THE COTTON INDUSTRY.

Evening Star, Issue 21253, 7 November 1932, Page 8

THE COTTON INDUSTRY.

It is probably true, as Mr Lausbury said in the House of Commons last week, that the dole averted a bloody revolution. It is causing a redistribution of wealth, but at the same time the amount available for distribution becomes steadily' less. The heavy taxation to defray the dole comes only partly' from the proceeds of industry', and goes only to those who, because they cannot find work, are producing nothing. Tims capital reserves are being used for entirely noil-reproductive purposes, however humane. The hunger march to London, provoked by resentment against the means test—an effort to arrest the rate of drain on Britain’s resources—has ended without its leaders being able to get into direct touch with Ministers and members of Parliament. Nevertheless, the House lias shown itself so seized of tlie paramount importance of dealing with the unemployment problem to more real purpose than ever before that it has shelved other business, some of it of a most important and controversial kind. Sir Henry Betterton, the Minister of Labour, declares that seventeen previous efforts, including programmes of public works, have been tried and failed. There is no remedy in emigration, for unemployment is rife also in the less thickly populated countries. Oue-third of Britain’s unemployed, says the Minister, are engaged in the industries mainly affected by world conditions. Undoubtedly one of those is the cotton industry, on which Lancashire so heavily depends. The operatives struck against yet lower wages, but resume work to-day, having registered their protest in a strike ballot. Those intimate with the situation declare that two things are required in the cotton industry. The first is the restoration of amicable relations between the employers and employed. The second is the reorganisation of the industry to meet the radical change that has occurred since the war in the conditions under which the trade in cotton goods is conducted. How great that change is may be indicated simply: In 1913 the aggregate exports of cotton piece goods amounted to 7,075,000,000 linear yards; in 1931 they were only 1,790,000,000 linear yards. Thus threefourths of the pre-war trade has disappeared, mainly because of the reduction of shipments, not only to the main markets, India and Eastern Asia, but to the Dutch East Indies, South America, the Balkans, and North Africa. The falling off of the trade with India was due to political as well as economic causes, for the boycott was resorted to, India getting supplies from her own mills and imports from Japan. Apart from that, however, Lancashire has been losing her trade because her costs are too high. Since just prior to the war spinning and weaving costs have risen 100 per cent. In June, 1911, when the price of raw cotton was 7.1 Id par lb, the spinning and weaving eost of 120yds of a standard make of eloth was ]3sd. In June, 1932, the corresponding figures were 1.50 d per ib and 26!d respectively. It has long been recognised in the cotton trade that only by constantly adjusting her methods and organisation to the changed and changing conditions and maintaining them at the highest pitch of efficiency would Lancashire bo able to place her products on the world » nu’.rkct-s i\[ p:’kc.i 'i ;!::t!r f *i - n:I:l* »s

which would enable them to lie sold. The Balfour Committee reported thus in 11)28, but in the meantime little progress has been made in that direction. Cotton spinning is a very old industry in Lancashire, and it is understandable that in it conservatism should be deeply rooted and individualism and tradition strongly entrenched. During the postwar boom tbe speculative fever took strong hold on Lancashire. It wrought mostly' harm. What reorganisation there was —and it was considerable'—-was of the wrong kind. It consisted of regrouping, amalgamation, and absorption, with great increases of capital, much of it on paper. For that mistake the industry is still paying. The reduction of wages by II per cent, will bo viewed with concern by operatives in other British industries. Bad though the times are, there was a generous response to the Trade Union Congress appeal for funds for the cotton strikers. Lancashire was regarded as a test case in the attempt to meet the depression by' the deflation of working class wages, and it was felt that, if wages came down in Lancashire, there would probably be a round of demands for similar reductions elsewhere during the next few months. Meantime it appears as though Britain is meeting with sonic success in trying protective duties to got other countries to reconsider their destination of orders abroad. It is reported that, a section of the trading community in Sweden is dismayed at the discontinuance of the free and unconditional access which that country’s goods enjoyed so long in Groat Britain, and, following Denmark’s example of encouraging the import of United Kingdom goods, a number of leading Swedish business men aro promoting British shopping weeks in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Mahno. Franco also has expressed a wish for a new commercial agreement with Britain. France’s restrictions on imports, including the quota system, have been most onerous to British exporters, although in the past France has always been a greater seller of goods to Britain than purchaser of goods from Britain.