Tue effect of the foreign production of cotton yarn on Lancashire industries naturally attracts great attention in all commercial communities. That county is the very heart of cotton spinning and weaving, and anything which lessens her position to a great extent affects every cotton market in the world. It was of course not to be expected that Lancashire would maintain what was at one time a practical monopoly of supplying many countries with cotton cloth and yarn. The first considerable attack on the position of English manufactures in the East was made in Bombay and Calcutta, and the spinning and weaving industries in both presidencies have reached a condition of prosperity after many disappointments. It was fora long time roblemiatical whether cotton mills would succeed in India, notwithstanding the favourable conditions of cheap raw material and cheap labour. But the increase of capital in Bombay, the teachings of experience, and the alteration that has taken place in exchange have, with other circumstances, told in favour of Indian cotton companies. Not that all Bombay and Calcutta concerns of this kind are prosperous. A glance down the share lists in the Indian papers shows that the shares of quite as many companies are at a discount as at a premium. One reason for some mills prospering and others not doing is pointed out in one of the many letters on the cotton industry which have lately appeared in Home uews-papers. The writer says: Low exchange is not altogether favourable to the extension of cotton spiming in India, for the cost of machinery is thereby greatly enhanced. Instead of 1,00,000 rupees at 2/ or 1,066,666 at 1/104¢. the Indian spinner must pay 1,41,076 at 1/5 exchange for £10,000 worth of machinery. In this view the advantage would appear to lie chiefly with concerns which were established in India when ruled higher than it does This difference in the cost of chinery no doubt tells to some extent ur of the concerns which were hed before the material decline in exchange twelve to fifteen years ago; but it must be more or less counterbalanced by the superiority of the newer machinery, and every year that passes brings the different companies more on a par with each other, as renewals of worn out machinery are made. The expansion of the trade in Indian hi China and the favourable working of Bombay mills from this cause are having their natural effect. More nulls are being built in Bombay, some on private account and others for joint stock companies, while the piece goods merchants will, it is understood, erect another. In Calcutta' the spinning industry has been materially helped this year by some of the mills obtaining contracts for yarns for China, The effect of the production of yarn in India on the Lancashire trade is shown to be greater by almost every monthly return of the Board of Trade. For the first seven months of this year the export of yarn to China was in round figures 4 millions of Ibs. against 8 mil lion last year and 12 millions in 188: Phe latest export from England was millions in seven months in 1887 against 150 millions in 1886 and 145 in the ious year, to all markets. Japan had same time a larger amount than in the two previous years; and for the first six months of this
her from Bombay against 6,900 in 1886.
15,600 bales had been exported to In these six months the export of Bom= bay yarn to China had only increased about 1,000 bales,—it was 100,000 bales of 400 Ibs. each.
As regards the yarn trade in Japan we have the evidence of Mr. Vice-Consul Longford who says in his Report for 1886: "The imports of Bow-bay yarns in 1886 showed a lange increase when compared with past years, while that of British showed an equally large decline. In producing the trans-for of the trade from Great Britain to Bombay, no doubt the advantage of purchasing from a silver as against a gold sing country exercised considerable influence, but the change is, in no less a degree, to be ascribed to the better class of yarns which Bombay now exports, as compared with that of previous years. Formerly Bombay yarn could only be used in' Japan for the weft, either English or native yarn being invariably employed for the warp. Now it is of such quality that cloth of the commoner "rade is largely woven entirely from it. Very considerable additions are now being made both to number and size of cotton-spinning factories in Japan, and with competition from Bombay, supplemented by one
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.