whatsoever, any printed, painted, stained or dyed Calicoe.”
Though this act removed competition from Asia for English
woolens, it still left an active domestic cotton and linen
industry competing against the woolens: cotton and linen
were mixed to produce a popular cloth called fustian.
Having excluded Asian competition, the wool industry now
turned to clamp down on linen. Linen was primarily made in
Scotland and Ireland, which gave some scope to an
English coalition to demand those countries’ exclusion from
English markets. However, there were limits to the power of
the woolen manufacturers. Their new attempts encountered
strong opposition from fustian producers in the burgeoning
industrial centers of Manchester, Lancaster, and Liverpool.
The pluralistic political institutions implied that all these
different groups now had access to the policy process in
Parliament via voting and, more important, petitioning.
Though the petitions flew from the pens of both sides,
amassing signatures for and against, the outcome of this
conflict was a victory for the new interests against those of
the wool industry. The Manchester Act of 1736 agreed that
“great quantities of stuffs made from linen yarn and cotton
wool have for several years past been manufactured, and
have been printed and painted within this kingdom of Great
Britain.” It then went on to assert that “nothing in the said
recited Act [of 1721] shall extend or be construed to
prohibit the wearing or using in apparel, household stuff,
furniture or otherwise, any sort of stuff made out of linen
yarn and cotton wool, manufactured and printed or painted
with any colour or colours within the kingdom of Great
Britain.”
The Manchester Act was a significant victory for the
nascent cotton manufacturers. But its historical and
economic significance was in fact much greater. First, it
demonstrated the limits of entry barriers that the pluralistic
political institutions of parliamentary England would permit.
Second, over the next half century, technological
innovations in the manufacture of cotton cloth would play a
central role in the Industrial Revolution and fundamentally
transform society by introducing the factory system.
After 1688, though domestically a level playing field
emerged, internationally Parliament strove to tilt it. This was
evident not only from the Calicoe Acts but also from the