AND ON THE CONTINENT.

19

CHAPTER II.

The Development of Centralisation in the English CottonIndustry

.

I.—The Origin of the Factory System.

India, the ancient seat of trade, is also tlie home of the cotton industry. Alexander the Great found, even in his time, the natives clothed in cotton garments. Indian woven goods have been from ancient times imported into Europe as articles of luxury. The Arabians brought many trades and arts, including the cotton industry, to Europe . Wherever they pushed their way they grew the cotton plant; especially did its culture flourish on all the coasts of the Mediterranean. Spain and Sicily spun and wove cotton in the 11th and 12th centuries.

When, in later times, the economical point of importance in Europe advanced north of the Alps , it was followed by the cotton industry. Flemish and German towns became its seat. England, at that time depending solely upon agriculture and its products, was not the place for an industry of luxury, as the cotton trade was at that time. It required, as essentials, trade, and consumers who had become rich by trade. Venice was the cotton market of the world—the Liverpool of those days; Antwerp the seat of manufacturing—the Manchester of that period.

As was often similarly the case, foreign immigrants also laid the foundation of the English cotton industry—refugees who sought a home in England after the destruction of Antwerp by Alba, in 1585. Many of them settled in Manchester and Bolton, which towns were at that time the seat of woollen weaving. Foreign weavers were particularly attracted to Manchester by the permission to fell wood for building and burning, as they wished, in the College woods situated in the vicinity of the city—