THE UNITED KINGDOM! MANUFACTURES—COTTON. 67

II.—NON-METALLIC MINERALS.

Coal. Stone. Slates. Clays. Salt. Oil Shale.
Amount in 1,000 tons, 181,786 — 1,025 3,103 1,956 2,089
Value in £1,000 . 66,050 8,667 1,025 889 861 522

MANUFACTURES : The United Kingdom is the chief manu-
facturing country in the world, and in England and Wales, and
Lowland Scotland, more people are engaged in manufacturing pur-
suits than in any other branch of industry.

The most important manufacturing industries of the United Kingdom are the
great textile manufactures and metal industries, with the chemical industries,
and the leather manufacture. The making of earthenware, glass, paper,
watches and clocks, &c., are all important industries, but none of them are
upon a scale of such magnitude as the textile fabrics and metal wares,
chemicals and leather goods, which form the great staples of British manu-

facturing industry.

The textile manufactures of the United Kingdom are the most
extensive in the world. British textile factories employ over one
million people, and at least five millions depend for their support
directly upon these industries.

"A century ago," says Mr. Ellison, of Liverpool, "the value of cotton,
woollen, and linen yarns and piece goods produced in Great Britain and
Ireland was about £22,000,0oo—say, woollen £17,000,0oo, linen £4,000,000,
and cotton £1,000,000. Of recent years the value has been about £17o,o00,o0o
—say, cotton £10o,000,o0o, woollen £5o,ooo,o00, and linen £2o,0oo,0oo. The
total amount of capital employed is about £2o0,00o,o0o, and at least 5,000,000
people—men, women, and children—are dependent upon these industries for
their livelihood. Moreover, one-half of the value of British and Irish products
exported consists of textilesT-(The Statesman’: Year-Book, 1894, p. 77),

In 1890, the 7,190 textile factories—6,18o in England and Wales, 747 in
Scotland, and 263 in Ireland—contained upwards of 53% million spindles and
822,000 power-looms, and employed more than 1 million hands.

The Cotton Manufacture is by far the most important of British
Industries, and the cotton factories of Lancashire and Lanarkshire
produce more than one-half of the cotton goods of the world.

The cotton factories (2,500 in number) of the United Kingdom employ over

half-a-million operatives, and annually consume about 1,700 million lbs. of
raw cotton, and produce z million miles of cotton cloth for export, over and above
the large quantities required for home consumption. Nearly 2,000 million lbs.
of raw cotton are imported every year, and almost exclusively through LIVER-
POOL—the greatest cotton market of the world—and thence distributed to the

great centres of the cotton industry.

The Chief Centres of the Cotton Industry are: MANCHESTER, the com-
mercial centre of the densely-populated coal area of South Lancashire, which
contains over 300 towns and villages, all actively employed in spinning or weav-
ing cotton. The larger towns thus engaged are: BLACKBURN, OLDHAM,
PRESTON, BOLTON, BURY, ROCHDALE, BURNLEY, ACCRINGTON, CHORLEY,
and WIGAN, in Lancashire; STOCKPORT and HYDE, in Cheshire; GLOSSOP,
in Derbyshire. Oldham and Bolton are chiefly engaged in cotton-spinning;