not perceived how a profitable employment has any tendency to deteriorate the character. The most efficient guards were adopted in establishing boarding-houses, at the cost of the company, under the charge of respectable women, with every provision for religious worship. Under these circumstances the daughters of respectable farmers were readily induced to come into these mills for a temporary period. The contrast in the character of our manufacturing population compared with that of Europe has been the admiration of the most intelligent strangers who have visited us. The effect has been to more than double the wages of that description of labor from what they were before the introduction of this manufacture. This has been in some measure, counteracted, for the last few years, by the free-trade policy of the government; a policy which, fully carried out, will reduce the value of labor with us to an equality with that of Europe."

The opprobrious epithet of "white slavery" has sometimes been applied to the labor in the New England factories. No aspersion could be more unwarranted. The founders of the prevalent New England factory system carefully purged it from every element of feudalism. They avoided the English plan, which had been at first introduced elsewhere, of employing families in the mill, often including children who should have been at school, the families being kept in a state of absolute dependence upon the mill, and exposed to suffering whenever there was any interruption in the business. They abolished the custom of payment by orders on a factory store, which tended to involve the workmen in debt and dependence, and instituted the practice of weekly payment of wages in money. They provided comfortable boarding-houses, which attracted work-people of mature age from the distant rural homes, to which they could return when the business of the mill was interrupted, a system which greatly favored the freedom of movement of the laborer, and they abjured all attempts to exercise political or religious control upon the workmen. In fact the independence of the laborer secured by these measures was one of the most marked features of the new era in the manufacturing business of New England.

A more important point of comparison between American and foreign fabrics is the relative cost of production of such manufactures, as we have most successfully achieved here, measured by the only correct standard, the relative expenditure of human labor required for such production. The solution of this question will determine whether we have such natural or acquired advantages as will justify the encouragement of this manufacture as a national industry. In pursuing this inquiry we can fix upon no single representative article of uniform quality and value; such as a ton of pig iron, the relative cost of which would determine the comparative advantages of the American or foreigner in the manufacture of iron. The infinite variety of cloths forbids the selection of any one as the standard of comparison, even if it were possible to obtain data from the books of foreign manufacturers. This question must be solved for the products of the card

wool industry, generally, by comparing the efficiency of our system, processes, and machinery of fabrication. The many practical manufacturers who have recently visited Europe for the express purpose of studying its industries concur in declaring that, in these respects, we are on an equality with the most advanced nations. Laying aside the supposed advantages which we have in the possession of water-power, upon which far too much stress is laid in popular estimates, we apply everywhere in our fabrication of woollens the factory system and make the utmost use of mechanical power, while handicraft processes are still largely used abroad, especially in weaving. For the preparation of card-wool no machinery at the Exposition equalled in efficiency the American burring machinery exhibited there, such as is in general use here. In the carding of wool no improvements were seen at Virviers, one of the chief centres of the card-wool industry in Europe, which we do not have in use. About the same number of hands were employed at the cards as here. Spinning in large establishments abroad is usually performed by mules, while jack spinning is more generally adopted in New England, as better suited to the different qualities and quantities of yarns demanded by the variety of fabrics usually produced in our mills. The mules used here are of equal efficiency with those in the best mills in Europe. With respect to weaving, it was remarked that looms were being constructed at the machine shops at Virviers such as we would not put into our mills to-day. It was also remarked that no European looms for weaving fancy goods were shown at the Exposition which would bear comparison with the Crompton loom, and even upon that admirable machine great improvements are known to be in progress. The other processes of manufacture, such as dyeing, are the same as in Europe. When we take into consideration the greater energy and intelligence of our better fed and better educated workmen, the necessary use of every labor-saving process on account of the higher cost of labor here, and the admitted superiority in construction of American machinery, it may be safely asserted that a yard of cloth is made in this country with less hours of human labor than one of equal quality and the same degree of finish abroad. In other words, a week's labor will produce more yards of cloth in an American than in an European mill. But it is said that a yard of cloth costs less in Europe than in the United States. Even this statement requires qualification, for the American laborer can purchase here more yards of cloth by the produce of a day's work than the European laborer, the ratio of the price of cloth in this country, to-day, not being in proportion to the ratio of the rate of wages of ordinary labor. It is still true that the money cost of producing cloths is greater in this country than in Europe. From what has been said it is apparent that the greater money cost of fabricating cloths is not due to any want of natural advantages, or any deficiency in skill and effective labor on the part of the American manufacturer. It is not true of this industry, as is often asserted by theorists, that it has a sickly and hotbed growth,

sustained only by artificial stimulus, and rendering its productions as unnatural, to use Adam Smith's often quoted comparison, as that of wine produced from grapes grown in the greenhouses of Scotland. The higher cost of production in this industry is due, solely, to national causes inherent to the condition of a new country and a progressive people, to the higher rates of the interest on capital required to initiate and sustain industrial enterprise, and the higher rates of labor demanded by the greater social and educational requirements of our industrial population. The facility with which capital is obtained abroad on account of the low rates of interest is an advantage which has been too much overlooked. The language of Burke, uttered 80 years ago, respecting the advantages of England over France, may be applied with equal force by all the nations of Europe to our own: "Our capital gives us a superiority which enables us to set all the efforts of France to rival our manufactures at defiance. The powers of capital are irresistible in trade; it domineers, it rules, it even tyrannizes; it entices the strong and controls the weak." The following table showing the comparative rates of interest in England, France, and the United States is so instructive that no apology will be required for its reproduction:

In presenting this table, showing that the average rate of interest paid here during the 15 years ending with 1860 was more than double the average on the other side, Mr. Bigelow observes: "Remarkable as this difference may seem, it is such, in kind, as must always distinguish countries comparatively new, and partially settled, from those of longer standing. Neither the laws nor the condition of the United States can be considered favorable to great accumulations of capital. Existing, as

it does here, in amounts comparatively small and widely distributed, the price of its use must, in general, range high, so long as we have land in so large proportion to the number and wants of the population. The assimilation of our condition in this respect to that of England must of necessity be gradual and slow, awaiting and following the occupation of our yet unpeopled territory, and the full development of our internal resources.”

The prices of labor abroad, details of which will be hereafter given, and particularly in Germany and Belgium, which are our most formidable competitors, will be shown to be not more than half the rates paid here, being reduced to the lowest sum which will support existence. Having placed ourselves upon an equality with other nations in enterprise and skill, our power of unaided competition has reached its limit, and our woollen industry could not sustain itself in competition with foreign production unless placed upon an equality in the command of capital, or unless the disparity against us were neutralized by legislative provisions. It is only to neutralize the foreign advantages of cheap capital and labor that protective, or, more properly speaking, defensive, duties are demanded by the woollen manufacturers. The duties on wool paid by the manufacturer, and theoretically reimbursed by the specific duties on the cloth, are demanded by the American wool-growers for the same reason. We speak only for our own industry, and with respect to that it is asserted, with the utmost confidence, that every spindle and loom employed in it would be stopped by the breaking down of the defensive barriers existing in tariff legislation. Capital and labor already employed with the utmost possible effectiveness, in the present state of the art, would not withstand for a moment an unaided conflict with foreign industry wielding capital and labor acquired at half the cost of our own. The feeble obstacle of transportation, so often magnified into an advantage in our favor, would be but a feather-weight in our scale of advantages. Abandon the woollen industry, and 200,000 workmen are thrown upon the land for employment; the markets for agricultural products for these workmen and their families would be cut off. Sheep husbandry, supported as it is solely by the American manufacture, with all its incidental advantages of supplying cheap food and enriching the soil, would be abandoned; its 200,000 laborers would be driven to other branches of agricultural labor. The coveted boon of cheap tissues would last only through the brief period during which our own manufacturing industry is being swept away. Apply this system to all American industry, and we become a mere agricultural people, vegetating in the hopeless apathy and upon the low plane of civilization of Turkey, Ireland, and our own southern States.

We may appropriately dwell at some length upon a point above adverted to, the absolute dependence of American sheep husbandry upon the domestic American manufacture. It has been often said that this country can advantageously grow wool for export. The fallacy of this notion is well exposed by Dr. Elder, who has compared our exportations of wool

with the importations of toys and playing cards to illustrate the insignificance of wool exports. In the seven years 1858-64, inclusive, our aggregate exports of domestic wool to all countries amounted to $1,725,799, and two-thirds of this was to bordering nations on our own continent, from whom we imported more wool than we exported. In the same period the toys and dolls imported were valued at $2,483,489. In the year 1860 our exportations of wool to all the manufacturing countries of the globe were of the value of $20,136, and our importations of playing cards amounted to $19,238. It is clear that we have never had a foreign market for our wools, and the higher cost of labor which prevents exports of woollen goods must limit the production of wool to domestic consump tion. The success of our domestic woollen industry thus becomes identified with our agricultural prosperity. Such considerations would seem to place it beyond all question that our national interests require that we should repel the cheap fabrics of Europe even at considerable sacrifice, that we may appropriate for ourselves the labor and profit of their production. Such was the conclusion of the continental nations of Europe, when peace restored the nations to labor, at the close of the great wars of Napoleon. England then had the command of all the markets of the continent, and was ready to fill them with her cheap fabrics; each nation of the continent refused them, and built up its barriers of defensive duties, and with what results to their own wealth, and the industrial progress of the world! "Instead of a single workshop Europe has the workshops of France, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Spain; each clothing its own people with substantial fabrics; each developing its own creative genius and peculiar resources; each contributing to substitute the excellence of competition for the mediocrity of monopoly; each adding to the progress of the arts, and the wealth and comfort of mankind."

THE WOOLLEN INDUSTRY OF EUROPE.

Not the least of the advantages which the European manufacturer possesses is the superior facility which he enjoys of observing the processes and comparing the best products of the most advanced nations. It is hoped that the notices of the woollen industry of the leading manufacturing nations which follow may have some effect in stimulating our own manufacturers to study personally the operations of the most instructive establishments abroad, and at the same time convey to the general reader a more vivid impression of the important part which the woollen industry plays in the industrial movement of the world.

FRANCE.

England and France are nearly equal in amount of production, but in excellence France is at the head of all nations in the manufacture of wool. Her products are the most worthy of being our models. Her native wools most resemble our own. It seems appropriate, therefore,