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character. With that view of its composition also I am in 

 sympathy in another than my official capacity, because I 

 happen to be a Member for a division in Lancashire, in the 

 very heart of the spinning and weaving district of the cotton 

 trade. There you may be sure that my friends and I look not 

 so much to the nationality or to the origin of the cotton, as to 

 its quality, its abundance and its price. Lancashire would like 

 to see the whole world production of cotton greatly and 

 rapidly increased so long as markets were available for the 

 finished article of their manufacture; and we must always 

 remember that cheapness of production invariably, or nearly 

 invariably, carries with it or produces a corresponding increase 

 in the demand and the consumption. We in Lancashire have 

 suffered at times from scarcity of the raw material, which has 

 been an experience common to the whole world, but we have 

 also suffered and resented certain operations for cornering the 

 supply, which have brought no profit to the producer and 

 have sometimes produced destruction to the manufacturer. In 

 times of scarcity in the past we have looked to other and to 

 unaccustomed sources of supply, but strange varieties and 

 qualities do not readily commend themselves to, or become 

 immediately popular amongst, the masters or the operatives. 



I recall the often quoted story of the prayer of the old 

 Lancashire spinner at the time of the American cotton famine 

 of 1863: "O Lord, send us more cotton, but no more 

 Surat." Well, I daresay that the protective prayer of that 

 spinner would be less fervent to-day because I believe that 

 the quality, and especially the cleanliness, of Indian cotton has 

 been greatly improved. But it is a mistake to think that you 

 can grow any kind of cotton and be sure of finding a market 

 for it immediately. 



I look with some alarm if I shall not shock Mr. Sands in 

 saying so at a tendency, which I think is evident, of an 

 endeavour to grow only, or mainly, the finer grades of long 

 staple which naturally command the highest price where a 

 market can be found. I am not, of course, surprised at the 

 temptation when I saw at the Rubber Exhibition the other day 

 a sample of Sea Island cotton grown in the Island of St. 

 Vincent which had been sold at forty pence per pound, but 

 you cannot compel the whole world to dress or to sleep in 

 fine muslins and lace, and for the present, and probably for 

 many years to come, the staple of this great industry is likely 

 to remain in the future as in the past of a quality known as 

 Middling Upland. There is no doubt that the trade in many 

 parts of Lancashire is tending more and more towards the 

 finer counts, and is consuming the products of Egypt and the 

 Sudan and many of our Colonies and Protectorates, but we 

 are bound to bear in mind the economic results of a decrease 



