§ Mr. FIELDENI beg leave to present a Petition to the House from Mr. Astley Bell, Mr. William Birtwistle, Mr. Herbert Johnson Mothersill and 3,620 other members of the Manchester Royal Exchange. The signatories, representing every branch of the cotton industry—our largest export trade—strongly petition the Government to prevent the exploitation of the markets of the Empire by foreign nations, who not only exclude our goods by high tariffs from their overseas possessions, but capture our markets by manufacturing goods on a basis of wages, hours, and a low standard of living, which make it impossible for producers in this country, even when equipped with the most up-to-date machinery and the most economical methods of management, to compete. The revival of our export trade is the only practical and permanent remedy for the serious state of unemployment which must rapidly increase if the unequal treatise and conventions which deter us from taking adequate measures for our protection are not speedily revised. Unless prompt and effectual measures are taken, Lancashire will be left with a diminishing population upon whose shoulders will fall the serious burden of keeping in being semi-derelict towns and villages whose public utilities, such as housing, water, gas, electricity, sanitation, and the like, equipped for a fully employed area, will have become redundant and an increased charge upon a lessened body of ratepayers.
1468 Wherefore the petitioners pray that prompt action be taken to remedy the evils referred to in the Petition.