TUESDAY, JUNE 30. MORNING SESSION, 



IO.3O A.M. 



Section V. Cotton, 



Chairman: THE RIGHT HON. LEWIS HARCOURT, M.P., 



Secretary of State for the Colonies. 



THE PRESIDENT : Gentlemen I have much pleasure in intro- 

 ducing to you Mr. Harcourt, the Secretary of State for the 

 Colonies, who has kindly consented to take the chair this 

 morning. Mr. Harcourt has taken a great personal interest 

 in the success of this Congress, and has rendered it consider- 

 able assistance. As you are aware, he is one of our Honorary 

 Vice-Presidents, and he and Mrs. Harcourt came the other 

 evening, at some personal inconvenience, to receive the 

 guests at the Government reception. I can also assure you 

 that Mr. Harcourt's interest in our work is not merely nominal. 

 Since the time of Mr. Chamberlain no Colonial Secretary of 

 this country has shown more interest in everything that per- 

 tains to the development of the tropical colonies than has Mr. 

 Harcourt. On that account I am sure you will welcome him 

 to-day, and I will now call upon him to take the chair. 



The CHAIRMAN, who was received with applause, said : 

 Gentlemen I take it as both an official and a personal com- 

 pliment that I should have been invited to preside even for a 

 short time and I am afraid that with my other occupations 

 it can only be for a short time over your deliberations and 

 your discussions to-day. As Secretary of State for the 

 Colonies I am naturally and primarily interested in the great 

 growth in the production of cotton within the British Empire 

 which has been so remarkable a development of our tropical 

 agriculture within the last ten years. On this branch of the 

 subject, with which I have perhaps something more than a 

 departmental acquaintance, I will venture to offer some brief 

 observations in a moment; but first of all let me say that I 

 realize that this Conference, remarkable alike from the 

 subjects of its consideration and the distinction of its delegates, 

 is not solely of a British or a Colonial but of an International. 



