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mills are, and are kept agoing. The multiplication of the Oldham spinning companies and mills must not be taken to signify that the production of cotton yarns in Lancashire as a whole has been of late a good or growing business. Oldham has spread at the expense of Blackburn, of Preston, of Stockport, and other places. It has done so simply because nowadays no individual capitalist in those other districts was prepared to sink £60,000 or £80,000 in the erection and equipment of a new spinning-mill, well knowing that the working of one, one year with another, with the risk of losing his principal through trade losses in bad times, would not yield him as good interest as he could get by lending his thousands on first-class security. The spinning trade, in the bulk, stands worse than it did ten years ago. Yet the spinning branch of the cotton trade in Lancashire has this advantage over the weaving branch, that besides the cotton yarns consumed in this country, there is a large export trade in yarns, which thus far is fairly maintained, but is, we are assured, as unprofitable as the spinning of yarns for home manufacture. Foreign manufacturers, who have not yet ventured to spin their own yarns, procure them from England, and from them produce cotton tissues which displace, in many important markets, those woven here. Thus it might happen that the spinning of these yarns for foreign consumption went on after the spinning trade for home consumption had been spoiled by the reduction of the manufacture of cotton piece-goods, shut out of foreign countries by hostile tariffs, or expelled by the premiated goods of competitors on the spot. Manchester, once the chief seat of cotton-spinning, has long ceased to lead in that branch; and save Oldham, and perhaps Bolton (which about holds its own), all other towns and villages in the county, and across the southern boundary in Cheshire, have suffered loss of trade and employment by the decrease of cotton-spinning. The cotton-spinning companies publish periodical reports of the results of their business, and these disclose that, for some years past, the net profits of spinning cotton yarns have averaged under 3 per cent. Last half-year profits touched the vanishing-point for half the spinning companies, and many of them scored heavy losses.

It is, however, more especially to the dishearteningly unsatisfactory condition of the weaving branch of the Lancashire cotton trade that we would point as a portent of the tendency of this once commanding manufacture to decay. Let us establish the fact before turning to investigate the causes. The town of Blackburn has been considered the centre of the weaving industry, as Oldham is of the spinning. Around Blackburn lie the towns, of from 50,000 down to 5000 inhabitants, in which the larger proportion of the power-looms producing cotton cloth are at work. The district extends across the middle of Lancashire, from Clitheroe, Colne, and Bacup on the east, to Preston, Walton, Leyland, and Chorley on the west. Its population is, roundly, 630,000, wholly engaged in, or dependent upon, the cotton manufacture and connected trades. The cotton-spinning branch is limited in extent throughout this section of the county, and, unfortunately, it has been constantly losing ground during a quarter of a century. It is a great cotton-weaving district, and that is all that can be claimed for it. The land is so rough and mountainous, and the climate so humid, that