66 BRITONS V. GERMANS IN CHINA
ments of the natives on the spot, but the eminent gentlemen who write such reports entirely overlook the fact that Manchester and Bradford probably send out more tra- vellers to China than all the rest of the world sends, and these men have every op- portunity for obtaining ideas and informa- tion on the spot. The Bradford Dyers As- sociation and the Calico Printers Associa- tion each have their own office in Shanghai, and an efficient organisation for providing the Chinese with special styles and finishes, as their fashions change or tastes develop. It will be seen that we have little to be ashamed of, and all that has really transpired is that a few British mer- chants in China have lost a percentage of their trade in Cottons and Woollens, but, on the other hand, home-producers have actually benefited to the extent of having found people to do their work for next to
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nothing. It only remains to impress upon Manchester and Bradford merchants that such service cannot be expected to be of a last- ing and satisfactory nature, and the liquida- tions have shown that many of the enemy firms were getting deeper and deeper into a state. of such chronic overtrading that very little would have been needed to upset the whole fabric and bring about a crash which would have seriously injured British mercantile and banking interests.
There is another subject to mention in this section. It is not clear why the Germans were given the agencies and hand- ling of the whole of the British-made Cotton Thread business interests in China. The writer and his friends have been unable to
discover
any valid reason, and if the share- holders at home knew the full facts of the case there would no doubt be some in. teresting questions asked at meetings.