14 
LAND & WATER 
November 22, 1917 
paid to his family at home, It would not be sur- 
prising to learn that the work is equally popular in China 
among the families whose men are thus at tlie front. Nor 
do the ten dollars probably represent all the money that is 
distributed at home . A Bank is being established so that the 
men can remit money home, but one fancies sometimes that 
the temptations of European articles of dress and food absorb 
a portion of the savings. The one franc a day is orJy the 
minimum rate paid to unskilled men. Those who have anj' 
special trade aptitude, can earn a great deal more. 
A Great Experiment 
By Jasou 
This article describes an experiment in the self-government 
of an important indiislry, which may conceivaUy effect Jn 
the future almost a revolution in the industrial world. 
T 
1 
^HERE are certain economic calamities that the mind 
associates with war. Chief among them are high 
prices, wild fluctuations of trade, spells of imem- 
^_ ployment. In every war a few men are enriched 
and in every war the shadow of ruin and destitution broods 
over nine homes out of ten. When the skies fell in August 
three years ago, there were many whose minds went back to 
the last great European war vvith'its terrible record of degrada- 
tion and misery. The Industrial system has connected the 
whole world in a series of relationships so delicate and pene- 
trating that any violent disturbance must react on every 
community that buys and sells. Professor George Unwin 
has shown in his book on Industrial Organisation in the 
Sixteenth Century that the handicraft or guild ,system is 
associated with the town economy, the domestic or com- 
mission system with the national economy, and the factory 
sj'Stem with the world economy. We saw what this implied 
in the case of the war with Napoleon when the Industrial 
system was scarcely' out of its cradle. A nation that is in- 
volved in the world economy is subject to vicissitudes 
that do not affect a community that has not passed beyond the 
earlier forms. The more elaborate that system, the greater the 
consequent chaos. Hence it looked to most people -in 1914 
as if the second great European War would follow the course 
of the first, inflicting all the same disturbance only in greater 
degree. . 
This ha.s not happened. This is not the place to discuss 
the various causes that have made part of that forecast false. 
Some of them are quite inde])endcnt of the sagacity of man ; 
some of them mark a return to more primitive conditions than 
those we associate with the Industrial system. But in some 
degree our escape from these evils lias been due to the readi- 
ness to learn the lessons of the war, and some of these lessons 
are lessons for peace. Not the least significant experiment 
m this connection is the e.\periment of the Control Boai'd in 
the Woollen and Worsted Industries. 
The control applies to both these industries, for they are 
both concerned with the requirements of the army, and" they 
are. of course, very intimately associated. Roughly speaking, 
worsted differs from woollen in its raw material and in the 
preparation that material undergoes. The worsted mill uses 
long wools ranging in length up to 14 or even 17 inches ■ 
the woollen mill uses short wools, the fibres of which vary 
from i inch to 2 1 inches. The wool used by a worsted weaver 
has been combed before it is spun. Combing is tlie process 
by which the long wool called the " tops " is separated from 
the short, the " noils." The wool used by a woollen weaver 
IS carded— that is, whereas in combing the fibres are made to 
lie straight and parallel, in carding they are made to overlap 
one anothCT. Worsted fabrics are generally lighter and finer 
than woollen. They are made, for example, into men's 
dress suits and mto certain serges. Woollens are used for 
hne broadcloths, winter overcoats and tweeds. The worsted 
industry is strongest in Bradford, Huddersfield and Halifax • 
the woollen in Leeds and the neighbouring districts, in the 
West of England and in Scotland. 
It is characteristic of the woollen and worsted industries 
that the family t\'pe of business is prevalent, and the normal 
mill IS comparatively small. There arc rather under three 
hundred thousand persons engaged in the industry-, and the 
average number of workpeople in a woollen mill is 100 • in 
a worsted mill 200. Cotton is much more highly organised 
from every point of view. As Dr. J. H. Clapham points out 
in his admirable book on The Woolkn and Worsted Industries, 
' It is never possible to gauge the general prosperity of worsted 
spinning by comparing the balance-sheets and dividends of 
scores of limited mills, whereas this is regularly done in the 
case of Lancashire cotton spinning." Organisq.tion among 
employers has developed more slowly in wool than in cotton, 
and trade unionism at the outbreak of war, outside a few 
craft unions, was lamentably weak. This general contrast 
was partly due to history. The factory .system swallowed 
up the cotton industry much earlier than the woollen. Even so 
lately as thirty years ago, handloom weavers were still an 
important body of men in the small towns and villages round 
Leeds, Huddersfield and Dewsbury. 
One other general fact about the industry must be grasped 
if we are to appreciate the task that the Government under- 
took when it set to work on this scheme of control. The 
worsted industry is very highly specialised. The wool mer- 
chant buys wool, blends and sorts it. He then sends it to 
a wool-comber who combs it into tops. The tops are sold 
to a spinner, who spins them into yarn and sells his yarn to 
the manufacturer. The yarn is then woven into pieces, in 
which form the cloth is sent to the dyer. In the woollen in- 
dustry there is rather less specialisation, for carding, spinning 
and weaving are generally carried on in the same milL It is 
clear from this account that the industry is highly com- 
phcated with a number of different interests, and that the 
task of organising and controlling it presents special difficulties. 
The necessity for <:ontrol of some kind became evident in 
the early part of last year, when the Government realised that 
unless some check was put upon prices, the cost of clothing 
the army would be ruinous. In the old days the army got 
what it needed by competitive tender, but the conditions were 
now quite abnormal. The needs of the army in khaki, flannel 
and blankets were on a stupendous scale, and the export 
trade was stimulated by the immense requirements of out: 
Allies. The War Office Contracts Department, accordingly, 
determined to organise production for its own needs, taking 
power by an Order in Council under the Defence of the Realm 
Regulations, to requisition the output of any factory on terms 
based ori the cost of production plus a reasonable profit. 
They arrived at this figure by examining the books of different 
firms, and calling on manufacturers to supply detailed infor- 
mation as to their output, their cost of production and the 
profits they had earned. Hence at the outset an important 
principle was introduced, for the different sections of the 
trade affected were called on to nominate representative 
committees and the "conversion costs" — that is, the scale 
of payment prescribed for a particular operation, based on the 
cost of that operation — was agreed with these committees. 
That is, an industry in which organisation was at the time 
m a rnost elementary condition, was obliged to choose repre- 
sentatives and to take a wider view of its interests in order 
to secure a proper hearing from a Government Department. 
So far the Government had merely arranged to get a certain 
amount of work done by the manufacturers at a reasonable 
rate. This volume of work was a great and increasing pro- 
portion of the trade as a whole, for it §oon came to include 
not merely the requirements of our army, but all the require- 
ments of our public services and the requirement of the 
Governments of our Allies as well. But before long it became 
clear that the control was too limited, for the price of raw 
wool was advancing at an alarming rate and this rise of price 
was a warning that the supply of wool was not equal to the 
world s demands. In 1915 there was a serious shrinkage in 
the production of wool in Australia, where drought had 
reduced the sheep flocks from 82 mUlions to 69 millions, and 
also in South America, where cattle raising and wheat growing 
were developing into powerful rivals. Meanwhile, America 
had removed her import duties on wool and her consumption 
was rapidly mcreasing. The War Office Contracts Depart- 
ment realised that as a measure of national safety it was 
essential to secure the raw material that was needed for our 
consumption and the consumption of our Allies. Accord- 
ingly, the Government decided in May, 1916, to buy the 
Home Clip. They divided the country into districts, appointed 
experienced wool buyers as officials to' superintend the transac- 
tion, and for the detailed purchase they employed wool 
merchants working on commission. The prices were roughly 
35 per cent, above the prices ruling in July, 1914. A still 
more impoitant step was taken in the autumn, when the 
Government decided to buy the whole of the Australasian Clips. 
Jn this case the arrangements were made with the Colonial 
Governments who acted as the Government's agents. Two- 
titths of the wool IS cross-bred, the best for military purposes, 
and the rest merino. y i- v 
relTlC/'^rf^T'. ^""^''^^^ =»^^*^'"^d the Government's 
relations to the trade, for they put tlie supplies of the trade in 
