THE STORY OF ARTIFICIAL SILK

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them for £55,000. He would have got
34 for 1.

Courtaulds control the Viscose Corporation
of America, which makes 69 per cent. of all
American Artificial Silk. It has interests in
mills in Italy, Germany and France. It
makes most of the Artificial Silk in the world
—possibly 75 per cent. of it.
This one firm makes five-sixths of the
Artificial Silk in Great Britain, and it is not
likely to lose its supremacy. Its main asset
is not its money, but its experience. It has
the group of specialists who have solved the
problem most completely.

As we have seen in previous chapters, the
making of Artificial Silk requires a new
Technique. This new textile is not made by
money, nor by standardized machinery, as
cotton goods are. It is made by skill all the
way along. This skill is in the brains and
fingers of very few men, and they have not
yet made it known to the public. They have
not written books. And most of these men are
in the Courtauld Company.

_ Courtaulds’ biggest competitor in America
is the Du Pont Company, but it makes only

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