The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-27 00:00:00

COI TON SUPPLY.

The difficulty with regard to the supply cf cotton
to meet the probability of a future American defi-
ciency seems likely to arise rather from ho multi-
tude than from the scarcity of new sources. From
every quarter of the globe we have vidences of
capability for the growth of this staple ; and, as
each country asserts its own claims to be superior
to those of its competitors, attention is distracted
and capitalists forbear from any combined effort.
If there had been but one field to which wo could
turn, every calculation would have been worked
out to a fraction, and by this time we should have
known precisely the conditions with which we must
be prepared to comply. But, although the imme-
diate inconvenience from this state of circumstances
is great, the ultimate results will most likely be far
more beneficial than if the future trade were to be
limited to a distinct rivalry between two or three
nations. The importance of the article is such that
if its growth be mainly confined to one region,
that region will always be regarded as a tempting
point of attack in case of hostilities with any
Power that might wish to add to our miseries from
war the distress of manufacturing idleness. As '
regards the supply of wheat,
.we have abundant
proofs of the inestimable advantage of being able
to turn not merely to America, but to Russia,
France, Spain, Egypt, and a vast number of other
countries, and it is scarcely of less importance that
the cotton production should be equally varied.
Even if the American disruption had not taken
place, a gradual reintroduction of the qualities
of other soils would most likely have been wit-
nessed for the future. The means of transit,
quite as much as the obtaining of labour, have in-
fluenced the question. If India, Egypt, and Brazil
had had railway facilities such as have been en-
joyed by the American cotton States, the latter
would never have attained that complete monopoly
which they lately held, and their reliance upon
which has been one cause of their present ruin.
Railways are now being created elsewhere, and
looking at the relatively high price which cotton
must for some time command, even if the subjuga-
tion of the Confederate States could be consum-
mated to-morrow, there is reason to infer that the
production will be found sufficiently profitable at a
vast number of points to cause it to rank among
regular branches of industry, such as will increase
or diminish from time according to the natural or
changing conditions of climate, freights, and labour.
India must, doubtless, henceforth, constitute the
great field, but she has the China market to feed,
and also her own manufacturers, who, under the
inauguration of the system of protection to native
industry two years ago, now enjoy a bounty of 10
per cent. in addition to the advantage of having
the staple at their door. The freight thence
is likewise necessarily heavy. The West India
Islands possess undoubted capacities, but nothing
can be effected in Jamaica, or elsewhere in that
region, without the introduction of Eastern emi-
grants. Antigua, the nearest of these islands to
England, is especially spoken of as furnishing fine
samples. In Central America recent experiments
are said to have resulted very satisfactorily, and to
have led to a considerable amount of seed being
sown in Nicaragua. San Domingo, under Spanish
rule, may:contribule some quantities, and on the
capabilities of Venezuela there seems no doubt, pro-
vided a sound European organisation can be esta-
blished there. All these places have the benefit of
comparative proximity to England, and of being in
some degree independent of railways. Their diffi-
culties are connected solely with capital and labour.
Brazil has always been a cotton country, but has
been long utterly deficient in means of trans-
port. The Pernambuco and Bahia railways
will remove that drawback in the northern and
middle provinces, while the line constructing in the
southern province of San Paulo runs not only
through a tableland of European salubrity, but
where the cotton plant flourishes in a wild state,
samples of which have just been certified by the
Cotton Supply Association to be worth 101 d. to 11d.
per lb., or within ld. per lb. of the value of mid-
dling Orleans. Further south, on the banks of La
Plata and the Rio Salado, the plant gives equal
signs of luxuriance, and it is indeed from this latter

region that some of the best descriptions of seed are
alleged to have been originally obtained by the
Americans. Here likewise the conditions of cli-
mate are perfectly favourable for white labour.
Lastly, there is the prospect of success in Queensland
provided Chinese immigrants can be introduced,
and from all these various centres a variety of sub-
ordinate fields are likely also to spring up. Of the
interior provinces of Persia, whence there have
lately been indications of a large possible growth,
nothing has been said, or of the development yet to
be witnessed of the capacities of Egypt and of
Africa generally; but it is plain that the answer to
the demand now raised will not long be problemati-
cal, and that there would be a prospect in the course
of a couple of years of the supply being in excess of
our wants, were it not for the certainty that the
power of consumption will increase in still greater
proportion.