Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, August 3, 1902, Page 23

Great Britain’s Factories and American Cotton INTERIOR VIEW OF LANCASHIRE COTTON (Copyright, 1902, by Frank G. Carpenter.) ANCHESTER, England, July 24.— (Special Correspondence of The Bee.)—I have spent the greater part of today in one of the larg- est cotton mills of Manchester. This city is the center of the cotton spin- ntng of the world and the place where mer2 than half of all the raw cotton we sell is handled. The product is brought to Liver- pool or up the ship canal to Manchester and from there distributed over this little cotton district of west England. The dis- trict is cnly seventy-six miles long and from ten to forty miles wide, but it is so spotted with mills that it might be called cne vast cotton factory. Not only in Man- chester, but in the hundreds of villages and towns nearby the spinning, dyeing and weaving goes on. The very air is filled with the smoke and the streams are so discolored by the dyes that they seem to flow ink. In the town of Oldham there is a point where you can count 600 factory chimneys without moving. Blackburn, where Har- greaves set up the first spinning jenny, still makes cotton, calico and muslin, and at Bolton, where Crompton invented the spin- ning mule, there are enormous cotton mills and bleaching and dye works. The first cotton mill was put up at Rochedale in 1795 and now there are 23,000 looms and 1,750,000 spindles at work there. Long Noted for Manufacturing. This region was noted for its woolen manufatcurers before cotton making by ma- chinery began and it got its start through its natives being the inventors of the foun- dation tools for cotton weaving and spin- ning. The business grew more, however, through the advantages of the climate. The mill men here tell me that there is no place in the world where the conditions are so favorable to the making of cotton cloth. The air has just the right amount of moisture, the water is excellent for dyeing and the colors are fast. As a result the cotton industry has steadily grown and it is today bigger than ever. The increase of the trade of 1900 over that of 1899 amountéd to more than $60,000,000 in value and new mills are still being built. It is In the cotton trade that John Bull has the advantage of Uncle Sam. How long he will hold it remains to be seen, but so He is now fgr his grip has not loosened. Aoduclng about $5600,000,000 worth of cotton manufactures yearly, and more than two- thirds of this product is exported. As far as the world’'s trade in cotton manufactures is concerned we are not in it, although we grow nine-tenths of the world’'s cotton and aré now putting up our factories right in the cotton fields. England is thousands of miles from any place where cotton is grown, but it supplies its own cotton goods and has 66 per cent of the world's exports, while we kave only about 5 per cent. Great Britain pays us $150,000,000 and upward for our raw materials, but it sells its product for at least three times the amount it pays us, so that it really makes about twice as much out of that part of our crop as we do, In the Cotton Exchang The most of our cotton now comes to Liv- €rpoo’, al hough the shipments via the Man- chester canal are increasing and it is at Liverpool where the bulk of the American product is sold. The sales are in the cot- ton exchange, where every day there are hundreds of buyers and sellers. The cotton is taken from the ships to the warehouses of the varlous brokers, each of whom has a sample room with exhibits of the grades of cotton on hand. The samples are rolled up in sheets of brown paper about a yara wide, 80 that they look for all the world like rolls of cotton batting. Each roll contains sev- eral pounds of cotton taken from the vari- ous bales, label:d according to the grades of the market. The cotton is bought and sold by samn- ples, the spinners sending their orders to the brokers. I saw scores of boys mov- ing about the streets of Liverpool with MILL—SHOWING WOMEN = o WORKING THE LOOMS. 20,000 BALES AT THIS LOAD. — ] “THE FLAGS" OF THE LIVERPOOL COTTON EXCHANGE. such samples under their arms, and I stopped one who was carrying two bundles from one broker to another and photo- graphed him. This was on the Flags of the exchange, where, later on, "I saw the brokers out in the open air buying and selling. It used to be that all of the cotton busi- ness of Liverpool was done out of doors. There is a court in the exchange known as the “Flags,” and the bulk of the cotton is bought and sold on the Flags instead of under cover. I went through the ex- change with ite secretary. He informed me that Liverpool has little fear of Man- chester taking its cotton business away from ({t, and that the natural landing place of American cotton is and always will be at the Liverpool docks. The cotton business of Liverpool is very great. It is, I am told, the largest cotton market of the world. I can easily believe this from the business I saw going on at the huge cotton warehouses, and from the six and eight-ton loads of cotton bales, each hauled by two of Liverpool’s famous horses, which make a steady procession alcng the wharves and through the busiest streets leading up from the docks. The Biggest Exchange in the World, Quite as Interesting as the Liverpool ex- change is that of Manchester, which is sald to be the largest exchange building of the world. It is a magnificent structure in the very heart of the city, built in the classical style out of massive stones, now blackened by the smoke of the cotton mills of the region about. It was yesterday that I entered the great hall with one of the brokers and watched the 6,000 men who gather there from the 100 cotton towns near by to buy and sell all sorts of goods, every Tuesday and Friday. The hall covers almost an acre and it is crowned with a dome ninety-six feet high. About it are huag the coats-of-arms of the various manufacturtng towns and upon a shield near the door I noticed the coat-of- arms of the United States. In the exchange not only raw cotton, but cotton cloths, machinery, paper and all sorts of goods are sold. The Manchester manu- factures are so excellent that buyers come here from all parts of the world to collect goods. There are 800 resident purchasing agents, who represent every civilized coun- try on earth, who spend their time here looking Into the products of this region and bu,ing them for their customers. There are many Syrians and East Indlans, men from Australia and South America ana from the United States and all parts of Europe. The business with China is chiefly done through the English firms, which have their direct connection with Manchester. I found the brokers, however, a little apprehensive that our cotton might crowd them out of the Chinese market. We are already ship- ping the most of the cotton for north China, and with a better class of goods we might capture the trade of the Yangtse-Kiang and the south. Big English Cotton Factory. But let me tell you something about the cotton mill of Richard Haworth & Co. which I have just visited. It is one of the largest in England. It employs 3,000 hands, pays out $300,000 in wages every year and weaves 300 miles of cloth every week. It has 3,000 looms and 120,000 spindles, and fits floor space is more than twelve acres. The mill is siluated in Salford within a stone’'s throw of the great docks that Manchester has built at the end of her mighty ship canal, so that vessels from New Orleans and Galveston can bring the raw cotton almost trom the plantation to the mill. We started in at the boiler room, where t'even great furnaces eat up nearly 300 tons of coal per week, went by the engines work- ing away with a power equal to that of 4,000 horses and then entered the yard where men were unloading great bales of Texas cotton into the mills. We next followed the bales and saw the various processes by which they are turned into cloth. The work is done much as in the United States, and a description of it would not be far different from that of any of the great cotton mills of Massachusetts or the south. The cotton is first broken up, the fiber belng rolled over and over through blowing and cleaning machines until it comes out at last in ropes of white fleecy yarn as soft as wool and as thick as a broom handle, This yarn is twisted by ma- chinery until it is as slender as the fnest thread that ever went through the eye of a needle. Other threads similarly made are twisted with it until the strength and thick- ness required for the thread of the cloth is obtained. Then the threads are wound on bobbins and by the mule spinner and other wonderiul machinery are made into the most beautiful of cloths. I saw. cottons of all patterns, shades and colors being pro- duced. Some looked like the finest of out- ing flannels and others had all the sheen and softness of silk. I shall not attempt a description of the processes, only saying that I was impressed with the newness and excellency of machinery, a part of which was American. Some of the rooms seemed a vast thicket ot white moving threads, working their way in and out among the izon wheels and bands, others were a maze of many colored cloths and others so noisy with the flying shuttles and the spinning reels that it was Impossible to speak to the gulde and be heard. Among the English Spinning Girls, Most of the hands of the cotton mills are women, and it was a wonder to me how hundreds of girls could work together in one room and not talk. I mentioned this thought to the guide later on. He replied. ‘* Why, ble.s you, man! Those girls are the greatest talkers on earth. They were talk- ing right a'ong while we were in the mill, but they listen with the eyes and not with ths ears. They have learned the lip lan- guage and they can tell perfectly what any- one rays by watching the mcvement of his 1ips.” The factory girls impressed me as by no means bad looking. They make fairly good wages for England and when you see them out for a holiday you would hardly know that they belonged to the mills. While at work they wear a costume which has been in use here for generations. It consists of a calico dress with short sleeves and a very short skirt and of stockings and clogs. The clogs are peculiar to this region. They have leather uppers with soles of wood on which bands of from are tacked. This makes a great clatter as they move about, and when they ran out at meal time it made me think of the clatter which you hear in Japanese rallroad stations when the STEAMSHIP DISCHARGING AMERICAN COTTON AT MANCHESTER-—THIS SHIP BROUGHT [ TL RPN passengers in their wooden shoes run over the platforms. Most of the factory girls pay much atten- tion to their personal appearance. They are bareheaded while at work and I saw hundreds who had their hair in crimping pins so tight that the skins of their fore- heads wera stratohed like an many drum- heads. They keep their hair in pins all the week and take it out bnly for Saturdays and Sundays. Wages and Work, The Lancashire factory hands are better off than the laboring people of some of the other parts of England. They make fairly good wages, and as all the members of a family work the result is that the aggre- gate income of a home often amounts to $50 and upward. Mr. Joynson of the Man- chester ship canal told me of a family of eight of whom seven were wage earners. Sald he: “The family consists of a man, his wife and six children. The father is a skilled workman, receiving about £2 a week. The mother stays at home and tends the house. The four girls go to the factory and one makes her 25 shillings, while the others each make from 15 to 20 shillings. Then there are two boys, who each make 25 shill- ings per week, so that on the whole the total income is high.” The factory hands all save up for the holidays, and every girl takes at least one vacation a year to spend her accumulation. The saving is done in clubs, in the treasury of which a part of each week's wages is de- posited. At the end of the year, usually about July, the savings are drawn out, and a week or two Is spent at the seashore or in the country. In some families such savings amount to several hundred dollars a year. I bave heard of one where they annually foot up about $300, and this all goes at the end of the year. Good Market for American Goods. Indeed, the factory hands are good spend- ers. They want the best they can get, and a rule spéend all they make outside the saving for the summer vacation on their clothes, food and drink. I saw crowds of them on Market street in Manchesver last Saturday night. There Is no work Satur- day afternoon in any part of England, and on Saturday night the hands come out for a stroll. Those I see here look superior to the common people of the other large cities I have visited, and from the stories told 1 can see there might be good demand here for many things that we make. Many of the shops advertise American shoes, and eome have the Amepsan flag painted on their windows, and helew it the statement that the shoes thereln wess, as- tually made in America. This is probably because the English are now making shoes from American lasts and selling them as American, They are Importing our machin- ery and trying to capture the new taste of the publle, which seems to be decidedly In favor of our footwear. The American shoe is far easler on the feet and more stylish than the English shoe, but I hear it doubted whether it will wear as well or whether it will withstand the wet as the English boot does. The people here will not wear rub- bers, and they must have a shoe that will keep out the water. American Goods In Manchester. I se¢ about the same American goods here that I have described as sold in the stores of London, Liverpool and other cities. There seems to be no antipathy te goods made in America, although many of the British products are advertised as made by British workmen and backed by British capital, The English, bowever, will not patronize their own goods If they are not equal in quality and in price with any others on the market, 'What American manufacturers should do 1 tg #end nothing but the best and to keep the prices as low as possible. They should send their own (Continued on REighth Page.) -