The Governor-General in India has announced that the 'time has:
come for the immediate abolition of the cotton excise duty. It will be remembered that this was 'imposed in 1894 to countervail the import duty at the demand of Lancashire, and has always seemed to the Indians an unjustified' imposition.. The demand for its abolition became more and more difficult to resist, but financial conditions have until now made it necessary to keep up the revenue drawn from it. That need is now thought to be past, and the renewed demand of the Legislative Assembly can be fulfilled. There will no doubt be an outcry. from Lancashire which may suffer, but we believe that lately the competition with Indian textiles has been more severe from Japanese goods than from this country's products whose better quality will still -find a market for them. •
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