524 LAISSEZ FAIRE
planted, it took root in Lancashire and developed steadily till
about 1740, when an era of more rapid progress began®. The
competition of the East India Company was that which the
manufacturers had most reason to fear, and though the cloth
they wove of cotton on a linen warp had a practical monopoly
in the home market? they were liable to be undersold by the
but doth company in foreign markets. Arkwright's inventions, by
cout now . . 2
be made of Spinning a firmer cotton thread than had hitherto been pro-
ti . 3 .
only, and Curable and one which was suitable for the warp’, made it
foreigners possible to manufacture a cloth on terms which rendered it
acceptable in markets in all parts of the world.
The effect of Arkwright’s success was to open up to a trade,
that had hitherto been conducted on a small scale, the possi-
bility of enormous and indefinite expansion. Materials could
be obtained in considerable quantities from the East and the
Bahamas; and in the last decades of the eighteenth century
increasing supplies were procured from the southern States?’
I The progress was not uncheckered, however, and was closely dependent on
the supply of materials. The evidence given before the Select Committee of 1751
seems fo show that their French and German rivals could obtain the linen yarn
used as warp more cheaply than the English manufacturers could procure if
trom Ireland (Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, Reprints, First
Series, 1m. 291, 292). In order to assist them it was resolved that the duties on the
importation of foreign linen yarn should be reduced (Commons Journals, XXvL
234). The English had an advantage in the possession of cotton islands; but
their continental rivals offered better prices and secured a large part of the crop
Reports, op. cit. 296). There were further complaints of decline in the manu.
Iacture in 1766. 'T., Letters on the Utility of Machinery, 9.
2 9 Geo. II. c. 4.
8 Linen had been previously used for this purpose. In 1774 an Act was passed
which repealed 7 Geo. L. c. 7 and rendered it possible for Arkwright to take full
advantage of the improvement. 14 Geo. III. ¢. 72.
4 The average annual import of cotton wool for the years 1701 to 1705 was
1,170,881Ibs.; it rose in the following decade and from 1716-20 averaged
2,178.287 Ibs. For quinquennial periods after the invention of the jenny and frame
L771—=1775 . . . 4,764,589,
1776-1780 . . . 6,706,013,
1781—1785 . . . 10,941,934,
1786-1790 . . . 25,448,270.
In 1800 it reached 56,010,732 and in 1810, 136,488,935, but after this year there
was a remarkable drop (as low as 50,966,000 in 1813), and matters did not mend
till after the close of the war. Guest, op. cit. 51.
5 The cultivation of cotton had been introduced into the Carolinas and Georgia
from the Bahamas about the time of the War of Independence. Whitney's in-
vention of the cotton-gin which separated the fibre from the seed, and prepared
the cotton for export, gave an immense stimulus to the production; in 1794,
Jne million six hundred thousand pounds were exported. Leone Levi, History, 83.
A.D. 1776
—1850.
