The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-01-20
COTTON Is ALSO
 KING IN ENGL AND British Empire Can Prod uce Own Supply of Staple. LANCASHIRE MILLS STRONG Manufacturers Resolved to Balk De. signs of American Growers to
 Raise Price By cuItivating
 Staple on British Lands.
LANCASHIRE MILLS STRONG
From the London Daily Mail.

From the London Daily Mail
 Next To agriculture, cotton is the great. est industry of England. The mills oi Lancashire represent a capital of hun dred millions sterling, they produce nine. ty million pounds worth of goods every year and export seventy millions, while three millions of people are dependent di- reetly on the prosperity of the trade. On what sort of a basis does this prosperity rest? The whole cotton trade of the world as q Manchester man said the other day, depends absolutely on the success or fail rre of the American crop, which is being more and more absorbed by the American manufacturers.
 The worlds demand for cotton is in creasing year by year and in some for eign countries at a very rapid rate; but the American supply is not keeping pace with it. As the United States supply 80 per cent of the whole worlds crop, and as the price is so largely affected by the reports of the exports and of the goverh- ment bureau (which have a singular habit of being pessimlstic), the New York spec. ulator practically commands the situation.
  of the manipulation of prices consequent upon that situation has been abundantly evident in Lancashire, and it is estimated by those in the best position to judge that the workmen have lost e2OO0,OOO in wa s last year.
 Americans Industrious.
 While Ianeash.re-whieh owns half the spindies and third of all the looms in the worlds thus hit, the Americans are pushing on the manufacture of cotton in the southern states by the erection of mills near the cotton fields.
 Lancashire depends on the cheapness of American cotton for the bulk of it's great exports to India. When the price of raw cotton goes beyond S1ad per pound, It is difficult to sell the finished article a.e a price which the native of India can afford to pay. The speculators have left that price far behind, and as the available American export dminshes they will tighten their grip.
 The men of Lancashire have resolved to balk them in this design by growing the fibre they require in the colonies of Great Britain. They have met with encouraging success. they have sent out experts to the colonies to teach the natives the cultiva- tion of cotton, and they have proved be- yond doubt that large proportion of our requirements, if not indeed the whole, could be supplied from our own posses sions On the west coast of Africa are millions of acres of land suitable for the growth of cotton. The climate is favor able and labor can be had in abundance at sixpence per day.
 Demand Would Be Large.
 From nolshern Nigeria a sample has been sent to Liverpool with the intlma- ton that 1t was produced for penny per pound. The reply was that if it could be delivered in Lancashire at fvepence the demand would be large and constant. Experts have proved the possibility of growing cotton at q profit in Lagos and 10,0, acres are being cultivated On the Gold Coast. in Sierra Leone. in South Nj gera and in Uganda the same results have followed experiments. To Gambia and the Soudan the missionaries of com merce have gone. and in the Soudan they have found that q cotton superior to Egyptian can be grown over an immense area of the territory which has just been rescued from barbarism. The railway from the Nile to Sualxm will open up this country and provide cheap transport It has been promised them that the work will be pushed on with all convenient speed. Only the other week a sample of cotton grown in the Soudan was valued hy Liverpool experts as being worth from 9d to 91ad per pound.
 One of the most splendid fields is the West India islands. Barbados Is the home