Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-10-19
MILLS OF MANCHESTER
Greatest Cotton Manufacture
ing District in the World.
'SHIP OUTPUT EVERYWHERE
Two Thirds of Their Raw Material
From America.
HIT HARD BY AMERICAN PANIC
Protection Sentiment Growing
Among Manufacturers, But They
Won't Admit It-Wages.
HIT HARD BY AMERICAN PANI'
RY WILLIAM E CURTIS

by WILLIAM r.. q Kills.
Special Correspondence of The Star and the
Chicago Record Herald.
MANCHESTER. October Is, 1908.
The commercial conditions are no bet
ter here than in Glasgow. The same de-
preston prevails throughout the king
dom. and it is all owing. AS the victims
claim, to last falls panic in the United
States. which arrested an unprecedented
movement of commerce and trade and
closed the American market for British
merchandise. Thus our British cousins
suffer for our sins. And not only Great
Britain. but every other country. shared
in the consequences. Recent returns show
that commercial and industrial conditions
in Germany are not better than here. and
in some respects are worse. The foreign
commerce of Germany fell off 20 per cent
during the first six months of the cur
rent year and the loss was about equally
divided between exports and imports
Great Cotton Factory District.
Within a radius of thirty miles OF
Manchester are, 1876 cotton mills with
55.21S,OO0 spindles and 6S4, S11 looms, en-
ployinS about 100000 people and embrac-
ing 30 per cent of the cotton textile in
duStries of Great Britain. Lancashire
occupies the same position to the manu-
featuring trade of the world as the cot
ton belt of the United States does in the
production OF the raw material And
the section included in that and the ad-
joining counties is, perhaps. the most
densely filled with manufacturing estab-
llshmentS of any similar area in the
world. The population is about four and
half millons-precisely 4.406. 1S7. OF
2,461 inhabitants ID the square mile by
the latest of iS
within thirty miles of Manchester, and
| the coal which furnishes the steam is dug
out Of the fields that surround the fac
tories. There is no water power, and
very little electricity is used, compared
with the cotton manufacturing districts
of the United States. 1t was the cheap
fuel supply that brought the factories
here, and the factory system was formed
| and developed in this country with the
inventions of Watt, Arkwright and other
| ingenious men.
To furnish machinery for these fac
tories and to keep it in repair has
caused the establishment of enormous
shops which approach the factories in
size and in the value of the investment
They are not limited to milling machin-
cry, although that is their principal
object, but ship engines and machines
or every sort to every part of the
world.
Good Times Made Them Prosper.
Within the last ten years, coincident
with the return of prosperity in the
United States, the factory interests, the
| cotton trade and its allied industries
over here have been exceedingly pros
porous. Both the volume of the output
| and the profits of production have been
unprecedented, and these conditions
have caused an enormous increase in
| the number and the size Of the manu-
featuring establishments. In 1898 there
| were less spindles in the mills of the
Lancashire district than in 1890 or any
| year during the previous decade but at
that point the development began and
| the growth Of the cotton industry dur
ing the subsequent years may be traced
by the number OF spindles reported an
nually in the following table: