A Conference of the cotton trade was held in Manchester
on Tuesday, to consider the question of the duty of 5 per cent. which the Indian Government has placed upon cotton fabrics. of a lower " count " than twenty, and the operation of the " countervailing " excise. The speakers, all of them men of business, were most determined, not to say fierce, in tone. They rejected the excise duty as a measure which in its working would prove a mere sham, and insisted that the 5 per cent. duty would seriously injure the principal industry of Lancashire. They therefore re- quired all Lancashire representatives to condemn the action of the India Office, and actually resolved in so many words that "if no other remedy" for Indian financial straits "can be devised, India should be subsidised by the Imperial Government, rather than this important trade should be seriously injured and crippled by the imposition of import duties." This resolution was carried with only two dis- sentients,—a strange proof of the excitement felt on the subject. Parliament is about as likely to vote a million and a half as a bounty in aid of Lancashire manufacture as to restore Protection for wheat. We have said enough on the subject elsewhere ; but must repeat here our earnest hope that the Unionists will not be seduced by the chance of defeating the Government into an unjust vote.
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