ABSTRACT
The industrial organisation of the Lancashire cotton industry is closely associated with its localisation, which is intense. Spinning became an industry distinct from manufacturing, owing partly to the fact that it was economical to apply other than human power to drive the new machines. The check on production, no doubt, is damaging to the labour and capital engaged in the cotton industry, but the fact that it can take place gives pause to would-be cornerers. In the markets of the cotton industry there are more grades of fabrics than of yarns, and more of yarns than of raw cotton; hence grading can be simpler and more perfect in the cotton market than in the yarn market, and in the latter than the market for fabrics. The most suitable place to discuss broadly the bearing of modern industrial and commercial organisation, as exhibited in the Lancashire cotton industry, upon social well-being.
