Textile Competition

It has long been an open secret that the textile industries of Massachusetts are being hard put to it by the keen competition of the new and steadily growing textile industry of North Carolina, The Massachusetts textile industry has an investment of something like $500,000,000 in the business; it produces about $600,000,000 in goods annually, and employs about 125,000 workers.

The Massachusetts mill interests, among other obstacles, are up against state laws which prescribe a 48-hour week and forbid the employment of women after 6:00 p.m. The Bay State textile men declare this is an impossible handicap for them to carry as against the freer conditions in North Carolina, and accordingly they are seeking a 54-hour working week from the Legislature. They claim that it is more expensive to operate a cotton mill in Massachusetts than in any of the other textile states, and that the local cotton industry has practically lost its markets to the South.

Of the 37,000,000 spindles operated in this country, 16,000,000 (43%) are located in southern states, 19,000,000 (51%) in New England, and 2,000,000 (6%) in other states. But actual spindle hours last September were 248 in southern cotton-growing states as compared with only 131 in New England--showing that southern textile mills get much more actual use out of their machinery than is the case in New England, and consequently can operate at much lower costs.