Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Dobson
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Is Tealeaf quoting something, or writing it himself? If a quote, I'd like to know where it is from. It has the ring of authenticity about it.
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I wrote it myself. It boils down to the argument that many self made 19C industrialists took their eye off the ball and instead of maintaining investment in British industries (not just the Lancashire textile industry) decided to spend their money elsewhere, in everything from American railroad stocks through to fake castles in Scotland (think of Bullough).
Possibly someone will write - or has already wrote - a PhD thesis on this theory and how it applies to Accy. I dunno. What is for certain is that there was a massive housing construction boom in most northern mill towns around the latter part of the 19th century, coinciding with new mills being built but those mills contained very little in radically advanced technology from 50 years earlier - think of the standard Lancashire loom and compare it with the stuff the Yanks were starting to build.
So is it a case of the mill owners seeing the writing on the wall, and deciding to invest their money elsewhere, or were they just stupid? Either way, the likes of Accy is still paying the price.