COTTON TRADE DISPUTE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 111, 6 November 1908, Page 7

COTTON TRADE DISPUTE.

A SETTLEMENT PKOBABLE. By Telegraph.— Press ABBoelation.— Copyright. (Received November 6, 9 a.m.) LONDON, sth November. There are indications of an early settlement of the Lancashire cotton trade dispute, on the basis of postponing the 5 per cent, reduction till the Ist March. It is estimated that the dispute has been responsible for the idling of •400,000 persons. "The employers proposed that the reduction should take effect in January next, and the spinners by ballot agreed to this, but the cardroom workers and binders and reelers proved obdurate. The secretary of the card-room workers, in an interview on 18th September, said that "the masters had recommended that the reduction should come into operation on the first pay clay in January, irrespective of the state of trade at that time, and to this we could not agree without getting the feeling of our members ,on the point. ... If the masters had added to their proposal 'if the state of trade warranted a reduction in January,' we should have recommended our members to accept it, and that recommendation would have carried great weight. The American spinning trade," continued Mr. Mullin, "did not become unprofitable until the end of April last, and the spinners of Egyptian cotton, whilst not getting a great profit, have held their own." Should -the lock-out extend over three weeks (remarked the London Chronicle on 19th September) 180,000 weavers will be stopped. But this does not adequately represent the dislocation that a lock-out involveb. The subsidiary interests will suffer considerably it the struggle should continue over a few weeks. It is computed that a stoppage of four weeks would mean idleness for quite 1,000,000 persons, whilst in the first seven days the earning power of the workers would be stopped to the extent of £100,000.