A revolution in the textile industry

In Royal Square, everyone immediately exchanged bewildered looks.

They had originally planned for the Crown Prince to attend a banquet after arriving in Lyon, followed by a ball. Surely it would be tomorrow before they could begin discussing serious business.

They had never expected His Highness to do none of that, instead opening with a bombshell like "Lyon is doomed."

Most of those present, however, worked in textile-related industries. Although they all felt the Crown Prince had overstated matters, it was an indisputable fact that their industry would face brutal competition from the British.

Joseph paused, then pointed to the Automatic Loom specially placed beside him. "The only thing that can let us compete with the British right now is production efficiency!

"You have probably heard that this Automatic Loom weaves more than ten times faster than a handloom. As improvements continue, its efficiency will rise even further.

"That means a factory using Automatic Looms will only need to employ one-tenth as many workers as before!"

He was actually shifting the terms of the argument somewhat. Although Automatic Looms were highly efficient, they still required large numbers of workers to operate them, and could reduce the workforce by no more than a quarter. Of course, cloth output would increase dramatically.

Joseph continued, "Only then will our textiles have any chance of approaching British production costs.

"Yet the British began using Automatic Looms several years ago.

"In other words, their costs will fall even further in the future, and our products will lose their market entirely!"

British Automatic Looms were a commercial secret, and the French knew little about the specifics. Hearing the Crown Prince put it this way, everyone immediately grew anxious.

In fact, Mirabeau's people had already promoted Automatic Looms to them, but they had not "hammered the point