It is said that the slow adoption of the ring spindle in spinning, and the low uptake of the automatic loom in weaving seriously hampered those industries` competitive edge. .
The principle advantage of the ring spindle was it` s operation by unskilled female staff, whereas the traditional mule required skilled (mostly male) operatives, thus saving on labour costs. The disadvantage was that the ring needed more expensive cotton to make a given `fineness` or `count`. Given this information, replacement of old existing technology should only be undertaken if the total cost of the new technology is less than the variable cost of the old technique. In this instance, considering the costs involved in replacing mules with rings in existing plants, it appears that the decisions of British cotton masters were vindicated. Similarly, regarding the weaving industry, the advent of the automatic loom reduced labour costs, but were more expensive to install than the plain looms, consequently raising the capital costs per unit of output. In comparison, the saving in labour costs would benefit the United States, but not Britain. The installation of automatic looms would have exacerbated the losses suffered by the dwindling British textile industry, again vindicating the British entrepreneur` s judgement. .
Britain `s pre-eminence in production and consumption of iron and steel ended by 1880, when production was surpassed most notably Germany & USA. The slow uptake of technical innovation was key in the British decline, for instance the Gilchrist-Thomas process of removing brittle phosphorous from pig iron opened the way to the use of phosphorous -rich ores, in plentiful supply in North East England, thus providing the cheapest iron ore in the world for the production of steel. European steel-makers embraced this method in the 1880s but Britain continued with the old acid steel making until the 1930s.