138 COTTON 



but the coarsest yarn, and not one Lancashire spinner in 

 a hundred could make any use of Indian cotton. It is 

 principally used on the Continent, and in Japan, and in India 

 itself. At the same time it must not be forgotten that if 

 there is an increase in the quantity of cotton produced in 

 India it will to a certain extent reduce the demand for long- 

 stapled cotton. It would, however, be dangerous to attach 

 too much importance to this argument, for the world re- 

 quires better and finer qualities every day, and conse- 

 quently the demand for medium and long-stapled cotton is 

 increasing correspondingly. The principal demand in Lan- 

 cashire is for cotton from ^ inch to i l / inches in length, 

 and there never was a period in recent years when there 

 was so great an actual scarcity of cotton about i l /% inches 

 long. Most cotton is bought and sold on the basis of 

 futures, or paper contracts, with a premium, or the opposite, 

 according to the quality of the actual cotton. At the pre- 

 sent moment spinners are having to pay 100 points on, or a 

 premium of one penny per pound for cotton which a few 

 years back could have been bought at a price of one- 

 farthing per pound over contracts. 



It is evident, therefore, that the main efforts of the 

 Association should be devoted to the production of cotton 

 of longer staple than that grown in India. At the same 

 time there is danger of growing cotton which is too long 

 for the average spinner, and especially so when such cotton 

 is not grown under the best conditions. When the staple 

 exceeds i 1 /^ inches in length it can only be used by spin- 

 ners who are spinning the finer counts, such as are usually 

 spun from Egyptian cotton, and for this purpose cotton 

 which is coarse and irregular in staple, or wasty or soft, or 

 stained, is difficult to use, and is discarded by the spinner. 

 In other words, unless long-stapled cotton is well grown it 

 is almost unsaleable, and in addition the market for this 

 class of cotton is to a certain extent a limited one. It 

 would be easier to sell hundreds of thousands of bales of 

 inch cotton than it would be to find a market for a few 

 hundred bales of cotton i l / inches long. 



The Association felt that as far as India was con- 

 cerned trie Government of India was the only body which 

 could do any good, and one of the first steps they took 

 was to send a deputation on February 2/th, 1904, to Mr. 

 St. John Brodrick, who was then Secretary of State. They 

 drew attention to the great importance of increasing the 

 quantity of cotton, and special emphasis was drawn to the 

 necessity of improving the quality. It was also pointed out 



