I ask the Committee for the indulgence which is so generously shown to hon. Members undertaking the ordeal of speaking in this Chamber for the first time. It would be remiss of me if I failed to make reference to my distinguished predecessor, the late George Tomlinson. He was respected and loved by hon. Members on both sides of the House. His simplicity, humanity, sincerity and delicious humour endeared him to people in all walks of life. To strike a personal note, I would say that there is one thing which I can claim in common with George Tomlinson. It is that, like him, I was pitchforked into the weaving sheds of Lancashire at an all too tender age, with a six o'clock start, a 10-hour day and a 55-hour working week.

My parents and grandparents were Lancashire weavers before me. I have a family experience of over 100 years of practical work in the Lancashire cotton textile industry. What I have to say is not based on an academic interest but on practical experience of the trials and tribulations of an industry which has known prosperity and the depth of depression. In Lancashire last year we had a serious slump. It was the first slump in the 100-year period to which I have referred which was not attributable to losses of export trade. It was mainly attributable to the failure of the home market.

In the slump of 1921 exports fell by 1,700 million yards. In the slump of 1930 exports fell by 1,300 million yards. I experienced both those slumps. But in the slump of last year exports fell by only 150 million yards which, compared with the average of the two previous slumps, represented approximately one-tenth of the fall in volume. The figures I have quoted referred only to cotton cloths, but if allowance is made for the contraction in the size of the industry in the last 30 years and for the increase in the production of rayon and synthetic cloths, the figures still provide without any question the point I wish to make, which is that it was the failure of the home market and not the loss of export trade which was responsible for the slump last year.

The slump went deeper and wider than informed opinion expected. I know that we have had a number of people, experts and others, who attempted to be wise after the event, but informed opinion did not expect it to go so deep or to be so wide. If I may be pardoned for saying this in a maiden speech, in my opinion the financial and economic policy of the Government was partly responsible for that slump going so deep and being so wide. Cotton textiles in times of contracted purchasing power are marginal purchases, and a further tightening of the screw could retard recovery in Lancashire and precipitate another recession, if not another slump. I believe the Government are entitled to take credit for the benefits which they think have emerged from the policies they have pursued, but they cannot escape responsibility for other consequential results of those policies which they have undertaken.

If we had another slump or recession, then I believe that the plans of the Government under the Distribution of Industry Act will only touch the fringe of the problem in the County Palatine. The slump last year destroyed the operatives' confidence in the future of our industry. Fear and apprehension are apparent now throughout the cotton textile industry. There is a deep and uneasy feeling in Lancashire today that the Government have written off the cotton textile industry as an important part of the national economy. All too many people are adopting that viewpoint, in my judgment, and today it is of vital importance that the Government should, not only by declaration but also by action, remove this very dangerous attitude of mind.

The most serious single aspect of what happened in Lancashire last year was the steep fall in juvenile recruitment to our industry. In the post-war years, juvenile recruitment had been painfully built up, and last year, in consequence of the slump, we reached a position in which juvenile recruitment was approximately halved. That is a very disturbing factor, so far as the future and the long-term interests of the industry are concerned. Recovery in the textile industry, which unquestionably has taken place, is less in cotton than in any other textile industry.

Some of my friends who are connected with the University of Manchester have been undertaking researches on unemployment in Lancashire, with particular reference to the cotton textile industry, and they have revealed that the chances of redundant textile operatives getting other jobs are less in Lancashire than in other textile areas. Another point that emerges from their studies is that, in the North-Western area, the ratio of notified vacancies to the number of wholly unemployed continued to decline even between May, 1952, which was at the depth of the slump, and November, 1952, when recovery was well under way. The figures, which I have not time to quote, are illuminating, because they indicate that in Lancashire, not withstanding the major industry's partial recovery, jobs were harder to secure. That is a most disturbing fact.

Given the right policies and the right decisions by industry and by the Government, I am not pessimistic myself as to the future of the cotton textile industry. The pattern of our trade has been reversed in the last 30 years. As compared with 75 per cent. for export and 25 per cent. for home trade, the position is now reversed, and, roughly, 75 per cent. of production is for home use and only 25 per cent, for exports. Therefore, the present size and structure of our cotton textile industry fits fairly well into the pattern of industry as a whole. There are reasons to believe that the trend of the last 40 years, which has been a downward trend, in world trade in textiles, might level off, and might for a short period, even take a slight upward movement.

There are one or two topical points with which I should like to deal. The first one refers to the question of raw cotton. A steady supply of raw cotton at stable prices is fundamental to the policy of full employment in the cotton textile industry, and I should like to ask the Government if every avenue has been explored to see if it is possible to establish an international cotton agreement along the lines of the International Wheat Agreement. The cotton textile trade unions put this proposition to the Minister early last year. What has been done for wheat we feel could be done for cotton, if there is the will, but I am not unmindful of the very great difficulties. I realise that this calls for international agreement, but my information is that American opinion at the present time is not unsympathetic to such a project.

The present position in regard to the methods of buying raw cotton for Lancashire is most alarming. May I most respectfully strike a warning that, unless the position is handled with the greatest care, there will be a danger of mills stopping in 1954 because they are without raw cotton? This never happened when the Raw Cotton Commission had full control, even in the period when raw cotton in the world was desperately short, or even in the more acute stages of the dollar crisis.

In June of this year, spinners of American types of cotton have to decide whether they will contract out or continue with the Raw Cotton Commission for the rest of the 12 months, and it is expected that spinners will contract out to the extent of 60 per cent. of cotton purchases but—and this is the important consideration—only on the condition that the Raw Cotton Commission is expected to continue to provide cover against the financial risks involved.

Is it reasonable to expect that the Commission, when it is responsible for purchasing only a minor portion of cotton imports, should carry the risk of the whole? I feel quite sure that public opinion will not stand for public funds carrying the risks while private enterprise takes the profits. I have not time, without trespassing unduly on the generosity of the Committee, to develop this argument further, but, in my opinion, it was a mistake to interfere so fundamentally, as was done last year, with the Raw Cotton Commission, which had served the industry so well. If Her Majesty's Government had concentrated, as the trade unions recommended at that time, on improving the operational efficiency of the Raw Cotton Commission the present potentially dangerous conditions could have been averted.

The President of the Board of Trade, in the course of his speech, to which I listened with great interest, referred to the necessity for keeping costs and prices down and increasing production. I quite agree, but I should like to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to one aspect of conditions in Lancashire which is worrying a number of us; I refer to the Yarn Spinners' Association price maintenance scheme. The right hon. Gentleman should look at the scheme so that he may allay public anxiety about the matter. I do not approach this in any carpingly critical sense.

On balance. I do not object to the scheme. We had experience during the inter-war period of unrestricted cut-throat competition and all that it means, and, probably, in the last 12 months the scheme has given some semblance of stability when stability was needed. But there is need to allay doubts on two points in particular, first, that the consumer is getting a fair deal, and, secondly, that the operatives' participation in higher productivity, whether by re-deployment or double shift working, is not negatived by some price control system which prevents the savings and the cost reduction being passed on to the consumer and thereby enlarging the potential market.

I repeat that I am not approaching the matter in a critical mood. I merely ask that the right hon. Gentleman should look into this in order to allay public anxiety, and if there be anything wrong, then let it be corrected. I could make similar comments about the finishers' fixed price scheme. These matters are important if operatives' wholehearted co-operation in reducing the cost of production, lowering prices and expanding the market is to be obtained.

I also want to refer to the need for standard cloths and bulk contracts. Our merchanting system and the sectionalisation of the industry are against it. I wish to compliment the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade upon at least standing up to the sectional interests which seem to be evading their responsibility in co-operating in the establishment through the British Standards Institution of standard cloths for the industry. I also want to call attention to the fact that at the present time Japan is considering schemes of buffer stocks of standard cloths for exports.

The labour force in our industry is about 50,000 less than it was during the peak year, 1951, and that is, perhaps, just about right. If the right decisions are taken and the right policies are pursued by both the Government and the industry, whether it be through the distribution of industry or the scheduling of Development Areas, I believe we have opportunities for creating in Lancashire a stability which has not been known for a long time.

The time is short and the opportunities may be missed. I hope that the Government will at least do what they can to help create stability for an area which has suffered throughout the 100 years to which I have referred and for people who, with their forebears, have probably done more than any others during the last 150 years in building up Britain's commercial greatness.

I thank the Committee for having listened so generously and patiently to my first speech in this Chamber.