What were the causes for increase in the import of raw cotton in the late eighteenth century in Britain ? What were its results ?
The causes for increase in the import of raw cotton were as given below : In the late eighteenth century in England a number of cotton factories had been set up. It was the first symbol of new era of cotton. Its production boomed in the late nineteenth century. In 1760 Britain was importing 2.5 million pounds of raw cotton to feed its cotton industry. By 1787 this import soared to 22 million pounds. There were number of inventions in production process i.e., carding, twisting and spinning. These changes or inventions enabled each worker to produce more. It also made possible to produce more stronger threads and yarn. Creation of cotton mill : Till then the cloth production was being done within households. Later Richard Arkwright created the cotton mill. Earlier cloth production was carried in the countryside within village households. But now all the processes i.e., spinning, weaving and dying etc., could be done in a mill under one roof and management. This allowed a more careful supervision over the production process, a watch over quality, and the regulation of labour. As a result of above, in the early nineteenth century, factories increasingly became an integral part of the English landscape. New mills were visible everywhere. These were result of the new technology. The contemporaries were dazzled. They concentrated their attention on the mills, almost forgetting the by lanes and the workshops where production still continued.
