COTTON TEXTILES IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 149 



any terms which he considered would warnint his giving them credit. 

 He left, I believe, without making a sale. 



Quantities of fancy cotton goods are consigned to the larger houses 

 to be sold on commission, but nearly all the staples are purchased reg- 

 ularly at thirty and sixty days. 



PLACE OF MANUFACTURE. 



As will be seen by the first table, England furnishes the greatest 

 amount of cotton textiles to the Philippines, the major portion of which 

 comes from Manchester. Probably 75 per cent, of all the white cotton 

 fabrics received at Manila come from and are manufactured in that 

 city. Last year there were imported from Manchester alone 4,374 

 bales of 50 pieces each, and 13,200 cases or 41,087,164 yards of plain 

 cottons ; 7,603,542 yards of dyed and colored ; 50,964,227 yards of 

 prints, and 1,074,700 yards of twist. Much of the underwear found in 

 the larger retail stores the better class of goods is imported from 

 Spain and France. These stores are generally conducted by Spaniards, 

 and as all goods imported from Spain are admitted free of duty they 

 quite naturally give the preference to them, although, as a rule, the 

 prices are considerably higher than those asked for the corresponding 

 classes of English and German goods. 



It will be seen that American cotton fabrics are not largely repre- 

 sented in the list of imports, and although very few of them are seen 

 in this market their reputation is excellent, as is shown by the fact that 

 English made goods are stamped "American"' in order to give them 

 character. I was shown recently a piece of goods made at Manchester, 

 which was stamped in large blue letters, "Gray American drill," while 

 2 or 3 inches below in very small letters were the words : " English 

 manufacture." The merchant who had these goods told me that the 

 American cotton fabrics were much better and more durable than those 

 now sold here, and that this fact was generally admitted, but that the 

 prices were too high to justify their importation. The masses, he said, 

 wanted cheap goods, and while those of American manufacture would 

 wear much longer than any other, this was not deemed a sufficiently 

 strong consideration to warrant the payment of the extra price asked; 

 that several houses here had tried the experiment of importing Ameri- 

 can cotton goods, but it had never been successful. 



AMERICAN VS. ENGLISH COTTONS. 



This information is given me by English merchants and importers, 

 who are of course interested in English trade and in maintaining the 

 credit of their country and the reputation of its exports. There is no 

 American house here that imports cotton goods. In reply to my ques- 

 tions upon the subject propounded to merchants here, the statement is 

 invariably made that the high price of American cottons, as well as of 



