208
the staple industry of Lancashire , maintains the front rank in theworld’s market—the weaving of those fine worsteds for men’sclothing in and about Huddersfield . And, as a peculiar confirma-tion of our proposition, Huddersfield not only pays the best wageswithin the whole woollen and worsted industry of England , but itssocial conditions are the most advanced, and show, as well, muchsimilarity with Lancashire, which, the further one goes into York-shire , the more does it disappear.
The weaver in Huddersfield earns double as much as the weaverin Bradford (20s. to 24s.). If he does not also mind more loomsthan the weaver in Bradford—mostly one, exceptionally two—themachinery to be tended by him is certainly far more complicatedand costly. A loom in Huddersfield represents three times asmuch capital as a loom in Bradford; therefore here is also themore favourable position of the operatives to be attributed to afurther developed replacement of labour by capital. But, on theother hand, Huddersfield is not only a famous centre of the co-operative movement, which early extended thereto from out ofLancashire , but also the seat and outlet of a trade^union organisa-tion for the whole woollen and worsted industry, while thesocieties of the operatives in Bradford and Leeds still bear thatsemi-political and Radical character which always denotes thelabour organisations in the first stage of centralised industrialdevelopment.
But, in order to see the most striking confirmation of our pro-position above given, let us go to Macclesfield , that ancient littletown in Cheshire, which is the seat of the English silk industry.
The technicalities of the English silk industry are the same aslong ago. The principle of the industry is here in its widestextent still of a cottage-industrial character. The position of thehand-weavers is an extremely low one, and reminded me even ofthe bad cottage-industrial conditions in Germany . The ordinaryweaver earns about 10s. per week. From this, however, a greatportion is deducted for rent, loom, winding, etc. In any case, Iconfirmed a great many, and these not exceptional cases, in whichnot. more than os. net per week was earned. Still worse is theextraordinary irregularity of work. Some of these silk-weaversassured me that they searched unsuccessfully for work severalmonths, even half the year. The household budgets of these