The Sun.
London, England, 1862-06-13 00:00:00

THE SUN LONDON, FRID EVENING? JUNE 13, 1862.

tention of offering their friendly mediation between
the Northern and Southern States of America, and
if so, whether in the event of their friendly offices
being declined, they would be prepared to recognise
the Southern Confederacy ?"

We shall therefore probably have some intima-
tion from our Government of the course they intend
to take, It will be, we doubt not, to persist in our
present policy. We deliberately adopted non-inter-
vention ; the cost of non-intervention, if attempted
effectually, would surpass the cost of maintaining
our operatives in part for years; and, as we have
already observed, the Yankee temper would never
endure friendly advice from the mother country.
We trust our Government will, therefore, be found
willing to sui port any representations which
France may be disposed to make, but not to take a
prominent, nor even an equal part in offering noun.
sel quite certain to be rejected.

Whatever the duration of the Cotton Dearth in
our manufacturing districts, it has already taught
us a lesson, from which, it is to be hoped, that the
nation will profit, and that betimes. It is a lesson
we have long been learning. We had caught a
notion of the alphabet of it a considerable while
before the dearth alluded to had set in. But—bet-
ter than all the knowledge inculcated theoretically
—experitnentia doret. Now the veriest tyro and
smatterer as a political economist can appreciate,
to a certain extent at least, the force of the truth
upon which the profounder students in that science,
the more advanced disciples in the philosophy of
ADAM SMITH, have been for some years past so
very earnestly and energetically insisting. That
truth now so legibly glares upon our recognition
from the wall that he who runs may read it. It
can no longer be gainsaid. It is demonstrated
with the clearness and distinctness of a syllogism
in every cotton mill that is either closed altogether,
or merely half-worked, yonder in the North of
England. Prevision must, sooner or later, coute
qui route, for our obtaining this, at least, if no
other, of the raw material essential to the working
of our gigantie and densely peopled factories from
within the compass of our possession. Whatever
else may be done, or left undone, henceforth as a
sequel to the outbreak of this disastrous civil
war in North America—this good result, at
any rate-we must take care to win from it securely
and permanently—the emancipation of our cotton
manufacturers here in England from any further
dependence to so alarmingly heavy an extent as at
present upon the cotton growers of the Southern
States of the Confederation.

As things have been standing with us hitherto
in this matter, the great bulk of that one raw-
material of cotton has been imported from that very
group of States beyond the Atlantic, from those
Confederated States of America. Hence, when the
ports dotted all along that seaboard were rigidly
closed by the Federal Blockade at the commence-
ment of the war, still raging between the Federals
and Confederates—the ill consequences looming in
the future for ourselves here in England became
speedily enough recognisable. The coming gloom
could be readily anticipated. At the outset the
cloud was no bigger than a man's hand—Mr. LlN-
uotres—that is, when in the name of the Federal
Government, or rather, we should say, in the name
of the United States of America, he signed the man-
date for the closing of those ports in the South, the
ports of the Confederates. Darkly, however, that
small cloud has laboured up from the west,
until even across the wide Atlantic —it
overshadows us. Debarred from access to
the emporium of our principal supplies of
that raw material of cotton, our manufacturers
first of all, our trade afterwards, has already suf-
fered, is still unhappily suffering, and has appa-
rently a long while yet to suffer very considerably.
Recognising all which—as who can fail to recog-
nise it nowadays P—the thought comes back to
us with redoubled force as to the possibility
of England rendering herself, in regard to her
future Cotton supplies, independent of the cotton
growing States of America! It is more than the
thought that thus comes back to us—it is the
hope, it is the resolve, the full and fixed deter-
mination. To rely, henceforth, in this matter as
we have rashly done hitherto upon the cotton-
supplying capabilities of America, would be visibly
aild undeniably now to lean upon a broken reed.
The question then arises immediately as to which
may be the quarter, or rather as to which may
be the quarters, that could most reasonably be
looked to for the cultivation, hereafter, of the
cotton plant systematically and by wholesale.
Here, happily, we have a choice of territory—to
the south, to the west, to the east, and in both
hemispheres. Our own dominions are so wide
spread that of course a considerable proportion
of the lands spoken of as suitable regions for the
cultivation of cotton crops are our own. Our
wish would be obviously to obtain as much of
the cotton we require as might be from our own
colonial possessions, no matter where situated. But
equally, of course, it would he to our advantage
that, the cultivation of the cotton plant should,
as much as possible, and as sedulously, be culti-
vated Elsewhere. More than one string to his
bow were as reasonable a wish on the part of
the modern Viking JOHN BULL, as on that of

the ancient Sea Hero, the old Homeric Odysseus.
Naturally, therefore, we are beginning to look
seriously about us now for the selection of the
most suitable regions in which to encourage, by
all the means at our command, the cultivation of
the cotton plant upon as vast a scale as possible.
And there is certainly choice enough before us
—towards the solving of this selection judi-
ciously, Whither never we look almost,
there at once may we recognise very
readily, almost at the first superficial
glance a country in which the cultivation of the
cotton plant is not only possible but most desirable.
Upon a rapid survey, taken in a manner hap-
hazard, as we tutu a terrestrial globe upon its
axis casually at the touch of a finger—eight dif-
ferent directions may at once be indicated,

Firstly, of course, there is B.indostan. There, all
along the sea coast of Madras and Bengal, are low
lying tracts of land of very considerable dimen-
sions, in some respects about the most desirable
that could well be for the cotton planter. Further
inland, again, there are still larger tracts, upon a
higher level, that in this particular present a still
more notable attraction to the cotton speculator.

Secondly, there is the cast coast at any rate (if
no other) of the noble island of Ceylon. There we
learn upon reliable authority that the swamp and
the jungle might be readily reclaimed to this end
by the drainage of the lagoons.
Thirdly, there are the coasts of Guiana and Cap
y rte herroea:
enne, where the cotton already grown is only
scanty by reason of the lack of labourers ; and hard
b
alsoot
ivo
irrigation.
our own beautiful Jamaica,
island of maica,
where the uplands are known to admit very easily
of p
Fourthly, there are those alluring Italian coasts
on th© side not $o
muchof the Adriatic as of the
Mediterranean, the borders known until very
recently during the last thousand years as those of
the States of the Church
,; and--less attractive only
by the side of those to the coton.planter the sea
coast nearly reaching to Trieste upon the skirts of
the Venetian territory,
, Fifthly, there is a large extent of country, with

the like capabilities, visible in Asia Minor : parti-
cularly, it is said, in the immediate vicinity of
Tarsus, and on the coast of Salonica.

Sixthly, there is—perhaps the most suitable
region of all that could be selected anywhere in
our own possessions—that richest part of all India
for the purposes of the cotton planter, the Presi-
dency of Bombay.
Seventhly, there are vast future cotton fields, we
may confidently believe, at our antipodes, in the
northern island of New Zealand, and along the
northern and eastern coasts of Australia.

Eighthly, and lastly, in this enumeration there
is Egypt, and particularly that portion of Egypt
known as the Delta.

In regard to the capabilities of all these widely-
scattered countries, as lands admitting of the cul-
tivation of cotton upon a gigantic scale, the fullest
particulars we have anywhere been enabled to ob-
tain as yet in a compact and popular form are com-
prised wi:hin the pages of a remarkable work upon
the subject of " Cotton Cultivation," t enned by Mr.
JOSEPH GIBBS, a member of the Institute of Civil
Engineers. To this comprehensive volume of Mr.
GIBBS'S we may confidently direct the reader for
useful and reliable information. To its pages we
ourselves shall take the earliest opportunity of re-
verting.

* Cotton Cultivation in its various Details : the Barrage
of Great Rivers, &o. By Joseph Gibbs. Bvo., pp. 248.
T, and T. N. Spot., London. 1862.

According to information which appears trust
worthy, the young and vigorous kingdom of Italy
is about to be put to a rather severe trial. Russia
and Prussia have declined hitherto to recognise the
kingdom. Prussia, at least the Prussian people, wish
to do it, and even her divine-right King is said to be
not obstinately adverse; but he hangs to the skirts
of Russia : if Russia will recognise the King of
Italy, Prussia will. Of course VICTOR EMMANUEL
would like to enjoy the diplomatic friendship of
his royal cousins, although the want of it can do
him no serious harm. Still it would, so far, confirm
the position of the new kingdom in Europe.
But the CZAR wants to exact a price. The Kirg
of ITALY must prevent the organisation of Polish
refugees on Italian territory. Many of the Poles
have fled thither, and they have a school which
would have to be broken up. The terms of the pro-
posal are ensnaring, Had it been required simply
that the Poles should not drill and arm themselves
for insurrectionary purposes, this, according to in-
ternational law, could not be refused by any power
on terms of amity with Russia. But the Polish
organisations, now, are not military, but civil. The
Poles understand that theirs must be the battle of
civil right against civil wrong. Their organisations
have all been social and peaceful; and what has
annoyed the despotism of Russia most of all is that
the Poles would not give the least pretext to their
enemies to attack them with the military. It is a
Polish school, not a Polish regiment, in Italy,
which the CZAR aims to destroy. We hope, there-
fore, the King of ITALY will refuse the cunning
bribe. His reply should be, that he is bound in
honour not to allow war to be levied in Italy against
Russia, but that, with all peaceful organisations of
political refugees he must decline to interfere.

LATEST NEWS.

THE BANK OF FRANCE.

PARIS, JUNE 13.

The Moniteur of this morning publishes the usual
monthly return of the Bank of France, which shows
the following results, as compared with the May
account :