Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

WORK. 288 BRITAIN AT WINDING FRAMES (MESSRS. HORROCKSES, CREWDSON AND CO., LTD.). that so rapidly that not only spinners but manufacturers and merchants are getting in a flutter. No fewer than 30,000,000 bales of cotton will, it is estimated, be required, even within the next twenty-five years, to meet the world’s annual demand for yarn and cloth ; and, dependent as we are on America for our chief supply, there is undoubtedly im- perative need for the cultivation of cotton in every available part of the British Empire. The environment of a cotton mill, however picturesquely the big building has been placed in sylvan valley or by rippling brook, is apt to get dingy. Man’s toil has a ruthless influence upon nature. There is an absence of verdure, as though the grass had been mistaken for cotton, and worked up in the weaving shed. The cotton mill, great or small, has been gradually pushed out of Manchester, which is chiefly engaged in the warehousing, sale, and despatch of manufactured goods. Shouldered away, as it were, by commercial energy from the city, the cotton mill has asserted itself in town, village, and dale in the vicinity, as closely as possible to the vast central market. The hand-loom weaver still at about 11,000,000 bales, and of this quantity about 2,500,000 bales are exported to Great Britain, and nearly as much to Continental ports. Ireland, Glasgow, and Bristol have their distinctive cotton industries; but the mills of Lancashire, Derbyshire, and Cheshire take the largest share of the supply. Liverpool and the railways still do a considerable traffic in raw cotton, but the Manchester Ship Canal is also becoming a valuable agent of transit, and unloads, roughly, at the home clocks, 5 50,000 bales of cotton yearly. An American bale weighs 460 lb. and an Egyptian about 770 lb. The cotton product from the Nile delta is generally reckoned, however, in cantars of 98 lb. each. The supply of raw cotton from America, Egypt, and India is slightly increasing, but the consumption is increasing also, and I SPINNERS AT WORK IN A LANCASHIRE COTTON MILL. Photo: Cassell & Co, Ltd.