A Century . of Manchester It is difficult to realise that
the size, prosperity and influence to which the City of Manchester has attained today have been virtually built up in a single century. Yet this week Manchester has been celebrating the centenary of the grant of the city charter. Manchester is admired for many things— for the characteristic qualities of her citizens, for her music, for her cricket, for the fine traditions and culture which she has evolved—but the high reputation and esteem in which she is held throughout the world may be said to be based primarily on three notable achievements. First, the Manchester Ship Canal, which enables Manchester still to rank as one of the largest ports in the country—the tonnage cleared last year was well over 6 million ; secondly, her position as centre of the cotton industry which, though sorely depressed today, still entitles her to the position of the world's most important cotton-manufacturing city ; and last, but by no means least, her great daily newspaper, the Manchester Guardian, whose reputation is literally inter- national.
Previous page
