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In a much greater degree than spinning does weaving hear acottage industrial character. But since first cotton, then woollen,then half-woollen goods are produced on. the same looms, specialfigures concerning cotton weaving are scarcely possible in thisdirection.
In the whole German textile industry there were in 1882 still42 per cent, of the operatives occupied in small mills (mills withunder 5 persons), and 38 per cent, in large mills (over 50 persons).
The relation between cottage industry and factory work in thethree most important branches of the textile industry are givenin tho following table:-—
Employed, without furtheroccupation.
In Factories.
In CottageIndustry.
Preparation of spinning materials, spinning.
. 103,750
28,391
Weaving ..
. 171,095
178,090
Needlework, knitting, and lace
. 23,077
98,248
Totals
. 297,922
274,999
Losch (28) remarks, concerning these figures, that the totalproduction of the persons mentioned, if applied to centralisedindustries, would require a far less number of operatives, andwould make possible a. far higher standard of living for the indi-vidual worker, and a far greater capability for competition onthe part of German industry. Tndeed, these figures include thehunger-suffering of the German cottage weavers, the banishmentof which is only to be hoped for by the banishment of cottageindustry itself.
Tho advantages which flow to English industry on account ofits greater concentration are manifold and real. England has atonce the advantage of the cotton market. That Germany hasfreed itself from Liverpool and buys direct from the producingland is certainly a. step forward ; for the foreign spinner hadalways to pay more in Liverpool than the Englishman.—according
28. II. Losch (Leipzig, 1892), pp. 171-2. The value of this book is thatit examines the backwardness of the technical conditions of our industry, andpoints out the tremendous waste of human power by the principle of smallestablishments. ‘‘ No law for the protection of the worker ultimately influencesthe relation of the worker to technical skill, ” p. 20. The author most zealouslyadvises that centralised industry should be under the control of the State.Does he not remember how Prussia , in fact, tried this during the last century,and, according to Ilerzberg, Humboldt , and others, nearly came to grieftherewith ? Did the productions of State industries ever show themselvescapable of competing in the markets of the world ?