A Variety of National Industrial Experiences^527

Power looms in a British cotton factory, 1830.

(the process by which threads are interlaced to make cloth or fabric)
removed the last bottleneck to fully mechanized production. The number of
power looms in England multiplied rapidly, from 2,400 in 1813 to 85,000 in
1833 to 224,000 in 1850.

Industrialization in France

France was the worlds second leading economy, although the wars during
the revolutionary and Napoleonic periods had interrupted economic devel­
opment. The revolutionary government had eliminated some hurdles for
French businessmen by ending the tangle of regional customs barriers and
tax differences. But France’s coal deposits were less rich and more dis­
persed and were far from iron ore deposits and canals. Thus, transportation
costs kept up the prices of raw materials. Demand was also less in France
than in Britain because the French population rose by only 30 percent dur­
ing the first half of the nineteenth century; in Britain the population had
doubled during the same period. French agricultural production developed
more slowly than that of Britain; small family farms remained characteris­
tic. High agricultural tariffs did not encourage agricultural efficiency.
French banking facilities remained relatively rudimentary compared to
those in Britain and the Netherlands. The primary function of the Bank of
France, created by Napoleon in 1800, was to loan money to the state. The
handful of private banks, which were run out of the deep pockets of wealthy
families, preferred to make what appeared to be safer loans to governments.