do not, of course, suppose that the American manufacturer is in
advance of his English rival to the extent of this difference, for I
presume that he started upon the career of improvement from a lower
platform. But a progress so greatly more rapid than ours will be
admitted to cast much light on the change which has occurred in our
relative positions."

The contrast no doubt was not perfect, as indeed it could not be in
view of the varieties of product and their changes, but it proves at any
rate that Americans were making vast strides in industrial efficiency
even before the period when American methods and American enterprise
were monopolizing in a wonderful degree the attention of the business
world.[48] About a dozen years later the low real cost of production of
simple fabrics in the United States was universally admitted, and also
that American manufacturers were making more use of machinery than their
European rivals. In a typical weaving shed in Massachusetts, for
instance, of which particulars were published, twenty women "tended" as
many as eight looms apiece, forty-three managed seven, two hundred and
thirty-two managed six, and only eleven had five only.[49] Since then,
moreover, advance has been rapid, and the sudden development of the
South has astonished the business community of other centres of the
cotton industry.

Before the lines of development in America are specifically dealt with,
and particularly the industrial phenomena in the South, a few words must
be said of the general extension of the industry. The consumption of
cotton in the United States in million lb. was about 75 in 1830, 390 in
1860, 1100 in 1890 and nearly 2000 on an average of the five crop years
from 1900-1901 to 1904-1905: active spindles advanced from 1,250,000 in
1830 to 10,653,000 in 1880 and about 21,250,000 in 1905. Looms which
numbered 33,500 in 1830 had reached 226,000 in 1880 and nearly 550,000
in 1905. At the same time population, it must be remembered, was growing
at a phenomenal rate: from 31.4 millions in 1860 it had passed to 38.6,
50.2, 62.6 and 76.3 at the succeeding decennial censuses, the decennial
rates of increase being in order 22.5, 30, 25 and 20.5 as compared with
8.5, 10.5, 8 and 9 as shown by the corresponding censuses in the United
Kingdom. Protection was of course contributory to the growth of the
American cotton industry. It may be remarked incidentally that the New
World, including the West