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present,” it is there written, “ wages had remained at a level, andworkers’ coalitions a.nd strikes had remained unknown, we canwithout exaggeration assert that the industry would not havemade half the progress.” But economical development has stillbeen the chief factor, in that it has first called Centralised In-dustry and machinery in general into existence. So it was also,side by side with social moments at that time, the pressure ofthe world’s markets which in England led to technical advance-ment, and, therewith, to the uplifting of labour (37).
What has been said shows English cotton spinning in a peculiarcondition of change. The lawful and real possibility of competi-tion had evolved the existence of machinery, but this alone couldonly develop the tendencies existing in it to the extent that, withthe entrance into being of international competition, the English spinner ceased to demand monopoly prices. It is in general thetrading history of the 19th century which is here representedwithin a microscosm. All characteristic delineations of modernCentralised Industry present themselves in the tenets: Con-centration of Capital, geographically as well as technically;Replacement of Raw Material and Labour by Capital; Increaseof Labour-capacity; Upliftment of the Position of the Operative.
Far less developed were the conditions of cotton weaving,which had just taken the first steps towards centralisation. Upto now r the manufacturers had bought yams spun by themachine, and given them out to the cottage weavers. In thefirst years after the invention of spinning machinery, whichallowed the English spinners to have monopoly prices simplyat the expense of their Continental customers, the business ofEnglish weavers of necessity flourished. At that time a tre-mendous influx of men occurred in the hand-weaving industry,the wages in which up to the turn of the century were splendid.The so-called manufacture developed itself at that timeside by side with the real cottage weaving. Capitalists builtspecial weaving shops in order to find work therein for about 20to 30 hand-weavers, whilst the preparation work was accom-plished by children and old people in the same house. Every-where in Lancashire, but especially in Bolton, one sees evento-day these now desolate weaving shops.
37. Compare, on the other hand, concerning the Continental industry,Committee on Manufactures (11,378, 11,382, 11,387, etc.).