Obrien etc 3

‘Political components of the industrial revolution: Parliament and the English cotton textile industry, 1660-1774’, Patrick O’Brien, Trevor Griffiths and Philip Hunt.

This article focuses on the preconditions to the blossoming of the cotton industry within England, and that it was important in providing the environment which the first industrial revolution could then be born in. They say that the stories of growth of the cotton industry are ‘narrated as if everything of importance began with the invention of spinning machines in the 1760’s’ – they aim to disprove this, and suggest that significant developments occurred beforehand. This article also focuses on the importance of legislation within this development, and they argue that most other works on the industrial revolution are ‘devoid of any informed analysis of government’. The domestic woollen and silk industries of England were in competition with the foreign Asian textiles, consequently they formed a sort of alliance in protestation to the government concerning the Asian traded textiles. O’Brien, Griffiths and Hun acknowledge the difficulty in measuring the penetration of Asian textiles within the population, particularly with regards to smuggling. Thus it is difficult to measure the actual threat. Initially, Parliament raised tariffs to suit the interests of the woollen and silk industries, but this did not succeed in deterring consumers from buying competitively priced Asian textiles. In France, the finishing or printing of Indian calicoes was prohibited, and the wool and silk industries wanted to mirror this, to the greatest extent possible, within England. The East India Company defended its trade with Asia by saying that Asian imports created commercial wealth and that bans would induce consumers to seek substitutes in other areas of Europe, consequently fuelling England’s European enemies (such as France). Those who opposed Asian trade claimed that it significantly threatened the woollen industry which would then result in high levels of unemployment, promoting emigration to Ireland or France and thus transferring valuable skills to other areas of Europe. Government legislation in support of the woollen and silk industries included: Sumptuary laws in 1666 and 1678 which prescribed the wearing of lighter cloth and made burial in anything other than woollen shrouds illegal; prohibition of printed calicoes and wrought silks in England during the 1690’s; 1701 – first restriction of trade with Asia – forbade the wearing of wrought silks and other Asian textiles, and painted, dyed or stained calicoes (although plain calicoes could be imported and then ‘finished’ in England); 1722 further measures to close the home market to Asian textiles – forbade the wearing of ‘painted, stained or dyed calicoes under the penalty of forfeiting to the informer the sum of five pounds of lawful money’. This demonstrated the woollen industry’s powers to constrain competition and manipulate political opinion. However, the result was that a domestic cotton manufacturing industry emerged, and replaced Asian textiles as rivals of the woollen and silk industries. Parliamentary concessions against the cotton industry which increased the price of linen yarn, in conjunction with the impact of the wars of the eighteenth century, prompted fustian producers (a mixture of cotton and linen) to seek technological solutions. Government legislation then supported the cotton industry – 1774 ‘pure’ cotton cloth could be dyed, printed and sold in Britain. O’Brien, Griffiths and Hunt argue that ‘By fostering the manufacture of linen, fustian and by extension cotton cloth in England, parliament had

established ‘legislative foundations’ for the first fully mechanised factory industry to emerge’. The role of the state should be given greater credit in the dismantling of mercantilist obstacles to the diffusion and eventual triumph of free markets.