The character of the growth of the cotton industry in the United States, as revealed by recent census returns, is peculiarly interesting:—

Thousands Percentage Increase
1880. 1890. 1900. 1905. 1880-1890 1890-1900 1900-1905
Active Spindles 10,653 14,188 19,008 23,156 33.8  34  21.8
Looms 226 325 451 541 43.90 38.7 20 
℔ cotton consumed 750,344 1,117,946 1,814,003 1,875,075 48.99 62.3  3.3
Wages $42,041 $66,025 $85,126 $94,378 57  28.9 10.9
Capital $208,280 $354,021 $460,843 $605,100 70  30.2 31.3
Employees not officers and clerks 174.7 218.9 297.9 310.5 25.3  36.1  4.2

Cotton small wares are included in the totals for 1880 and 1890, but excluded from those for 1900 and 1905. We must observe further that “capital” is a vague term. Recent events in the United States afford a valuable empirical indication of the effect that improved machinery actually has upon wages. The new automatic looms caused a saving of labour per unit of product which recalled the complete subversion at the industrial revolution of the proportions in which the several factors in production were organized. Displacement of labour and falling wages might not unreasonably have been looked for temporarily, but wages stuck at their old level or rose. The rise was caused by numerous converging forces which brought their united weight to bear. First, prices so fell as the result of the new machinery that the increased volume of commodities which the market could absorb more than counterbalanced, it would seem, the labour-saving of the new machinery, the cotton industry being taken as a whole. It must be remembered that to increase the output from the subsidiary processes where labour had not been saved more hands had to be drafted in. Thus, a contraction of the body of weavers was accompanied by an expansion of the body of cotton operatives. Again weavers’ wages were naturally raised in a special degree because automatic machinery called for quick, trustworthy and intelligent hands, endowed with versatility, especially in the days when the machinery was still in the semi-experimental stage. The American employer tries to save in labour but not to save in wages, if a generalization may be ventured. The good workman gets high pay, but he is kept at tasks requiring his powers and is not suffered to waste his time doing the work of unskilled and boy labour. There is, certainly, in the American labour problem no serious grievance on the question of wages. If there is any abuse it consists in excessively fierce work. Mr. T. M. Young, who visited the American cotton districts in 1904 with an informal commission of Lancashire spinners and manufacturers, did not think that the cause of the high wages—allowance being made for the purchasing power of money, they are above those of England, though cotton operatives in England are well paid relatively—was the superiority of the American cotton worker; neither did the representatives of the English cotton operatives who accompanied the Moseley Commission. As often as not “the cotton operative in the United States is a French Canadian, a German, an Italian, a Hungarian, an Albanian, a Portuguese, a Russian, a Greek, or an Armenian.” It is the extensive “exploitation” of machinery seemingly, together with the speed of work, which keep wages high, combined with the horizontal and vertical mobility of American labour, which prevents it from accumulating in pools, and causes streams of the best hands to be flowing continuously to other callings and places, and no insignificant proportion to climb the social ladder. The remainder naturally profit, for a local or trade congestion of labour is avoided, and the voluminous recruiting of enterprise by the intensified competition among employers keeps the demand for labour high.

One noticeable point in the table quoted above is that until recently cotton consumed increased much faster than the number of spindles. This might be explained in a variety of ways. Average counts remaining constant, the average speed of the spindle might have risen; or the latter remaining constant, counts might have been getting finer. Speeds have certainly gone up a good deal of late on some counts. And it is quite likely, too, that concentration on the manufacture of coarse goods for export, with stout warps to keep down the breakages and raise the output per loom, may be reckoned as one cause.

Despite the recent sensational growth in the South, the New England States still remain the most prominent seat of the American cotton industry. They contained in 1905 about 14 million spindles as compared with 7.7 millions in the South and West, and their relative possession of looms approaches, though it does not quite reach, the same proportion. The leading States in the South in order of importance are South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, and in the North, first Massachusetts with an enormous lead, then, in order, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey. The bulk of the cotton industry in the North is contained within a small area. A circle around Providence, Rhode Island, of 30 m. radius includes, according to the twelfth census, nearly 7¼ million spindles,—there were only 58,500 spindles in this area in 1809. Of the chief towns Fall River stood first in 1900 in value output, and was followed in order by Philadelphia, New Bedford, Lowell, Manchester and Pawtucket. The climate of Fall River is very similar to that of English spinning districts. Its population in 1900 was 105,000, and of these only 14,600 were of American parentage. Of the remainder, 16,700 were English, 17,800 Irish, 29,600 French Canadians and about 5000 Portuguese. Among the rest of foreign parentage, Armenians, Russians and Italians are numerous. But Massachusetts is famous for the number of immigrants it attracts. It is almost incredible, but nevertheless a fact according to a recent statistical report, that in 1903 as many as 91% of the cotton operatives of the State were of foreign descent—chiefly French Canadian and Irish. In 1902 there were nearly 90 mills at Fall River with 3,000,000 spindles and 16,000 looms. The spindles amount to about one-third of all in Massachusetts, but Fall River’s share of the looms of the State is not large. The spindles exceed in number those possessed by any State except of course the one in which it is placed. In comparison with a great spinning town in England, nevertheless, Fall River does not appeal strongly to the English imagination. It has little over a quarter of the spindles of Oldham, or three-fifths of those of Bolton,—among English towns it would stand third, i.e. between Bolton and Manchester and Salford, which, in spite of the movement of spinning to the hills, still holds in England a leading place. The whole of Massachusetts, it is of interest to observe, has fewer spindles than Oldham, and only about half those of Oldham and Bolton together. Originally it was the river which attracted the mills to Fall River, and as the water-power available was almost inexhaustible, it was possible for the mills to congregate together and for a town to grow up. In England, when much of the industry was dependent for power upon water, decentralization was entailed, for the thin streams of Lancashire could not support more than two or three mills at most in proximity. Hence in England, after Watt’s steam-engine had succeeded, the economies of centralization led eventually to the desertion of the mills on the water-courses. But at Fall River the perfecting of the application of steam-power merely involved its use to supplement the water-power on the old site. The presence of water-power explains half the success of New England. In the six States 35% of all the power used is derived from water, and in the cotton-manufacturing of these States water provides 32.6% of the power. For industrial purposes generally the river most exploited is the Merrimac, upon which stand the leading cotton towns of Lowell, Lawrence and Manchester. Hitherto little has been done in the way of using water to generate electric power.[52]

The two most striking features of the American industry to-day are the introduction of the automatic looms, already briefly referred to, and the development of the South. The Northrop Loom Company has spent a fortune in pushing its loom on to the market. It has not hesitated to share risks, and it has run one “advertisement” mill at least, namely that at Burlington, Vermont, with 55,000 spindles and nearly 1300 looms. In this mill the labour-saving is shown by the following figures, the looms being of two sizes, 32 in. and 44 in. Of the former, 3 weavers run 18 each, 39 tend 16 each, only a few odd weavers tend less than 16, and learners even are at work on 8 to 11 each; on the latter, of 29 weavers 17 mind 16 looms each and 12 mind 12 (on stripped fabrics).[53] Of course a high level of efficiency would be expected in this show mill. That American employers have readily been converted to a belief in the economy of the new machinery we are not astonished to learn in view of the American temperament, the intensity of competition among business leaders, and the prevailing spirit of adventure. Thousands of workable old looms have been scrapped, and probably at the present time there are 100,000 automatic looms running in the United States. No other country can point to a rate of substitution which approaches that in the United States. The causes, apart from the temperamental and social to which reference has already been made, are probably (1) that there is disagreement as to the present economy of automatic looms on many fabrics,[54] (2) that Americans aim at frequency of renewal of plant, and avoid making their machinery so durable as to prove ultimately, perhaps, a handicapping inheritance, and (3) that a greater bulk of American work is appropriate for the new looms than of English or continental work. But automatic machinery is being used increasingly in Lancashire.[55] And the operatives ultimately benefit. It is the half-developed machine, to which labour must actually be linked as an essential part, which is responsible for monotonous work and creates the dislike of mechanical aids.

Now we turn to the recent development of the Southern States. Never has an industry grown faster than that of the two Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama. Some of the earliest experiments with the machine industry were conducted in South Carolina, but from that time till the end of the 19th century nobody imagined the possibility of a great Southern expansion. In 1880 the South contained less than half a million spindles—i.e. about as many as Hyde, Middleton or Chorley, and one-twenty-third of the numbers in Oldham. Twenty years later they had increased twelvefold and the Southern States, in respect of the number of spindles, had taken precedence of Bolton. To-day probably about eight and a half millions might be counted. In addition there are some two hundred thousand looms, or nearly as many as in the three leading cotton-weaving towns of England—Burnley, Blackburn and Preston. The rapid oncoming of the South may also be traced by its consumption of cotton—which as an index, however, is not perfect. This on an annual average was, in thousand bales, 164, 269, 453, 717 and 1233 in each of the periods 1876-1880, 1881-1885, 1886-1889, 1891-1895 and 1895-1900 successively. The consumption since then, as compared with that of the Northern States, Great Britain and the European continent, has been as follows. It must be remembered that the consumption per spindle varies greatly from place to place.

Consumption of Cotton in Thousand Bales of about 500 ℔ each.

Southern
States.		Northern
States.		Total
United
States.		Great
Britain.		Europe.
1900-190115831963354632694576
1901-190220172066408332534836
1902-190319581866382431855148
1903-190418892046393530175148
1904-190522702292456236205148

The densest distribution of mills in the South is along the line of the Southern railroad, in the district known as the Piedmont. Of this group Charlotte in North Carolina is the natural centre: roughly, half the spindles and half the looms in the Southern States would be included within a circle around Charlotte of a radius of about 100 m. Of the remainder a large proportion is scattered over a wide area.