Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

BRITAIN AT WORK. A SHEETING WEAVING SHED (MESSRS. HORROCKSES, CREWDSON AND CO., LTD.) many other mills and factories that spin and manufacture textile fabrics. Practically 2,000 firms are engaged in the cotton industry, and there is scarcely a country, civilised or bar- barous, to which the output, fine or coarse, gaudy or plain, is not sent. The tendency in the cotton industry is towards better working conditions and shorter hours. Even steaming in weaving sheds, which some manufacturers consider vital to the make of cotton cloth, may ultimately be legislated out of the mill. Meantime the operative adapts himself to new methods of work, and his öld pugnacity in social life has been superseded by homely philosophy and quaint humour. On his annual holiday, in the “ wakes week,” with his savings from the “going-away club” in his pocket, he is a plutocrat, notwithstanding his hearty ways and whimsical dialect. But it is on ’Change that the wealth and power of the industry is the most impressively indicated. The great “ cotton lords,” once wealthy and influential enough to arouse Bismarck’s envy, have not altogether disappeared from “the boards.” But the trade has gradually divers! fied and extended till there are 8,000 three- guinea subscribers to the Manchester Royal Exchange, the largest exchange in Europe. Nearly all these men are engaged in selling or buying cotton, raw or manufactured, or doing business in some commodity necessary for the equipment or work of mill. The scriptural reminder that a good name is bettor than riches has been placed high up in the gilded dome of the vast hall. More easily within the range of vision are the latest quotations for consols, the bank rate, and the cotton prices. The telephone, the telegraph, and the special messenger are so alert that there is no longer necessity for the merchant to signal the state of the market, whether buoyant or depressed, by the tip backward or forward of his silk hat The great throng on ’Change know to a fraction how far to go in business enterprise. They have their fingers on the commercial pulse of the world, and they make the most of “ the golden moments in the stream of life.” John Pendleton.