AND ON THE CONTINENT.
151
beginning of the “ seventies ” they obtained a nine-hours day, andat the present moment stand in the midst of the practical intro-duction of the eight-hours day (3a).
With the greater development of machine-making England possesses the leading technical position in the cotton industry;for to-day it is almost always from machine works that thetechnical advances emanate; for instance, the introduction of theself-actor by Roberts and the recent perfection of the ring-spindleby Brooks.
But the cost of founding a business, for main power as well asworking machinery, becomes less with the extension of the wholeestablishment, which means, by the greater average size of mills inEnglish spinning, a further advantage for England .
The cost per spindle is therefore lower in England than inGermany. The following figures for England were obtained byme in making inquiries in the summer of 1891.
No. 20's .
Oldham medium (32’s to |40’s) .. .. f
No. GO’s
Oldham.
According to the minutes of the
Enquire Commission.
24s.
.. 60s. ,
Average cost
20s.
.. 50s. L
|
per
spindle,
26s. Gd. ,
? i
45s. to 55s.
In the 71 limited spinning concerns of Oldham, which werefounded in the middle and end of the “ seventies,” and had thenpassed through a business crisis, in which therefore the depreciationcould only amount to very little, there stood in 1883 in the books4,217,008 spindles, valued at £4,402,291. According to this thecost per spindle would amount on the average to about 21s.—aresult which agrees with the above particulars. In exceptionalcases there are, however, in England spinning mills which arebuilt far cheaper—for 18s. or 19s. (4). Apart from these excep-tions there is a slow but continuous cheapening of the establishmentcosts perceivable in Lancashire , whilst according to the GermanEnquete the same thing does not apply to Germany , or at allevents only in a far slighter degree. In France , since the war, theprice of the spindle has even risen about 18 per cent., and stillremains above that in Germany (5).
3a. Fifty-three hours per week is the present standard.—Translator.
4. Andrew i “ Fifty Years’ CottoifTrade,” p G.
5. Compare Jannasch: “ Eurbpiiische Baumwollindustrie,” pp. 28, 29.