I will now begin with the raw material and trace its progress upwards, through the various branches of industry until it emerges into the finished article and is distributed, not only throughout the United Kingdom, but over the whole world.

Some firms who comb and spin, import wool from abroad-from the Colonies chiefly-but, generally speaking, the wool is imported by wool-merchants or consigned by growers to London, Liverpool, or Hull, and bought there by the wool-merchants. I will leave the merchanting system for the present and deal first with the industrial processes.

Wool-sorting. The first of these processes is the "sorting" of the wool. Wool-sorting consists of spreading out, on a perforated board, a clipped fleece of wool and sorting it by hand into grades, according to length of staple, fineness of fibre, and state of cleanliness. There are as many as eight qualities in a fleece, and a considerable amount of technical knowledge is required to classify the different qualities quickly and accurately. The employment is restricted to men-workers.

Combing and Carding.-The next stage is the preparation of the raw wool for spinning into yarn, i.e. the carding for woollens and the combing for worsteds. In both carding and combing the first process is the "scouring," ie. the washing of the wool, in order to remove the natural grease and other impurities. This is done in a series of tanks or bowls. These being filled with water, steam is injected until the water is heated to about 120°; soap is then put into the bowls in a liquid form together with some mild alkali. The wool passes from one bowl to another by means of mechanical contrivances, the liquid being pressed out at each stage by means of rollers. It is finally thrown into a bin, by which time it is quite clean. English wools will yield

as much as 70 to 80 per cent. of pure wool after washing; Australian greasy wools yield 45 to 55 per cent. ; whilst American territory wools yield only 30 to 35 per cent. Therefore it is a point of extreme importance for a buyer to be able to estimate the yield of pure wool from an unwashed fleece.

In the combing process the wool passes through various machines until it finally emerges in the two states of "top" and "noil." The "top" consists of the long fibres arranged in a "sliver," or loose rope, with all the fibres parallel, while the "noil" consists of the short hairs which are taken out in the process of combing, together with such extraneous matter as cannot be washed out. These noils or short hairs are used in the woollen industry for making blankets, flannels, etc.

In the woollen industry the carding and the spinning, and often the weaving as well, are, as already stated, generally carried on in the same mill; but in the worsted industry the combing is a separate branch of industry, there being many firms who do nothing but comb "on commission," i.e. they receive the wool from the woolmerchant and comb it into "tops" in accordance with instructions received, and then deliver the tops and noils to the owner of the wool or his customers. In the combing industry the persons employed are both men and women, but men predominate largely, as will be seen from the table given above. In this industry, when work is plentiful, the combs run night and day, but men only are employed at night.

In the combing industry (and also in the dyeing) a plentiful supply of soft water is necessary, and the Bradford Corporation have spent very large sums of money in providing an ample supply of such water. Quite recently £1,500,000 was spent for this purpose.

The sewage of Bradford is probably the most

difficult to treat of any in the world. This is due to the presence in the whole bulk of it of wool-combers' suds, containing lanoline and other fatty matters. Already over £250,000 has been spent in efforts to deal with these suds, and the corporation are now considering the question of providing separate sewers for woolcombing works, or having the effluent treated separately at each works. Professor Dewar states that "it is absolutely impossible, by any known method of precipitation, to deal with the Bradford sewage mixed with crude suds."

Spinning is the next process. In the woollen industry this, as already stated, is generally carried on in conjunction with the previous processes, and of course in the same mill; but in the worsted trade the spinning is generally a distinct branch of trade. Some spinners, it is true, sort, comb, and spin; but in many cases, especially in the smaller concerns, the spinner buys his tops from the top-maker, spins his yarn, and sells the yarn to the manufacturer or the export yarn merchant.

The first stage of the spinning process (in worsted yarns) is the drawing. This comprises a series of eight or ten operations, gradually reducing the thickness of the sliver or top. The spinning process is an extension of the drawing process, and produces the thread or yarn. It is conducted in several different ways. When I mention that some yarns are no thicker than sewing cotton, you will understand that the manipulation of the yarn is a very delicate process. Yarns for weft are put upon small spools for the home trade; for the foreign trade they are often put on tubes, or made up into hanks. Warp yarns, which are usually two-fold, i.e. composed of two threads twisted together, are reeled upon bobbins, and are afterwards put upon large rollers (known as weavers'

beams) in a convenient form for weaving. Weft yarns, however, are not always "single," but are frequently 2-fold, 3-fold, and even 4-fold. A spool or a hank of weft yarn contains 560 yards of single yarn, and the counts or thicknesses of the yarn are regulated by the weight of yarn on the spool; e.g. 10s count means that IO hanks or spools of 560 yards each weigh 1 lb., 20s means that 20 hanks weigh 1 lb., and so on; the thicker the yarn. the lower the number, and the fewer hanks to the pound of course. Young women and boys are largely employed in the spinning processes.

Weaving is the next process. This, of course, is the art of producing cloths of various kinds and patterns by the interlacing of weft and warp yarns. In the worsted industry the weaving (or "manufacturing," as it is called) is, generally speaking, a separate industry. The manufacturer buys his yarn from the spinner and weaves it into pieces. In many cases the manufacturer confines himself to one kind of cloth; e.g. one manufacturer will make only mohair goods, another cotton-warp dress goods, or all-wool dress goods, a third will make coatings, a fourth trouserings, a fifth linings, and so on, each particular make being a speciality of one or more manufacturers, who thus devote their whole energy, and often the experience of a lifetime, to the production of one particular kind of material. In the weaving industry of Bradford young women are mostly employed; in Huddersfield and the heavy woollen districts men are largely employed.

The next stage, perhaps the most complicated of all, is the dyeing and finishing of the woven pieces. Every piece made has to go through the process of dyeing or finishing. Some cloths (coatings and trouserings, for instance) are made from yarns which have been dyed either in the yarn or in the washed wool stage, before

weaving, and such cloths require "finishing" only; but in the vast majority of cases the goods are dyed in the piece, that is to say, the pieces are woven white, or "grey," as it is termed technically, and are afterwards dyed and finished by the piece-dyer. Some of the Bradford dyeing establishments are huge concernsMessrs. Ripley's, for instance, covers an area sufficient for many a small English town. One essential requirement for a dye works is a plentiful supply of suitable water. Many of the dyeing establishments have their own wells; but in spite of this, and notwithstanding that the water is used over and over again as far as practicable, one dyeing firm in Bradford is said to pay the Bradford Corporation something like £10,000 per annum for the town's water used by them. Of late years very great progress has been made in the arts of dyeing and finishing. Dyeing may be said to be a scientific process, requiring as it does the constant services not only of trained men, but of trained chemists. Briefly, the process is this: the pieces when received in the grey are stitched together, forming lengths of from 200 to 500 yards, and are passed through boiling liquors and subjected to a thorough saturation by steam at high pressure, to prevent their shrinking and crimping in the real dyeing process. They are then dried, and at a very rapid speed passed over red-hot plates, to burn off any loose fibres; this is called "singeing." They are then dyed such shades as may be ordered, and afterwards undergo treatment of various kinds to give them the desired "finish." The pieces are finally "made up" for the merchant's stock-room or the draper's window. I should mention here that the dyers, like the wool-combers, work entirely "on commission," that is to say, they do not dye their own goods, but perform the work for other people-for the manufacturers of the goods sometimes,