THE COTTON INDUSTRY AND TRADE.
The Cotton Industry and Trade, by S. J. Chapman, Stanley Jevons Professor of Political Economy, and Dean of the Faculty of Commerce in the University of Manchester (2s. 6d. net), is a useful addition to Messrs. Methuen's "Books on Business." It passes in brief but informing review the beginnings and the growth of the great Lancashire industry up to its present majestic dimensions, and sketches its elaborate commercial organisation, discussing in an interesting, if not altogether conclusive, fashion the subject of the function of cotton speculators. Professor Chapman inclines to the view that while their operations have rendered price movements more frequent, "gradual movements have taken the place of violent oscillations." It seems, we must say, to us an omission, even in a handbook on this subject, not to include Borne account of the organisations of employers and employed, which for many years have worked so satisfactorily in regard to wages questions ; but the scale of "series" books is, probably, severely limited. The later chapters contain a dis- tinctly serviceable sketch of the growth and present position of the cotton trade in other countries of the world, as well as of British trade and the bearing of foreign tariffs thereupon. It is not surprising that the Special Committee of the Free-Trade League who have had before them the Report of the Tariff Commission on the Cotton Industry should have availed themselves of Professor Chapman's intimate knowledge and powers of clear and moderate exposition to secure from his pen a Reply to that remarkable document (Sherratt and Hughes, Manchester and London, is. net, Second Edition). Professor Chapman, who thus writes on behalf of a most influential array of persons interested in the Lancashire trade, goes into the whole subject with great elaboration. We cannot attempt to summarise his arguments in a brief notice, but may call our readers' attention to the exposure which he offers, for example, of the omissions of the Tariff Commission to take note of the change in the value of money, as affecting compari- sons of the state of the cotton industry at different periods ; and of their alarmist observations as to the growth of foreign, and particularly German, competition in such markets as Egypt and China, where the preponderance of British products is still absolutely overwhelming. But, most wisely, he does not rest on the contention that all is well, but fully recognises that where, as in the case of calico printing, foreign competition is much felt, even at home, the greater success of British producers is to be secured by following the example of their rivals in respect, not of Protection, but of taste and science. The Official Report of the Second International Cotton Congress (printed by Thiel and Tangye, 106 Princess Street, Manchester) affords a happy illustra- tion of those relations of friendly and intelligent co-operation for common ends which should subsist among the members of the same great trade in different countries.
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