The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED every morning. GISBORNE, DECEMBER 14, 1903. LANCASHIRE'S RUIN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XII, Issue 1072, 14 December 1903, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED every morning. GISBORNE, DECEMBER 14, 1903. LANCASHIRE'S RUIN.

The brief cablegrams in regard to the cotton trade do not explain fully the seriousness of tlie position as iar as Lancashire is concerned. There are conflicting reports as to the yield, and the ordinary reader is apt to get confused as to lvow matters really do stand. A recent writer explains that the cotton-spinning districts of, England, with Lancashire at their head, are passing through a crisis even more acute than that whicli is affecting New England, and especially the great fact,ones of Fall River, with their three-quarters of a million of spindles and their armies of mill-hands. But while Fall River is grimly holding on (states the writer), and doing its best to face conditions worse almost than those of the civil war times, Lancashire secs a certain danget ahead, which she lias dreaded for years, and which has again and again colored the fiscal policy of English ministries. Fall River, New Bedford, Lowell, and the other great mill cities of New England, are justified in believing that the arrival of the new cotton crop .will see the collapse of the corner, and the termination of their woes, even though they are at a loss to account for the great falling off in the demand for their products ; but Lancashire and Oid England are being harder hit, and look' into the future with misgivings as grave as they arc wellfounded,, The danger is the rivalry of cctton-mills in India, and especially of the great capita), interests concentrated in the hands of a group of Farsi millionaires, with the) family of Sir Dinshaw Manockji Petit at their head. It must be remembered that England actually exports to India manufactured cottons to the value of about £25,000,000, about two-thirds of the entire exports of the United Kingdom to its greatest dependency. Against this tremendous import of cotton, Indian manufacturers have vainly struggled, although they have at present nearly two hundred cotton*mills in India, employing about a thousand hands each on the average, and totalling live million .spindles. It is to ho remembered, however, that the cotton weavers represent the entire population, numbering three hundred millions. On this vast demand the prosperity of Lancashire has been built up, and the policy of successive British ministries, in preventing India from defending herself by a protect- ■ ive tariff, has enriched England while beeping- India poor* But, certain causes may have the same effect as a protective tariff; for instance, the American civil war, by cutting off Manchester’s supply of raw cotton 'from the plantations of the South, gave a tremendous impetus to the cotton mills of Bombay, and the present high and practically prohibitive price of American cotton is- having the same effect. For India has unlimited resources of her own, having ten million acres in cotton already, and ten million more ready, for cotton, the moment the slackening of Lancashire’s output makes it

possible for the Bombay mills to pay. And this loss to Lancashire, representing £25,000,000 of an ex*port trade yearly, is likely to be permanent and irretrievable. That at least is the opinion by an independent writer claiming to base his views on expert knowledge.