William Wiggins - Cotton Interests

Cotton Interests

After he retired from Parliament, Wiggins continued to play a leading public role in representing the cotton manufacturing industry and the development of practices in the field. But apart from his fierce defence of the interests of the Lancashire cotton trade, it is sometimes difficult to find a consistent policy thread in his public utterances and recommendations.

In 1931 he headed a delegation to lobby the President of the Board of Trade, William Graham and the Secretary of State for India, William Wedgwood Benn on the prospects for the cotton trade with India. In 1934, as chairman of the special committee appointed by Federation of Master Cotton Spinners Associations he produced a report into the management and policies of the cotton trade starting from research into the problems of silver from the point of view of the Lancashire Cotton trade. His report condemned British economic policy in contracting the money supply and the demonetization of silver and praised the actions of US President Franklin D Roosevelt in taking positive government action to intervene in financial and fiscal matters. He proposed restoring international trade through rising prices, guaranteed by government action. In Rome in the spring of 1935 he represented his industry at the World Cotton Congress and presented a paper on silver in relation to monetary policy and the cotton trade of the world. On this occasion he took the opportunity to promote a free trade agenda and to attack the idea that nations could isolate themselves or attempt to practice autarky. The Congress was not however ready for all Wiggins’ solutions and he was obliged to withdraw his call for rises in the price of silver to ensure unity between the delegations and this time supported the call for the United States Board of Agriculture to intervene more robustly to counter some of the practices of American cotton manufacturers and traders.

Later in 1935, Wiggins met the prime minister of Australia, Joseph Lyons with other local businessmen in Manchester to object formally to Australia’s tariff regimes against Lancashire cotton goods. In early 1936, Wiggins spoke in favour of the Cotton Spinning Bill then before Parliament saying that people needed to recognise that the days of laissez-faire were over and defended elements of state regulation in the industry to keep production up and employment in the industry high.

In 1938, against the background of the trade recession, in his capacity as chairman of the Monetary Policy Committee of his Federation, he wrote to the Times newspaper advocating a national monetary system to protect British interests against the policies of foreign governments. Then in 1939, Wiggins was a member of a deputation to the prime minister Neville Chamberlain, President of the Board of Trade Oliver Stanley and Minister of Labour, Ernest Brown to make representations about the depression in the cotton industry. The delegation called for special measures to protect the industry and give government assistance to Lancashire to help overcome the economic and social effects of the depression. They blamed the subsidies given to foreign cotton manufacturers by their governments and the tariffs and trade barriers erected by foreign governments.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Wiggins was for free trade when it benefited Lancashire cotton and against it when circumstances changed.

After the War, Wiggins served as one of the employers’ representatives on the Cotton Working Party set up in October 1945 which proposed a comprehensive programme for the re-equipment and reorganisation of the industry with government help and finance but stopping short of a request for nationalisation. He died in 1950.

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