Orders of the Day — Cotton Board (Amendment Order)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 15 November 1951.

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Photo of Mr Hartley Shawcross Mr Hartley Shawcross , St Helens 12:00, 15 November 1951

I suggest that that is certainly one of the matters which fall within the scope of both the Empire Cotton Growing Association and the Cotton Board. I do not take the view that we ought to rely, as my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. D. Brook) said a distinguished member of the cotton trade had suggested, entirely on American cotton in future. We ought to encourage every possible research and investigation to increase the existing colonial production of cotton and other primary products. I am not convinced that that has been fully done yet, and I hope that we shall engage in that policy in a spirit of enthusiasm and even adventure. I would like to think that the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Beresford Craddock) opposite would help to redeem the failure of his party in the past to achieve the proper, development of our colonial resources.

The Cotton Board is, I think, the earliest example of what we now call development councils. I do not think they were actually called that in the earlier days. There is no doubt in the minds of hon. Members on either side of the House that the Cotton Board has contributed very greatly to promote efficiency and the smooth running of the cotton industry. This is a time when there is the greatest need to promote in all industries a really go-ahead spirit. In spite of the change in the Government there remains stimulating possibilities, or possibilities which could be stimulating, of so organising our industrial affairs that, whether it be in the publicly controlled section of industry or in the private sectors, the workers will feel that they have a real share and interest in the running of their industry, and a stake in its efficiency and success.

The Development Council machinery of the Cotton Board is one method towards promoting that. I wish very much that other industries, especially those which are engaged in the production of consumer goods, would profit from the example of the Cotton Board; would rid themselves of the suspicion that these Development Councils involve unnecessary and unwarranted interference and would look upon them rather as the cotton industry does, as a most useful method of promoting the interests of the industry as a whole, including the workers as well as the shareholders.

The Development Council in the cotton industry has met with great success. I hope it will go on meeting with great success and continuing to promote the efficiency of the industry. I hope its success will, as I say, be recognised as a guide and an example by other industries which, stimulated I think by factious and partisan political intervention, have hitherto not sought to make the best use they can of the Development Council machinery.

My Departmental association with the Cotton Board was a very short one. I should like to say about it that, looking hack on my time at the Board of Trade, I shall always remember that association as a very happy one. I have many recollections of the very excellent work being done both by the distinguished Chairman of the Board, Sir Raymond Streat, and by all the other members of the Board: Lancashire people for the most part—I am not only the representative of a Lancashire constituency, but I come from that county myself—men who have been doing great service for the industry: shrewd, forthright capable men who have devoted a good deal of time and interest to the development of the cotton industry, on the success of which depends not only the prosperity of Lancashire, but of the whole country.

I think we shall pass this Order, and in doing so we shall pay our tribute to the work which the Board has done. Our unanimous approval of the Order will signal again, and in no unmistakable way, the approval of His Majesty's Government for the increased use of the Development Council machinery.