The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-01-24 00:00:00

OUR SUPPLY OF COTTON.

In 1846 the import of cotton into this country amounted
to what was then considered a colossal branch of commerce.
467,856,274 lbs ; ten years after, during which period the
country passed through one of the most terrific commercial
and monetary crises recorded in its history, conquered a
kingdom or two in India, saw the continent convulsed from
Brest to Belgrade with revolutions, which materially impair-
ed its purchasing power, and finished a ruinous war with
Russia at an expense estimated at eighty millions sterling,
this import is found to have more than doubled, having in
1856 reached the enormous amount of 1,014,495,622 lbs ; and
so far from there being any reason to doubt that progressive
increase continuing, the course of events indicates plainly
that it may be expected to increase, and that in 1866 we may
boast of an import approaching three thousand millions of
pounds—that is to say, if we can get it, for that is one of the
most important social problems of the day. It is not very
many years since the mere mention of cotton implied a
sneer ; now those who look with keen and loving eyes upon
the progress of the human race see in cotton the most
potent instrument of civilisation—with the exception of
Christianity and in some degree printing—that has ever
influenced the world ; for steam and cotton have gone so
completely hand in hand that it is difficult to separate them
in the consideration of the mighty work they are performing
in our times. The exports of cotton from this country
alone exceed in value thirty-five millions sterling annually.
For the whole of our raw material we have paid from
twenty to twenty.four millions, so that, after having to a
great extent clothed ourselves— to say nothing of the other
domestic uses of cot on—we have this immense foreign
traffic still to employ our population and enrich our country.
For it is not merely the producers of cotton and manufac-
turers of calico that er joy the employment and the profits.
They are shared by the shipping built, by the freight
earned, by the constructors of machinery and of new
factories ; the indefatigable inventors of new dyeing
materials and chemical combinations ; the endless pro.
ducers of new patterns and designs ; the dealers, the
brokers, and the whole body concerned in the internal
traffic and external commerce all over the globe, after
millions have been employed in the production and manufac-
ture of the article.

Such being the importance to all classes of the prosperity
of this branch of industry—such the magnitude of the
interests involved—it is by no means wonderful that
considerable anxiety should exist upon the subject of the
continuance of the supply, and that that anxiety should be
aggravated by the consideration that four-fifths of the whole
comes from the United States—eight hundred millions of
the thousand having been derived from that source, and
that, too, of the most valuable Description, the best
eri-
can being from thirty to forty per cent. more valuable than
that of the East Indies, whence we derive the only other
supply of importance—viz., in 1856, 147,438,2661b5.
A had harvest extending all over the Southern States, or
serious internal convulsions, such as even now threaten
to disturb the course of production in the United States,
would therefore bring ruin upon so many as would at
once produce a financial crisis all over Europe, and lead
to consequences to which it is almost impossible to set
a limit; for so interwoven are all interests in the present
times, that many would be reached by the crash

who never saw a bale of cotton in their lives, and
never were within a hundred miles of a factory-
It was under the influence of a strong perception of tie
danger of having what is termed "all our eggs in one
basket." that the Manchester merchants forcibly represented
to Lord Palmerston, on his visit to that important city, the
urgent necessity of other fields of production being brought
into use, and the noble Viscount naturally enough pointed.
to India, which we do not doubt, once her internal commu-
nications are fully opened up, will place the question of
that sort of danger at rest for ever. But railways 10,000
miles off are but of slow growth. The transport of the
hugh mass of iron required to construct them all that
distance is attended with difficulty and delay which cannot
be materially removed, and, at all events, the more countries
we have to draw.our supplies of this article of primary
necessity from the less danger we shall incur from the
possible failure of the crop in any one.
That in due time we shall' derive considerable 'quantities
from the countries recently explored by Dr. Livingston is
most probable ; but traffic dependent upon savage industry
is but little reliable. In the neighbourhood, however, of
those wild lands, and with a climate equally favourable to
tropical productions, but admitting of the labour of races
bred to temperate latitudes, we have ourselves a colony
likely hereafter to take a prominent place among those
dimmunities it seems our special mission to scatter broad-
cast ever the face of the earth— ye mean the province of
Natal, in many parts of which cotton grows wild, and in
most in could be profitably cultivated. The soil there is
exuberantly fertile, and native labour so cheap as to be
infinitively more remunerative than slave labour, and yet the
climate agrees perfectly with Europeans. Coffee, sugar,
and indigo seems to be indigenous ; and while the various
products of the soil seem to indicate that in some shape'
or-forni 'such an enterprise must prove beneficial to its
projectors, -the peculiar circumstancos of that colony
seem to point it -cut as a suitable field for the action of
another of the discoveries of the nineteenth century, vit.,'
joint stock companies. The erection of consi lersble
buildings, the construcion and importation of expensive'
machinery, the cost, in short, of the " plant" requisite, is
too often beyond the means of individuals, and it is not
clear whether many possessed of adequate means will choose
to invest them in a new colony ; but vicariously, in the
person of their managing directors, many might be found
who would join in an adventure ascertained to be profitable.
The i;oited liability, which has £43 much unfettered com-
bined industry, leaves such undertakings in a much more
favourable position than they evar enjoyed before ; and
such a system fairly at work . would tend to spread our
colonisation and consequent commerce more rapidly than
the isolated eff;rts of individuals—it would, in fact, be the
application of one of the most effective organisations of
modern industry to the fuiflment of the Divine injunction
of six thousand years back—ii; he fruitful and multiply,
and replenish the earth, and subdue it.---Morning Post.