The Sun.
London, England, 1861-09-06 00:00:00

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.

MANCHESTER, THURSDAY.
This morning the various sections met at the
Royal Institution, the Free Trade Hall, 0 wen's Col-
lege, the Mechanics' Institution, and the Sweden-
borgian schools.
SECTION F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS.

This section met in the Assembly Room of the
Free Trade Hall. Lord Monteagle, one of the vice-
presidents of the section, took the chair, in the ab-
sence of Professor Newmarch, the president, from
illness, and in consequence the inaugural address of
the president was not delivered.
Mr. T. BAZLEY, M.P., read a paper on the cotton
trade, of which the following is an abstract :—A
century ago the population of Manchester was less
than 30,000, while now it is 350,000 ; and as a centre
of business it influences and contributes to the wel-
fare and prosperity of at least three times that num-
ber of human beings. Manufacturing population
began slowly to afford by band labour Profit to those
who had entered upon it. " Manchester cotton" had,
obtained a celebrity in Europe, but in reality these
goods were mixed fabrics sold under that designa-
tion, for at the time referred to Indian muslins,White
and printed, the pure production of cotton alone,
were in great repute. Almost simultaneously Watt
gave available power to the steam engine; Har-
greaves, Arkwright, and Crompton invented their
spinning machines ; the power-loom was the result
of Dr. Cartwright's genius; the fly•shuttle came
from Kay, of Bury ; Heatheote's genius contributed
the wonderfnl mechanism by which lace was essen-
tially taken from hand labour by the novel power
of water or steam, and Nixon originated calico
printing in the vicinity of London. Supplies of
raw cotton had been procured from the Levant,
and from the British East and West Indies; but
by a singular coincidence, whilst Crompton was
engaged with his invention and maturing the
spinning mule at the Hall in the Wood near
Bolton, Seabrook, an Anglo-Saxon in South Caro-
lina conceived the possibility of successfully growin g
cotton in the States of America. He attempted
and succeeded. He obtained his experimental seed
from the Bahama Islands, and availing himself of
the negro labour left as the legacy of Great Britain
he introduced into his country an agricultural in-
dustry, which has only been surpassed by the trade
dependent upon it in this country. With the auxi-
liaries already mentioned, the people of Manchester
and the neighbourhood commenced the career
which has resulted in the amazing increase of their
numbers and of their wealth. Yet there were diffi-
culties to be surmounted. The roads of Lancashire
had not been much changed from those formed by
our Roman conquerors. The Duke of Bridgewater
constructed a canal, opening a water communica-
tion between Manchester and Liverpool, and at the
same time opened out the coal mines of Worsley.
During the last 50 years upwards of 20 billion
pounds weight of cotton from all sources have been
consumed in Great Britain, and the value would be
probably not less than seven hundred and fifty
millions sterling; and on a fair computation has
yielded a profit of not less than a thousand millions
pounds sterling to the people of the United King-
dom within that period. The wonder is that so large
a supply of cotton could be procured from that one
source, the United States. During the last year the
consumption of cotton in Great Britain was 85 per
cent. from the United States, 8 per cent. from other
foreign sources, and 7 per cent. from British terri-
tory. With the growth of this industry, five mil-
lions of our population have become directly and
indirectly dependent upon it fur their subsistence.
The present position of the trade is most pre-
carious and dangerous. Existing stocks and
prospective supplies of cotton may enable the
mills to be worked till the spring of next year
at moderately full time, but afterwards un-
less supplies be received from the United
States, independent sources can only furnish the
means of keeping the mills at work little more than
one day in the week. That the cotton trade should
have rested chiefly upon the one supply of the
States of America for its very means of existence
every good and wise man has deplored, but that,
to produce that supply, the portion of the human
family which is most defenceless should be held in
the degradation of slavery is abhorrent to the feel-
ings of the righteous, the humane, and benevolent.
In the suppression of slavery a great moral triumph
has been achieved by this country, but from that
benevolent act an evil has arisen in the attempts to
extinguish the slave trade. Most extensively to
suppress slavery will be to supersede the necessity
for the labour of the slave. The cost of Great Bri-
tain's fleet to suppress slavery, besides the loss of
many lives, amounts to little less than one million
pounds sterling per annum. Probably half that
sum would offer as effectual a barrier to slavery as
the whole of it, and if the other had been or could
be devoted in aid of agricultural products by negro
labour, the vile system of slavery might be speedily
terminated. Of the commercial policy of the United
States censures can scarcely be too severe. In the
Northern States protection prevails, and the people
of the South have been compelled to pay extrava-
gant and monopolist prices for the manufactures
produced by their own agricultural labour, and
which, in the form of cotton, has been relieved in
this country from every tax. The North has robbed
the South by unjust exactions, and the South has
robbed the negro of life and liberty. Partial and
unjust government has at length reaped the fruit
of convulsion, and for which unjust policy had sown
the seed. In addition to these grave reasons, which
mainly affect the morality of the States, this coun-
try has been paying a tribute of five million pounds
sterling per annum to those States in excess of the
price at which cotton could be remuneratively pro-
duced and sold. With the convulsion which exists
in America, with the adverse commercial policy
dominant there, and with the inhuman system of
slavery which prevails in the cotton-producing
districts, what are the duties which devolve upon
our governing and mercantile classes? With the
East and West Indies, with tracts in South-east
and West Africa, and with land in Australia as
extensive as Europe, capable of growing cotton
from the lowest to the highest qualities, it is a