Note 53 — Chapter XV · ADVERSE PROSPERITY.
Reading edition
Mr. S. Smith, M.P., who is connected with cotton industry, has recently stated that “with all the toil and anxiety of those who had conducted it, the cotton industry of Lancashire, which gave maintenance to two or three millions of people, had not earned so much as 5 per cent. during the past ten years. The employers had a most anxious life; and many, after struggling for years, had become bankrupt, and some had died of a broken heart;” and he added that he believed “most of the leading trades to be in the same condition.”
The cheap production of Belgian fabrics is stated by the employers to be the cause of the depression in the cotton trade. (Times, Dec. 1883.)