ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the literature would benefit from a closer comparative examination of the wool and cotton textile industries. A literature review might leave the uninitiated with the view that textile industries can be ‘lumped’ together and treated as a whole during the inter-war period, and that the only interesting sector is that of cotton textiles. Trade theories help to place the inter-war cotton and woollen industries in a long-run global context. One of the defining characteristics of many of the UK's staple industries during the inter-war years was the persistence of substantial excess capacity. At the beginning of the inter-war period, both the cotton and woollen textile industries operated on a centralised, collective wage bargaining basis. It is tempting to conclude that differences between the fortunes of the cotton and wool textile industries during the inter-war years can be accounted for entirely by the differential impact of demand shocks.
