Mr. Balfour attended the dinner given by the British Cotton-Growing
Association at Manchester on Monday evening, and made a suggestive speech, enlivened by an autobiographical reminiscence. His interest in the ques- tion, he explained, dated back to the year 1862, when he had just gone to Eton, and when, owing to the cotton famine, his mother's establishment was reduced, with the result that while his sisters cooked the dinner, he helped to black the boots. As for the general economic aspect of the question, he deprecated as equally unsound the views of the extreme advocates of laissez faire and of the new Socialists, regarding as the best course a prudent combination of the two principles of voluntary co-operative effort and State effort. The prosperity of the cotton trade was a matter not only of local but national, and even universal, importance, and the great problem was how to deal with the gambling which had already injured the industry so seriously. They could not stop it by legislation, but the British Cotton-Growing Association could cure that gambling which was due to the restriction of cotton-growing to one area liable to certain climatic conditions, of which speculators could take advantage.
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