[From the Tariff Board Report on Cotton Manufactures, the following extracts are taken, showing the use of automatic machinery in America as compared with England. (House Document No. 643, 62d Congress, 2d session, p. 468.)]

Factory organizations compared. Contrary to the prevailing organization in the cotton industry in England, the mills in this country have both spinning and weaving departments.

The spinning mill is, as a rule, equipped with sufficient machinery to produce all the yarn, both warp and filling, necessary for the continuous operation of the weaving mill. There are a few mills manufacturing specialties, where, on account of the variety of yarns required and the small quantity of each number used or the special processing necessary, it is impracticable to operate a spinning mill, and in such cases the yarn is purchased from spinning mills manufacturing special numbers of yarn, for which they find a ready market. Where it is necessary for a spinning mill to manufacture a wide range of yarns for the supply of the weaving mill, it follows that the manufacture cannot be carried on as economically per unit of production as in the mill where the production is limited to the manufacture of but few numbers of yarns.

Many American mills, especially in the North, produce a wide variety of cloths, involving the use of many different kinds of yarn from coarse to very fine. On the other hand, some mills weaving principally plain constructions are required for their own needs to spin only a narrow range of yarns, frequently but one warp and several fillings. In the case of the former mills, the American practice puts them at a disadvantage with English spinning mills which produce yarns of more uniform count for a regular market. In the case of the latter class of mills the advantage of the specialization which exists in the English industry seems to be fully offset.

In the United States most of the yarn is manufactured on ring spindles, as against the English method of mule spinning. The production of yarn by ring spinning is greater per spindle than mule spinning, though the mule-spun yarn is more even in density and softer in finish. . . .

Cotton waste. Only a part of the raw cotton input of the mills reaches the yarn in its finished state. Through each operation, as picking, carding, spinning, etc., there is a loss of some of the original stock known as waste. A part of this waste, which is chiefly due to evaporation, is not recovered, and this is termed "invisible waste." The percentage of waste in a mill is a varying quantity, due in part to the length of the fiber of the raw cotton and the fineness of the number of the yarn spun. In mills producing coarse yarns where it is possible to rework part of the waste the loss is not over 10 per cent of the input of raw cotton, while in the mills producing higher or finer numbers of yarns the loss will approximate 35 per cent. All of the waste, except that known as invisible waste, which does not amount to more than 3 or 4 per cent., is recovered and reworked or sold. . . .

Conditions influencing efficiency. The efficiency of the weaving mills is affected by numerous conditions, making it impracticable to accurately present these conditions in any tabular statement. No two weaving mills are affected by exactly the same conditions, there being a difference either in the loom equipment, the size and breaking strength of the yarn used, or the organization of the cloth produced.

During the course of the inquiry the agents of the Tariff Board found that a number of mills originally constructed to manufacture plain print cloth are now producing fancy cloth of simple design or construction. The manufacturers stated that this change was necessitated by a lack of demand for the print cloth, and that while the production of each loom appropriated for fancy constructions was decreased, the better demand for fancy cloth more than offset the loss due to decreased production. This change often made it necessary to weave a much narrower cloth than that for which the loom was best adapted, and there is also a loss that must be reckoned due to idle looms where any considerable amount of changing from one construction to another is necessitated.

The breaking of a warp or filling yarn requires that the loom be stopped and the difficulty be adjusted. Some of the looms are equipped with automatic stop-motion attachments, which automatically stop the loom whenever a warp or filling yarn is broken. This makes it possible for a weaver to attend a greater number of looms, a lesser degree of watchfulness being required.

Some of the factors which affect the efficiency of a cotton mill are discussed in connection with the following tables.

Weaving costs with automatic and plain looms. In order to show the exact difference in cost of production that can be directly attributed to the efficiency of a plant, the following illustration is given:

(In . . . the comparisons of costs which follow, the labor cost of yarn per pound of cloth includes the total labor in the "spinning mill," or through the spooling process, and the labor cost of weaving per pound of cloth includes all the remaining productive labor in the mill. This also applies to the division of the works expense in the cost of yarn and weaving) . . . [One table omitted here.]

The exact difference in the cost of manufacture between plain and automatic looms under similar conditions is shown in the following illustration:

In this comparison two costs are given on the same cloth woven in the same mill, but one on automatic looms and the other on plain looms. It will be seen that the total cost per pound of cloth on plain looms is a little over two cents higher than that on automatic looms, this difference being almost entirely in the labor cost of weaving. Reduced to a yardage basis, this results in the cost on plain looms being over one-third of a cent per yard higher than that on automatic looms.

Age of machinery. Another factor which determines the efficiency of a mill is the age of machinery. Table 147 [omitted here] shows the age of the spinning spindles and looms in the mills covered by the investigation of the Board.

The age of machinery affects the cost of production in a number of ways:

(1)   The older a machine gets the more frequently it is subject to breakdowns, thus reducing the productive capacity of the mill during the time the machine stands idle, and thereby increasing the overhead charges per unit of product.

(2)   It increases the repair expense of the mill.

(3)   To the extent that new machines are put on the market capable of a greater output within a given period of time,

either through greater speed or through improvements which make it possible for one employee to attend a greater number of machine units, the old machine tends to increase the relative cost of production of the mill, as compared with mills using more modern machines.