That the trend in the industry as a whole, however, has been toward the adoption of wide looms is indicated by the census of 1919, which reports 3,155 wide or "rug" looms as compared with 3,976 narrow or carpet looms.

Development in the use of wide looms may be most clearly observed in the summary which follows, based on census reports:

TABLE 2.—Number of narrow and wide looms of the several types in the carpet industry, 1899-1919.1

1 Excludes colonial or rag carpet and rug looms.

• Divided in census of 1914 into 562 tapestry and 382 velvet rug looms.

(c) FOREIGN-MADE AND DOMESTIC-MADE MACHINERY.

The relation between the quantity of machinery of domestic manufacture actually in use in domestic mills of a given industry, and the total amount of machinery in use has by some observers, been considered as an important indication of the self-sufficiency and maturity of that particular industry. The Tariff Commission has made inquiry into the number of American-made and foreignmade looms in the domestic mills, since looms are the most important single machine in the carpet manufacture. The results of the inquiry are here presented:

TABLE 3.-Country of origin of looms employed in American carpet industry in 1920.

The figures are, on the whole, distinctly favorable to the American industry. The proportion of foreign-built looms employed in the tapestry and velvet, Axminster, and even in the rather recently imported chenille Axminster manufactures is really unimportant. A certain number of machines are likely to be imported for purposes.

of experimentation, to fill particular needs, to please particular foremen or manufacturers, and for other incidental reasons. Unquestionably the domestic market for the above-mentioned types of loom is controlled by American machine makers.

With respect to the Brussels and Wilton looms, however, the situation is not so satisfactory. The number of narrow machines of British makes is slightly greater than the number of such domesticmade machines; and in the matter of wide looms, somewhat over one-third are of foreign origin. The greater number of the imported wide machines have come from Great Britain, but some of the widest (9 feet wide, for example) are understood to have come from Germany. Smyrna looms are entirely of domestic manufacture, as is to be expected from the fact that the rugs themselves are made entirely in the United States. Looms for weaving ingrain, the manufacture of which has been the longest established among the different types of carpetings, are of domestic make.

This special condition in the Brussels and Wilton manufacture is due in part to historical and in part to technical causes. The power loom evolved by Bigelow for these goods was taken up actively by the British carpet manufacturer Crossley, who purchased Bigelow's patent rights for the United Kingdom. It was to a considerable extent improved by him, and the production of these looms established in that country; this fact explains the large proportion of looms of British origin instanced in the figures of Table 2. The British machine makers have, moreover, always been known for the excellence of their work. An example of the difference between English and American practice in this line, at least of some years ago, is furnished in connection with the ingrain looms of American design which were imported into the United Kingdom. It is reported that the Murkland and later the Crompton and the Knowles looms of this type were borrowed from the American industry. The first were of American construction. "They were, however, soon superseded by productions of English makers, as the American were found too poor-castings being used where hammered iron and steel are employed in the English loom. "7 However, the substantial and, it is believed, increasing proportion of American-made machines employed in the domestic industry, together with the recent development in the stationary-wire loom for this manufacture, indicates that some of the obstacles in the way of production within this country of machines for use in the Brussels and Wilton weaving have been overcome.

SECTION 3. SIZE AND CHARACTER OF THE DOMESTIC INDUSTRY.8

(A) GROWTH OF THE MANUFACTURE.

The beginning of carpet manufacture in this country dates back to the last years of the eighteenth century. No record exists of the domestic production of carpets for sale prior to 1790, and of course the first attempts at manufacture were on a very small scale, practically handicraft work. Indeed, the advance before 1860 was particularly slow and halting. The census of that year discloses an industry in which the number of "hands" per establishment was only 31. The manufacture, then, was really on a work-shop basis.

7 Special Consular Reports, 1890, "Carpet Manufacture in Foreign Countries,” p. 299.

8 Based on census figures for 1919.

Between 1860 and 1890 the industry made its most rapid growth, the total number of employees rising from 6,683 in the former year to 28,736 in thẹ latter. Subsequently the rate of its expansion declined. It reached the maximum in number of wage earners, 33,307, in 1909; but that is an increase of only about 15 per cent in 20 years. In 1914 the number of wage earners had absolutely decreased to 31,309 and in 1919 to 22,933, but that may be explained by peculiar economic conditions. Other statistics, however, indicate that the industry has not stood still during these years, although if measured by the figures of hands employed a slowing down is obvious. For example the capital invested has increased steadily from 1890 to the present time. In 1860 it was reported to amount to $4,721,938; by 1890 it was $38,208,842; by 1914, $85,153,828, and by 1919 it had risen to $119,196,461. Obviously the amount investeď has increased more rapidly than the number of employees. Thus the amount of capital invested per employee in 1860 was $707; in 1890, $13, 297; in 1914, $2,720; and in 1919, $5,196. The increase in the last 25 years is particularly noteworthy. Again the statistics of the value added by manufacture, i. e., the value of the products above the cost of the materials, likewise shows sustained progress by the industry. From a value of $3,440,790 in 1860 it reached $19,125,288 in 1890, $26,847,962 in 1914, $56,135,789 in 1919, and $53,156,000 in 1921. The 1914 figure, to be sure, was a decline from that reported in 1909, $31,625,148, but is explicable on the ground of depressed business conditions. Seemingly the industry is in a healthy, expanding condition, although it has not added especially to its working force in recent years.

(B) GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.

9

The manufacture of carpets is an exceptionally concentrated industry. Not only is it confined to the northeastern tier of States, but to five members of that group, namely, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut, arranged in sequence according to the number of establishments in each State. The details of this geographical distribution as of 1914 and 1919 are shown in the following tabulation:

c Includes New Jersey, Connecticut, and Wisconsin.

d Includes New Jersey and Connecticut, and mills in Pennsylvania and New York, where 1,099 looms were used on goods other than carpets and rugs.

• Here, however, the rate of advance has been peculiar. The value produced by each operative has also increased. From an average of $1,176 just before the Civil War, it had become only $665 in 1890. By 1914, on the other hand, it had reached $857; -which itself was a decline from the 1909 figure of $950, but by 1919 it was $2,448.

In respect to the scale on which production is conducted, the peculiar position of Pennsylvania, and to a less extent New Jersey, is evident. While the former State possessed practically two-thirds of the total number of establishments, it held less than a third of the total number of employees, and only a little more than 40 per cent of the looms. Indeed, Pennsylvania is and has always been the home of the small producer and of the concern which devotes itself to carpet weaving alone. The fact that many of the concerns in New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut maintain their own wool-spinning departments explains for the most part the particularly large proportion of total wage earners in those States, as compared, for example, with their ratios of looms.

The distribution of the carpet manufacture in 1914 and 1919 according to the several branches of the industry is presented in the following table, showing the number of looms of the various types contained in the five States above mentioned:

TABLE 4.-Number of looms in the domestic carpet and rug industry: 1919 and 1914.'

It will be noted that, taking the aggregate number of looms of each type, the manufacture of ingrain was largely localized in Pennsylvania, as indeed it has always been particularly concentrated; again, that the proportion of Axminster looms was especially high in New York State; that the manufacture of tapestry and velvet was for the most part monopolized by Pennsylvania and New York, these two States operating 82 per cent of all such looms in 1914 and 87 per cent in 1919; while the production of Brussels and Wilton was somewhat more scattered, approximately two-thirds of these looms being located in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and the rest divided among New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. Of rug looms alone, the concentration was different in certain respects. In 1914 the proportion of these wide looms of the Axminster type located in New York was even higher than the proportion of all Axminster looms so located, around 75 per cent instead of 60 per cent, but with the increase in the number of wide looms in other

States between 1914 and 1919, particularly in Pennsylvania and Connecticut; New York's ratio stood in 1919 at only 57 per cent for rug looms as against 68 per cent for all looms. Again, the tapestry and velvet rug looms of New York State formed a particularly great proportion of all such looms-in 1914, over two-thirds of the total rug looms as against 36 per cent of all looms; in 1919, over half of the total rug looms as against 38 per cent of all looms. On the other hand, Pennsylvania's tapestry and velvet looms were predominantly of the narrow or carpet variety, her looms comprising 61 per cent in 1914 and 54 per cent in 1919 of all machines in that branch of the trade, though her rug looms formed only 20 per cent of the total in 1914 and 16 per cent in 1919. In the Brussels and Wilton manufacture, the practically exclusive possession of wide looms was a feature before the war, but the striking increase in the number of wide looms in Massachusetts and Connecticut during the war period is also noteworthy.

One can note a trend away from the peculiarly great centralization of the carpet industry in and about Philadelphia which marked the situation a half century ago. Even in the 15 years covered by the census of 1899 and 1914, the movement is evident. In the former year, Pennsylvania is reported to have supplied 56.3 per cent of the domestic production, calculated on the basis of quantity, and 44 per cent, on the basis of value. In 1914, the corresponding percentages were 36.3 and 33.4 In 1919, the figures were 33.3 per cent and 32.8 per cent, respectively. On the other hand, Massachusetts, New York, and "all other States," of which Connecticut is the most important, have enhanced their shares appreciably. On the basis of quantity the output of New York mills increased between 1899 and 1919 from 28.5 per cent to 36.2 per cent of the total; that of Massachusetts from 9.6 to 12.4 and that of mills in all other states from 5.5 to 17.9. In other words, while the industry shows no tendency to move away from the group of states in which it has become established, the portion which each shall contain has been subject to modification.

Reasons for this shift in proportions by which Pennsylvania has lost its primacy in both quantity and value of production are in some measure to be found in the fortunes of individual concerns. But among the general causes may be noticed the difference in average size of concern between the Philadelphia region and others. Many of the firms operating in New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut are of the large-scale type, whereas the majority of firms in the Philadelphia district are and always have been of small capacity; and the advantages arising from the manufacture of carpets on the more extensive scale are an important factor in the movement away from Philadelphia. Moreover, there is a certain lack of progressiveness in the Philadelphia mills, which, quite apart from their relative size, is an obstacle to their successful competition in the modern trade. They suffer to a material extent from the fact that the carpet industry went through its early development in that locality. As a result, mills are not well arranged, buildings are old, and operations must be carried on under serious obstacles to efficiency. Another phase is spoken of by a trade paper of the wool manufacture in connection with a discussion of the Philadelphia ingrain industry: "The whole trouble with the ingrain business is