In little over a month after the petition was presented the “Manchester Act”[90] was passed, which explained the 1721 Act, so as definitely to exclude from its scope printed goods made of linen yarn and cotton-wool, manufactured in Great Britain. It will be noticed that even this Act did not remove the prohibition on the use of printed goods made entirely of cotton. The justification given in the Act for allowing the use of printed goods, when made of linen-yarn and cotton-wool, was that they were “a branch of the ancient fustian manufacture of this kingdom.” So far as petitions were concerned, the only opposition to the “Manchester Act” came from the Company of Weavers in London, on the ground that fustians could only with great difficulty be distinguished from Indian calicoes, and that the use of the latter would be made easy; and from the Gentlemen, Landowners, Occupiers of Land, Wool-staplers, Wool-combers, and Weavers of the City of Peterborough, who desired the Bill which preceded the Act to be explained for the general good of the wool and silk manufactures.[91] On the other hand, the traders of Wakefield supported the Bill with the argument that a restriction on the import of cotton-wool, which the prohibition of printed fustians would involve, would prejudice their export of woollens, and the woollen manufacturers of Burnley adopted a similar attitude; also, the Bill was whole-heartedly supported by the merchants engaged in foreign trade at Glasgow, Whitehaven and Lancaster.[92] [Footnote 90: 9 Geo. II., c. 4.] [Footnote 91: _J.H.C._, xxii., pp. 589, 605. The weavers claimed to be manufacturers of worsted stuffs and stuffs made of silk and cotton.] [Footnote 92: _Ibid._, xxii., pp. 593-595.] From the thirties of the eighteenth century until the coming of the great inventions the cotton industry made slow but steady progress. The import of cotton-wool which in 1730 amounted to 1,545,472 lbs. reached 3,870,392 lbs. in 1764, but it was not until the eighties that a startling increase was seen; the average import in the last two years of that decade amounted to 32,000,000 lbs.[93] At that time the organisation of the industry, the methods of manufacture, and the character of its products, were undergoing the changes which mark the early stages of the industry in its present form. [Footnote 93: Baines, _History of the Cotton Manufacture_, pp. 346-347.] IV