Colonel THORNEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the offer of purchase made to the Pine Mill Company, Oldham, a spinning company, whose capital was £20,000 in shares of £20 each, to which £15 bonus was added during the past year; that the offer of the purchasers was £135,000, or nearly seven times the original capital; and whether this firm was one of the mills which recently closed down on account of the alleged bad condition of the cotton industry and threw (.heir disbanded operatives on the Government unemployment fund?
§ Mr. BRIDGEMANI have no know ledge of the offer of purchase referred to in this question. As the mill is in the section spinning American cotton it was presumably among those which recently closed down for a fortnight?