54
In the year 1823 two power-looms produced weekly seven, in theyear 1826 twelve pieces of shirtings, of which a hand weaver in thesame time could produce but two (41)
Moreover the power-loom was at that time only usedfor the smaller jjortion of all woven materials—for com-mon and plain goods. In 1822 a patent was firstgranted to Roberts for a power-loom with six shafts, inorder to produce twill-like articles; and in the whole followingdecade experiments were being constantly made on arrangementsfor raising and lowering several shafts, with the object of pro-ducing the most simple patterns with the power-loom (42). Thatan advance in this branch was slower certainly was not on accountof the greater difficulty of the technical problems to be overcome,but that in this branch the pressure of the world’s market, andthe necessity for invention, were not felt so soon.
In Blue-Books we find, accordingly, nearly all manufacturers ofthe opinion that the hand-loom could never be supplanted by thepower-loom; but rather that with the increase of English com-merce the number of the cottage weavers must permanentlyincrease, as was in reality up to then the case (43). And yet theFrenchman, Jacquard, had as early as 1812 invented the arrange-ment called after his name, which, in connection with the power-loom, was to make it possible to produce even the most intricateart designs by mechanical means. At that time the production ofsuch goods required a great quantity of labour—the so-calledreader, who, according to the pattern, read aloud the figuredpoints ; and another worker, who, according to these instructions,connected the couplings to which the shafts hung with the hooksrequiring to be drawn; and then, besides the weaver, the draw-boy, who during the weaving looked after the raising of the thuscoupled shafts (44); also here, therefore, by the newer inventionsan extraordinary replacement of Labour by Capital took place.
A peculiar similarity with the conditions just pictured is shownby the commercial organisation of the cotton industry at thattime. Just as modern Centralised Industry developed itself side
41. Baines, 239-40.
42. Ure : “ Cotton Manufacture,” II., 30G.
43. For instance: Committee on Manufactures (11,992, 1,212): “ Hand-loom weavers increase and must increase”; further, 1,198, 9,434.
44. Ure: “Cotton Manufacture,” II., 281-7. Karmarsch: “ Techno-logy,” 973-5.