engaged in this industry, the net output per individual is £82 a year. From this sum must be deducted rents, rates, taxes, depreciation, and so forth, before the profits, salaries, and wages are arrived at. Evidently this leaves a very modest fund of not much more than £50 a year per individual. Thirdly, it is stated in the Board of Trade return that the present average weekly wage of all cotton operatives in Lancashire is not more than about a pound a week, a figure which corresponds with the above. Of course, as this includes the receipts of both sexes of all ages, this must not be considered unduly low, and indeed the minimum for Lancashire people may be generally said to be a living wage.
The question, however, arises inevitably why the most splendid of businesses is so comparatively restricted in yield.
One real secret of Lancashire's relative economic weakness is that she sells a great proportion of her product to orientals who are extremely poor, and thus are unable to give much for their cotton goods. If we put up our prices, they cannot pay and do not buy. The other scarcely less cogent reason militating against Lancashire is that she has as yet practically no command over the raw material. In the last forty years this has fluctuated in price between threepence and tenpence a pound, thus inflicting serious evils on her trade. For instance, owing to a short crop in 1909, Lancashire had to
