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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LAISSEZ FAIRE were reduced to a starvation point. But the practice of setting labourers to work in their cottages was not convenient gave 75h to the capitalists. The cottage system gave in many ways supervision Opportunity for inefficient work’, and the employers preferred to have the men under their own eyes. This was the only method by which they could secure punctuality in the de- livery of goods?, and could exercise an effective supervision all the time®. One circumstance which specially impressed Mr Hickson was “that the factory system is beginning to be extensively applied to the labour of hand-loom weaving, and that the weavers who now maintain, and may continue to maintain, a suceessful competition with the power-loom, will not be cottage weavers?, but weavers assembled in factories to work under the eye of a master. There are now many 192 ! Mr Hickson reported: “One hundred webs, therefore, in a factory of hand. loom weavers, would be finished even in Manchester, in the time in which 50 would not be finished by an equal number of domestic weavers. But in Ireland the disparity is much more striking. I was assured by Mr M’Cauley of Belfast, that it would be necessary for him to employ 400 country weavers to get him through the same quantity of work in a given time which he could produce from 100 hand-looms employed in his factory, under his immediate superintendence. Reports, 1840, xxIv. 648. 2 Mr Hickson writes: ‘The cotton-weavers, in most cases, work at home; but the practice is beginning to extend itself of assembling them in factories. There are hand-loom factories, as well as power-loom factories. In large manu- facturing towns, a saving of time is regarded as a saving of money. One thousand pounds capital, if it can be returned four times in the year, is equal to a capital of £4,000 returned once; and the interest on £3,000 is the saving effected. Hence the anxiety of every good man of business to despatch his orders quick, and hence the urgency of merchants, when writing to the manufacturer, to ship without delay. In fact, promptitude of execution is often a more important consideration than price. A merchant, not limited by his foreign correspondents, but left to his own discretion, will give his orders to the manufacturer, who, on a given day and month, will engage to have his goods on board a ship in the export docks, and will disregard the offer of another manufacturer less punctual, and more dilatory in the conduct of his business, although cheaper, perhaps by five per cent. On this account factory labour is much more advantageous to the manufacturer than domestic labour. The domestic weaver is apt to be irregular in his habits, because he does not work under the eye of a master. At any moment the domestic weaver can throw down his shuttle, and convert the rest of the day into a holiday; or busy himself with some more profitable task; but the factory weaver works under superintendence; if absent a day, without sufficient cause, he is dismissed, and his place supplied by one of greater power of application.” Reports, 1840, xxv. 647-8. 8 Tt was difficult to guard against the embezzlement of materials and the fraud of weaving thin. Accounts, 1839, xn. 599. 4 Mr Hickson speaks of them as * domestic weavers.” I have ventured to alter this phrase so as to bring it into accord with the terminology adopted in this volume. See above. pn. 497.

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