AND ON THE CONTINENT.

39

boycott them. Scotland, for a long time the home of Robert Owen ,was originally one of the chief seats of spinning. The cotton in-dustry was also pretty fairly extensive in Ireland at that time,although it has to-day disappeared (10).

The demand for cheap production forced forward concentration.The advantages of this are, apparently, the avoidance of expen-sive repairing shops and reserve stocks of machinery pieces, whichisolated mills cannot dispense with (11). Everywhere the com-plementary machine works settled in the central points of thecotton industry, in proximity to the spinning-mills. Lancashire became, therefore, at the same time a chief centre of machine-making. Local concentration first made possible, as well, a classof workers highly and intelligently trained for the work.

But certain natural advantages made the southern portion ofLancashire the earliest centre for Centralised Industry. Marchingfrom here, this industry conquered England—even the world. Inthe North and East the district in question, smaller than SaxonVoigtland, is hounded by hills, which, towards Todmorden andRochdale, attain considerable elevations, and are there divided by-deep valleys.

Keeping back the di-y East winds, they subject the West todownpours of rain. The land is little suited for agriculture;therefore the population turned fairly early to cottage industry,especially -woollen weaving. On all sides brooks and rivers hurryfrom these hills to the near sea. These streams provided the firstdriving power for the machinery springing up. But under themeadows, and easily accessible to men, lies that mineral whosepresence allows the replacement of -water-power bv steam-power—coal. One of these water-courses—the Mersey—forms at itsmouth, through the influence of the Atlantic tide, one of thebest harbours in the world. As soon as the county possessedsomething for barter, a central point of the -world's commercecould not help but spring up here, viz., Liverpool. But thecounty has to thank the proximity of the sea for something stillmore important—the damp sea-breezes which envelop the hillsand produce rains. The degree of moisture of the air is, infact, on those heights, only ten per cent, below complete satura-

10. Ure: I: Cotton Manufacture,” I., 287. Further, Baines, p. 210.

11. In these days also to dispense with special gas plant, etc. CompareJannasch : “ Die europiiische Baumwollindustrie ” (Berlin, 1882), p. 25.