This chapter traces some key relationships between Norwegian textile enterprises and British suppliers of machinery and ancillary equipment who provided the technology on which the Norwegian industry was based; the objective here is to evaluate the interaction between these two industries in terms of its significance for Norwegian textile industrialization. The question asked, therefore, is what were the roles of, and the technological functions performed by British textile machinery makers in the development of the Norwegian textile industry?

Showing the importance of British machine makers for Norwegian industrialization involves two things. First, I shall demonstrate that the extent of the relationship between the two industries was large. This is of interest in itself, for it suggests that the existence of the British industry, and its active foreign role, was a necessary condition for the development of the Norwegian industry. As I showed in Chapter 4, the textile technology flow was large in relation to the size of the capital stock of the Norwegian industry, but it is also of great importance that a very large number of British firms were involved in this technology flow. At the same time, the substitution possibilities were limited or non-existent. No non-British economy had a textile machinebuilding capacity to compare with Britain's, and it is difficult to see how Norwegian entrepreneurs could have looked elsewhere for technology supplies on the same scale. Without the transfer of technology through British machine makers, therefore, Norwegian firms would simply not have been able to enter the business.