to £100,000,000. Of this amount, some £72,000,000 worth is sent abroad, and constitutes the greatest manufactured export trade of any kind of any country in the world. It is obvious that if this trade is to be curtailed by a short supply of cotton, the results to us will be very serious, and that not only directly, but indirectly. Cotton manufactures play an im. portant part in balancing some of our trading accounts. We import a much greater value of goods from several of the great nations of the world than we export to them, and in some cases even when shipping charges, the balance of interest due to us, and reasonable profits are allowed for, there is still a balance due by us, which must be paid for in some other way than by direct trade. Let me give an illustration, which I take from an article on the cotton industry by a well-known authority, Mr. Elijah Helm, Secretary of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce:

"Take the case of France. She imports large quantities of raw silk and other products from China, Japan, India and Turkey. Yet the amount of merchandise exported from France to these countries in return is extremely small, and assuredly she does not send them gold. How, then, does France pay for these liberal imports from the regions I have mentioned? She pays for them indirectly, not by means of her own productions, but by sending her wine, her silk goods, her gloves, and her artistic manufactures to Great Britain, and Great Britain settles the account by exporting her manufactures, chiefly cotton goods, to the countries in question."

There is yet a further consideration in relation to our vast export trade in cotton manufactures. A sudden rise in price hinders trade in every country, but its effect is much greater in countries in a lower state of civilization. Much of our trade is done with Oriental or barbarous races who do not take kindly to increased demands on their slender means, whilst the export of cotton manufactures to such races on the part of our competitors is comparatively small. It is of the utmost importance, therefore, on account of the magnitude of the trade itself, on account of its great usefulness in helping to pay some of our bills by roundabout methods, and on account of our great export to uncivilized or semi-civilized races, that we should strain every nerve to increase supplies of the raw material, and so keep its price at a reasonable figure.

The question now arises as to how this is to be done. So far as our troubles arise from unbridled speculation, the best remedy that can be applied is to smother the speculators in

cotton. I have never seen any feasible plan for stopping speculation by legislation. Few speculators in raw material have died rich men, and paper bargains in cotton are as useful to the cotton-spinner as to the speculator. The remedy for the short supply of cotton is the same as that for the speculator. We want more cotton grown.

This brings us to the consideration of what are the prospects of larger supplies from existing cotton fields, but, if I am not wearying you with figures, I want, first of all to put before you some details of the growth and distribution of the American crop. You will remember that out of 16,000,000 bales, America produces 11,000,000, or approximately 70 per cent. There has been a great change in the distribution of this crop in recent years, as well as a great increase in the growth. The total distrlbution of the American crop for 1876-80 was 4,947,000 bales; for 1886-90, 6,878,000 bales; for 1896-1900, 9,664,000 bales; and for 1901-3, 10,762,000. The distribution was as follows:DISTRIBUTION IN PERIODS OF THOUSANDS OF

The above Table shows that England is using a much smaller proportion of the American crop than was the case years ago. This tendency has been very marked all through the last century. For instance, in 1827-31 we used 63 per cent. of the American crop; in 1852-6, 53 per cent.; in 1881-5, 43 per cent.; and in 1901-3, not quite 28 per cent. This decreased proportionate consumption of the American crop does not mean that we have used less cotton, but that other nations have used more. Exactly the same tendency is apparent in the consumption of the Northern mills of the United States, which used 1,840,000 in the three years 1888-90, and 2,256,000 in 1901-3, whereas the Southern mills used 490,000 bales in the earlier and 1,925,000 in the later period.

The tendency on the part of the United Kingdom to use a small proportion of the American crop is due not only to the increase of spindles in the Southern States of America and on the Continent of Europe, as well as in

Japan, Canada, and Mexico, but also to the fact that we now spin much finer yarns than we did some years ago, and use a good deal more Egyptian cotton. The American spindle spins about 90 lbs. of cotton per annum, the spindle of the European continent 70 lbs., and that of Great Britain 34 lb. Perhaps I may give at this point the number of spindles running in Great Britain, the Continent, United States of America, India, and other countries in 1895, 1899, and 1903 :

There are three observations to be made on this Table. First, the spindles of "other" countries were not all started between 1899 and 1903, but I have not accurate details of the earlier period. In the second place, the growth of spindles in India has been materially checked during recent years; and in the third place the growth of spindles in Great Britain has shown a greater increase in the last period than those on the Continent. It should be added that the increase in the United States of America is mostly in the Southern mills.

The danger of our dependence on American sources of supply is twofold. In the first place, if the increase in the Southern mills is to continue, a point which is somewhat in doubt, and about which I cannot speak with certainty, the demand for the market of the United Kingdom must become a more and more negligible factor. In the second place, unless the supply of American cotton is greatly augmented, we shall continue to be more or less in the hands of speculators.

I come now to the possibility of increased supply from existing sources. In reference to the United States of America, I am quite unable to forecast what may be done in the future, either in the direction of the increase of the total production, or of the proportion of that production which will be available for our use. There are two considerations to be borne in mind as regards the increase of production, firstly whether the acreage of the crops is likely to be greatly augmented, and, secondly, whether the growth per acre will show any material change. My

opinion on the question of acreage must be taken for what it is worth, for reports are very contradictory. Judging by the past, I am inclined to believe that the acreage will be increased. In the three years 1877 9 the acreage as given by the Washington Department of Agriculture averaged about 12,500,000 acres; for the three years 1889-91 20,600,000 acres; and for the last three years about 27,600,000. The average price in this country from 1877-9 was 61d. ; for 1889-91 5% d.; and for the last three years 58d. It must, however, be remembered that between 1891 and 1901 prices had been very low and afforded no stimulus to increased production. A careful study of the effect of prices on acreage during the past 25 years shows that when prices first dropped below 4d. there was a considerable decrease in acreage, which was more than recovered three or four years later, and when in 1900 prices rose materially, the tendency to increase again asserted itself in a marked manner. I cannot, therefore, help expecting that the recent range of high prices will probably have a stimulating effect. It has been shown that a price of 4d. in this market is a paying price to the American producer. A fortiori, 5d. or 6d., must pay him much better, whilst 7d. will yield a huge profit. Indeed, it seems to me one of the dangers of the situation that the present value of cotton may so stimulate production in America, that by the time we have got our new sources of supply to work, they will be prejudiced by a fall in prices. Such a fear ought not to deter us from doing all that we can to stimulate the growth of cotton elsewhere; for it is dangerous for us to be so dependent on the United States of America. Also there are many competent observers who think that the supply of labour in the South will prevent any large increase of the crop.

It is unnecessary to allude at length to the question of the yield per acre. There is a general impression that the yield in America is decreasing, but having looked somewhat closely at the figures, I cannot, at present, find any justification for it.

Our next chief source of supply is Egypt. This cotton is longer, finer, and more silky than the American variety; it is more suitable for our finer manufactures, and lends itself to the newly discovered mercerising process

which makes it look almost like silk. We are the largest consumers of Egyptian cotton, and obtain one-sixth of our total supply from that country. The Assouan Dam will, no doubt,

cotton.

do something to increase the acreage under I understand, however, that Lord Cromer estimates that it will only increase the total cultivable area by 15 per cent., half of which is suitable for growing cotton. It will be seen, therefore, that no great addition can be made to the amount of cotton grown in Egypt. We obtain a certain amount of cotton from Brazil and Peru. The quality is somewhat harsh, and although for many purposes these varieties can be used instead of American, our consumption of them has very materially decreased since 1870. The question of the possibility of an increased crop in those countries concerns other users more than ourselves. If more cotton is produced there, so much the better; but our spinners evidently prefer American cotton, and will only use Brazilian when they must.

There has also been a great decrease in the amount of East Indian cotton we consume. The length of the staple is very short, and it is quite unsuitable to the manufacture of any of our finer goods. One of the venerable chestnuts of the Lancashire Cotton Famine is the story of a man, who at a prayer meeting where someone was fervently praying, "Oh Lord, give us more cotton," ejaculated "Yes Lord, but please not Surat!"

Lancashire has certainly acted in accordance with that view, for whilst from 1870 to 1875, we imported over 1,000,000 bales of cotton every year from India, we have only imported about 100,000 per annum during the last six years. I shall deal with the possibility of further supplies from India when I reach the question of the work of the British CottonGrowing Association.

This list exhausts our principal sources of supply, but we get small quantities of cotton from Chili, Venezuela, Columbia, the British West India Islands and British Guiana, European and Asiatic Turkey and a ton or two even from Australia and New Zealand. From none of these countries, however, has the supply of cotton suitable for our purposes been increasing of late years. Indeed, a cursory glance at the statistics of imports shows (1) that we were less dependent, just before the American Civil War, on supplies from the United States than we are to-day; (2) that we were then using large quantities of Indian cotton, which we can do no longer, because the competition of India, Japan, and China has taken from us the coarser trade; and (3) that the only great increase of supply has come from Egypt.

These facts have long been obvious; but I do not think traders would have awakened to the seriousness of the situation were it not that we were on the verge of a cotton famine in 1900, actually experienced one in 1903, and are face to face with the danger of another in the present year.

Having dealt with the present situation, the needs of the future, the probable insufficiency of present sources of supply to meet these needs and the danger of being so dependent as we are on the United States, I come now to the efforts that are being made to extricate the cotton trade from the dilemma in which it finds itself placed. This is not a small problem, it is a large one.

There are, at present, probably 45,000,000 to 50,000,000 acres growing cotton, or say, 75,000 square miles, or nearly two-thirds of the area of the United Kingdom. In ten years time, we want to have a further area, half as large again, planted with cotton. Let me put it in another way. Take a length of railway, about 30 miles. To keep one good modern mill running on ordinary medium counts would require a plantation extending for half a mile on each side of the line for the whole of that distance. In addition to the present area, the world will want at least another thousand such plantations within the next ten years. The value of the cotton produced on this extra acreage, at an average of 5d. per lb., would be £70,000,000, or, at present prices, over £100,000,000. What a stimulus to the trade of the Empire if we can grow even half of it in our own possessions!

We have in the British Empire almost endless territory suitable for the growth of cotton. It would be a clear Imperial gain that we should grow it there, for whilst the extra cotton would supply our mills and discourage speculators, the people who grow it would become excellent customers for our

manufactures.

The British Cotton-Growing Association has been formed to try to achieve this desirable end. Its inception was due to the Oldham Chamber of Commerce and to Sir Alfred Jones. At the annual dinner of the Chamber in January, 1901, a discussion took place on the important question of increasing the world's supply of cotton. Subsequently a committee was appointed to make inquiries, other Lancashire Chambers of Commerce were approached, and a meeting was held on February 18th, 1902, at the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, of those interested in the question. Sir Alfred

Jones had meanwhile been dealing with the question with his usual energy. In May, 1901, he sent out ten tons of seed to our West African Colonies; he impressed on the governors of those colonies the importance of increasing the growth of cotton there, and, with a generosity no less real because it may eventually prove to have been far-sighted, he offered special facilities for the shipping of the first thousand bales of cotton that may be sent to this country.

The African section of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce was invited early in 1902 to appoint representatives on the Oldham Committee, and these representatives soon saw the necessity of co-operation between the Oldham movement and Sir Alfred Jones. On May 7th, 1902. a meeting of all those interested was held at the Albion Hotel, Manchester, and at that meeting the British Cotton Growing Association formed.

was

On June 12th, the Association was publicly inaugurated, and it was decided to raise a guarantee fund of £50,000 for the purpose of making the necessary preliminary inquiries and of undertaking experiments and providing machinery wherever it seemed advisable. The merit of the work in its earlier stages is principally due to Sir Alfred Jones and to Mr. J. E. Newton, of Oldham, whose health, unfortunately, has broken down under the strain of the work which he undertook as chairman of the committee of the Association.

Before proceeding to describe the work done and information obtained by this Association, I may mention that the original scope and intention has had to be greatly enlarged. Instead of a guarantee fund of £50,000, it is now intended to raise half-a-million; instead of isolated experiments, expert advice and presents of solitary gins, one or two considerable plantations and large advances to cultivators are under consideration. Great encouragement has been received from Government officials of all kinds. The drawbacks have been, firstly, the lack of response on the part of the bulk of the cotton trade, but I hope this will now be altered; and secondly, the fact that the Association has been so overwhelmed with correspondence and appeals from all tropical and sub-tropical parts of the Empire, that it has been difficult to concentrate its attention, or even decide wisely on what seems best worth doing.

I will now take the different parts of the Empire in which cotton can be grown, and

state very briefly what has been done and what it is hoped to do.

India was the original home of the cotton trade. Even the word "calico" comes from India, and the finest muslins have been made there from time immemorial. So far, little has been done by the British Cotton-Growing Association for India beyond holding many interviews with officials and conducting a large correspondence. The Indian sub-committee of the Association believes that much may be done there. On February 27th, Mr. Brodrick, the Secretary of State, kindly granted an interview to a deputation. He made the interesting suggestion that the British Cotton-Growing Association should start a plantation in Burma and try to produce a better quality of cotton there. Several earnest attempts have been made in the past in this direction in other parts of India.

All the various kinds of cotton grown in India at present are, however, too short for general use here. In the old days we used them largely for coarse counts and coarse cloths, which were sent to the East; but India can now make these more cheaply for herself.

Three things stand in the way of any great growth of cotton in India suitable for our purposes. The first is that exotic seed has never yet been successfully cultivated there for any long period. It seems as if in regard to cotton, the soil forces the product of the seed into some primeval type of its own choosing rather than gives it fair play to reproduce its own prototype. The two other difficulties are removable. One is that sufficient care is not exercised in the selection of seed, and this is vital for growing good cotton. The other is the primitive methods of cultivation used by the Indian ryot. How long it will take to remove them, I leave to those who know India better than I do to judge. I can only say that many practical men still hold the strongest opinion that India might and ought to produce cotton of a better quality and far more per acre than she does. Let us hope their opinion may be justified in the future.

I take next the West Indies. In 1786 to 1790, we received from the British West Indies, British Guiana and British Honduras, 45,000 bales a year out of a total consumption of 63,000 bales, whereas of late years we have not imported more than 1,000 bales of the same size. In these Islands can be grown the very finest kind of cotton which is used, commonly known as the Sea Island variety. I am glad to say the movement for an increased

growth of cotton has been taken up with great enthusiasm, many thousand acres are planted, and next year the acreage will be still greater. Sir D. Morris, the Imperial Director of Agriculture, is taking the deepest interest in the question, as is also Sir Gerald Strickland, the Governor of the Leeward Islands. The impoverished condition of landowners has made many of them unable to undertake the growing of cotton without financial assistance, but by the aid of the Colonial Office it has been arranged that grants shall be made to respectable planters, under the joint guarantee of the local authorities and the British CottonGrowing Association.

Correspondence is being carried on with Australasia, Ceylon, Burma, Borneo, and Fiji, and some experiments are being made in Ceylon. In reference to Australia, where there are great areas of land suitable for growing cotton, the difficulty lies in the great cost of the production of cotton by means of white labour.

I turn now to our possessions in the vast continent of Africa, by far the most hopeful field of all. I have already dealt with Egypt, but have not mentioned the Egyptian Soudan, the ownership of which we share with Egypt. Dr. Hagberg Wright wrote to the Times on January 5th, enclosing a letter from a friend of his in which this extract occurs :

"The inverted alluvial delta of the Egyptian Soudan, which is situated between the White and the Blue Niles, is even more favourable to the growth of cotton than the lower parts of the Nile Valley, and affords ten times the area for the plantation of cotton of that available in Egypt proper."

I find, curiously enough, this statement was made thirty years ago in a book by Mr. Isaac Watts, the Secretary of the Cotton Growing Association of that day.

Experiments have already been made at the Shendi Experimental Farm, of which an interesting account is given by Mr. J. Nevile in "White Book, Egypt" (No. I., 1903). It seems quite certain that when the SuakimBerber Railway is open, cotton can be grown and sent to Europe at very reasonable rates. The Association has constantly pressed upon Lord Cromer, through the Government, the necessity for building this railway with as little delay as possible, and he has promised that this shall be done. The principal difficulty one foresees is the question of labour; but in these days of wholesale immigration from other countries, is it too much to hope that it may

be possible to attract some of our Indian fellowsubjects to settle there?

A new field of cotton has also been opened in the neighbourhood of Tokar, on the Red Sea. From 20,000 to 30,000 acres are already under cultivation, and it is said that this area will be greatly increased in the future. It is also stated, that if the Khor Baraka were dammed, some 2,000,000 acres of land would be cultivable between Tokar and Kassala. On the whole, the Egyptian Soudan is one of the most hopeful fields for the growth of cotton for the United Kingdom, because it is capable of producing, apparently at a reasonable price, cotton which is long in staple and fine and silky in quality.

Going further south in Africa, we come to Uganda and British East Africa. The Foreign Office has sent an expert there, and Sir Charles Eliot reports that there is plenty of good cotton land, and a supply of cheap labour. It has also been shown that cotton can be grown there from Egyptian seed quite as good as that grown in Egypt proper, but the cost of growing on a commercial scale has not yet been proved.

Again, going south, British Central Africa is the next available field. Here there is a wild cotton plant (Gossypium anomalum), and a plant introduced by the Arabs (Gossypium herbaceum), which has been cultivated intermittently for centuries, but the best cotton in this district is grown from recently imported Egyptian seed. It is nearly fifty years since Livingstone was despatched to the Zambesi and Lake Nyasa, to open up the country to cotton growing, for a cotton famine was threatened in the fifties

and, as the world knows, actually took place in the sixties. The chief obstacles to Livingstone's schemes lay in transport difficulties. During only six weeks in the year is the Zambesi-Shiré navigable to the verge of the Shiré Highlands. The railway which is being built from a point on the navigable Shiré through British Central Africa to Lake Nyasa is meant to meet the difficulty.

The present situation is this. Cotton is being grown successfully, and can now be put on the Liverpool market at 43d. to 5d. a pound. On the table are samples of two kinds of cotton grown from Egyptian seed, which have been sold recently in Liverpool at 7ğd. and 81d. per lb. respectively. These samples were sent to the Society of Arts by the African Lakes Corporation, Limited, who imported the cotton, Labour, however, is not too plentiful,