The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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THE SUPPLY OF WOOL, IRELAND AND AUSTRALIA 643 the woollen manufacture is very much harder to trace. a Cotton spinning had been, on the whole, concentrated in ’ the Lancashire district, and the introduction of spinning machinery, with the consequent development of the trade, aroused a great deal of interest, and was written about at the time. The spinning of wool, on the other hand, was widely as spinning diffused through all parts of the country in the latter part of ned: ¥ the eighteenth century; the course of the change in one district was in all probability very different from the transition in others, and as the revolution did hot bring about an immediate expansion of the trade, it did not attract any special attention ; we are very badly off for accurate informa- tion on the whole subject. The cotton trade, in the first half of the eighteenth century, had been exposed to fierce competition from manu- facturers on the continent; it was only by obtaining a start in the introducing of mechanical spinning that England secured for a time a very great advantage over all her rivals in this industry. With the woollen trade it was different; il 0st the supply of raw material had given the English clothiers a werelargely position of great economic strength, if not of actual monopoly, engi. all through the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centu- ries; the anxiety of the traders was directed not to gaining, but to maintaining their advantage over competitors. These various differences are, however, connected with the fundamental distinction that the clothiers were engaged in working up native materials, while the cotton manufacturers were not. Considerable quantities of Spanish and German wool were imported, especially for use in certain classes of goods; but the English product was the main basis of the trade!, From this it followed that there was not the same danger of violent fluctuations in the woollen, as in the cotton trade; the supply of raw material was less likely to be cut off suddenly? but on the other hand there was less possibility of expansion. The cotton manufacturers could look to practi- Lhe rupely cally unlimited areas in distant parts of the globe for an rs a increased supply of raw material; while the quantity of Biot, English wool obtainable was limited. The clothiers had a 1 See above, p. 495. 2 See above, p. 625, and below, p. 689. 4]1-—2 nt] > Cty

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