Chapter IV: The Textile Industries, Ii.—: Cotton.

I. Wool—II. Cotton—III. Linen—IV. Silk—V. Conclusion.

Wool is the most important of the textile industries, employing more than 200,000 persons, to 150,000 employed in cotton, and 55,000 in linen; its plant can produce twice as much as is consumed in France. M. Gaston Grandgeorge estimates the output of French woollen yarn at £20,000,000, and assessing woollen cloth at a price of 4s. per lb.—a rather low figure—values it at £31,080,000 a year. The export for 1903 was £5,920,000 worth of textiles, £3,780,000 of wool combings, a net total of £12,680,000; for several years the industry has been stationary, enduring rather than demanding Protection.

The cotton industry is found in three districts, Normandy, the North, and the Vosges; and the cotton spinners and weavers, especially in Normandy, have been for three-quarters of a century ardent Protectionists. 37,500 persons are employed in spinning, 122,000 in weaving. The report of the Commission on Customs for 1891 declares, “The output in cotton spinning and weaving can actually be said to balance demand. The industry is this year in a thoroughly sound condition, as is proved by extreme commercial and industrial activity, and the firmness of the market for cotton.” In 1892 this prosperous industry obtained an almost prohibitive rise in duties on thread and textiles; according to the Blue Book on Direct Taxation, the number of spindles in spinning mills was some 3,799,400 in 1891; after that year there are no official statistics, but the Cotton-spinners’ Union fixed the number in 1904 at 6,150,000, a 62 per cent. increase, while the increase in consumption for the same period was only 31 per cent.

If the last sum were exact it would prove a consumption of 77 lbs. per spindle, showing that the greater part of the French output is of high numbers. High as the tariff walls were raised they did not prevent the importation of cotton yarn.

The export of cotton textiles has increased.

The main cause of this export is the protective duties instituted in the colonies at the expense of their own inhabitants for the advantage of the capital.

It is also due to the extended market which England offers for our cottons, equal to that of Madagascar and Indo-China put together.

But this export trade with England is to be considered rather as a payment of debts than as a sign of prosperity. The surcharges on cotton goods were so heavy that when the manufacturers tried to extend their sales by sending them to Manchester they lost a day a week. In 1904 a Congress was held at which M. Méline made two confessions—“It is sad to have to confess that our exports of cotton tend to diminish, while those of England and Germany increase”; and “It is true” that the protective duties led to the establishment of new factories. The Congress nominated a permanent committee, empowered to enforce the closing of mills and factories on receipt of an indemnity—but it was not stipulated that this indemnity should be extended to the employés. In the article on Cotton in the “Dictionary of Commerce,” a manufacturer, M. Gustav Roy, says: “The Protectionist system must be made responsible for a great part of the considerable difference existing between the price of cotton in France and of the same goods in England; price had to be reckoned plus the addition of interest on capital sunk in the paying of duties (1) on the materials, (2) on the machines and workmen employed—of annual charges necessitated by the Customs dues on the raw material, cotton; and secondly, on all the plant needed for the working of the factory, such as coal, oil, metals, and woods of different kinds, and various other goods; finally, of expenses caused by the bounties paid to certain industries, and of the rise in cost of transport due to the protection given to the merchant service. Moreover, since the sales can only be extended over a strictly limited market, there is a constant need to guard against the danger of over-production.”