ABSTRACT
The textile trades had in 1937 a labour force of about 1,170,000 insured workers, of whom 450,000 were males and 720,000 females. The minor textile trades—lace, jute and flax, hemp, carpet making, and so on—had together 180,000 workers in Great Britain. Except in the dyeing and finishing trades and in cotton spinning, where men predominate, women workers are in a majority in most branches of the textile industries. The woollen and worsted trades were weakly organised, and so were most of the minor textile groups. Even the cotton operatives might in time see the virtues of comprehensive union, in view of the shrinkage of their own industry and the steady growth of mixed fabrics. But in nearly all the textile trades, the tradition of parochialism is very strong and dies hard. In the group, there were at the end of 1936, 430,000 Trade Unionists, and they were enrolled in no less than 268 Trade Unions.
