IN its review of the year in 1927 the Blackburn Times commented that 80% of all the textile production of the Blackburn district went to India and China.
It then went on to complain that "as Lancashire sees it, the people in these two countries have not been doing their duty as consumers of late"!
In other words, jobs and prosperity in Blackburn depended on Indian and Chinese people thousands of miles away buying our production - and the Indian and Chinese had better pull their socks up, remember their responsibilities and buy Lancashire goods to keep the mills busy, the profits up and people in work.
Today, the boot is rather on the other foot.
Some estimates suggest that China may in the next decade or so account for 40% of all world textile production. India's economy is growing apace too - with some expressing concern about the shift for example in call centre jobs from the UK to Delhi and Bangalore. But now that China and India are so much more exposed to international trade - and changes in the world economic weather - than ever they were, their firms will encounter the same shifts in fortune, the highs and lows, as our textile industry was always subject to. But if we read in an authoritative Chinese and Indian newspaper that their problem was that we in Britain were "not doing our duty - to them - as consumers" by buying enough of the goods they manufactured, we would at best give their remarks a public raspberry, and tell them to get real.
That 1927 Blackburn Times article was interesting, however, in another respect - in serving to remind us that decades before the era of mass air travel, mobile phones and the internet, our futures were closely linked to those of nations across the globe.
With China, the relationship was more at arms length and principally that of trade - with India, though, our countries have for centuries been intertwined in a much more profound manner; and for 150 years to independence in 1947 it was the jewel in the crown of the British empire. We controlled it, we ran it; and we left an indelible on the history of south Asia.
Most in the sub-continent will say that a good deal of our legacy was beneficial. But we did not cover ourselves in glory over everything; and bluntly, among other things, we left a mess in Kashmir. It was bound to be the subject of dispute between what became Pakistan, and independent India, because different interpretations of the key events at the time of Partition, and religious divisions among the Kashmiri population.
Security Council resolutions in the late 40s, two wars directly over Kashmir, in 1948 and 1965 followed. Then, just two years ago, these two by now nuclear powers mobilised hundreds of thousands of their armed forces. I recall all this graphically, not least as I shuttled between New Delhi and Islamabad to try and help de-escalate the conflict.
Thankfully, both sides pulled back from the brink and happily, the leaders of both sides have shown huge statesmanship and courage.
Normal relations have been restored; and agreement has been reached that both sides will now actively discuss a resolution of the Kashmir dispute, amongst many other bilateral matters. It is great news, not least for those living on both sides of the Line of Control in Kashmir - and for all of those from that region who have now made their home in our area of east Lancashire.
We may no longer export large quantities of Lancashire goods to India, but in a different way our inter-connection with the Indian continent is now even closer.
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