The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-11 00:00:00

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FACTORIES.

PRICE 4D. STAMPED, 5D

The spring reports of the Factory inspectors
show that the operatives have had good reason to
be content. Wages for 60 hours a week are higher
than they were 20 years ago for 69, though it hap-
pens, singularly enough, it is not so in somewhat
a ealogous occupations in which the labour of women
and children is unrestricted, such as printing,
bleaching, and dyeing-works. New mills are spring-
ing up and hands have been scarce, so that much
machinery has stood still for want of them, and
people have been engaged from other parts of the
kingdom, among them children of 13 from work-
houses, though this is high •priced labour, because
the manufacturer has to lodge, clothe, and feed, as
well as to some extent remunerate the children. In
some of the cotton districts a revival of the old do-
mestic system of manufacture is noticed as frequent
in weaving-sheds, the operatives hiring and work-
ing looms, and their families working with them.
But the most remarkable circumstance is the rising
importance of co-operative societies, stimulated
partly by the passing of the Limited Liability
Act, and partly by the extraordinary success of
a company formed at Rochdale 12 years ago, with
a large paid-up capital, now increased to £60,000,
in £l2 10s. shares, and which paid a dividend of
44 per cent. in October, and of 48 per cent. in the
spring of this year. The great majority of the
shareholders are operatives who work for wages in
the factory, having nothing to do with the manage-
ment, except by giving their votes at the annual
election of the committee of management. The
system is now spreading and several joint-stock
companies have been formed; it is stated that in
Bury alone upwards of £300,000 will be required
to put into working order the co-operative mills
there built and building. Such a profitable invest-
ment for small savings, in his own town and with
the business before his eyos, will be a strong in-
ducement for many a man to save, and may have
important consequences. Passing on to the wool
trade, we learn that this has not been so much
affected as the cotton by scarcity of hands, because
improved machinery has made it less dependent
upon manual labour; but there is a great scarcity
of the raw material, and the death of many sheep
from bad food in the winter must make the new
clip more inadequate than usual. The silk trade
has been very much checked during the last few
months, and the greatest fears are entertained of
French competition ; but it is hoped that such
a spirit of activity and energy will be aroused
by this competition that it may lead to a suc-
cess which could not have been expected under
the old condition of things. The tendency to
enlist steam power in the service of the domestic
system of manufacture continues, and the cot-
tage silk factories of Coventry are increasing
considerably. The inspector of the district,
Mr. Baker, maintains that it only wants a better
estimate of the power of savings to enable the
English workman to overcome all difficulties. He
remarks that, though it is but 12 years since the
riband weavers separated themselves from the con-
gregated labour of the factories, there is said to be
almost as much difference now between the work
done upon the weaver's loom and that done upon
the master's as there is between the French riband
and the English. If the design, or colour, or fabric
of the English riband is not as chaste, or clear, or
exquisite as the French, can it not be made so ? If
the present be a crisis in the silk trade, it should
stimulate the workman not to give in to the supe-
riority of the French, but strive to improve as he
has been doing during the last 12 years; and
then, instead of asking for protection in order to
compel the use of an inferior article, he will take
his own place without any intervention.