In November, 1848, in May, summer, and up to October, 1849, business became more and more flourishing. The same report states on pages 42 and 43, that this applies particu- larly to the manufacture of goods from worsted yarn, which centers in Bradford and Halifax. At no previous time did this business approximate the extension which it had then. The speculation in raw materials, and the uncertainty of its probable supply, has always caused greater excitement and more frequent fluctuations in the cotton industry than in any other line of business. For the time being there was an ac- cumulation of supplies of the coarser grades of cotton goods, which worried the small mill-owners and placed them at a disadvantage, so that some of them were working short time. 1850. ApriL Business continued brisk. Exception, ac- cording to factory report, April, 1850, page 54: There is a great depression in a portion of the cotton industry as a re- sult of insufiicient supplies of raw material precisely for coarse grades of yarn and heavy textures. It is feared that the increased machinery lately installed in the worsted busi- ness may bring about a similar reaction. Mr. Baker calcu- lates that alone in the year 1849, the product of the looms in this business has grown by 40%, and that of the spindles by 25 to 30%, and the expansion is still continuing at the same rate.
1850. October. The factory report for October states on page 15 that the price of cotton continues to cause considera- ble depression in this line of industry, especially for such goods as require a considerable portion of the cost of produc- tion to be spent for raw material. The great rise in the price of raw silk has led to an aggravation of the situation in many instances, also in this line. And on page 33 of the same re- port we learn that the committee of the Eoyal Association for Ml The Eifect of Fluctuations in Price. 151 Flax Culture in Ireland was of tlie opinion that the high price of flax, together with the low level of prices of other agricul- tural products, had safeguarded a considerable increase in the production of flax for the ensuing year.
1853. April. Great prosj)erity. L. Horner says in the factory report for April, 1853, page 19, that at no time dur- ing the 17 years, in which he took official notice of the con- dition of the factory districts of Lancashire, has he seen such general prosperity. The activity in all lines was extraor- dinary.
1853. October. Depression in the cotton industry. Overproduction. (Factory Report, October, 1853, page 15.)
1851. Aj)ril. The factory report for 1854, page 37, states that the wool business, while not brisk, furnished full employment for all factories. The same held good of the cotton industry. The worsted business w^as irregular through- out the entire preceding half year. There was a disturbance in the linen industry in consequence of the reduced supply of flax and hemj) from Kussia, on account of the war in the Crimea.
1859. According to the factory report for April, 1859, page 19, business was still depressed in the Scotch linen in- dustry, because the raw material was scarce and dear. The low quality of the preceding crop in the Baltic countries, from which came the main supply, was expected to exert an inju- rious influence on the business of this district. On the other hand, jute, which displaced flax for many coarse goods, was neither uncommonly dear nor scarce. About one-half of the machinery in Dundee was spinning jute. The factory re- port for October, 1859, states on page 30, that in consequence of the high price of raw material, flax spinning is not yet profitable, and while all other factories are running on full time, there are various instances of idle flax machinery. The jute mills are in a satisfactory condition, since recently this material has fallen to a reasonable figure.
152 Capitalist Production.
1861-64. American Civil War. Cotton Famine. The Greatest Illustration of an Interruption in tJie Process of Production through Scarcity and Dearness of Raw Mate- rial.
1860. April. The reporting inspector says in substance in factory report, April, 1860: I am pleased to be able to inform you that, in spite of the high price of raw materials, all textile industries, with the exception of silk, have been well employed during the last half year. In some of the cotton districts, laborers were advertised for, and secured by immigration from Norfolk and other rural counties. There seems to be a great lack of raw materials in all branches of industry. It is alone this lack which holds us back. In the eotton business, the number of factories erected, the exten- sion of already existing ones, and the demand for laborers, has probably never been so great. Raw materials are sought on all sides.
1860. October. The factory report for October, 1860, states on page 37, that the condition of business in the cotton, wool, and flax districts has been good. It is reported to have been very good in Ireland, for more than a year, and would have been still better but for the high price of raw materials. The flax mills seem to be waiting with more impatience than ever for the opening of the resources of India by railroads, and for a corresponding development of its agriculture, in order to secure at last a supply of flax sufficient for their re- quirements.
1861. April. The factory report for April, 1861, states on page 33 that the condition of business for the time being was depressed. A few cotton goods factories were working short time, and many silk factories were running only a part of the time. Raw materials were dear. In almost every tex- tile branch raw materials were quoted above the price at which they could be worked by the mass of the consumers.
It now became evident that the cotton industry had pro- duced too much in 1860. The effect of this made itself felt for the next few years. The factory report for December, 1863, page 127, states that it took between two and three years I The Effect of Fluctuations in Price. 153 for the world-market to absorb the overproduction of 1860. And the factory report for October, 1862, pages 28 and 29, says in so many words: The depressed condition of the mar- kets for cotton goods in Eastern Asia, in the beginning of 1860, had a corresponding influence on the business in Blackburn, where on an average of 30,000 mechanical looms are almost exclusively engaged in the production of goods for this market. The demand for labor was, therefore, already restricted at this point many months before the effects of the blockade made themselves felt. Fortunately, many factories were thereby saved from ruin. The supplies rose in value so long as they were held in stock, and this prevented the appalling depreciation which is othenvise inevitable in such a crisis.
1861. October. According to the factory report for Octo- ber, 1861, page 19, the business has been depressed for some time. It is not at all improbable that many factories will materially reduce their working time during the winter months. However, this was to be anticipated; quite aside from the causes which have interrupted the ordinary supply of cotton from America and the English exports, it would have been necessary to reduce the hours of labor during the com- ing winter, on account of the strong increase of production in the preceding three years, and the disturbance of the Indian and Chinese markets.
Cotton ^Vaste. East Indian Cotton. (Sural.) Influence on the Wages of Laborers. Improvement of Machinery. Substitution of Starch Flour and Minerals for Cotton. Effect of this Starch Flour Ingredient on the Laborers. Manufacturers of Fine Grades of Yarn. Fraud on the Part of the Manufacturers.
An inspector writes in the factory report for October, 1863, page 63: A manufacturer thinks that, so far as the estimate of the cotton consumption per spindle is concerned, I did not sufficiently appreciate the fact that, when a cotton is dear, every manufacturer of ordinary yarns (say up to ]^o. 40, mainly from 12 to 32) spins as fine grades as he possibly can, that is to say, he will spin N'o. 16 instead of 12, or 22 instead 154 Capitalist Production.
of 16, etc. And the weaver who works up these fine yarns, will raise his calico to the regular weight by adding so much more glue. This expedient is now used to a shameful de- gree. I have it on good authority that there are ordinary shirtings for export weighing 8 lbs. per piece, of which 2 lbs. were glue. Textures of other kinds are often given as much as 50% of glue, so that that manufacturer does not lie by any means who boasts of becoming a rich man by selling his fabrics at less money per pound than he paid for the yarn of which they are made.
We read furthermore in the same place: I have also been told that the weavers ascribe the growth of disease among themselves to the glue used in the woof of East-Indian Cotton and not merely consisting of flour, as heretofore. This sub- stitute for flour is said to have the very great advantage of in- creasing the weight of fabrics considerably, so that 15 lbs. of yarn, after being woven, weigh 20 lbs. (This substitute was ground talcum, called China clay, or gypsum, called French chalk.) The wages of the weavers (meaning the laborers) have been very much reduced by the employment of substi- tutes^ for flour in the making of weaver's glue. This glue renders the yarn heavier, but also stiff and brittle. Every thread of the yam passes in the loom through the bobbin, whose strong threads keep the woof in position. The stifflly glued woof continually causes breaks in the thread of the bobbin. Every break causes a loss of five minutes to the weaver for repairs. The weavers have to repair such breaks ten times as often as formerly, and the loom naturally turns out so much less during working hours. (Pages 42 and 43.)
In Ashton, Stalybridge, Oldham, etc., the working hours have been reduced by at least one-third, and are reduced still more every week. This reduction of the hours of labor is in many instances accompanied by a reduction of wages, (Page 13.) In the beginning of 1861, a strike took place among the mechanical weavers in some parts of Lancashire. Several manufacturers had announced a reduction of wages by 5 to 7.5%. The laborers insisted that the scale of wages should be maintained and the hours of labor reduced. This was The Effect of Fluctuations in Price. 155 not granted, and a strike was called. After one month, the laborers had to give in. But then they got both. Aside from a reduction of wages which the laborers finally accepted they also worked short time in many factories. (Factory Report, 1862. ApriL The sufferings of the laborers had consid- erably increased since the last rej^ort was made. But at no time in the history of this industry have so sudden and so grievous ills been borne with so much quiet resignation and such patient self-respect. (Factory Report, April, 1862, page 10.) The proportion of the temporarily totally unemiDloyed laborers does not seem to be much larger than in 1848, when there was an ordinary panic, which, however, was of suffi- cient force to induce the worried manufacturers to compile a similar statistics on the cotton industry as that now given out weekly. In May, 1848, 15% of all the cotton employes of Manchester were idle, 12% worked short time, while more than 70% worked on full time. On May 28, 1862, there were 15% idle, 35% working on short time, and 49% on full time. In the neighboring places, for instance at Stockport, the percentage of the idle and partly employed is higher, that of the fully employed lower, because coarser numbers are spun there than in Manchester. (Page 16.)
1862.' October. According to the last official statistics, there were in the United Kingdom 2,887 cotton factories, of which 2,109 were in the districts of Lancashire and Cheshire. The reporting inspector knew well enough that a very large number of the 2,109 factories in his district were small es- tablishments, which employed but a few laborers. But he was surprised when he found how large was the number of these. There were 392, or 19%, which had less than 10 horse-power motors (steam or water); 345, or 16%, had be- tween 10 and 20 horse-powers; 1,372 had 20 horse-powers or more. A very large portion of the small manufacturers, more than one-third, had been laborers not very long ago. They are men without a command of capital. The main burden would fall upon the otlier two-thirds. (Factory Reports, 156 Capitalist Production.
According to the same report, 40,140, or 11.3% of the cot- ton employes of Lancashire and Cheshire, were then working full time; 134,767, or 38%, were working a part of the time; 197,721, or 50.7%, were unemployed. If we deduct from these figures the data referring to Manchester and Bolton, where mainly fine numbers were spun, a line little affected by the cotton famine, then the matter looks still more unfavora- ble, namely fully employed 8.5%, partly employed 38%, un- employed 53.3%. (Pages 19 and 20.)
It makes an essential difference for the laborers whether good or bad cotton is worked up. In the first months of the year, when the manufacturers sought to keep their factories going by using up all the cotton bought at cheap prices, much bad cotton went into factories that usually worked only with good cotton. The difference in the wages of the laborers was so great that many strikes took place because no living wage could be made at the old piece wages. In a few instances the difference due to the employment of bad cotton amounted to one-half of the total wages, even at full time. (Page 27.)
1863. April. In the course of this year, not more than about one-half of the cotton employes will work on full time. (Factory Keport, April, 1863, page 14.)
A very serious inconvenience in the employment of East- Indian cotton, such as the factories must use at this time, is that the speed of the machinery must be considerably reduced with it. During the last years, everything has been tried to increase the speed, so that the same machinery might do more work. However, the reduced speed hits the laborer as much as the manufacturer. For the majority of the laborers are paid by the piece, the spinners receiving so much per lb. of yarn spun, the weavers so much per piece woven. And even the others, who work on weekly wages, will suffer a reduction through the restriction of production. According to the re- searches of the inspector, and the data received by him, re- ferring to the wages of the cotton employes during the year, there is an average reduction of 20% in some cases as much as 50%, compared to the wages which were in vogue in 1861. \Page 13.) The amount earned depends on the quality of The Effect of Fluctuations in Price, 157 the material worked up. TJie condition of the laborers, so far as earnings are concerned, is much better now (October, 1863) than at the same time last year. The machinery has been improved, the raw material is better known, and the laborers overcome the difficulties better with which they had to struggle in the beginning. In the previous spring, the in- spector was in a sewing school in Preston (a charity institu- tion for unemployed). Two young girls, who had been sent to a weaving establishment on the strength of a promise that they would be able to make 4 shillings per week, asked to be readmitted to the school and complained that they could not make 1 shilling per week. The inspector has had information concerning self-acting minders, that is to say, men who operate a few self-actors, who had earned 8 sh. lid. after 14 days of full employment, and their house-rent was deducted from this sum. The manufacturer returned one-half of this rent to them as a gift. (How generous!) The minders carried home the amount of 6 sh. 11 d. In some places the self- acting minders earned from 5 to 9 sh. per week, the weavers from 2 to 6 sh. per week, during the last months of 1862. At the time of the report there was a healthier condition of things, although even then the earnings in most districts had decreased still more. Other conditions contributed to the scanty earnings, aside from the shorter staple of East-Indian cotton and its impurity. For instance, it had become the custom to mix plenty of cotton waste with the Indian cotton, and this increases, of course, the difficulties for the spinner. Owing to the shortness of the fiber, the threads break more easily in drawing out the mule and twisting the yam, and the mule cannot be kept going so regularly. Furthermore, one girl frequently can watch but one loom, because she must pay more attention to the threads. But few of them have more than two looms. In many cases the wages of tlie laborers have been reduced by 5, 7.5, and 10%. In the majority of cases the laborer must handle his raw material as best he may, and try to make wages at the ordinary scale to the best of his power. Another difficulty with which the weavers have some- times to struggle is that they are supposed to make good 158 Capitalist Production.
fabrics out of bad materials, and are fined by deductions from their wages, if the work is not all that is desired. (Factoiy reports, October, 1863, pages 41—43.)
Wages were miserable, even in places where full time was worked. The cotton employes willingly offered themselves for all public labors, drainage, road building, stone breaking, street paving, which they did in order to get their keep from the authorities (although this amounted practically to an as- sistance for the manufacturers. See volume I, chapter XXV, 3.) The whole bourgeoisie stood guard over the laborers. If tlie worst of a dog's wages were offered, and the laborer re- fused to accept them, then the Assistance Committee struck him from their list. It was in a way a golden age for the manufacturers, for the laborers had either to starve or work at any price profitable for the bourgeois. The Assistance Committees acted as watch-dogs. At the same time the man- ufacturers, in secret agreement with the government, hin- dered emigi'ation as much as possible, either for the purpose of having their capital, invested in the flesh and blood of la- borers, ready at hand, or of safeguarding the squeezing of rent out of the laborers.
The Assistance Committees acted with great severity in this matter. If work was offered, the laborers to whom it was offered were stricken from the lists and compelled to accept. If they refused to begin work, the reason waa that their earn- ings were but nominal, while the work Avas extraordinarily The laborers were willing to perform any work for which they were employed in consequence of the Public Work Acts. The principles according to which industrial occupations were assigned, varied considerably in different cities. But even in places where work in the open air was not absolutely re- garded as a labor test, this labor was either compensated wdtli the bare ordinary charitj^ sum, or so insignificantly better that it actually became a labor test. (Page 69.) The Public Works Act of 1863 was to remedy this evil and to enable the laborer to earn his wages as an independent day laborer. The purpose of this Act was threefold: 1) To enable local The hffect of Fluctuations in Price. 159 authorities to borrow money from the loan treasury commis- sioners (with the consent of the president of the state's cen- tral poor boards; 2) to facilitate imj^rovements in the cities of the cotton districts; 3) to secure work and remunerative wages for the unemployed laborers. Up to the end of IS 63, loans to the amount of 883,700 p.st. had been granted under this Act. (Page 70.) The enterprises started were mainly canalisation, road building, street paving, reservoirs for water works, etc.
Mr. Henderson, president of the committee of Blackburn, wrote with reference to this to factory inspector Redgrave, that in his entire experience in the course of this period of suffering and misery nothing had struck him more emphat- ically or given him so much pleasure as the serene willingness with which the unemployed laborers of his district accepted the work offered to them by the city council of Blackburn pursuant to the Public Works Act. A greater contrast could hardly be imagined than that between the cotton sj^inner, who formerly worked as a skilled man in the factory, and the day- laborer, who now works in a depth of 1-i or 18 feet on a drain- age canal. (They earned thereby about 4 to 12 sh. per week, according to the size of their families, and this last enormous amount had to provide sometimes for a family of eight. The gentlemen of the bourgeoisie derived a double profit from this. In the first place, they secured money for the improve- ment of their smoky and neglected cities at exceptionally low interest. In the second place, they paid wages to the labor- ers at a scale far below the ordinary.) Mr. Henderson thinks that this ready willingness on the part of the laborers to ac- cept the offered employment implied great self-denial and consideration, and deserved all honor, since they were accus- tomed to an almost tropical temperature, to work in which skill and accuracy counted for more than muscular strength, and to wages which were double, or sometimes treble, of what they could earn now. In Blackburn the men were tried at all possible kinds of labor in the open air. They dug through a stiff and heavy clay soil to a considerable depth, they did drainage work, broke stones, built roads, made excavations i6o Capitalist Production. * for street canals to a depth of 14, 16, and sometimes 20 feet. Frequently they stood in mud and water from 10 to 12 inches deep, and tliey were exposed to a climate whose wet cold was not exceeded, or perhaps not equalled, in any other district of England. (Pages 91 and 92.) The attitude of the laborers has been almost faultless, their willingness to accept work in the open air and to get along on it. (Page 69.)
186-4. April. Occasionally comjDlaints about lack of la- borers are heard in various districts, especially in certain branches, for instance weaving. But these complaints are due as much to the low wages which the laborers may earn in consequence of the bad kinds of yarn as to an actual scarcity of laborers in this particular line. Numerous disputes over wages took place during the preceding month between some manufacturers and their laborers. The inspector regrets that strikes occurred far too frequently. The effect of the Public Works Act is now resented by the manufacturers as a com- petition, and as a result the local committee of Bacup has suspended its activity. For although all the factories are not yet running, there has already been a lack of laborers. (Fac- tory Report, April, 1864, pages 9 and 10.) It was indeed high time for the manufacturers to act. In consequence of the Public Works Act the demand for laborers grew so much that many a factory hand was making 4 to 5 shillings per day in the quarries of Bacup. And so the public works were gradually suspended; this new edition of the Ateliers nation- eaux of 1848, which had this time been opened in the interests of the bourgeoisie.
Trying it on the Dog.
Although the very reduced wages (of the fully employed), the actual earnings of the laborers in the different factories, have been given, it does not follow that they earn the same amount week after week. The laborers are exposed to great fluctuations at this place, in consequence of the continual ex- periments made by the manufacturers with different kinds and proportions of cotton and waste in the same factory. The " Mixtures," as they are called, are frequently changed, and the The Effect of Fluctuations in Price. i6i earnings of the laborers rise and fall with the quality of cotton mixtures. At times they earned only 15% of their former wages, and in one or a couple of weeks wages fell to 50 or 00%. Inspector Redgrave, who makes this report, then pro ceeds to figures of wages selected from practical life. The following examples may suffice: A, weaver, family of 6 persons, employed 4 days in the week, G sh. 8.5 d.; B, twister, 4.5 days per week, 6 sh.; C, weaver, family of 4, 5 days per week, 5 sh. 1 d.; D, slubber, family of 6, employed 4 days per week, 7 sh. 10 d.; E, weaver, family of 7, employed 3 days, 5 sh., etc. Redgrave continues in substance: These data deserve attention, for they prove that labor would become a misfortune in some faiuilies, since it reduces not only the earnings, but depresses them so low that they become totally insufficient to satisfy anything but a small part of a family's absolute necessities, unless additional assistance Avere given in cases where the earnings of a family do not reach the amount which would be granted to them if all of them were unemployed. (Factory Reports, October, 1863, In no week since June 5, 1863, has the average total em- ployment of all laborers been more than 7 hours and some minutes. (Page 121.)
From the beginning of the crisis to March 23, 1863, nearly three million pounds sterling were exjDended by the poor boards, the central committee of charity, and the London Mansion House committee. (Page 13.)
In one district, in which perhaps the finest yarn is spun, the spinners suffer an indirect reduction of wages of 15% as a result of passing from Sea Island to Egyptian cotton.
In one extended district, in which cotton waste is used in large quantities as an admixture to Indian cotton, the spin- ners have had their wages reduced by 5%, and lost besides from 20 to 30% by working up Surat and waste. The weav- ers have dropped from four looms to two. In 1860 they made 5 sh. 7 d. on each loom, but in 1863 only 3 sh. 4 d. The fines, which amounted to from 3 to 0 d. per spinner on Amer- ican cotton, now run as hio;h as 1 sh. to 3 sh. 6 d. In one 1 1 62 Capitalist Production.
district, in which Egyptian cotton was used, mixed with East- Indian, the average earnings of the mule sj^inners in 1860 was from 18 to 25 sh., while it is only from 10 to 18 sh. now. This not exclusively due to deteriorated cotton, but also to the decreased speed of the mule, in order to give to tlie yarn a stronger twist, for which extra payment according to the wage scale would have been made in ordinary times. (Pages 43, 44, 45-50.) Although East-Indian cotton may have been worked here and there at a profit for the manufacturers, the wage list on page 53 shows that the laborers suffer from it, compared with 1861. If the use of Surat becomes a settled fact, the laborers would demand the same wages as in 1857. Eut this would seriously affect the profits of the manufac- turers, unless it would be balanced by the price of either the cotton or the products. (Page 105.)
House-Rent. The house-rent of the laborers living in cot- tages belonging to the manufacturers, is frequently deducted from their wages, even if only short time is worked. Never- theless the value of these buildings has fallen, and the cot- tages are now from 25 to 50% cheaper than formerly. A cottage which formerly rented from 3 sh. 6 d. per week, may now be had for 2 sh. 4d., and sometimes for less. (Page Emigration. The employers were, of course, opposed to the emigration of the laborers, in the first place because they wished, in the expectation of better times in the cotton in- dustry, to keep the means at hand for the profitable opera- tion of their factories. In the second place some employers are owners of cottages in which their employes are to live, and at least some of them calculate without fail to collect at least a portion of the rent due them. (Page 96.)
Mr. Bemall Osborne says in a speech to his parliamentary constituents, on October 22, 1864, that the laborers of Lan- cashire had behaved like ancient stoic philosophers. Per- haps they acted like sheep?
4 Additional Remarks. 163 CHAPTER VII.
ADDITIONAL KEMARKS.