The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-08-24

Showing the Phenomenal Development of Recent Years
A New Era in Cotton Manufactures.

a VIEW LFd III OOl
industry in North Carolina from the
small and crude beginnings of half
century ago to the splendid proportions
of to-day has been the most marked fea-
ture of our industrial growth within that
time and is a showing that no State of
the South, perhaps, can parallel.
The statement is based upon the fol-
lowing table, taken from the report of
the North Carolina Bureau of Labor
for the year 1898, a statement that has
been the subject of much comment both
within and without our borders:
COTTON MANUFACTURING IN
NORTH CAROLINA, 1S70-1S9S.
1870. 1870 1886. 1891 1898
No. No. o. o @1ls' SIS 1880 4,os l5,o5 as5o
No. Spindles SsSs7 923sS 1893, aSS 7C3,9S l,o546SS
The full significance of this truly phe
nomenal increase will perhaps be best
appreciated by showing the percentage
of increase during each of the periods
given in the table.
Taking the number of spindles as the
best, and usual, basis of measuring pro-
ductiye capacity, we find that there has
been the following increase in percent
age, leaving fractional parts out of the
reckoning: In the ten years from 1870 to
1880 the number of spindles was in
creased 131 per cent in the six years
from 1880 to 1886 the number was in
creased 115 per cent; in the eight years
from 1856 to 1894 the number was in
creased 253 per cent; in the four years
from 1894 to 1893 the number was in
creased 33 per cent. For the whole pc
Rod of % years from 1870 to 1893 there
was the enormous increase of 2,542 per
cent.
Now, while it is improbable, accord
ing to well-known law, that this ratio
of increase will be maintained for the
next % years, or even proportionately
for the next decade and half, even
should cotton manufacturing remain
profitable. the indications are that the
increase will continue close up to the
limit of profitable operation.
Though it is improbable, and indeed
quite impossible, that the percentage of
increase should be much longer main
tanned (the table shows a sharp decline
already set i'm there is no reason to as
sumo that the actual increase will not
maintain the past average for some
years to come. Indeed the indications
are, after making due allowances for
still-bOrn enterprises, that the actual
increase in spindles for the years 1899
and 1900 will be considerably larger than
for the years 1897 and 1898.
One of the main factors operating
to maintain this increase, the fact that
cotton mills are paying good dividend,
being, of course, the basic economic rea-
son, is the abundance of water-power
in the State and if power were the only
consideration there would be nothing
to stay an almost indefinite expansion.
Thus while we have but ], 054,6 spin
dies at present, there is water-power
to turn 140000,000 spindles, according
to the estimates.
We are just now upon the eve of
new departure in cotton milling, the inn
portance and significance of which
should not escape us. Thus far nearly
all mills of the State have been operated
along lines practically similar; that is
they have nearly all manufactured much
the same class of goods, the reason for
which was of course partly a lack of
Gdp1ldl u lUSJdil due UldtulItTf ufCtS-
sary for the manufacture of the finer
grade of goods and partly the absence of
the skilled labor essential to the produc-
tion of such a class of goods.
Lately, however some of our mills are
turning their attention to the manufac-
ture of the finer grades Of goods and are
putting in the necessary machinery
Recognizing the opportuneness of this
change steps have been taken to pro-
vide a course of instruction in textile
manufactures at the State College of
Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, so that
there may be no lack of men skilled to
direct the production of the new class Of
goods 1t is moreover true that the
State now has in its mills an abundance
of skilled labor already acquainted with
the manufacture of cotton goods and
which can master without great Difficult
ty the difference in the specific processes
of the manufacture of the fine and coarse
grades of goods. The outlook is, there
fore. that in the course of few years
the labor problem of the new departure
will solve itself without the necessity of
importing operatives from the North.
What is of no less Importance the
surplus of capital in the State has rap
idly increased from year to year, and in
this respect the State is tolerably well
prepared to meet the requirements of
the situation, and were it not the eyes of
Northern capitalists are turned upon the
State and capital may be had with less
difficulty than ever before.