The Brown Cotton Corner 
(S o.pt 
A telegram . to-dav tolls wai Mr W. P. 
Brown, who was not by 'any • nutans- the first 
in going for cotton Ibis season, has made 
87,0.00,000 over his .•.u-uvriug operations. 
Manchester, at the.- : first rumoijvs of this New 
(Orleans operation, was incredulous. And 
Lancashire, in virtue of its paralysed industry, 
knows better now. This is bow Mr Brown 
was made light of to begin with : 
The st :U' ;• announcement that Mr W. 
P. Brown, ibe Ameyiev.i bn : l mmipui itor. is 
organ*: teg -u >r v-m• ..yurt .'o . -.lire control 
of the world's cob oil tm dr has onlv h-.’Utlv 
i otftel Ibe sevenb\of Marten. ■' r!nospoere. 
So jhroy abiruiuiy A i •nents haw rr tently 
eniiiAi .ied Com the i ni ©d States and proved 
1), • - tie -f that the proverbial guana of sal: a/e 
now applied to the a with liberalUy, On all 
sides a coutbuipluotn “ Imp vi able i ” is the 
chief expression with which the circulation‘cd: 
j or or 
In an interview yesterday Mr G W Macara, 
president of the federation, of Master Cottou 
Spinners, pointed out that* two years ago the 
action of the federation alone had the effect 
of breaking up a corner at Liverpool, and al¬ 
though his views are very strong regarding the 
powerlessness of the individual employer, he 
still holds that a powerful federation can. con¬ 
tend against most forces to-be* faced. 
The federation has shown an example 
which is being followed on. the Continent 
of Europe, and in America as well, and Mr 
Macara believes there is no combination to 
manipulate raw material that can successfully 
compete with the combination of the users of 
that material. 
These over-confident hopes have not been 
justified by the event, and a very real and 
sever© pressure, amounting to actual dis¬ 
tress, is now exerted on cotton operatives 
throughout Lancashire and Cheshire bv the* 
restriction of days of work per week, and (lie 
consequent restriction of wages,—partly owing 
to the artificially high prices of the raw cotton 
controlled by the Brown Corner, and partly 
owing to the actual shortage of supply. In 
a mail paper we see that, a Lancashire corres¬ 
pondent writes :—The condition of the .cotton 
industry does not mend in point-of giving 
increased employment. J attest reports say 
that there are fewer looms at work in North 
and North-East Lancashire, and the annual 
holidays are being, extended. The margin in 
spinning continues most narrow and un¬ 
rein inierativo. Some Oldham concerns are 
losing £50 a week. There will, it is feared, be 
no relief to the trade for a couple of months 
How cotton shortage, apart from the arti¬ 
ficial price of the corner ” is telling even on 
the manufacturing districts in the United State." 
we can guess from a wire (Aug 10) from Pall 
River, a cotton-spinning centre in Massa- 
chiissetts, which says .“ Twelve more cotton 
mills, employing 750,000 spindles, shut down 
to-day. No relief is 0 expected until the new 
crop is available six. weeks hence.'’ It may 
be that this hard time in Lancashire, when 
the pinch comes so- severely on women and 
children, will compel the industry to look to 
an extension of the supply Loin other sources. 
There lias been so-far, an excellent monsoon in 
India, and one of the effects of that should be 
an increase in raw cotton export. The great 
majority of the public are not old euough toj 
remember film awful impression upon the 
United Kingdom when the many millions 
of Lancashire were starving and the mills 
and factories were for about two years, 
as far as- we can recollect, kthmt as 
the grave. All that suffering was endured 
with, a patience and dignity that wor¬ 
th© admiration, of the world. The writer 
of this can remember as a boy being taken 
to hear Edinburgh’s famous Congregationalist 
preac-hcr, the late Rev John Pui.seord the 
Spurgeon of Scotland - preaching a stirring 
sermon of appeal for the famishing art isans of 
Lancashire, and their helpless families. A 
feature of t-lio civil war of 18Gl-t>5 in America 
was the rigid blockade of the Confederate port* 
by the Federal squadrons, and few were the 
vessels that succeeded in breaking through the 
cordon' to bring cotton from the Southern 
' States to Liverpool. But "whop a cargo did 
come in what glad tearful rejoicing there was ! 
