breakages and raise the output per loom, may be reckoned as
one cause.
Despite the recent sensational growth in the South, the New England States still remain the most prominent seat of the American cotton industry. They contained in 1905 about 14 million spindles as compared with 7.7 millions in the South and West, and their relative possession of looms approaches, though it does not quite reach, the same proportion. The leading States in the South in order of importance are South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, and in the North, first Massachusetts with an enormous lead, then, in order, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey. The bulk of the cotton industry in the North is contained within a small area. A circle around Providence, Rhode Island, of 30 m. radius includes, according to the twelfth census, nearly 7¼ million spindles,—there were only 58,500 spindles in this area in 1809. Of the chief towns Fall River stood first in 1900 in value output, and was followed in order by Philadelphia, New Bedford, Lowell, Manchester and Pawtucket. The climate of Fall River is very similar to that of English spinning districts. Its population in 1900 was 105,000, and of these only 14,600 were of American parentage. Of the remainder, 16,700 were English, 17,800 Irish, 29,600 French Canadians and about 5000 Portuguese. Among the rest of foreign parentage, Armenians, Russians and Italians are numerous. But Massachusetts is famous for the number of immigrants it attracts. It is almost incredible, but nevertheless a fact according to a recent statistical report, that in 1903 as many as 91% of the cotton operatives of the State were of foreign descent—chiefly French Canadian and Irish. In 1902 there were nearly 90 mills at Fall River with 3,000,000 spindles and 16,000 looms. The spindles amount to about one-third of all in Massachusetts, but Fall River’s share of the looms of the State is not large. The spindles exceed in number those possessed by any State except of course the one in which it is placed. In comparison with a great spinning town in England, nevertheless, Fall River does not appeal strongly to the English imagination. It has little over a quarter of the spindles of Oldham, or three-fifths of those of Bolton,—among English towns it would stand third, i.e. between Bolton and Manchester and Salford, which, in spite of the movement of spinning to the hills, still holds in England a leading place. The whole of Massachusetts, it is of interest to observe, has fewer spindles than Oldham, and only about half those of Oldham and Bolton together. Originally it was the river which attracted the mills to Fall River, and as the water-power available was almost inexhaustible, it was possible for the mills to congregate together and for a town to grow up. In England, when much of the industry was dependent for power upon water, decentralization was entailed, for the thin streams of Lancashire could not support more than two or three mills at most in proximity. Hence in England, after Watt’s steam-engine had succeeded, the economies of centralization led eventually to the desertion of the mills on the water-courses. But at Fall River the perfecting of the application of steam-power merely involved its use to supplement the water-power on the old site. The presence of water-power explains half the success of New England. In the six States 35% of all the power used is derived from water, and in the cotton-manufacturing of these States water provides 32.6% of the power. For industrial purposes generally the river most exploited is the Merrimac, upon which stand the leading cotton towns of Lowell, Lawrence and Manchester. Hitherto little has been done in the way of using water to generate electric power.[1]
The two most striking features of the American industry to-day are the introduction of the automatic looms, already briefly referred to, and the development of the South. The Northrop Loom Company has spent a fortune in pushing its loom on to the market. It has not hesitated to share risks, and it has run one “advertisement” mill at least, namely that at Burlington, Vermont, with 55,000 spindles and nearly 1300 looms. In this mill the labour-saving is shown by the following figures, the looms being of two sizes, 32 in. and 44 in. Of the former, 3 weavers run 18 each, 39 tend 16 each, only a few odd weavers tend less than 16, and learners even are at work on 8 to 11 each; on the latter, of 29 weavers 17 mind 16 looms each and 12 mind 12 (on stripped fabrics).[2] Of course a high level of efficiency would be expected in this show mill. That American employers have readily been converted to a belief in the economy of the new machinery we are not astonished to learn in view of the American temperament, the intensity of competition among business leaders, and the prevailing spirit of adventure. Thousands of workable old looms have been scrapped, and probably at the present time there are 100,000 automatic looms running in the United States. No other country can point to a rate of substitution which approaches that in the United States. The causes, apart from the temperamental and social to which reference has already been made, are probably (1) that there is disagreement as to the present economy of automatic looms on many fabrics,[3] (2) that Americans aim at frequency of renewal of plant, and avoid making their machinery so durable as to prove ultimately, perhaps, a handicapping inheritance, and (3) that a greater bulk of American work is appropriate for the new looms than of English or continental work. But automatic machinery is being used increasingly in Lancashire.[4] And the operatives ultimately benefit. It is the half-developed machine, to which labour must actually be linked as an essential part, which is responsible for monotonous work and creates the dislike of mechanical aids.
Now we turn to the recent development of the Southern States. Never has an industry grown faster than that of the two Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama. Some of the earliest experiments with the machine industry were conducted in South Carolina, but from that time till the end of the 19th century nobody imagined the possibility of a great Southern expansion. In 1880 the South contained less than half a million spindles—i.e. about as many as Hyde, Middleton or Chorley, and one-twenty-third of the numbers in Oldham. Twenty years later they had increased twelvefold and the Southern States, in respect of the number of spindles, had taken precedence of Bolton. To-day probably about eight and a half millions might be counted. In addition there are some two hundred thousand looms, or nearly as many as in the three leading cotton-weaving towns of England—Burnley, Blackburn and Preston. The rapid oncoming of the South may also be traced by its consumption of cotton—which as an index, however, is not perfect. This on an annual average was, in thousand bales, 164, 269, 453, 717 and 1233 in each of the periods 1876–1880, 1881–1885, 1886–1889, 1891–1895 and 1895–1900 successively. The consumption since then, as compared with that of the Northern States, Great Britain and the European continent, has been as follows. It must be remembered that the consumption per spindle varies greatly from place to place.
| Southern States. | Northern States. | Total United States. | Great Britain. | Europe. | |
| 1900–1901 | 1583 | 1963 | 3546 | 3269 | 4576 |
| 1901–1902 | 2017 | 2066 | 4083 | 3253 | 4836 |
| 1902–1903 | 1958 | 1866 | 3824 | 3185 | 5148 |
| 1903–1904 | 1889 | 2046 | 3935 | 3017 | 5148 |
| 1904–1905 | 2270 | 2292 | 4562 | 3620 | 5148 |
The densest distribution of mills in the South is along the line of the Southern railroad, in the district known as the Piedmont. Of this group Charlotte in North Carolina is the natural centre: roughly, half the spindles and half the looms in the Southern States would be included within a circle around Charlotte of a
