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Movements in the Quality of British Cotton Textile Exports, 1815–1913

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Lars G. Sandberg
Lars G. Sandberg
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College
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Extract

The purpose of this article is to investigate trends in the quality of British cotton textile exports during the period 1815-1913. “Quality” is defined as real value per yard of cloth and pound of yarn exported. Thus, a reduction in export quality does not mean that a specific type of cloth has deteriorated. Rather, it means that there has been a shift from more expensive to less expensive types of cloth. It may also mean that the same type of cloth is being ex-ported in a different state—white instead of printed or gray instead of bleached.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , March 1968 , pp. 1 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1968

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References

1 Deane, Phyllis and Cole, W. A., British Economic Growth, 1688-1959 (Cambridge, [Eng.]: Cambridge University Press, 1962), p. 187.Google Scholar

2 Haberler, Gottfried, International Trade and Economic Development (Cairo: National Bank of Egypt, 1959), p. 21Google Scholar, and “Terms of Trade and Economic Development,” in Ellis, H. S., ed., Economic Development for Latin America (International Economic Association, 1961), pp. 281–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom from 1900 to 1914, Table No. 46.

4 Statistical Abstract Relating to British India from 1904-1905 to 1913-1914, Tables 137, 138, and 152.

5 , Deane and , Cole, British Economic Growth, pp. 186–87Google Scholar;Blaug, Marc, “The Productivity of Capital in the Lancashire Cotton Industry during the Nineteenth Century,” Economic History Review, XIII (04 1961), 363 and 377-79Google Scholar;Imlah, Albert, “The Terms of Trade of the United Kingdom 1798-1913,” The Journal Of Economic History, X (11 1950), 172–73Google Scholar, and Economic Elements in the Pax Britannica (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958), pp. 208–10Google Scholar.

6 Ellison, Thomas, The Cotton Trade of Great Britain (London: Effingham Wilson, 1886), pp. 60 and 308.Google Scholar Blaug notes Ellison's conclusion but dismisses it as an un-verifiable “conjecture.” Blaug, “Productivity of Capital,” p. 379.

7 Copeland, Melvin, The Cotton Manufacturing Industry of the United States (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1912), p. 79.Google Scholar For a similar comment about the finishing trades, see Turnbull, Geoffrey, A History of the Calico Printing Industry of Great Britain (Altrincham: John Sherratt and Sons, 1951), p. 142Google Scholar.

8 For a discussion of the accuracy of the “declared” values, see , Imlah, Economic Elements, pp. 23–24Google Scholar.

9 The continual changes in the mix of goods exported, by changing the weights in the cloth price index, would also introduce a certain amount of ambiguity in the results obtained.

10 Assumption I implies that the quality of plain cloth deteriorated from 100 in 1815 to 82.1 in 1845, while the quality of colored cloth increased from 100 to 111.6. Assumption 2, of course, implies that both colored and plain cloth quality fell to 82.1 in 1845.

11 An account of U.S. tariff policy with regard to cotton textiles can be found in Taussig, F. W., The Tariff History of the United States (New Rochelle: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1892)Google Scholar.

12 Ibid., p. 30.

13 India is here defined to include Ceylon, Burma, and the Straits Settlements.

14 Marx, Karl, Capital (New York: The Modem Library, 1936), p. 471.Google Scholar

15 , Copeland, Cotton Manufacturing of the U.S., p. 79.Google Scholar

16 Pearse, Arno S., The Cotton Industry of India (Manchester: International Federation of Master Cotton Spinners’ and Manufacturers’ Associations, 1930), p. 209.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., p. 27.

18 Ibid., Cf. pp. 22, 27, and 209.