The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield), like some other hon. Members on the Government side of the House, ended his speech with pious hopes about the opportunities which he hopes the Liverpool Cotton Market will provide for the protection of growths other than American; and in particular, he talked about Empire cotton.

The extraordinary thing about this attitude is that here we see the Government deliberately pulling down an organisation which, by its nature, was best calculated to promote the development of these growths, and particularly Empire growths. It is not good enough for the hon. and gallant Member for Rochdale to give us a text book account of how the Liverpool Cotton Exchange works, or will work, and then at the end say, "They should do this also and everything will be all right," because we have no guarantee whatsoever that they will do it at all.

I am aware, as are some hon. Members on this side—though this may seem surprising to hon. Members opposite—of some of the advantages, of the mechanisms, and, indeed, of the interests of the operators of some of the commodity markets. This is an extremely involved problem. It is difficult to find any real denominator of value that can be applied generally to these markets. It is clear that we must look at the Liverpool Cotton Market and the methods of buying cotton solely in their relation to cotton and the Liverpool Cotton Market.

It is no good trying, as there has been some tendency to try in the past, to apply general arguments in favour of free markets to the Liverpool Market. What is relevant is the economic situation of the country. It is most extraordinary that, when we know that the country is threatened as seriously as at any time in the last few years with an acute dollar shortage, an essential mechanism in the protection of our economy, an essential part of our bulwark to protect us against a dollar crisis, should be destroyed in this way.

I fully realise that the arguments relating to the setting up of the Liverpool Market in isolation from general world economic trends can be finely balanced. Some of the arguments in favour of bulk buying and the setting up of the Commission, and some of the hopes, have not been fulfilled, but equally I do not agree with the argument of the hon. and gallant Member for Rochdale about the decline in quality. I am sure that many hon. Members opposite would concede that to us.

But basically, that apart, the problem which faces us nationally is how best in this dangerous world to earn our living, to pay our way and to buy raw materials. We find that the Government in some other departments of commerce are prepared, quite properly, to follow policies initiated by the Labour Government involving a certain amount of planning, however, objectionable that word may be to some hon. Gentlemen opposite. It is ridiculous to produce the argument that Government finance should not be used to bolster up or assist any section of industry provided that it is in the national interest. It is ludicrous to suggest that the Government should not bear risks if it is in the national interest to do so.

Hon. Gentlemen opposite know that in the operation of export credit guarantees there are two sections provided for by Parliament under which risks can be insured. One is what may be called reasonable commercial risk and the other is non-commercial risk where it is in the national interest that the Government should provide protection. It is a false argument for hon. Gentlemen opposite to suggest that there is something automatically morally wrong in the suggestion, or that the Government should not be prepared to provide protection of the kind the Raw Cotton Commission have given in the last few years, and, indeed, in recent times, to people who were not officially in the scheme.

There have been other recent developments in the use of public funds by the Government. Only last week we had the fantastic spectacle, in the Government white paper on Television Policy, of the Government being prepared to lend money from Treasury funds to encourage advertisers to foist cheap advertising stuff on the public. So this argument does not have a complete validity in all circumstances. I do not believe that it has validity in the case of the buying of cotton.

The truth is that the free market, however necessary it may be in certain fields, tends to be the enemy of the primary producer. It may be argued that the purpose of the free market is to buy raw materials, whatever they may be, as cheaply as possible. I suggest that this is not necessarily always in the national interest. I am sure all hon. Gentlemen will agree that in a world where there is a continual need to stimulate on a long-term basis the production of all types of raw materials and foods—not only for their own sake, but as a means of raising the standard of living of the people concerned—an action such as this is flying in the face of all the long-term needs of the world and in face of what the long-term policy of the Government should be.

It is not the slightest use the Government providing funds through Colonial Development Corporations or United Nations technical aid schemes if they are not prepared, also, to ensure in their own economy that there is a support and co-operation which will in itself further the aims which they seek to achieve in their own policies.

A particular point which worries me is that we find it most extraordinary that the Government should have taken this decision without further inquiry. I realise that any Government faced with a situation have in the last resort the obligation to take their own decision. But the Government must be aware of the suspicion that exists in Lancashire about the reopening of the Liverpool market. They may argue that the suspicions and fears among the workers are misplaced. If that be so, how much more important it is that the Government should take every step to explain and to justify the action they propose.

There is little doubt that in Lancashire there is a profound problem still to be overcome in connection with the attitude towards productivity. The trade unions and the management—I still believe that, basically, this will mainly be the responsibility of management—have produced shining examples of people who are playing their part in trying to stimulate productivity and the most efficient use of manpower. There has been a great deal of talk about standardised costing, and the bringing in of efficient methods.

Then, just at this time, the Government allow an economic scheme to go and a new one to come which they know will take extra manpower. They know that there is not the slightest chance of doing any real costing from an accountant's point of view on the operations of the people who are buying the cotton. The Government do this lightly at a time when they are still urging on the workers, not only in Lancashire but elsewhere, the need for harder work, for wage restraint, and so on. They have done that without any real attempt to justify their decision, beyond the statement today that they found a difficult situation and that certain principles of a dubious validity affected their decision. They have arrived at that decision without regard to the warnings which have been clearly expressed in Lancashire, especially from the trade union side of the industry.

I can only say that in Lancashire there has already been suspicion of the Government's economic policies generally. There is already belief that the Conservative Party, which prided itself in the past on being a pragmatic party free from the doctrinaire prejudices of Socialism, has become the worst type of doctrinaire in this matter. I am certain that this action of reopening the Exchange, admittedly in fulfilment of a pledge, but one which we thought the Government had perhaps conveniently forgotten in a moment of sanity, has been taken in the name of doctrinaire free market economy and doctrinaire free enterprise. This is a damaging and dangerous step. I hope that the Bill will be fought hard throughout its passage and that in due course the Government's policy will be reversed.