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3.
Cotton Industry to be recrganised.
Before the end of the year a great and new experiment will begin
in the British cotton industry. For many years the industry has
been in a depressed condition and various schemes have been tried in
order to recover its lost markets. Now Parliament has passed a Bill
for the reorganisation of the industry.
To some extent the individual firm will sulfer, in the interests
of the industry as a whole, a curtailment of its liberty of action.
Different sections can prepare and, by a majority vote, adopt schemes
for purchasing and selling redundant plant, thus regulating output, and
fixing selling prices. But no individual firm, and no section of the
industry, can act independently of the rest, for all schemes must
first receive the approval of the Cotton Industry Board, and then be
submitted to the Board of rade.
Even in its days of decline the cotton trace remained of enormous
importance as one of the greatest exporting industries, and one of the
auties of the Cotton Industry Board will be the cevelopment of the
overseas markets of the industry. The reorganisation schemes will
enable it to survive and grow in a world where foreign trade in staple
goods tends to be done in vast bulk and under centralised and assisted
organisation schemes.
It is understood that the first steps to be taken will be in the
cirection of retrenchment, in order to bring the productive capacity of
the industry into proportion with the whole trade which Lancashire
can expect to do. Minimum prices will be fixed, and undercutting of
prices will thus be abolished, With the help of the Government
department concerned it is hoped that the industry will enjoy a new
lease of life.