Wages in the Cotton Trade The Lancashire cotton trade, though
desperately hard hit by European and Asiatic competition, seems fated never to reach agreement on any remedial measure. The millowners will not co-operate in marketing or in getting rid.of superfluous machinery. The weavers after years of negotiation still reject proposals that they should work more looms on the ground that the guaranteed wage offered is inadequate. And last week all the textile.unions of Lancashire refused even to confer with the associated employers on the question of a wage reduction. Everyone acquainted with Lancashire knows that tens of thousands of operatives are unemployed Mid many. more on short time, so that their reluctance to . face the..wag es question is comprehensible. Yet if the employers can show that a somewhat lower wage scale would enable more mills to work full time, it is unfortunate that the operatives should turn a deaf car.
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