416 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—F. 
reach of individual owners. Public control of land development has therefore grown, 
culminating in the Town Planning Acts. 
Enlightened owners of extensive estates had sometimes planned their land with 
skill. Town planners sought like benefits of foresight, by enabling local authorities 
to apply good planning, however numerous the ownerships. Planning by public 
authorities is not opposed to private interest ; it gives to many owners the benefit of 
having their lands developed as part of a larger whole. 
Planning involves redistributing the uses of land and changing conditions ; 
reserving for dwellings land which could have been sold for shops; taking for parks 
that which could have been used for residences ; making roads to estates otherwise 
not accessible ; protecting good residential sites from the intrusion of objectionable 
buildings, or developing efficient industrial areas. The prospect of reaping building 
increment will clearly be reduced on some land, increased on other; land values will 
in fact be redistributed ; the assumption by the public of duties and responsibilities 
for which enjoyment of increment by the owner could be regarded as remuneration, 
tells in favour of the public right to a share of suchincrement. The planner, however, 
is concerned with good development, and with values mainly as affecting it. Proposals 
which diminish the owners’ prospect of increment presents the difficulty. The 
argument derived from swings and roundabouts, applies when one person owns the 
whole fair. The planner is seeking a method to apply it when there are many owners ; 
he thinks the improved values due to planning on some land should compensate for 
the reduced values on other land. 
Monday, September 28. 
Mr. J. Morris.—Rationalisation and the Cotton Industry. 
The organisation of the cotton industry has of late been adversely criticised in 
Government reports and by other observers within and without the industry. The 
prolonged depression in Lancashire as her share in the world’s trade in cotton has 
dwindled accentuates the value of this criticism. The revival of prosperity in an 
export trade for which Lancashire possesses natural and acquired advantages is an 
urgent necessity. 
The industry is characterised by its multiplicity of small units, its horizontal 
sectionalism and its employment of numerous middlemen. The comparative stability 
of this structure for several decades suggests that it might represent the best response 
to the economic peculiarities of the industry. But foreign competition has developed 
and has directed attention to the possibility of forming amalgamations, which would 
aim at attaining the competitive cost of production essential in an export trade. 
This policy is preferable to wage reductions, to price and output agreements, and to 
the gradual elimination of redundant firms by internal competition between small 
units. 
Amalgamations may be vertical or horizontal or both, and may combine a few or 
many firms. Hitherto progress in reconstruction has been partial and slow, owing 
to the conservatism of the industry and the reliance on makeshift policies. There 
has been a tendency to blame particular sections, such as the finishing section, or to 
ascribe the depression to causes beyond the control of the industry. 
The paper will concern itself mainly with a discussion of the feasibility and value 
of amalgamations. The reorganisation of the merchanting section, particularly in 
the staple trade, is essential if fragmented uneconomic orders are to be avoided, but 
the will to amalgamate seems absent. The spinning trade offers examples of large- 
scale amalgamations. Examination of the organisation of the Lancashire Cotton 
Corporation shows that definite economies can be secured, and that these are probably 
not outweighed by the difficulties inherent in the management of large-scale 
organisations. 
The effects of rationalisation will depend on the response of demand to lower prices. 
Competing industries abroad will attempt to improve their organisation. Recent 
events show that many factors may prevent foreign customers from buying Lancashire 
goods even if they are cheap. It is clear, however, that these external forces merely 
intensify the urgency of eliminating wasteful methods from the industry. 
