In 1946 and 1947 they made a profit, I think, of £100 million, in the first seven months. At that time there was a very sharp sellers' market which undoubtedly helped people to press for the best of the improved growths that were coming from abroad. In every country where cotton is produced there has been a definite improvement in the standards of growth in the last seven or eight years. There would have been, whether we had had the Raw Cotton Commission or not.

The question of a dollar crisis has been mentioned. I quite agree that we have always to face the danger of a dollar crisis. We should be foolish if we assumed that we had not. We could have a dollar crisis of such a magnitude that it would completely "bust up" any scheme which we put forward. I quite agree with that, but in a dollar crisis of a manageable size it has been possible in the past to have a licensing system for individual rationing of dollar cotton. That has proved workable in the past. I have no doubt it could be done again, and I have no doubt we should have adjustments in the futures contracts. There is nothing new in having to make that form of adjustment.

It is when we come to the question of Empire cotton that I, like a number of my hon. Friends, feel a certain anxiety. I feel that certain of the arguments put up, not least by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), were, perhaps, a little bit over-stressed. I do not think, for example, that the question of bulk purchase is a main anxiety. We can have long-term contracts as well under our system as under the other.

It is true, of course, that in East Africa we have been having a very successful period during the last year of selling cotton through the normal market channels. It is also true, as hon. Members opposite are fully aware—this is not in dispute amongst us—that in the Colonial Territories on the whole colonial marketing boards in general pursued a policy of giving a price to their producers below the world price, and they have a certain margin to play with in the event of there being a very sharp turn in prices. There is a disadvantage, undoubtedly, to Empire growers if the new contract is based purely on that of New York, and that was the argument which was, I think, put by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes).

I realise that when we are re-starting a thing like this we do want to have a stable price level at the start for basing futures contracts, but on the other hand, from the point of view of this country and of the peoples within the Empire, it is, in my view, very important that as soon as possible the Empire growths should be brought into the futures contracts. I agree very much with what the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne said about that. I am not sure that the argument about fluctuations, in connection with bringing them in now, has not been a little exaggerated, and I hope that in the later stages of the Bill, in Committee, we may be able to deal with that very important aspect, which does not affect the principle of the Bill to a very considerable extent.

I do not want to speak for very long on this topic, but I should perhaps make a passing comment on the question of futures speculations. I am a Liverpool Member and I know that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock) has her eye firmly fixed upon me. I shall not make the eloquent speech on this subject made by the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Sir W. Fletcher), who dealt with it at considerable length, but we all know there is both desirable and undesirable speculation. I am not at all sure that the most undesirable form of speculation is not speculation by a public body with public funds which it loses and whose losses the taxpayer has to pay. At any rate, that is certainly a form of speculation.

We also know that in the past in the Liverpool market there were certain forms of speculation which were definitely unsatisfactory, such as over-trading. There were occasions when advantage was taken of technical weaknesses of the market. Undoubtedly those things did harm and were not in the public interest. It is only fair for me, as a Liverpool Member, to say that in the new scheme, as we have seen, which will be built up through the Liverpool Cotton Exchange, steps are being taken to tackle the undesirable element in speculation. Some forms of speculation, of course, are very desirable.