ABSTRACT
The voice of the cotton trade has already been heard in opposition to the change, speaking through a representative body of employers and workpeople, as well as through the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, on behalf not only of the cotton manufacturing interest, but also on that of the merchants of the city. From this part of the country, therefore, the "reformers" can look for little support, unless they can produce facts and arguments powerful enough to convince the people of the cotton manufacturing districts. In spite of hostile tariffs, the greater proportion of its exported productions goes to foreign countries, and it is now proposed to adopt a course which would gravely imperil it, to say the least. The proposal, then, is that we should penalise nations which are already not far from a Free Trade basis already in order to favour the food products of certain sections of our own Empire whose Customs systems are vastly less liberal.
