The Express.
London, England, 1862-10-06 00:00:00

_HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGI.

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LONDON, MONDAY, OCTOBER 6.

THE day was sure to arrive when the general
inability to believe in a supply of cotton from
other sources than the American Cotton States
must give way before the facts. That day seems
to be near at hand. At the end of last week the
cargoes from India began to arrive. Upwards of
10,000 bales from Bombay came in during three
days, and the quantity from that one port actually
at sea and at Liverpool was found to be about
397,000 bales ; so that Mr. I-mums, whose pro-
mises were held to be rash when he spoke of
400,000 bales, appears to be fully justified in the
hopefulness of his tone. The next disclosure was,
that we have a prospect of a supply, in
1863, of 1,630,000 out of the 4,000,000 which
is the largest quantity desired at the ordinary
rate of prices. This amount will be just double
the quantity used per week for the last three
months ; and thus it would seem that the worst
must be past. At the recent high prices, the
weekly average taken by the trade has been 15,278,
and the promised supply, independent of any
change in American affairs, will yield 31,346
bales per week. The sources of this supply are
India, the Brazils, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Italy,
chance cargoes from America, and " other
" sources." These " other sources" are credited
with only 25,000. Considering that the West
Indies are included under this head, it is reason-
able to hope that the supply may turn out to have
been underrated even for the coming season. The
reports from Jamaica are in the highest degree
encouraging, both as to the flourishing condition of
the growing crop and the rapid increase of the area
devoted to cotton. In Guiana and Demerara the
proprietors are setting heartily to work to procure
the requisite labour, which may probably be sup-
plied from the United States. Agricultural ma-
chinery of the highest order has been sent out to
Porto Rico, which is expected to supply a large
quantity, not less than the produce of 2,000 acres,
next year, and the quality of the West Indian
cotton is declared to be scarcely short of the
highest rates of American. Already we see
that, as time passes on, we find ourselves under
the process of being weaned from our obstinate
reliance on the Slave States ; and from month to
month we shall learn to give up the irrational hope
of any settlement in America which can restore
the old state of affairs. The news of the week has
done more than the news of any preceding week
to discourage the expectation of any speedy settle-
ment of the American strife ; and the effect of this
late persuasion should be to stimulate enterprise
in the procuring of cotton ; and especially in coun-
tries where we can ascertain and control the con-
ditions of production, as in the West Indies. India
must be our main source of supply ; but, while
feeling our way there with all possible energy, we
should do our utmost in the case of Jamaica, and
the other West India colonies, where all the re-
quisites are known to be present, whenever we
apply ourselves to use them.
While prices are so high, and the stocks of
cotton goods are dwindling, the linen trade is ex-
panding as might be expected. The business
done was never before so large, and the prospects
of the manufacture were never before so bright.
There is increasing evidence of the prodigious
overtrading of former seasons in the great stocks
of cotton goods yet unexhausted in foreign and
colonial markets—stocks not only unexhauated,
but still so large as scarcely to have felt the rise
of price. Yet the mere lowering of the home
stocks has caused such a demand for linens that
one house in Belfast has sent away as many p;eces
in the course of September as it ordinarily sells in
six months. In view of the great expansion which
must take place as the stocks of cotton goods
abroad are cleared off, speculation in the linen
trade has been active to an unprecedented degree.
Happily, the reports of the flax crop are generally
good ; and the quantity grown in Ireland is large.
Its cultivation will no doubt be pressed in all
countries favourable to its production.
No conclusion has yet been arrived at about the
substitutes for cotton which are at present occu-
pying the attention of the manufacturing world.
It will take some little time to ascertain whether
the fibre of the Zostera Marina is too fine, and
whether it will pay for its separation from the leaf,
and whether a sufficient quantity can be obtained
without too great a cost in labour. We hear of
its being exported from the Baltic, and in use in
Denmark ; and if this is true, the point' of interest
to us will soon be settled.

The American farmers supply the most interest-
ing chapter of commerce, after the cotton-growers
of all countries. Though the means of transport
from the great western valley to the ports have
been increased to the utmost under the pressure,
large quantities of wheat and Indian corn are left