Chapter 11 Part 1 Development Chapter 2 Industrial Revolution 2

2 Like the cotton industry in all other countries, the English cotton industry developed at first as a by-product of overseas trade which brought textile raw material (rather one of them, since early products were " Denim," a blend of cotton and linen), and Indian cotton, or "white cloth," which European manufacturers attempted to capture with their own imitations.Although they later succeeded in replicating cheap, crude products that were more competitive with worsted fabrics, they were not very successful at first.Fortunately, entrenched and powerful vested interests in the woolen industry were able to act accordingly, often securing import restrictions on Indian white cloth (white cloth was exported from India as much as possible, entirely by the East India Company) Pursued commercial interests), thus providing an opportunity for the country's cotton textile industry.The cheaper price of cotton and cotton-textiles than woolen-textiles has enabled them to secure for themselves a useful, though limited, market at home.However, the main opportunity for the rapid expansion of the cotton textile industry is overseas.

Colonial trade created the cotton industry and continues to make it flourish. During the 18th century, the cotton industry developed in some of the major colonial trading ports, in Bristol, Glasgow, and especially Liverpool, the great center of the slave trade.At every stage of this inhumane but rapidly expanding commerce the cotton industry was advanced.In fact, throughout the period with which this book is concerned, slavery grew side by side with the cotton industry.African slaves were purchased at least in part with Indian cotton, but when the supply of Indian cotton was interrupted by wars in and around India, Lancashire stepped in.In the West Indies, slave-laboured plantations provided much of the raw material for the British cotton industry, and plantation owners in turn bought large quantities of Manchester's textiles.Lancashire's cotton textiles had been dumped in large quantities into the combined African and American markets shortly before "take-off," and Lancashire's debt to slavery was to be repaid later by supporting slavery, because in the eighteenth century After the 1990s, the slave plantations in the southern United States were maintained and expanded by the insatiable and rapidly expanding appetite of the Lancashire cotton mills, which provided a large amount of raw cotton for the Lancashire cotton mills.

In this way, the cotton industry took off like a glider, driven by the colonial trade on which it depended.Colonial trade not only showed great promise, but counted on rapid and incalculable growth, encouraging entrepreneurs to adopt revolutionary technologies to meet the needs of its development.From 1750 to 1769, the export of British cotton textiles increased by more than 10 times.In this case, for the person who enters the market with the most cotton textiles in his hands, the rewards are extremely rich, and it is well worth the risk of bold technological innovation.However, the overseas market, especially the poor and backward "underdeveloped areas" in the overseas market, not only often expands rapidly, but usually continues to expand without obvious restrictions.Doubtless any one of these regions was small and seemingly isolated by industrial-age standards, and competition among different "advanced economies" made each part seem even smaller.But, as we have seen, if an economically advanced country manages to monopolize all markets, or almost all markets in sufficient time, the prospects are indeed infinite.This is precisely why the British cotton industry has succeeded with the bold support of the British government.In terms of sales, except for the first few years of the 1780s, the Industrial Revolution can be said to be the victory of the export market over the domestic market: in 1814, the ratio of cotton cloth produced in Britain to domestic sales was about 4:3, and by 1850 It has been increased to 13:8.The main market for British goods exports has long been the semi-colonial and colonial markets. Therefore, in the ever-expanding export market, it must also be a huge victory for the semi-colonial and colonial markets.During the Napoleonic Wars, the European market was largely cut off due to wars and blockades, which is a matter of course.However, even after the war, the European market continued to defend its interests. In 1820, the European continent opened its doors again and lifted the import restrictions on British goods, importing 128 million yards of cotton cloth from Britain; the American region outside the United States, Africa and Asia imported 80 million yards of British goods.But by 1840, European imports amounted to 200 million yards, compared with 529 million yards in "low developed areas".

British industry established a monopoly in these areas by means of war, revolutions of other peoples, and its own imperial domination.Two areas in particular deserve our attention.During the Napoleonic Wars, Latin America became virtually entirely dependent on British imports.After the Napoleonic Wars, Latin America, cut off from Spain and Portugal, became almost a complete economic vassal of Britain, cut off from all political interference by Britain's potential rivals.In 1820, the impoverished continent imported as much cotton cloth from England as more than a quarter of Europe's imports.By 1840, that number was almost half that of Europe.As we have seen, the East Indies had been traditional exporters of cotton textiles, driven by the East India Company, but, with entrepreneurial vested interests gaining ground in Britain, the commercial interests of the East India Company (not to mention India commercial interests) are frustrated.India, which was systematically deindustrialized, became instead a market for Lancashire cotton textiles: in 1820 the subcontinent imported only 11 million yards of cotton cloth, but by 1840 it had imported 145 million yards.It was not just a welcome expansion of the Lancashire market, but an important milestone in world history.For all time Europe has always bought more and sold less in the East.For the East demanded little from the West, and the West in turn needed the East for spices, silks, cottons, and jewels.For the first time, the cotton shirts of the Industrial Revolution reversed this relationship, which had previously been balanced by shipments of precious metals and plunder.Only conservative and self-sufficient China still refused to buy goods offered by the West or economies under Western control. It was not until 1815-1842 that Western merchants, with the help of their strong ships and guns, discovered a method that could be exported in large quantities from India. The ideal commodity to China is opium.

Cotton textiles, therefore, presented a prospect of such grandeur to private entrepreneurs as to tempt them to boldly carry out the industrial revolution which the suddenly fully expanded market required.Fortunately, the other conditions for the Industrial Revolution were also in place, and the new inventions that revolutionized the cotton industry—the spinning jenny, the hydro-spinning frame, the mule loom, and, later, the power loom—were simple and convenient , low investment, payback almost immediately by increasing production.If these machinery needed to be installed sporadically, common people could start by borrowing a few dollars, because the wealthy people who controlled the huge wealth of the eighteenth century did not want to invest a lot of money in industry.The capital required for the development of the cotton industry was easily financed from the daily profits, for the huge market it conquered, coupled with the continual rise in prices, produced enormous profits.In the future, a British politician pointed out objectively: "The profit rate is not 5% or 10%, but 100%, several thousand percent. It is this high profit that makes Lancashire rich." Like Owen ( Robert Owen) was originally a cloth merchant. In 1789, he borrowed 100 pounds to start from scratch in Manchester. By 1809, he was able to use 8,400 pounds in cash to buy New Lanark (New Lanark). shareholding in the factory.It was a fairly common business success story at the time.We should remember that around 1800, less than 15 per cent of British households had an income of more than £50 a year, and only 3.75 per cent had an income of more than £200 a year.

But the cotton industry had other advantages. Its raw materials were sourced entirely from abroad, so that the supply of raw materials increased through the rapid development process open to colonial whites—slavery and the clearing of new lands—rather than through the slower development of European agriculture. development process; nor is it influenced by vested interests in European agriculture. (Overseas supplies of wool, for example, were of insignificant importance during the period covered by this book, becoming a significant factor only in the 1850s.) From the 1790s onwards, the British cotton industry Raw material supply bases were found in the newly opened states of the southern United States.Until the 1860s, the fate of the British cotton industry was tied to them.Furthermore, the cotton textile industry suffered from a lack of cheap, adequate labor at critical stages of manufacture (especially spinning), and was forced to mechanize.An industry like linen, for which colonial expansion initially brought better opportunities than cotton, in the long run, simply because cheap, non-mechanized production could be produced in poor rural areas (mainly Central Europe, but including Ireland) has been easily developed to its detriment, and it can only flourish in those areas. In eighteenth-century Saxony, Normandy, and England, the obvious way to develop industry was not to build factories, but to expand the so-called "household" or "decentralized processing" system, in which workers—sometimes Formerly independent artisans, sometimes farmers looking for work during the slack season—processing raw materials in their own homes, using their own or rented tools, receiving raw materials from merchants, and sending finished products to Back to the merchant, and in the process, the merchant becomes the employer. ("Household production system" is a common stage in the development of manufacturing from household or handicraft production to modern industry. Its production forms are countless, some of which are quite close to factories. If the author of the 18th century mentions "Manufacturing", that almost certainly refers to the "household production system", and this designation applies to all Western countries.) Indeed, in the early stages of industrialization, both in Britain and in other parts of the world where the economy was more developed It is mainly obtained by continuing to rely on this form.Even in the cotton industry, a production process such as weaving cloth was served by a large increase of weavers on home handlooms to serve the many already mechanized spinning centers. More efficient than a spinning wheel.But about thirty years after spinning was mechanized, weaving was everywhere mechanized.Incidentally, the handloom weavers everywhere have resigned themselves from the stage of history, and occasionally rose up against their sad fate when the cotton industry had no more to ask of them.