THE COTTON WORLD

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 98, 20 January 1920, Page 3

THE COTTON WORLD

SUPREMACY OF MANCHESTER AN INTERESTING INTERVIEW "A typical Manchester clay!" said Mr. James M. Connaughton, representing E. T. Holdworth and Co., of Manchester, whoso srrcat Burnley mills havo been adding to the 6inoke pall of the busiest county in the world for many a year past. "This." said the visitor, as ho waved aiv expressive ami at the steadily dropping rain and the misty hills, "is Manchester. I believe it is summer here. How curious! Wo are not exactly proud of our Manchester weather—no, not just that. A musician came up from London to conduct a big performance at the Free Trado Hall. When he got back somefmo asked him what Manchester was like. 'Hail, sleet, fog, and cotton!' was his reply. And he was not so far out. Do vou know that it's our leather that makes Lancashire? Well, it is. We have that to thank for it. There is a humidity in the air which enables us to Boin finer and better than anywhere else in the world. Manchester is supreme, mid tho world comes hat in hand for our eoods. Oh. yes, they spin cotton in India, in Japan, in America, but India is Btill Manchester's biggest .customer; Japan buys largely from u» now, as 6he (lid before" the war, and America—well, I hr,ve ■ iusl coma from America. In New York I did wonderful business. Jokiucly, I asked one of my clients why thev couldn't mako such stuff. He, in reply, asked me to stop trying to pull his lesr. He knew, and I know, that thev can't spin cotton in America as thev can in Manchester; not because they hadn't the machinery or tho brains, but because thev nndn't the weather. There were places in tho world with a humid atmosphere to suit the trade perhaps for two or three months of the year, but that was no good, so long as Manchester had it twelve months of the year. It mav not be tho biggest or tho bonniest county of England, but Lancashire is certainly tho busiest. If you could ascend a hill in tho centre of Lancashire vou would take in on every side a sea of chimney-stacks like those of your destructor (at Clyde Quay), nowhere more than three hundred yards apart, and hanging over all a black pall of smoke. It is creat for the spinning, not for tho health. There is plenty of consumption in Manchester—plenty!

The Biagesi Customer. "India is our biggest customer. India is a'cotton-dressed country, teeming with millions of natives who wear nothing "but cotton. And it wa6 India who refused to buv ,at tho 1916 prices. To-day sho is compelled to buy at to-day's prices—nny r thine from 400 to 500 per cent, in advance of 1911 prices. Competition? Bless you, there's no ono to compete. Jannn! Manchester doesn't enre a straw for Japan! Japan cannot spin worth a straw. Ask your mother or your sister what they think of Japanese cotton pieco goods. They'll give you tho correct answer. Further than that, tho Jan. cotton manufacturers enn't, or won't, keep faith. A man will buy stuff on Bamnle.' but when he cornea to examine tho goods ho finds that they are not up to sample. Three or four 'picks'—the loneitudinnl threads—are short in every .inch of material, which naturally is that much wcakor. Merchants have had to buv this stuff during the war, but they wouldn't, dream of looking at it if Manchester' lines were available. And they are coins to be available. We are doing our best to look after our kith and kin over tho sea—yes, before, ■ always lief ore, Germany, or any other enemy country is considered.. No, it is not the Continental demand that is putting up tho price of cotton goods, law cotton from America sold for sd. per lb. before tho war, last week it wns 26d. On top of that wages havo gone up enormously in every direction concerning tho trade, and I'm afraid they'll never come down. The drop will come wheD raw cotton falls in price, but the prices of cotton goods will never be as,low as they were before the war, owing to tho wages question. Formerly a girl, looking after four looms—two in front of her and two behind—worked ..her ten hours a day for 28s. a week; now sho-.worked .less hourF per week, and S"t 15s. to 50s. a week. Whether sho is really any better off ii another question, as tho cost of living is 60 much higher."

The Lancashire Girls, "Wonderful girls—our Lancashire lassies! You should see them, by the thousands in their shawls and skirts, no stockings, find clogs. The men do t. spinning, hut the girls do most of tii weaving, all except the heavy-weight materials, which tne men tackle. Trim figure, skin as white as that tablecloth—a pasty white, but she's a worker. She has to watch four patterns beingworked out—four machines making four different lengths of material, she sits facing two looms, and takes a glanw at tho other two over her shoulder every now and then, and if something got* wrong—she can toll it by ear almost as" well as sight—she stops that loom with a clash, and adjusts Uio straggling threads. Tien when a new pattern : hcing woven, a .yard or two will be turned out, and then twu or three of U girls will bo called in to criticise ii and make suggestions. Ono might sa\ 'If you'd take out that heliotrope strip." and put in a grey it would be better.' Perhaps her suggestion is acted upon not, as the case may be, but the management rely somewhat on the tasto of these fine girls. In the. weaving rooms one cannot have a word for the clutU and clash of the looms, but the girls can speak to one another in a whispw and bo understood. Onq might be speaking about tho visitor at her elbow to her mate half a dozen yards away, but tho visitor would never be awaro of tho lip language that was assessing him."

England's One Money-Making Industry,

"The Manchester cotton industry was the only one to make money during the war, Most of tho other big industries wero turned over to munitions, hut tho cotton industry went on and brought millions into the country. Did you know, too. that Germany never raided Yorkshire or Lancashire? It wasn't London or Birmingham, or Sheffield, that Germany wanted—it was tho wonderful cotton trade of Lancashire, and tho woollen trado of Yorkshire, Manchester's supremacy in the cotton trado of the world was one of the things that hurt Germany. The workers in the cotton trade aro practically all Lancashire folk ■-tho sons of spinners become spinners, and the daughters weavors. Before the war letters wero frequently received by cotton manufacturing firms from Germany and Austria asking for positions for 'their boys and girls, hut such requests wero never granted, not owing to any suspicion harboured as to what tho intention at the back of such a movement might be, but simply because tho cotton trado was for their own folk. It was a matter of local loyalty. Of course tho war disclosed that such requests, if granted, might have meant a good deal to Germany." Mr. Connaughton goes south from Wellington, raid lately will wait on Australian clients for orders.