14G
Especially important for the textile industry is the consumingpower of the masses. The development of the use of cotton goodsis given by the following figures : —
Consumption of Cotton Goods in England .
Per head.
In £1,000. In 1,000 lb. ,-'-—,
1820 ... 13,044 ... 35,620 ... 1-5 lb. ... Is.
( 25,960 )
1885 q (incluling imports, J- 201,800 ... 5 3 1b. ... T55s.
( 28,217) )
These figures show a considerable increase of the consumption, andgive at the same time an idea of the cheapening of cotton goods.The estimating of the use of other textile stuffs is met by certaindifficulties (for instance, the uncertainty of the quantity of rawwool produced in England itself). We must therefore look to theoperatives’ budgets communicated below, by which an extra-ordinary capacity of consumption is shown. We shall in these, inthe case of some families of the cotton operatives of Lancashire ,which by no means form exceptional cases, meet with yearlyoutlays for clothing which reach the total earnings of an adultoperative of the German textile industry—indeed, even exceedthem.
German industrial employers before the examining “ Enquete-kommission ” are right in looking upon the smaller consumption ofthe German operative as a disadvantage as compared with England.Indeed numerous examinations of later years give the result thatin general only the outermost fringe of the industrial workers ofGermany buy new articles of clothing (28). The proofs of thisstatement have been collected by Herkner. Especially important,as well, are the published workers’ budgets from the German FreieHochstift of Frankfurt a/M. Indeed these researches show, likethose which I undertook in Saxony, that not only in the case ofoperatives of the German cottage industries, but also in those of animportant portion of centralised occupations, the wages must beexclusively applied for food.
If the masses in Germany possessed the same consuming poweras in the United States or in England, Germany could dispose ofmore than double the amount of its whole export in textile goods
28. “The Social Position of the Operatives in Mannheim” (Karlsruhe ,1891), pp. 245, 250. Herkner: “ Social Keform a Law of Economical Pro-gress” (Leipzig , 1891), p. 55.