AMERICAN TRADE RIVALRY.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—Your correspondent on "American Trade Rivalry " in the Spectator of July 13th falls into a curious error in imagining that the American weaver, using similar looms to those used in England, can, with the aid of "six tenters," run sixteen looms, as compared with the six looms run by an English weaver. The fact is—and the whole point of Mr. H. F. Wilson's contention rests on it—that by an in- genious American invention of an automatic shuttling loom the American weaver is provided with a loom that will run continuously without constant stoppages to remove the empty shuttle and replace it with a full one. In this manner even more than sixteen looms can be run by one weaver, without the aid of extra " tenters," and better cloth woven than in the old-style loom. The Lancashire manu- facturing interests are fully alive to the importance of this revolution in the method of weaving, which is as drastic and far-reaching as any alteration in method which the trade has yet experienced, and your readers have only to consult our local Press for the past few months to see the matter fully noticed. In the meantime our manu- facturers, who are not without native caution, are balancing the merits of the American Northrop Loom—which is a very costly machine, and the adoption of which would mean the throwing out of their existing looms—and the Crossley Automatic Shuttling Attachment, which can be applied to all existing looms at a very trifling expense, and by using which an equal number of looms can be run by a single weaver. That the principle of automatic shuttling will be universally adopted, and that it will work as great a revolution in weaving as that achieved by the" weft fork," is a foregone conclusion.
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