2334. G. M. de Bayelt and J. E. Vigou- 3118. E. Darwen and J. Haddon.

For the full titles of these Patents, the reader is referred to the corresponding

numbers in the List of Grants of Provisional Specifications.

NEWTON'S

London Journal of Arts and Sciences.

No. CXII. NEW SERIES), MAY 1ST, 1864.

THE SOCIAL AND COMMERCIAL EFFECTS OF THE

COTTON FAMINE.

ALTHOUGH much has been already said and written respecting the political, social, and commercial bearings of what is commonly denomninated the cotton famine, yet there are many changes induced by, or growing out of, the sudden contraction of the supply of American cotton, of the importance of which, at the present moment, we have, perhaps, a very inadequate conception. As a reliable index to these changes, we may refer to the admirable half-yearly reports of the Inspectors of Factories, which are no longer confined, as of yore, to reporting to the Secretary of State for the Home Department the number and amount of fines inflicted on transgressors of the Factory Act, the number and nature of accidents befalling the operatives, the number of children attending schools, and the amount of pecuniary assistance afforded to the schools so attended. The little volume now before us, consisting of the reports of Mr. Alexander Redgrave and Mr. Robert Baker, for the half year ending October 31st, 1863, gives all these necessary details; but beyond them, it enters upon other subjects, bearing on the welfare of the factory workers, as—the amount and cost of the relief administered to the unemployed cotton factory hands; the hardships encountered by the employed, and the cause of their diminished wages; the immediate prospects of the cotton trade, and the probable state of the labor market when a plentiful supply of raw cotton is insured; the advantages of improved machinery, as applied to the various branches of the textile manufactures; and the importance of obtaining a more extended supply of home-grown flax. All these subjects are illustrated with carefully-collected data, and treated with an intelligence that leaves one little choice but to accept the deductions of the writers. Indeed, any future historian who might desire to sketch, in his pages, the crisis through which our cotton manufacturers are now passing, we think would need nothing but the half-yearly reports of the Factory Inspectors during the period in question; so ample are the facts adduced, and so thoroughly is the whole subject investigated.

VOL. XIX,

2 K

We have already, in this Journal, drawn attention to the noble bearing of the operatives under their severe privations, as illustrated by these reports; but matters of detail are now made known, which, by enabling us more thoroughly to appreciate their position, must raise their conduct more highly in public estimation. Mr. Redgrave says that," reckoning from the commencement of the crisis to the end of last year (1863), very nearly £3,000,000 will have been expended by the Guardians, the Central Relief Committee, and the Mansion. House Committee, in maintaining those who have suffered from the distress. To this must be added that of which an estimate could with difficulty be made, viz., the sums distributed by private charity, unconnected with the public bodies, and the stores of clothing distributed." If we were to set this down at £500,000, a very large estimate, considering that the total voluntary subscriptions reached £1,323,493, we should then have three and a-half millions expended upon the operatives during the years 1861, 1862, and 1863. Let us now see what proportion this bears to the loss sustained by the persons thus generously relieved, and we shall then be able to form some idea of their change of condition through the failure of the cotton supply. We quote again from Mr. Redgrave's report :

"The number of persons reported, in Mr. Maclure's tables for the last week of the month of December last, to have been entirely out of work was 149,038 persons; and the estimated loss of wages by them, and of those who were working short time, was £122,428; thus giving an estimated loss at the rate of £6,366,316 per annum. Enormous, however, as this loss is, it is no exaggeration, for it does not show the loss sustained by those of the operatives who are in full work, nor all the loss sustained by those who are upon short time."

This statement we find confirmed by Mr. Edmund Potter, M.P., in a paper read before the Social Science Association, in which he says: "It may be fairly assumed that the total loss, from short work, in the district, during the years 1862-63, will result in a wage loss of £12,000,000 or £13,000,000 sterling.

Of the nature of the losses of the operatives while in work we shall speak presently; but before doing so, it may be convenient to glance at the troubles which many of them had to encounter before this work was open to them. Passing by the irksome duty, to many able-bodied men, of attending the schools, to qualify themselves for the relief administered by the local bodies, we come to the out-door work of excavating and levelling, which was paid for at little, if at all, above the rate of relief.

*

"It sometimes caused," says Mr. Redgrave, "a shade of melancholy, to see an old grey-haired man leaning over his desk, and poring through a sum in reduction or practice; but even this was relieved by being told by a frank-spoken spinner, in his own hearty manner, while showing the sketches of geography, and what he was reading: They could not give us work, and so God put it into their hearts to give us the next best to it.'"

Next came the work provided with the aid of the Public Works' Act of last session, which gave the labourer an equivalent for the work done. Under the authority of this Act, the loan of £883,700 has been sanctioned by the Poor Law Board, for prosecuting various public local improvements, such as constructing sewers, paving streets, improving bridges, laying out and planting public walks, gardens, and cemeteries, widening and otherwise improving highways, and constructing and extending water-works. Much useful and profitable out-door work is therefore provided for those who are able and willing to undertake it, and out of a total of 1759 skilled and unskilled workmen thus engaged, the factory operatives numbered 1416. Of the manner in which they have acquitted themselves, we are informed by the Chairman of the Blackburn Labour Committee, who says:

"A greater contrast than that presented between the cotton spinner, as a skilled workman in a factory and as a labourer in a sewer fourteen or eighteen feet deep, can scarcely be conceived. Accustomed as he has been to a temperature all but tropical, to work at what agility and delicacy of manipulation availed him infinitely more than muscular strength, and to double and sometimes treble the remuneration which it is possible for him now to obtain, his ready acceptance of the proffered employment involved an amount of self-denial and consideration, the exercise of which is most creditable."

After a little experience, the factory operatives were enabled to earn per day (of nine hours) from 2s. 2d. to 2s. 8d. In some few instances, however, they proved equal to skilled labourers, and at piece work earned £1. 3s. 114d. per week. While some of the more enterprising operatives were seeking a living by new kinds of labour, others were trying their skill at kindred occupations. The wants of the woollen and worsted trade caused a migration into Yorkshire, but it is not believed that more than one thousand cotton operatives, representing between three and four thousand persons, remained. Being unprepared for the work of a woollen mill, they had to commence as "learners," with very small pay, and they were soon discouraged. No better success attended those who sought admittance into flax mills; and indeed it seems that they, equally with their masters, are sanguine of better times, and wish to be at hand, and ready for the tide of prosperity that is soon to set in. Notwithstanding the prostration of trade and the various inducements held out to and forced upon the operatives, to take up new occupations, it is estimated that those who have done so number only 33,968, of whom 18,244 have emigrated, and are therefore lost to the trade, while 15,725 have obtained various kinds of employment in the district.

We have noticed the estimated loss in wages sustained by the cotton spinners and weavers, owing to the contracted supply of cotton; but it is important, if we would have a just conception of the nature of

the crisis, also to consider the loss arising from the defective character of the cotton supplied to those who were considered fortunate in being able to resume work. Mr. Redgrave enters very fully into this question. The bulk of the material available is Surat cotton, which is short in staple, as compared with the American, and requires peculiar manipulation. The problem has been, how to utilise this fibre, and the manufacturers have in some cases succeeded, and in others utterly failed, in their efforts to produce good yarn from this material. "Through every process," says Mr. Redgrave, "there is some difficulty to be overcome, or some extra manipulation required, which causes the manufacture of Surat cotton to be constantly a source of anxiety to the manufacturers, as it is to the hands; but where the question has been taken up with determination to make the best of it, many of the difficulties have been not only overcome, but the manufacture made profitable as well to the masters as so the hands."

As an example of the progress made in a large factory, in the neighbourhood of Blackburn, a table is given of the earnings of workmen in the last week of the years 1861, 1862, and 1863,—the ordinary fixed rate of pay by the piece being preserved throughout. We will select a few examples, giving the earnings consecutively for the succeeding years :-Slubber, 11s., 17s. 9d., 17s.; Rover, 10s. 10d., 13s. 10d., 15s. 6d.; Loomer, 7s. 6d., 13s. 5d., 35s. This shows how severely the patience of the poor workmen must have been tried, by finding, when they had succeeded in getting work, that they could, in some cases, earn little more than one-fifth of their ordinary wages. By mixing, however, the Surat with Egyptian cotton, and adapting the machinery to the short staple, the profits of the workmen had gradually risen; but there are at present many owners of large mills who prefer to keep them closed, rather than venture on the outlay necessary for adjusting their machinery for short staple, and providing a stock of cotton at the present high prices. Their hope is that American cotton will again be poured into our markets, and their expectation is that it may come any day. To disabuse manufacturers of this idea, Mr. Baker quotes a volume written by an English merchant, some time resident in the Confederate States. He says:

66

"They do not seem to have yet heard of the quantity of American cotton which has been burnt or destroyed for want of packages in which to secure it; nor of how much is needed in the Southern States for clothes, bedding, ropes, sails, and for every other article into which it can be converted. They have never heard of the cotton mills which have been erected since the war began, in South Carolina and Georgia; nor that, Augusta drills, Granitsville sheetings, and Atalanta shirtings, are as well known by purchasers at auction, and command as high a price, as the productions of Lowell or Manchester.' Hence the continued inaction of these gentlemen."

It is not, however, to be expected of manufacturers that, from merely