TBANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 825 



petition, the proportion of product falling to the labourer steadily increases. 

 This seems to be a paradox, but an examination of the tables will show the simple 

 reason. Let the column on page 831, the comparison of 1830 with 1884, be first 

 considered. It required #332,000 in money to construct the mill, with auxiliary 

 buildings and dwelling-houses, of a factory of a little over 8,000 spindles. Such a 

 mill would cost at this time less than one-half as much ; but, by taking the history 

 of several separate factories which have never failed and the stock of which has 

 never been reduced, it appears that a sufficient proportion of the earnings has been 

 set aside and expended in the increase of the productive units of the spindle and the 

 loom, to the end that the ratio of dollars has been reduced 75 per cent., or from #40 

 to #10 per spindle. Each spindle of the greater number has become 22 per cent, 

 more effective. Each spindle and each loom requires less arduous attention. The 

 proportion of operatives per thousand spindles has been reduced 64 per cent., and 

 the work of the lesser number is very much less severe now than the work of each 

 of the larger number was at the beginning. The productive capacity of each of 

 the operatives per day (the day of 1830 having been from 13 to 14 hours and the 

 day of 1884 being from 10 to 11 hours) has increased 214 per cent. A part of 

 the benefit of this vast change has gone to the consumers of the goods. The price 

 of raw cotton happened to be almost exactly the same in 1840 as it was in 1883, 

 and the standard sheeting was sold in 1840 at 9 cents per yard and in 1883 at 7 

 cents per yard, at which latter price it paid a fair profit. But the les3 price at 

 which it can be sold to-day pays no profit whatever, the export demand for China 

 having been interrupted by the French war, and the export demand for Africa 

 having been interrupted by various causes. 



Now, what has been the course of wages? The wages of the farmer^' 

 daughters of New England, to whom it was a profitable opportunity to enter the 

 cotton mill in 1830 and to work there in 1840 from 13 to 14 hours per dav, were 

 #164 a year in 1830, #175 a year in 1840, and #190 a year in 1850. In fact, the 

 wages of women were much less than these figures show, as these figures give the 

 average of men, women, and children, including overseers. Good weavers really 

 earned only 48 to 50 cents per day in 1830 to 1840. The proportion of men 

 was much greater and of children much less prior to 1850 than it is now. 

 Contrast these wages with the present. The average earnings of men, women, and 

 children for the shorter hours are now #290 a year. Skilful female weavers earn 

 now more than male overseers and second hands earned in 1830. There is now, 

 1884, some temporary disturbance, and there may be a temporary reduction in the 

 rate of wages by the piece. But hard times are the best schoolmaster. If the rate 

 of wages is reduced, improvement and invention will be applied to the machinery, 

 and in spite of present depression, the sum of wages for the year 1885, even at a less 

 rate by the piece, will be higher than in the year 1884. In witness of this, turn 

 to the column on page 830, and see how the law of increasing wages has been pro- 

 gressing from 1830 to 1884, subject to the temporary aberration caused by the use 

 of paper money, when wages apparently increased, but the cost of living increased 

 a great deal more. Now, what is the effect upon profits ? Assuming that 10 per 

 cent, constituted such a rate of profit in 1830 as to have induced the construction 

 of a factory, and that 10 per cent, would be a high rate of profit at the present 

 time ; also bearing in mind that, so far as the author knows and believes, there is no 

 cotton factory in New England which has paid 10 per cent, per annum, on the 

 average, upon its original capital for a period of fifty years — we find that it required 

 13 per cent, of the gross sales to be set aside in the year 1840, at the rate of 118 

 cents per yard of cloth, in order to secure to capital 10 per cent, upon the investment. 

 1 will not go back to the earlier date of 1830, when it required a very much larger 

 share of product to compensate capital at the rate of 10 per cent. At the present 

 time, 6 per cent., or four-tenths of a cent per yard, set aside from the sales 

 annually, will yield 10 per cent, upon the capital. 



There is scarcely an article which could serve so well as a guide and standard 

 for this investigation as a standard sheeting. It has been made in the same way, 

 of substantially the same weight, from the same stock, from the beginning to the 

 end, and the accounts have been kept in the same manner, according to the exact 



