Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wzw2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-04T09:49:42.645Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Industrial Organization and Technological Change: The Decline of the British Cotton Industry*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

William Lazonick
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Economics, Harvard University

Abstract

In this important study Professor Lazonick provides an astute reappraisal of why Britain's once dominant economy has failed to meet the challenges of international competition in the twentieth century. The vehicle for his discussion is cotton manufacture, the industry which, through the technological and commercial innovations of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, made Britain the leading industrial power. Among Dr. Lazonick's questions are why did Britain's preeminance in this industry come to an end? Why did technological innovation yield to stagnation? Why did inefficient modes of economic organization persist in the face of manifest inadequacy? And what does the history of this industry have to teach us about recent economic theory?

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See e.g. the bibliographical survey in Aldcroft, D.H. and Richardson, H.W., The British Economy 1870–1939 (London, 1969, pp. 305313CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also McCloskey, D. and Sandberg, L., “From Damnation to Redemption: Judgements on the late Victorian Entrepreneur,” Explorations in Economic History, Ser. 2, Vol. 9, No. 1, (Fall 1971) pp. 89108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 For a systematic theoretical analysis of how these three views ofthe economy fundamentally differ, see Marglin, S., Growth, Distribution and Prices (Cambridge, Mass., 1984).Google Scholar

3 Deane, P. and Cole, W., British Economic Growth 1688–1959 (Cambridge, England, 1964), p. 32Google Scholar; Jones, G., Increasing Return (Cambridge, England, 1933), p. 277.Google Scholar

4 Elsewhere, I analyze the influences of both the structure of industrial relations and the structure of foreign demand on productivity on the traditional machines. See Lazonick, W. and Mass, W., “The Performance of the British Cotton Industry, 1870–1913,” Research in Economic History, Vol. 9, (1984).Google Scholar

5 Robson, R., The Cotton Industry in Britain (London, 1957), p. 355Google Scholar; Ormerod, A., “The Prospects of the British Cotton Industry,” Yorkshire Bulletin of Economic and Social Research, Vol. 15, No. 1, (May 1963), p. 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 W. Mass, “The Adoption of the Automatic Loom,” paper presented to the Cliometrics Conference, Chicago, May 1980, Table I; Robson, Cotton Industry, p. 356. See also United Textile Factory Workers' Association, Plan for Cotton (Ashton, 1957), p. 15.Google Scholar

7 Marshall, A., The Principles of Economics (London, 1925), eighth edition, ch. VIII – XIII.Google Scholar

8 Edwards, M., The Growth of the British Cotton Trade 1780–1815 (Manchester, 1967)Google Scholar; Taylor, A.J., “Concentration and Specialization in the Lancashire Cotton Industry, 1825–1850,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., Vol. I, No. 2 and 3, (1949), pp. 114122Google Scholar; Gatrell, V.A.C., “Labour, Power, and the Size of Firms in Lancashire Cotton in the Second Quarter of the Nineteenth Century,” Economic History Review, 2nd series, Vol. XXX, No. 1, (February 1977), pp. 95139Google Scholar; Lloyd-Jones, R. and LeRoux, A.A., “The Size of Firms in the Cotton Industry: Manchester 1815–1841Economic History Review, 2nd ser. Vol.XXXIII, No. 1, (February 1980), pp. 7282Google Scholar; Chapman, S.D., “British Marketing Enterprise: The Changing Role of Merchants, Manufacturers, and Financiers, 1700–1860,” Business History Review, Vol. LIII, No. 2, (Summer 1979), pp. 205233CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chapman, S.D., “Financial Restraints on the Growth of Firms in the Cotton Industry, 1790–1850,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser. Vol. XXXIII, No. 1, (February 1980), pp. 5069Google Scholar; Jewkes, J. and Jewkes, S., “A Hundred Years of Change in the Structure of the Cotton Industry,” Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. IX, (October 1966) pp. 115134CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Farnie, D.A., The English Cotton Industry and the World Market 1815–1896, (Oxford, 1979).Google Scholar

9 Taylor, “Concentration,” p. 119; Jewkes, J., “The Localisation of the Cotton Industry,” Economic History, Vol. II, No. 5, (January 1930), pp. 9293Google Scholar; Bythell, D., The Handloom Weavers (Cambridge, England, 1969), pp. 8992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Taylor, “Concentration,”; Jewkes, “Localisation” Hughes, J.R.T., Fluctuations in Trade, Industry and Finance, 1850–1860 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 9799Google Scholar; Farnie, English Cotton, pp. 86–90.

11 Jewkes, “Localisation.”

12 In what follows I shall ignore the finishing (bleaching, dyeing, and printing) level of the industry since its firms were neither buyers nor sellers of intermediate products but rather served as sub-contractors for the merchant-convertors whobought gray cloth and determined its final color and design.

13 Famie, English Cotton, p. 256.

14 Ashton, T., “The Growth of Textile Businesses in the Oldham District 1884–1924,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol. LXXXIX, (1926), p. 573.Google Scholar See also Farnie, English Cotton, ch. 6–7.

15 Farnie, English Cotton, p. 219.

16 Ibid., ch. 8.

17 Ibid., pp. 287–295; Cotton Factory Times, (CFT) 20 Nov. 1885.

18 Robson, R., “Structure of the Cotton Industry: A Study in Specialization and Integration” (Ph.D. Thesis, University of London, 1950), p. 190Google Scholar; Robson, Cotton Industry, p. 87–88; Barkin, S., “The Regional Significance of the Integration Movement in the Southern Textile Industry,” Southern Economic Journal, Vol. XV, No. 4, (April 1949) pp. 395 – 411CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fabian Research Group, Cotton—A Working Policy (London, 1945), p. 3Google Scholar; Committee on Industry and Trade, Survey of the Textile Industries, (London, 1928), pp. 2022Google Scholar; Henry Clay, Report on the Position of the English Cotton Industry, Confidential Report for Securities Management Trust, Ltd. October 20, 1931, pp. 30–39; Economic Advisory Council, Committee on the Cotton Industry, Report, pp. 13–14, in Parliamentary Papers, 1929–30, XII; Great Britain, Board of Trade Working Party Reports: Cotton (London, 1946), p. 46Google Scholar, Association of Cotton Textile Merchants of New York, Twenty-five years (New York, 1944).Google Scholar

19 Copeland, M., The Cotton Manufacturing Industry of the United States (Cambridge, Mass., 1912), pp. 365–70Google Scholar; Robson, Cotton Industry p. 149.

20 Marshall, A., Industry and Trade (London, 1919), pp. 600601.Google Scholar

21 Clay, Report, pp. 26A, 26B.

22 Hopwood, E., The Lancashire Wearer's Story (Manchester, 1969), p. 15Google Scholar; Clay, Report, p. 26A. Mills, W., Sir Charles W. Macara, Bart, (Manchester, 1917) p. 50Google Scholar; Muir, A., The Kenyan Tradition (Cambridge, England, 1964)Google Scholar; Ellinger, B. and Ellinger, H., “Japanese Competition in the Cotton Trade, journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol XCIII, pt. II, (1930) p. 209.Google Scholar

23 Political and Economic Planning, Industries Group, Report on the British Cotton Industry (London, 1934), p. 21Google Scholar; Kirby, M., “The Lancashire cotton industry in the inter-war years: a study in organizational change,” Business History, Vol. XVI, No. 2, (July 1974), pp. 145159CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Committee on Industry and Trade, Survey, pp. 33–34; Pennington, J., “Competition and specialisation in the cotton trade,” Journal of the National Federation of Textile Works Managers' Associations Vol. VI, (19261927), p. 216.Google Scholar

24 Committee on Industry and Trade, Survey, p. 37;Daniels, G. and Jewkes, J., “The Post-war Depression in the Lancashire Cotton Industry,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Vol. XCI, (1928) pp. 169177Google Scholar; see also United Textile Factory Workers Association, Inquiry into the Cotton Industry (Blackburn, 1923), p. 15Google Scholar; Jones, O., “The Agitation for Control of the Lancashire Cotton Industry,” Harvard Business Review, Vol. 2, No. 4, (July 1924) pp. 447–152.Google Scholar

25 Committee on Industry and Trade, Survey, pp. 36–38.

26 Ryan, J., “Machinery Replacement in the Cotton Trade,” Economic Journal, Vol. 40, (December 1930) p. 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Political and Economic Planning, Report, p. 54.

27 See Lazonick, W., “Factor Costs and the Diffusion of Ring-spinning in Britain prior to World War I,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. XCVI, No. 1, (February 1981).Google Scholar

28 Kershaw, J., “Uses of Paper-tubes in the Textile Trade,” Journal of the British Association of Managers of Textile Works (Lancashire Section), Vol. IV, (19121913), p. 86.Google Scholar

29 Robinson, B., “Business Methods in the Cotton Trade,” Journal of the British Association of Managers of Textile Works (Lancashire Section), Vol. IX, (19181919) p. 96.Google Scholar There had been a court decision in 1895 absolving a weaver of responsibility for a spinning mills skips burnt while in his possession, a decision that was upheld when appealed by the FMCSA. Textile Mercury, August 10, 1895. As for bobbins, they were commonly used as grips for skipping ropes — today such items, complete with old Lancashire skipping rhymes, can be purchased any Saturday in Portobello Road.

30 Textile Manufacturer, June 15, 1979, p. 179; December 15, 1889, p. 567, March 15, 1980, pp. 88–89; November 15, 1908, p. 361; Nasmith, J., The Student's Cotton Spinning (Manchester, 1896) 3rd ed., p. 532Google Scholar; Walsh, W., “Fifty-years' Progress in Ring-spinning Machines,” Textile Manufacturer, Dec. 1925, p. 96.Google Scholar

31 Copeland. Cotton Manufacturing, p. 74; Lazonick, “Factor costs,” p. 14.

32 Ibid., pp. 13–16.

33 Copeland, Cotton Manufacturing, p. 72n; Thornley, T., The Middle Processes of Cotton Mills (London, 1923), p. 127.Google Scholar

34 Thornley, Middle Processes, p. 110; Peake, R., Cotton: From the Rate Material to the Finished Product (London, 1926), pp. 7980Google Scholar; Great Britain, Board of Trade, An Industrial Survey of the Lancashire Area (London, 1932), p. 135Google Scholar; Gray, E., The Weaver's Wage (Manchester, 1937), p. 63.Google Scholar

35 Peake, Cotton, pp. 79–80; Political and Economic Planning, Report, p. 95; Snowden, E., “Cotton Yarn Preparation Developments,” in Board, Cotton, Cotton and Rayon Machinery and Processing Development (Manchester, 1945), p. 92.Google Scholar

36 Holt, F., “High-speed Winding and Warping,” Journal of the National Federation of Textile Managers' Associations, Vol. IX, (19291930) pp. 104105.Google Scholar

37 Gray, Weaver's, p. 62.

38 Worrall, J., The Cotton Spinners' and Manufacturers' Directory for Lancashire (Oldham, 1913)Google Scholar; Great Britain, Board of Trade, Working Party, p. 37.

39 Brooks, C., Cotton (New York, 1898), pp. 282284Google Scholar; Copeland, Cotton Manufacturing, pp. 180–184.

40 See Lazonick and Mass, “Performance.”

41 Brooks, Cotton, p. 209.

42 Ormerod, “Prospects,” p. 12; Lazonick, W.Production Relations, Labor Productivity and Choice of Technique, U.S. and British Cotton Spinning,” Journal of Economic History, Vol. 41, No. 3, (September, 1981,) pp. 491516CrossRefGoogle Scholar; United States Productivity Team Report, The British Cotton Industry (British Productivity Council: London, 1952), p. 12.Google Scholar

43 Great Britain, Ministry of Production, Report of the Cotton Textile Mission to the U.S.A. (London, 1944), p. 26.Google Scholar

44 Ormerod, “Prospects,” p. 12.

45 It saved labor in more than one way; the better work conditions not only permitted more output per worker, but also helped to keep good workers from seeking jobs elsewhere. See Lazonick, “Production Relations.”

46 Textile Manufacturer, 15 March 1903, p. 89; Ormerod, “Prospects,” pp. 12–13.

47 Copeland, Cotton Manufacturing, p. 74; W. Turner, , “Universal Winding,” Journal of the British Association of Managers of Textile Works (Lancashire Section) Vol. II, (19101911), pp. 122132Google Scholar; Robson, Cotton Industry, p. xvii.

48 Tippett, L., A Portrait of the Lancashire Textile Industry (London, 1969), pp. 6667Google Scholar; Productivity Team Report, Cotton Weaving (London, 1950), p. 12Google Scholar; U.S. Productivity Team Report, British Cotton (London, 1950), p. 17.Google Scholar

49 Chandler, A., The Visible Hand (Cambridge, Mass., 1977).Google Scholar Gray, Weavers, p. 30.

50 Reekie, W., “The Marketing of Cotton Goods Abroad,” Journal of the National Federation of Textile Works Managers' Associations, Vol. VI, (19261927) pp. 174175Google Scholar; Great Britain, Ministry of Production, Report, pp. 30–31.

51 Ormerod, “Prospects,”pp. 11–12.

52 Jewkes, J., “Is British Industry Inefficient?Manchester School, XIV (January 1946), 116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 A. Fowler, “Trade Unions and Technical Change: The Automatic Loom Strike, 1908,” Bulletin of the North West Labour History, Society, 1980; Mass, W., “Technological Change and Industrial Relations in the Cotton Textile Industry: The Diffusion of Automatic Weaving in Britain and the United States” (Ph.D. dissertation, Boston College, 1983).Google Scholar

54 Marshall, Industry and Trade, p. 601.

55 Jewkes, J., “Is British Industry Inefficient?Manchester School, Vol. XIV. No. 1, (January 1946) pp. 116.CrossRefGoogle ScholarThe Association of Vertical Specialization with Economic Progress is Made in George Stigler, “Division of Labor is Limited by the Extent of the Market,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 59, No. 3, (January 1951)Google Scholar; reprinted in Stigler, , The Organization of Industry (Homewood, 1968).Google Scholar

56 For a comprehensive analysis see Vitkovitch, B., “The U.K. Cotton Industry, 1937–54,” Journal of Industrial Economics, Vol. III, No. 3, (July 1955), pp. 241265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

57 Pollard, S., The Development of the British Economy 1914–1967 (London, 1969) 2nd ed., p. 422Google Scholar; Ormerod, “Prospects,” p. 6.

58 Macrosty, H.W., The Trust Movement in British Industry (London, 1907), pp. 124141Google Scholar; Carter, G., The Tendency Towards Industrial Combination (London, 1913), pp. 309315.Google Scholar

59 Merttens, F., “Productivity, Protection and Integration of Industry,” Transactions of the Manchester Statistical Society, 19031904Google Scholar; Guthrie, W.H., “The Cotton Mill of the Future,” Textile Manufacturer, 15 August 1905, p. 255.Google Scholar

60 Jones, Increasing Return, p. 277.

61 Fitzgerald, P., Industrial Combination in England, (London, 1927), pp. 910Google Scholar; Committee on Industry and Trade, Survey, p. 34; Daniels, G. and Campion, H., “The Cotton Industry and Trade,” in British Association, Britain in Depression (London, 1935), p. 340Google Scholar; Macara, C., The New Industrial Era (Manchester, 1923), p. 90Google Scholar; Jones, “Agitation,” p. 450.

62 Committee on Industry and Trade, Survey, pp. 35–36; Daniels and Campion, “Cotton industry,” p. 341.

63 M. Kirby, “Lancashire Cotton,” p. 148; Clay, H., The Problem of Industrial Relations (London, 1929), pp. 138139Google Scholar; Clay, H., The Post-War Unemployment Problem (London, 1929), p. 163Google Scholar; Committee on Industry and Trade, Final Report (London, 1929), p. 46Google Scholar; Lucas, A., “The Bankers' Industrial Development Company,” Harvard Business Review, Vol. XI, No. 3, (April 1933), pp. 272273.Google Scholar For a case of prolonged optimism see Fitzgerald, Industrial Combination, p. 8; “The cotton trade is one of the few sections of industry in which English firms have little to fear from foreign competition.”

64 Clay, Post-War Unemployment, p. 49; Economic Advisory Council, Report, p. 20; Streat, R., “The Cotton Industry in Contraction; Problems and Policies of the Inter-war Years,” District Bank Review, No. 127, September 1958, p. 7Google Scholar; Lucas, A., Industrial Reconstruction and the Control of Competition: The British Experiments (London, 1937), p. 155Google Scholar; Wisselink, J., “The Present Condition of the English Cotton Industry,” Harvard Business Review, Vol. VIII, No. 2 (Janaury 1930) p. 158Google Scholar. On the rationalization movement in general, see Hannah, L., The Rise of the Corporate Economy: The British Experience (Baltimore, 1976), ch. 3.Google Scholar

65 Streat, “Cotton Industry,” p. 7; “Combinations in the Cotton Trade,” Journal of the National Federation of Textile Works' Managers' Associations, Vol. XII (1932–1933) pp. 5–9; Macgregor, D., Ryan, J.et. al, “Problems of Rationalisation; a Discussion,” Economic Journal, Vol. XL, (September 1930), pp. 360361Google Scholar; see also Chandler, A., “The Growth of the Transnational Industrial Firm in the United States and the United Kingdom: a Comparative Analysis,” Economic History Review, 2nd series Vol. XXXIII, No. 3, (August, 1980)Google Scholar; Hannah, Rise, pp. 147–148.

66 In discussion of paper by Daniels and Jewkes, “Post-war depression,” p. 200.

67 Macgregor, Ryan et. al., “Problems,” p. 361

68 Hannah, Rise, p. 84; Kirby, “Lancashire Cotton,” pp. 149–151.

69 Wisselink, “Present Condition,” p. 159.

70 Economist, October 8, 1932, p. 635; Hannah, Rise, pp. 84–85; Lucas, Industrial, pp. 156–159; Kirby, “Lancashire Cotton,” p. 152.

71 Pollard, Development, p. 122. The purpose of the Lancashire Cotton Corporation was not to reduce surplus capacity in the cotton industry as some have argued. See e.g. Furness, G.W., “The Cotton and Rayon Textile Industry,” in Burn, D. (ed.), The Structure of British Industry (Cambridge, England, 1958), pp. 187188Google Scholar; and Kirby, “Lancashire Cotton,” p. 151. Rather its purpose was to salvage the financial investments of the bankers which inevitably involved some scrapping of the least serviceable machinery in the plant acquired. That the founders of the L.C.C, intended in 1929 to scrap about half of the Corporation's spindleage capacity over the next decade is by no means evident.

72 Federation of Master Cotton Spinners' Associations, Cotton Spinning Industry Bill (1935): The Industry's Case for the Bill (Manchester, 1935), p. 2.Google Scholar

73 Ibid., pp. 11–13.

74 Robson, Cotton Industry, pp. 229, 230, 340.

75 Ryan, J., “Combination in the Cotton Trade,” Journal of the national Federation of Textile Works Managers' Associations, Vol. VIII, (19281929) p. 24.Google Scholar See also Marquand, H.A., The Dynamics of Industrial Combinations (London, 1931), pp. 108110.Google Scholar

76 Robson, Cotton Industry, pp. 120–121.

77 Miles, C., Lancashire Textiles: A Case Study of Industrial Change (Cambridge, England, 1968), pp. 3839.Google Scholar See also Shaw, D.C., “Productivity in the Cotton Spinning Industry,” The Manchester School, Vol. XVIII, No. 1, (June 1950).Google Scholar

78 Miles, Lancashire, pp. 26–27, 40; Robson, Cotton Industry, p. 219. See also Ormerod, “Prospects,” pp. 8–9.

79 Productivity Team Report, Cotton Weaving, p. 16.

80 Miles. Lancashire, p. 26.

81 Ibid., p. 68.

82 Lucas, Industrial Reconstruction, p. 159; Clay, Report, p. 68; Vitkovitch, “U.K. Cotton,” p. 262; Ormerod, “Prospects,” p. 14; UTFWA, Plan, p. 16. See also, Vibert, F., “Economic Problems of the Cotton Industry,” Oxford Economic Papers, N.S., Vol. 18, No. 3, (Nov. 1966).Google Scholar

83 Miles, Lancashire, pp. 44, 73, 120–121.

84 Miles, C.. “Protection of the British Cotton Industry,” in Corden, W. and Fels, G., Public Assistance to Industry (Boulder, 1976), pp. 203204.Google Scholar

85 Bennett, G., “The Present Position of the Cotton Industry in Great Britain,” (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Manchester, 1933), ch. III.Google Scholar

86 Miles, Lancashire, p. 44.

87 Ibid., pp. 50–57, 60, Fishwick, F. and Cornu, R., A Study of the Evolution of Concentration in the United Kingdom Textile Industry (Commission of European Communities, October 1975), pp. 2729Google Scholar; Tippett, Portrait, p. 161.

88 Miles, Lancashire, pp. 65. 85, 87.

89 Robson, Cotton Industry, p. 345; Miles, Lancashire, pp. 13, 85.

90 Coleman, D.C., “Courtaulds and the Beginning of Rayon,” in Supple, B. (ed.), Essays in British Business Experience (London, 1974)Google Scholar; Coleman, Courtaulds; Knight, , Private Enterprise and Public Intervention: The Courtaulds, Volume III (Oxford, 1980), espec. pp. 270281Google Scholar; Miles, Lancashire, pp. 91–93; Fishwick and Cornu, Evolution of Concentration, pp. 37–39, 76, 78–79, 188–191.

91 Fishwick and Cornu, Evolution of Concentration, pp. 30, 37–39, 179–220; Reader, W., Imperial Chemical Industries: Volume II (Oxford, 1975)Google Scholar; Channon, D., The Strategy and Structure of British Enterprise (Boston, 1973), pp. 173178Google Scholar, Textile Council, Cotton and Allied Textiles (Manchester, 1969), Vol. I, ch. 2Google Scholar; United Kingdom, Board of Trade, Census of Production, Summary Tables (London, 1970), p. 131/109.Google Scholar

92 Fishwick and Cornu, Evolution of Concentration, p. 21.

93 For an elaboration of this theme, see B. Elbaum and W. Lazonick, “The Decline of the British Economy: An Institutional Perspective,” Harvard Institute of Economic Research Discussion Paper No. 878, January, 1982.

94 Coase, R., “The Nature of the Firm,” Economica, N.S. Vol. IV, (November 1937)Google Scholar; reprinted in Stigler, G. and Boulding, K. (eds.), Readings in Price Theory (Chicago, 1952).Google Scholar Over three decades later, Coase argued quite correctly that “modern economists writing on industrial organization have taken a very narrow view of their subject,” and he specifically criticizes the work of Joe Bain, Richard Caves, and George Stigler for treating the study of industrial organization as simply applied price theory. Coase, R., “Industrial Organization: A Proposal for Research,” in Fuchs, V. (ed.), Economic Research: Retrospect and Prospect (New York, 1972), Vol. III.Google Scholar “What one would expect to learn from a study of industrial organization,” Coase argues, “would be how industry is organized now, and how this differs from what it was in earlier periods; what forces were operative in bringing about this organization of industry, and how these forces have been changing over time; what the effects would be of proposals to change, through legal actions of various kinds, the forms of industrial organization.” Ibid., p. 603. Indeed, Coase claims that such issues had been his prime concern when he wrote “The Nature of the Firm” in the 1930s. Coase's latter-day critique of the neoclassical approach is well-taken, but he seems oblivious to his own important role in bringing the study of “the nature of the firm” into the ahistorical neoclassical perspective of constrained optimization. After all, the central analytical point of Coase's 1937 article was the notion that “substitution at the margin” can explain both horizontal combination and vertical integration. “A firm can expand in either or both of these ways,” he argued there. “The whole of the “structure of competitive industry” becomes tractable by the ordinary technique of economic analysis.” Coase, “Nature”, p. 398.

95 Ormerod, “Prospects,” pp. 10–11. See also U.S. Productivity Team, British Cotton, p. 6; Miles, Lancashire, p. 56; Furness, Cotton,” pp. 214–217.

96 Chandler, The Visible Hand, Parts II-IV.

97 Burnett-Hurst, A., “Lancashire and the Indian Market,” journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol. XCV, Part III, (1932), pp. 399400.Google Scholar

98 Ibid, p. 422.

99 Quoted in Ibid., p. 424; see also Pennington, “Competition,” pp. 213–228.

100 Streat, “Cotton industry,” p. 14; see also Robson, Cotton Industry, pp. 215–216; Daniels and Campion, “Cotton Industry,” p. 342.

101 See note 18; Miles. Lancashire, p. 68. In 1965 there were still 1000 merchant-convertors in the industry. Alfred, A.M., “U.K. Textiles — A Growth Industry,” Transactions of the Manchester Statistical Society. 19651966, P.9.Google Scholar

102 Barkin, “Regional Significance'; Markham, J., “Integration in the Textile Industry,” Harvard Business Review. Vol. 28, No., 1, (1950)Google Scholar; W. Kessler, “Chapters in Business History,” and Crook, W., “Corporate Concentration in the Textile Industry,” both in Textiles — A Dynamic Industry (Colgate University Textile Study Project, 1951)Google Scholar; U.S. House of Representatives, Committee of the Judiciary, The Merger Movement in the Textile Industry (Washington, 1955)Google Scholar; Simpson, W., Some Aspects of America's Textile Industry (Columbia, South Carolina, 1966), ch. 6Google Scholar; Alfred, “U.K. Textiles,” p. 21; According to Arthur Knight, who became Chairman of Courtaulds in the 1970s, U.S. corporations such as Burlington Industries and J.P. Stevens provided models of vertical integration that his company could emulate as it integrated forward in the 1960s. Knight, Private Enterprise, p, 46.

103 Chandler, A., Strategy and Structure (Cambridge, Mass., 1962)Google Scholar; Chandler, Visible Hand, Part V.

104 Chandler, “Growth of the Transnational”; see also Hannah, L., “Managerial Innovation and the Rise of the Large-scale Company in Interwar Britain,” Economic History Review, Vol XXVII, No. 2, (May 1974), pp. 252270CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mathias, P., “Conflicts of Function in the Rise of Big Business: The British Experience,” in Williamson, H. (ed.), Evolution of International Management Structures (Newark, Delaware, 1975).Google Scholar

105 Miles, Lancashire, pp. 22–23, 91.

106 Streat, “Cotton industry,” p. 7.

107 Fabian Research Group, Cotton, p. 13n.

108 Miles, Lancashire, p. 74.

109 See e.g. Helm, E., “The Middleman in Commerce,” Transactions of the Manchester Statistical Society, 19001901, p. 57Google Scholar; Whittam, W., Report on England's Cotton Industry (Washington, 1907), p. 13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Problems between spinners and manufacturers,” Journal of the British Association of Managers of Textile Works (Lancashire Section) Vol. III, (1911–1912), pp. 127–136; “The Most Essential Improvement Required in the Cotton Trade,” Journal of the National Federation of Textile Works Managers' Associations, Vol. V, (1925–1926) pp. 94–96; Bolton and District Managers and Over-lookers' Association, Report of Delegates on American Tour (Bolton, 1920), p. 39Google Scholar; Streat, “Cotton industry,” p. 3.

110 Jones, F., “The Cotton Spinning Industry in the Oldham District from 1896 to 1914,” (unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of Manchester, 1959).Google Scholar

111 “Combinations,” Journal of the National Federation of Textile Works Managers' Associations, Vol. XII; 1932–1933, p. 9.

112 See e.g. Elbaum, B. and Wilkinson, F., “Industrial Relations and Uneven Development: A Comparative Study of the British and American Steel Industries,” Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 3, No. 3, (September 1979) pp. 275303Google Scholar; Kirby, M., The British Coalmining Industry (Hamden, 1977)Google Scholar; Pollard, S. and Robertson, P., The British Shipbuilding Industry 1870–1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1979).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

113 See Veblen, T., Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution (Ann Arbor, 1968), Ch. IV.Google Scholar For discussions of early start hypotheses, see Kindleberger, C., “Obsolescence and Technical Change,” Bulletin of the Oxford Institute of Statistics, August 1961, pp. 281297Google Scholar; Ames, E. and Rosenberg, N., “Changing Technological Leadership and Industrial Growth,” in Rosenberg, N. (ed.). The Economics of Technological Change (Harmondsworth, 1971), pp. 413439Google Scholar, Levine, A., Industrial Retardation in Britain, 1880–1914 (London, 1967), ch. 6.Google Scholar

114 Frankel, M., “Obsolescence and Technological Change in a Maturing Economy,” American Economic Reveiw. Vol. XLV, No. 3, (June 1955), pp. 296297.Google Scholar

115 Ibid., p. 297.

116 Ibid., pp. 313–314.

117 See e.g. CFT, 16 January 1885 for a specific example.

118 Frankel also argues that the Lancashire weaving industry had little opportunity for modernization because the industry grew little after 1900. But see the data in Jones, Increasing Return, p. 277.

119 Schumpeter, J., The Theory of Economic Development (New York, 1961), p. 60n.Google Scholar On these issues, Schumpeter finds himself drawn to Marx's theory of capitalist development, but, as he humbly notes, “my structure covers only a small part of his ground.”Ibid.

120 See McCloskey and Sandberg, “From Damnation.” See also the collection of essays in McCloskey, D. (ed.), Essays on a Mature Economy: Britain after 1840 (London, 1971)Google Scholar and Harley, C., “Skilled Labour and the Choice of Technique in Edwardian Industry,” Explorations in Economic History, Vol. II, No. 4, (Summer 1974), pp. 391414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In what follows, I shall be concerned only with the theoretical merits of the work of the “new” economic historians. For a critique of Sandberg's quantitative efforts, see Lazonick, “Factor Costs.”

121 McCloskey and Sandberg, “From Damnation,” pp. 91–94.

122 Ibid., p. 108. This view has begun to gain acceptance in the textbooks. See e.g. Payne, P., British Entrepreneurship in the Sineteenth Century (London, 1974), pp. 4851Google Scholar: Musson, A., The Growth of British Industry (New York, 1978), p. 163.Google Scholar For a critique, see Kindleberger, C., Economic Response (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), ch. 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

123 McCloskey and Sandberg, “From damnation,” p. 108.

124 In McCloskey (ed.), Essays, p. 241.

125 Ibid., p. 243. This approach is explicit in Sandberg, Lancashire, ch. 2–A, and implicit in Harley, “Skilled Labour,” and McCloskey, D., Economic Maturity and Entrepreneurial Decline: British Iron and Steel 1870–1913 (Cambridge, Mass., 1973).Google Scholar For a much earlier statement of the neoclassical approach, see Jervis, F., “The Handicap of Britain's Early Start,” Manchester School, Vol. XV, No. 1, (January, 1947), p. 212Google Scholar: “It is a commonplace of economic theory that the entrepreneur combines his factors in the optimum manner under the circumstances applicable to him.”

126 McCloskey, Economic Maturity, pp. vii – viii; see also the following statement in a piece extolling the recent work of “new” economic historians: “[F]ew economists outside of agricultural economics and economic history have given serious attention to measuring (as distinct from theorizing about) managerial ability or, in more elaborate language, entrepreneurship,” McCloskey, D., “Does the past have useful economics?Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XIV, No. 2, (June 1976), p. 452.Google Scholar

127 See Landes, D., The Unbound Prometheus (Cambridge, England, 1967), p. 354Google Scholar; Landes, D., “Factor Costs and Demand: Determinants of Economic Growth,” Business History, Vol. II, (January 1965), p. 26.Google Scholar

128 In McCloskey (ed.), Essays, pp. 272–277.

129 Chandler, Strategy; Chandler, Visible Hand. See also Dahmèn, E., Entrepreneurial Activity and the Development of Swedish Industry 1913–1934 (Homewood, 1970).Google Scholar On the conceptual distinction, see Schumpeter, J., “The Analysis of Economic Change,” Review of Economic Statistics, Vol. XVII, No. 4, (May 1935), pp. 210CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “The Creative Response in Economic History,” Journal of Economic History, Vol. 7, No. 2 (November, 1947), pp. 149–159, both reprinted in Clemence, R. (ed.), Essays of J.A. Schumpeter (Cambridge, Mass., 1951), pp. 119 and 216–226Google Scholar; Evans, G., “The Entrepreneur and Economic Theory: A Historical and Analytical Approach,” American Economic Review, Vol. XXXIX, No. 3, (May 1949), pp. 336355Google Scholar; Evans, G., “Business Entrepreneurs: Their Major Functions and Related Tenets,” Journal of Economic History, Vol. XIX, No. 2 (June 1959), pp. 250270CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cole, A., Business Enterprise in its Social Setting (Cambridge. Mass., 1971)Google Scholar; Chandler, A. and Redlich, F., “Recent Developments in American Business Administration and Their Conceptualization,” Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, No. 86, (1961), pp. 103 – 130Google Scholar; Hartmann, H., “Managers and Entrepreneurs: A Useful Distinction?Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 3, (1958–59), pp. 429–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Baumol, W., “Entrepreneur in Economic Theory,” American Economic Review, Vol. LVIII, No. 2, (May 1968), pp. 6471Google Scholar; Soltow, J., “The Entrepreneur in Economic History,” American Economic Review, Vol. LVIII, No. 2. (May 1968), pp. 8492.Google Scholar

130 In some quarters, however, there is genuine confusion concerning the theoretical issues involved. For example, Peter Payne. in his recent contribution to the Cambridge Economic History of Europe, is careful to make a distinction between entrepreneurs who make strategic decisions and managers who keep the concern running. Yet after discussing the empirical contributions of the “new” economic historians he concludes that the hypothesis of entrepreneurial failure has taken “quite a beating.” Payne, P., “Industrial Entrepreneurship and management in Great Britain,” in Mathias, P. and Postan, M. (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. VII, Part I, (Cambridge, England, 1978). pp. 180181, 208–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Similarly, Nathaniel Leff notes that “in recent years the term entrepreneurship has sometimes been used as a synonym for the firm, or for management in general, with little regard for special ‘entrepreneurial’ qualities,” but he then goes on to accept the McCloskey-Sandberg argument that entrepreneurial performance was not an important problem in the relative decline of the British economy. Leff, N., “Entrepreneurship and Economic Development: The Problem Revisited,” Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XVII, (March 1979), pp. 47, 50–51.Google Scholar A recent discussion of British entrepreneurial activity that well reflects this confusion can be found in the opening chapter of Kirby, M.W., The Decline of British Economic Power since 1870 (London. 1981).Google Scholar