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ance of the goods must not be permitted to deteriorate, relatively to price; the supply of it must not outrun the requirement, else, though the volume of the trade may thereby swell, it will cease to be profitable; the original producers of the article and creators of the trade must be able to hold their connection against the attacks of imitators and competitors; and the markets to which they had access must be kept as open and unrestricted as they were when the trade was developed. Let us see which of these conditions of the permanence of a trade have held or have failed in the foreign trade in cotton goods manufactured in Lancashire, and how, where they have failed, they have come to be lost or surrendered. First, we enumerate those which have not changed. (1) The world’s aggregate consumption of cotton fabrics has not diminished, but has increased regularly up to date. No other description of textile products has displaced them for clothing or other purposes. (2) The price at which they are retailed to consumers is not dearer, but cheaper than it was ever known to be before; this is owing partly to abundant crops of cotton causing the staple to fall in price, and partly to further economies in the cost of manufacture. (3) The quality of the goods supplied, relatively to price, has not deteriorated, although the demand of dealers for the cheapest makes has led to extensive adulteration of goods produced to answer the demand for the cheap and flimsy. So far there is no apparent reason why the trade in Lancashire cottons should tend to be contracted. But as to the next condition (4), the supply of cotton piece-goods in the great markets, especially in those of India, has recently, at times if not continuously, exceeded the necessities of consumers, and the effect has been to unduly cheapen the commodity and to destroy the producer’s profit, after the merchants and agents have taken their commission, and the charges of carriage to market have been deducted from the selling price. Again (5), the Lancashire traders, who founded the cotton trade and long held the field, have latterly been unable to stand their ground at all points against foreign imitators and rivals. And (6) the markets of the world outside the United Kingdom have not, with few exceptions, been kept free and open to British trade in these fabrics. So, if it be true that the cotton trade of Lancashire, which in its earlier history had free course round the world, and was amazingly profitable, has, after a period of slower increase, followed by one of arrested growth, begun to shrink, the causes of the unfortunate change may be summed up as loss of profit on the trade in a class of goods cheapened down by excess of supply of markets still open; and, more damaging, the insidious encroachments of foreign competitors, either protected in the markets they rely upon by duties on imported British goods raised to the point of absolute prohibition, or greatly favoured upon their own ground by the employment of native labour infinitely cheaper than that of British factory operatives, and additionally premiated by laws regulating labour in cotton-mills much less exacting and stringent than the Factory Acts in force in this country.

The bravest soldiers who ever marched to the field of battle may be forced to retreat, wounded and stricken, though still undismayed, if the odds against which they are ordered to fight are too great. Even so, our British traders, contending with antagonists protected