27 JANUARY 1923, Page 24

Mr. Crabtree goes as fully into the growth of cotton

and the processes of spinning and weaving as a manual of little more than a hundred pages would allow. His book will interest all who study economies ; the cotton trade epitomizes the growth of industrialism and the economic changes of the past century. It was only in 1774 that the obsolete laiNT against the wearing of English printed cotton fabrics was repealed : since then the cotton mills of Lancashire have become one of the chief influences on our fiscal policy and our foreign relations.