by percentages varying from about 25 to 35. In the above figures the earnings of three classes of spinners are averaged.
The highest wages are earned by mule-spinners (who are all males); their assistants, known as piecers, are badly paid. Persons can easily be found, however, to work as piecers, because they hope ultimately to become “minders,” i.e. mule-spinners in charge of mules. The division of the total wage paid on a pair of mules between the minder and the piecers is largely the result of the policy of the spinners’ trade union. Almost without exception in Lancashire one minder takes charge of a pair of mules with two or three assistants according to the amount of work to be done. Among the weavers there is no rule as to the number of assistants to full weavers (who are both male and female), or as to the number of looms managed by a weaver, but the proportion of assistants is much less than in the spinning branches, perhaps because of the inferior strength of the weavers’ unions. For the calculation of wages piece-rate lists are universally employed as regards the payment of full weavers and spinners; some piecers get a definite share of the total wage thus assigned to a pair of mules, while others are paid a fixed weekly amount. Many ring-spinners are now paid also by piece-rate lists, and all other operatives are almost universally so paid, except, as a rule, the hands in the blowing-room and on the carding-machines. Spinning and weaving lists are most complicated; allowances are made in them for most incidents beyond the operatives’ control, by which the amount of the wage might be affected. Still, however, they could not cover all circumstances, and much is left to the manner of their application and private arrangement. They should be regarded as giving the basis, rather than as actually settling, the wage in all cases. The history of lists stretches back to the first quarter of the 19th century as regards spinners, and to about the middle of the century generally as regards weavers, though a weaving list agreed to by eleven masters was drawn up as early as 1834. There are still many different district lists in use, but the favourite spinning lists are those of Oldham and Bolton, and the weaving list most generally employed is that known as the “Uniform List,” which is a compromise between the lists of Blackburn, Preston and Burnley. Under the “Particulars Clause,” first included in a Factory Act in 1891 and given extended application in 1895, the particulars required for the calculation of wages must be rendered by the employer. As in spinning there used to be doubts about the quantity of work done, the “indicator,” which measures the length of yarn spun, is coming into general use under pressure from the operatives. We ought to observe here that the Oldham Spinning list differs from all others in that its basis is an agreed normal time-wage for different kinds of work on which piece-rates are reckoned. But in effect understandings as to the level of normal time-wages are the real basis everywhere. If the average wages in a particular mill are lower than elsewhere for reasons not connected with the quality of labour (e.g. because of antiquated machinery or the low quality of the cotton used), the men demand “allowances” to raise their wages to the normal level. Advances and reductions are made on the lists, and under the Brooklands Agreement, entered into by masters and men in the cotton spinning industry in 1893, advances and reductions in future must not exceed 5% or succeed one another by a shorter period than twelve months. The changes as a rule now are 5% or 2½%. In all branches of the cotton industry it is usual for a conference to take place between the interested parties before a strike breaks out, on the demand of one or other for an advance or reduction.
Organization among the workers in the cotton industry is remarkably thorough. Almost all spinners are members of trade unions, and though the weavers are not so strongly united, the bulk of them are organized. The piecers are admitted as members of piecers’ associations, connected with the Trade Unions.spinners’ associations and controlled by them. Attempts to form independent piecers’ unions have failed. Weavers’ assistants are included in the weavers’ unions, which may be joined in different classes, the benefits connected with which vary with the amounts paid. One subscription only, however, is imposed by each branch spinners’ association, but in all branches it is not the same, though every branch pays the same per member to the amalgamation. All the trade unions of the chief workers in the cotton industry are federated in the four societies: (1) the Amalgamated Association of Operative Cotton Spinners (created in 1853 and reformed in 1870), (2) the Northern Counties Amalgamated Association of Weavers (founded 1884), (3) the Amalgamated Association of Card and Blowing-room Operatives (established 1886), and (4) the Amalgamated Association of Power-loom Overlookers (founded 1884). These were not, however, the first attempts at federation, and the term “federation” must not be taken in any strict sense. The distribution of power between the central authority and the local Societies varies, but in some cases, for instance among the spinners, the local societies approximate as closely to the status of mere branches, as to that of independent units federated for limited objects. We ought also to mention the societies of warp-dressers and warpers, tape-sizers and cloth-workers and warehousemen. There is no one federation of all cotton-workers, but the United Textile Factory Workers has been periodically called into being to press the matter of factory legislation, and international textile congresses are occasionally held by the operatives of different countries.
As to employers, four extensive associations include almost all the organization among them, two concerned chiefly with spinning and two with weaving. The former two are the Federation of Master Cotton Spinners’ Associations with local associations and including 21,000,000 spindles, and the Bolton Master Cotton Spinners’ Association with 7,000,000 spindles; the latter two are the North and North-East Lancashire Spinners’ and Manufacturers’ Association, covering about 3,000,000 spindles in addition to a large section of the looms of Lancashire, and the United Cotton Manufacturers’ Association.[1]
Factory legislation began in the cotton industry, and in no industry is it now more developed. The first acts were those of 1802 and 1819, both of which applied only to cotton-mills, and the former of which related only to parish apprentices. The first really important measure was that of 1833, Factory Acts.which curtailed the abuse of child-labour, enforced some education and provided for factory inspectors, of whom there were at first only four. The next act of importance, that of 1844, was chiefly remarkable for its inclusion of all women among young persons. The proportion of women, young persons and children engaged in the cotton industry is so high, that most regulations affecting them, e.g. those relating to the hours of labour, must practically be extended to all cotton operatives. This act killed night work for “young persons,” and children were not allowed to work at night. The year 1847 saw the introduction of what was known as the Ten Hours Act—after the 1st of May 1848 the hours of young persons (women included) and children were not to exceed ten a day and fifty-eight a week. A further limitation of hours to 56½ a week was secured in 1874, and this was cut down by another hour (the concession of the 12 o’clock Saturday) in 1901. “Young persons” now includes all who are not half-timers and have not attained the age of eighteen, and all women. The rules as regards the employment of children, which have steadily improved, are at present as follows. No child under twelve may be employed. On attaining the age of thirteen the child may become a full-timer if he has obtained the prescribed educational certificate (i.e. fifth standard attainment or three hundred attendances each year for five consecutive years). Failing this he must wait till he is fourteen before he can be employed full time. Half-timers may be employed either (a) on alternate days, which must not be the same days in two successive weeks, or (b) in morning and afternoon sets. In the case of arrangement (a), the child when at work may be employed during the same period as a young person or woman, which in Lancashire is almost universally from 6 to 6 with two hours for meals.[2] In the case of arrangement (b), which is the system generally adopted in Lancashire, a half-timer in the morning set works from 6 to 12.30, with half an hour for breakfast, and in the afternoon from 1.30 to 6 except on Saturdays, when the hours are from 6 till 11.30 for a manufacturing operative, or till 12 for other work, for instance, cleaning. The child must not work two consecutive weeks in the same set (that is, in mornings or afternoons), nor on two successive Saturdays, nor on Saturday at all if during any other day of the same week the period of employment has exceeded 5½ hours (i.e. a child in the morning set does not work on the Saturday). Other important features of factory legislation relate to the fencing of dangerous machinery and its cleaning when in motion (the regulations being strictest in the case of children and most lax in the case of male adults), and conditions of health, including the amount of steaming allowed, which was first regulated by the Cotton Cloth Factories Act of 1889.
The Cotton Industry outside England.
A brief survey will now be made of the cotton industry in parts of the globe other than the British Isles, and as a prelude the following broad estimates of the numbers of spindles and looms in the chief national seats of the cotton industry may be put forward.[3] The table is further supplemented by other figures[4] for the number of spindles at different times in the United Kingdom, the United States and the continent; and finally we may add the figures of cotton consumed.
The different average fineness of counts spun in different places must be borne in mind when the consumption of each district at the same time is being considered, but the relations between the amounts consumed in the contrasted districts in the two periods would not be affected much by this difference.
- ↑ A detailed analysis of the whole labour question in the cotton industry will be found in Chapman’s Lancashire Cotton Industry.
- ↑ There are other permissible arrangements, namely from 7 to 7 and from 8 to 8, but they are not used in the textile trades of Lancashire.
- ↑ The figures for looms are based upon a number of returns and estimates. Those for spindles are taken from the highly authoritative estimates of the International Federation of Master Cotton
- ↑ Journal of Board of Trade, April 28th, 1904.
