The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-02 00:00:00

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=O, C. 5

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LONDON, FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 18e3,

The cotton year has not been a bed of down.
Not to those who work it, nor to any extent to
those who grow it. The advance in price, it is
true, has been enormous; not less than 20 millions
sterling, for certain, is the augmented value of the
smaller quantity sent us ; but this vast sum " has
been impounded by the successful speculators" in
the transit of the cotton from the grower to the
manufacturer. These are the men—the men of
Liverpool chiefly—whom " Special Correspondents'
should call to account. The public now know, on
the high authority of Lord DERBY and Mr. GLAD-
STONE, not to mention other channels of informa-
tion, that the millowners, who were themselves
embarrassed by the cotton famine, have shown a
most princely liberality towards their workmen—a
liberality which, the noble Earl says, throws the
most munificent of other contributions entirely into
the shade, But where are the names of those into
whose hands the 20 millions sterling of advanced
prices have gone ? We hope, for their credit, some
adequate reply will be furnished to this question.
To all classes but theirs the cotton year has been
one which has left a mark on property, on wages,
or on life and health itself, in too many cases, which
will not be soon effaced.

Numerous had been the warnings to the men of
Manchester, not to be satisfied with one source of
supply for the raw material of their enormous in-
dustry—a supply of eighty-five per cent. of all
they consumed, and secured by slave labour only.
Vainly also had the Government been warned of
the necessity of so opening India to British agri-
cultural industry, that facilities of communication
to the coast, and a tenure of land which would
attract British capitalists and investors, should
give to our great Asiatic Empire the full benefits
of British wealth and energy, All went on
smoothly, and all were interested in supposing
that smoothly all would go on, The statesmen
were served trouble—the monied men were saved
risks. Our cotton trade had passed unscathed
through the protracted wars with France. The
Berlin Decrees, the American war, and the Orders
in, Council had left it uninjured. Till 1860 no
chock from without impaired its prosperity. It
went on with years of immense profit, and years
of depression, but with a handsome average of profit,
till no war in which we were engaged, but a
civil war between Slavery and Freedom, in unholy
union hitherto, at once cut off cur eighty-five per
vent• of the material on which Lancashire and
Cheshire lived. The plague spot, so often pointed to,
suddenlyspiead. The question whether slaveryshould
cover the yet unoccupied soil of the Federation, was
put to the ballot in 1860. The ballot declared for
free soil where it was yet free; and forthwith one
of the parties, which had appealed to the ballot, re- i
fused to accept its decision, and appealed to physi-
cal force ! Almost immediately both parties joined
in stopping the cotton supply to England. The
motives were different enough. The South said we
will nut send it ; the North said you shall not.
The Southern chivalry thought to coerce the Eng-
lish trader. " Cotton was king,'' they said, and they
prohibited its export till England and France
ebotthi recognise and support them. They never
doubted that a nation of traders was at their mercy, ,
The Northern Government had no objection to oar
getting cotton, but it had a great objection to " the
Rebels" exchanging their cotton for military stores
in Europe, audit therefore blockaded the Southern
ports.
Thus both parties combined to deny us the
remnant of the crop of 1860, and the whole of the
crop of 1861, and we have had little from America
this year which has not run the blockade. Last
year we obtained from her 1,841,643 bales; this
year only 72,461.

It is interesting to notice the working of this fact
throughout the year. The cotton brokers tell us
that during the first six months prices advanced
but little, and that, in consequence, the weekly de.
liveries to the trade continued at about the rate of
the close of 1861—that is about twenty-nine
thousand bales. During the next three months the
great rise in prices caused the closing of many of
the mills ; business fell off so rapidly in the latter
half year, that the total of cotton consumed averaged
for the year but a trifle more per week than half
the consumption of 1860; and the diminution fell
upon the latter half-year chiefly. The sellers of
cotton, who ought to know what most affected the
markets, tell 118 that it was the press writing so
strongly on the
probable early termination of the
war which for
prices ; and thus,along
time militated against high
in the first six weeks, caused
both too rapid a consn t-
n.'"" of the stocks in hand,
and too great reluctance to
from India. 'The " ninety .dkays:l”ything in orders
prophecies ag-
gravated the subsequent difficulties of
Lancashire'
natural by preventing the operation of the
preven-
tive alleviations. The effect on pries Was such
that what is termed " Middling Orleans" began
the year at about a shilling a pound, and had

scarcely advanced on that by the middle of June; 1
but it went up in July quickly to eighteenpence,
and on the first week of September was sold at half-
a-crown per lb ! On the sth of September, in fact,
it was ascertained that the actual stock in hand
was under sixty thousand bales, and our normal
consumption of fifty thousand bales a week wab
reduced to eight thousand ! Then it was
that the full terrors of the cotton famine stared
both masters and men in the face. The enormous
stocks of goods in hand, created by too rapid manu-
facture, and not checked, as it ought to have
at first, by rapid advance in price of raw material,anufactured
prevented the rise of price in m goods ;
been
the manufacturers were brought to a perfect stand-
still between famine prices for raw cotton and
plenty prices for the articles they could make from
it. The storm thus burst on them almost suddenly,
though its mutterings had been so long heard.
Mr. TuoigAs BAZLEY has presented us with a
calculation, which no man is more competent to
make accurately, which shows the total effect on
the amounts received by capital and wages respec-
tively, as the share of each, during each of the
last three years now past. The share received in
wages was—

1860. 1861. 1862.
By operatives.. £26,804,438 £22,194,448 £14,500,000
By capitalists.. 22,000,000 .. 18,000,C00 .. 10,500,000
Of course for last year a small part of the calculation
is an estimate; but it cannot be materially wrong.
What a tale do these figures tell ! Remembering,
also, that two-thirds of the loss of twelve millions
in wages fell upon the poor operatives chiefly in
the latter half of last year, Mr. BAZLEY says there
can be no doubt that these men received close upon
twenty-seven millions for their work in 1860; it is
within a fraction of figures as certain that they had
received little more than half that amount by the
end of last year 1

The lesson has been and is a severe one. We
have awakened to it in a charitable point of view,
but we must do something more. We must have
an Indian Minister of very different calibre to the
obstinate and unperceiving, though respectable, old
Whig who now He that post. We want, in fact,
a STANLEY there; and if the Whigs cannot find us
his equal, they must somehow put him there, for
the sake of both India and Lancashire. Charity in
its present conspicuous form is well ; it is the proper
balance for the calamities which none of us can
foresee, but which may alike overtake classes and
individuals, the poor and the rich. But the true
charity is to open up profitable work for men. And
here, in one sense, is the province of the Statesman.
It is his to remove those obstructions which will yield
only to the resources of the State, and above all to
offer those facilities which require but the abolition
of mischievous usages however venerable. We need
not insist now on the scope which India especially,
and other colonies, offer to the Statesman for this
legitimate exercise of his skill and his courage.

Mr. CARDWELL'S speech at Oxford is one in
every way satisfactory to peruse. The right hon.
gentleman's discourse is not only characteri=ed by his
usual ability, but it contains sentiments alike hon-
ourable to himself and those whom he referred to.
He commenced his speech by an allusion to what
had loomed in the distance at the period when he
had last addressed them a year ago, when there was
a question " trembling in the balance which was to
decide no less than that of peace or war between two
great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race." This
was the telegraphic message concerning Messrs.
SLIDELL and MASON. Fortunately for the world
that danger was averted, but for long years
to come there will be many to deplore
the results of the American war. In referring to
these sufferers Mr. CARDWELL made the most strik-
ing point in his speech, and redeemed it from the
charge of being merely a passing affair of the hour,
a thing to be forgotten when the business of to-
morrow put aside the cares and engrossments of to-
day. He thus preluded the remarks on the dis-
tressed districts There is, as you know, in the
North a vast population, of energy unexampled and
skill unrivalled, who worked long hours, and ob-
tained the great reward of labour; suddenly, as if
the earth had denied to agriculture its increase,
the only material of their industry was with-
drawn. In former times they had been accus-
tomed to prosperity ; it is true that they
had also been accustomed to occasional re-
verses in periods when trade was naturally
dull ; they were an independent people, they were
a sensitive people, not willing to be dependent upon
the liberality of others, and they have proved that
they were a heroic people. Before this horrible
war came upon them they were always ready to
assist one another, and never willing to apply for
assistance to those whom Providence had placed in
a more fortunate position to themselves. Now at
once, by one sudden blow, they have been deprived
of the whole material of their labour, and what has
their conduct been ? Gentlemen, Ido not hesitate
to say that their conduct has been beyond all praise.
I wiil not attempt to disparage it by giving any
feeble expressions of my own, hut I will say that
it has realised to the utmost the language of the
poet when he says,
"' How sublime a thing it is to suffer awl be strong.'

No praise can be the award of such co
at the same time it is gratifying to thecommunity
referred to, to mark the appreciationteactivea
ofs to b
theier
efforts ; nothing is so hard for the
idle, and for the competent to suffer calamity
through being deprived of the opportunity
of exerting their skilled and proved ability.
In the cruel sufferings of her children
England has at least the consolation of knowing
that they have come through the ordeal triumph•
antly, and shown that spirit of endurance which
in happier times of prosperity crowded her stores
with increase and stocked the marts of the world
with their produce. This is the secret of the
supremacy of the English nation, and this
self-reliant principle, this defiance to the
conquest of circumstances, however adverse, has
made glorious the page of history in many a conflict
where in numbers the English were in a sad mino-
rity. The conflict now raging is a sadder one, and
trusted that its darkest hour is past; but,
iattisallto beeve nts, a lesson has been given to the com-
munity around which must benefit them, and its
memory will be handed
will be
down from one generation
to another, till a far distant posterity
emulated to follow so worthy an example. Mr.
CARDWELL also made touching
allusion to the loss
sustained by the Royal Family, which had just
fallen with a crushing blow when he last met
his friends. He congratulated them that,although
nothing could ever efface that sad impression
entirely from their minds, still, by the blessing of
Providence, many mitigations of their sorrow had
appeared. We had the prospect of an event which
was to give the heir of these realms a marriage of
affection and a home of happiness. "We know
well," said the right hon. gentleman, " that these
words mean more than empty sounds, considering
the ties that exist between the SOVEREIGN and her
people. They are building upon the only true
foundations, the hearts and affections of a devoted
and united people." In concluding this brilliant
discourse the right hon. gentleman thus referred to
the prospects of the year now opening before us,
an opinion with which many may conour. " Let us ,