150
machinery imported. It also appears, according to statementsbefore the Enquete Commission, that the prices of machinery inthe recent decades had by no means gone down as in England . Ina similar direction tended the changing of the tariff in 1878, sinceEnglish prices plus duty and charges are looked upon, even to-day,as the basis for the machinery required by the cotton industry inGermany .
I am indebted to a celebrated expert for the following particularsin this respect, whereby it may be noted that the difference infreight to Leipzig and to South Germany is only slight: —
Bale-opener—gross 70, net 53 cwts.
Exhaust opener and lap machine, withlattice apparatus and regulator—gross 185, net 138 cwt.
Scutcher and lap machine, with regulator■—gross 81, net 64 cwt.
Carding engine, with 106 flats, withoutclothing—gross 68, net 50 cwt.
Drawing-frame, with 3 heads of 7 de-liveries—gross 123, net 107 cwt. ..
Slubbing-frame, 82 spindles—gross 100,net 88 cwt. ..
Intermediate frame, 128 spindles—gross110, net 96 cwt.
Roving-frame, 164 spindles—gross 106,net 91 cwt.
Ring-spinning frame, 400 spindles—gross 120, net 100 cwt.
Seli-actor, 880 spindles, 1J in. gauge—gross 163, net 125 cwt.
Price atOldham.Marks.
1,275
Price on quayat Hull.Marks.1,500
1,766
6,426
7,180
7,845
2,699
3,140
3,434
1,752
2,120
2,365
3,247
3,820
4,293
2,669
3,140
3,500
3,383
3,980
4,375
3,315
3,900
4,281
3,519
4,140
4,574
4,641
5,460
5,950
What, has been said is sufficient to show that English machine-making bears in a high degree the same character as that whichwe have proved as peculiar to the centralised industrial develop-ment of the cotton industry ; the same organisation and division oflabour ; the same continuous advance in the cheapening of thecosts of production, brought about by the replacement of labour bycapital; the same cheapening of the costs of labour, accompaniedat the same time by an increase in the weekly earnings of theworkers. English machine fitters, with whose productions in manycases competition on the Continent seems impossible, stand, how-ever, on the average above the highest class of cotton operatives—the mule-spinners—and are really the aristocracy of England’slabour, as well as, in general, of that of Europe. Already at the