AND ON THE CONTINENT.

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further circumstance comes under notice, which, perhaps, per-manently grants an international division of labour in this field infavour of England —the climatic advantages, upon which we haverepeatedly dwelt before.

Since Germany possessed many industries which manipulatedfine yarns the German Government decided from the 1 st February,1892, on the ground of the Commercial Treaty with Switzerland ,but which also stood England in good stead by reason of the most-favoured-nation clause, to> materially reduce the duties on yarnsabove 60’s counts. Tho German Government thus took the stand-point of giving an advantage ro pressing interests of certainGerman export industries over the spinning interests of finecounts unable to make a home in Germany . But the duty re-duction pointed out is also in another direction of symptomaticimportance. German cotton spinners were always the maincentre of Protectionism , and their defeat was nothing else than asign of the continuously increasing importance of the opposedGerman export industries, which are interested in Free Trade .

Whilst the real strength of the German expert industry lies inother branches, Germany possesses also' one in the branch ofcotton spinning, a specialty, with which it controls the world’smarket, and is interested in export. I mean the Saxon vigognespinning, especially in Crimmitschau, Werdau, as well as Glauchau ,Zwickau, and Plauen . Vigogne is a yarn spun on the woollensystem from cotton (19). The spinning machinery for vigogne differsfrom that in ordinary cotton spinning in that the drawing rollerswhich Arkwright applied to the jenny of Hargreaves are missing.Besides this, the preparation is different, and similar to 1 that usedfor woollen spinning, because the laying of the fibres parallel,upon which cotton spinning depends, must in this case be avoided.There are solely opener, 3 cards, but no Blubbing or intermediateframes. A further difference is that the cotton, before being spunis greased, and mostly manipulated already dyed. Vigognespinning exists since 1847 iri Crimmitschau In that it was mixedwith wool and spun according to the system for woollen; at thepresent time, in 95 per cent, of the vigogne spun in the districtmentioned there is no longer a single fibre of wool. Vigognespinning requires a larger number of operatives per 1,000spindles—10 to 11—than cotton spinning. The development of

19. Compare the experienced communications of R. Martin. “ Der wirth-'chaftliche Aufschwung der Baumwollspinnerei in Sachsen.” SchmollersZahrhuch, Band xvii., Heft 3, p. 19 ff.