks were raised from two classes of sheep the fine wool merino sheep of Spain and the English

« AnteriorContinuar »