4^ 



He hoped Alderman Greenwood would take up the question of a 

 Cliamber of Commerce for this town. 



Mr. F. H. Hill having briefly spoken, 



Councillor Bureows thought Alderman Greenwood had made 

 out a very good case in support of his position. It was rather 

 pecuUar that three or four million inhabitants in Lancashire and 

 one or two neighbouring shhes should expect to be able to make 

 more cotton cloth than all the rest of the world put together. 

 If the numbers employed in our cotton trade increased in the 

 same proportion as they had since 1874, it would be something 

 wonderful. He did not see how we could expect to be able to 

 have much more than 82 per cent of the entire export trade of 

 the world in cotton goods. It was a wonderful thing for a Httle 

 country like this to have attained such a position. He believed 

 the adoption of free trade in America would give, in the outset 

 at least, a considerable stimulous to our trade. The American 

 markets would be flooded with English cotton goods, and the 

 result would be disastrous to the American trade for a consider- 

 able time. We could not reasonably expect to increase our 

 exports to Continental countries, seeing that these were constantly 

 increasing their tariffs to keep us out, but in all the open markets 

 the increase had been very considerable. India had certainly 

 increased her export of yarn and cloth very considerably, but it 

 ought to be remembered that a large percentage of the capital 

 embarked in the Indian cotton trade was English money, and it 

 was therefore the resources of England that were being developed 

 in that country. Our consuls at present paid too much attention 

 to political afl'airs, and too little to our commercial interests. 

 They were really sent out to guard the interests of the Empire, 

 and as we were a trading nation our interests really lay in a strict 

 attention to commercial questions. We might have a wonderful 

 improvement in this direction, without one extra penny of ex- 

 penditure. Alluding to the desertion of old spinning mills in 

 Burnley, and the centralisation of this branch of the cotton 

 industry in Oldham, he said they all mourned the disappearance 

 of these institutions as they would the departure of old friends, 

 but it was one of the laws of nature that these old mills should 

 become unfitted to compete with the modern structures, equipped 

 with all the newest inventions. Spinners in Burnley might have 

 been rather lax in the introduction of new machinery, and that 

 might have been one of the causes of spinning falling off in this 

 neighbourhood. But if they had not been able to maintain their 

 spinning trade they had excelled in the manufacture of plain 

 cloth. He took it some portion of the community would have 

 to make plain goods if there was a demand for them, and though 

 it might be better in some respects if they were able to weave 

 every kind of cloth, yet if they could secure a sort of monopoly 



