and South Welsh districts; the Great Western and the Taff Vale (South Welsh), with the Great Central, Lancashire & Yorkshire and Great Northern systems.
In the face of railway competition, several of the canals maintain a fair traffic in coal, for which they are eminently suitable—the system of the Birmingham navigation, the Aire and Calder navigation of Yorkshire, and the Leeds and Liverpool navigation have the largest shares in this trade.
The richest iron-mining district in England and in the United Kingdom is the Cleveland district of the North Riding of Yorkshire. It produces over two-fifths of the total amount of ore raised in the Kingdom, and not much less than one-half of that raised in England. The richness of the ore (about 30% of Iron. metal) is by no means so great as the red haematite ore found in Cumberland and north Lancashire (Furness district, &c.). Here the percentage is over 50, but the ore, though the richest found in the kingdom, is less plentiful, about 112 million tons being raised in 1903 as against more than 512 millions in Cleveland. There is also a considerable working of brown iron ore at various points in Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Leicestershire; with further workings of less importance in Staffordshire and several other districts. The total amount of ore raised in England is about 1212 million tons, but it is not so high, in some iron-fields, as formerly. Some of the lesser deposits have been worked out, and even in the rich Furness fields it has been found difficult to pursue the ore. The import of ore (the bulk coming from Spain) has consequently increased, and the ports where the principal import trade is carried on are those which form the principal outlets of the iron-working districts of Cleveland and Furness, namely Middlesbrough and Barrow-in-Furness.
The geographical distribution of the remaining more important English minerals may be passed in quicker review. Of the metals, the production of copper is a lapsing industry, confined to Cornwall. For the production of lead the principal counties are Derbyshire, Durham and Stanhope, but the industry is not extensive, and is confined to a few places in each county. Quarrying for limestone, clay and sandstone is general in most parts. For limestone the principal localities are in Durham, Derbyshire and Yorkshire, while for chalk-quarrying Kent is pre-eminent among a group of south-eastern counties, including Hampshire, Sussex and Surrey, with Essex. Fireclay is largely raised from coal-mines, while, among special clays, there is a considerable production of china and potter’s clays in Cornwall, Devonshire and Dorsetshire. As regards igneous rocks, the Charnwood Forest quarries of Leicestershire, and those of Cornwall, are particularly noted for their granite. Slate is worked in Cornwall and Devon, and also in Lancashire and Cumberland, where, in the Lake District, there are several large quarries. Salt, obtained principally from brine but also as rock-salt, is an important object of industry in Cheshire, the output from that county and Staffordshire exceeding a million tons annually. In Worcestershire, Durham and Yorkshire salt is also produced from brine.
The total number of persons in any way occupied in connexion with mines and quarries in England and Wales in 1901 was 805,185; the number being found to increase rapidly, as from 528,474 in 1881. Coal-mines alone occupied 643,654, and to development in this direction the total increase is chiefly due. The number of ironstone and other mines decreased in the period noticed from 55,907 to 31,606.
Manufacturing Industries.—There are of course a great number of important industries which have a general distribution throughout the country, being more or less fully developed here or there in accordance with the requirements of each locality. But in specifying the principal industries of any county, it is natural to consider those which have an influence more than local on its prosperity. In England, then, two broad classes of industry may be taken up for primary consideration—the textile and the metal. Long after textile and other industries had been flourishing in the leading states of the continent, in the Netherlands, Flanders and France, England remained, as a whole, an agricultural and pastoral country, content to export her riches in wool, and to import them again, greatly enhanced in value, as clothing. It is not to be understood that there were no manufacturing industries whatever. Rough cloth, for example, was manufactured for home consumption. But from Norman times the introduction of foreign artisans, capable of establishing industries which should produce goods fit for distant sale, occupied the attention of successive rulers. Thus the plantation of Flemish weavers in East Anglia, especially at the towns of Worstead (to which is attributed the derivation of the term worsted) and Norwich, dates from the 12th century. The industry, changing locality, like many others, in sympathy with the changes in modern conditions, has long been practically extinct in this district. Then, when religious persecution drove many of the industrial population of the west of Europe away from the homes of their birth, they liberally repaid English hospitality by establishing their own arts in the country, and teaching them to the inhabitants. Thus religious liberty formed part of the foundation of England’s industrial greatness. Then came the material agent, machinery propelled by steam. The invention of the steam engine, following quickly upon that of the carding machine, the spinning jenny, and other ingenious machinery employed in textile manufactures, gave an extraordinary impulse to their development, and, with them, that of kindred branches of industry. At the basis of all of them was England’s wealth in coal. The vast development of industries in England during the 19th century may be further correlated with certain events in the general history of the time. Insular England was not affected by the disturbing influences of the Napoleonic period in any such degree as was continental Europe. Such conditions carried on the work of British inventors in helping to develop industries so strongly that manufacturers were able to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the American Civil War (in spite of the temporary disability it entailed upon the cotton industry) and by the Franco-German War. These wars tended to paralyse industries in the countries affected, which were thus forced to English markets to buy manufactured commodities. That England, not possessing the raw material, became the seat of the cotton manufacture, was owing to the ingenuity of her inventors. It was not till the later part of the 18th century, when a series of inventions, unparalleled in the annals of industry, followed each other in quick succession, that the cotton manufacture took real root in the country, gradually eclipsing that of other European nations, although a linen manufacture in Lancashire had acquired some prominence as early as the 16th century. But though the superior excellence of their machinery enabled Englishmen to start in the race of competition, it was the discovery of the new motive power, drawn from coal, which made them win the race. In 1815 the total quantity of raw cotton imported into the United Kingdom was not more than 99 millions of pounds, which amount had increased to 152 millions of pounds in 1820, and rose further to 229 millions in 1825, so that there was considerably more than a doubling of the imports in ten years.
The geographical analysis of the cotton industry in England is simple. It belongs almost entirely to south Lancashire—to Manchester and the great industrial towns in its neighbourhood. The industry has extended into the adjacent parts of Cheshire, the West Riding of Yorkshire and Derbyshire. The Textiles. immediate neighbourhood of a coal-supply influenced the geographical settlement of this industry, like others; and the importance to the manufacture of a moist climate, such as is found on the western slope of the Pennines (in contradistinction to the eastern), must also be considered. The excess of the demand of the factories over the supply of raw material has become a remarkable feature of the industry in modern times.
The distribution of the woollen industries peculiarly illustrates the changes which have taken place since the early establishment of manufacturing industries in England. It has been seen how completely the industry has forsaken East Anglia. Similarly, this industry was of early importance along the line of the Cotteswold Hills, from Chipping Camden to Stroud and beyond, as also in some towns of Devonshire and Cornwall, but though it survives in the neighbourhood of Stroud, the importance of this district is far surpassed by that of the West Riding of Yorkshire, where the woollen industry stands pre-eminent among the many which, as already indicated, have concentrated there. As the cotton industry has in some degree extended from Lancashire into the West Riding, so has the woollen from the West Riding into a few Lancastrian towns, such as Rochdale. Among other textile industries attaching to definite localities may be mentioned the silk manufacture of eastern Staffordshire and Cheshire, as at Congleton and Macclesfield; and the hosiery and lace manufactures of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire.
The metal-working industries also follow a geographical distribution, mainly governed by the incidence of the coal-fields, as well as by that of the chief districts for the production of iron-ore already indicated, such as the Cleveland and Durham and the Furness districts. But the district most Metal-working. intimately connected with every branch of this industry, from engineering and the manufacture of tools, &c., to working in the precious metals, is the “Black Country” and Birmingham district of Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire. Apart from this district, large quantities of iron and steel are produced in the manufacturing areas of Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire,
