The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-10-19 00:00:00

of our machinery, the supply of raw material upon
which we have to work. To solve this we must
trace for a few years our imports and exports of
Cotton, and the stocks in our ports at the com-
mencement of each year. We shall commence
with 1835, the year from which we may date the
rapid increase of the trade already noticed.

Taken for
Date. Imported. Exported. Consumption. Stock.
• Bags. Bags. Bags. Bags.
1835 1,089,309 107,240 937,616 185,560
1836.. 1,191.744 100,853 1,031,904 230,013
1837 1,163,839 128,535 1,064,931 288,916
1838 1,429,062 102,370 1,265,116 259,373
1839 1,109,550 121,659 1,043,511 321,099
1840 1,599,343 126,045 1,274,729 265,479
1841 1,341,659 117,330 -1,118,717 444,048
1842 1,381.894 141,457 1,221,693 538,268
1843 1,743,618 121,410 1,357,662 561,404
1844 1,679,331 134;882 1,427,482 784,752
1845 1,855,660 120,595 1,577,617 902,982
1848_
1847
In the years 1843 to 1845, it will be observed that
we had heavy importations and accumulating stocks
up to the Ist of January, 1846, when the quantity
on hand was 1,060,530 bales. The crop of 1846
was a deficient one; and, consuming may at the
rate of 31,796 bales per week, we had reduced our
stock, on the Ist oiJanuary, 1847, to 548,658 bales.
Had our mills been in full work, however, we have
shewn elsewhere that our consumptionin 1846 would
have been at the rate of 35,500 bales per week, or
an additional 3,704 bales weekly; this would have
given an increased yearly consumption of 185,208
bales, reducing the stock on hand on the Ist of
January, 1847, to 363,450 bales. During the 41
weeks which have elapsed of the present year, our
weekly consumption has only been 21,369 bales;
yet the stock in Liverpool, on the 15th instant, was
but 415,870 bales ; or adding a 100,000 bales as
the probable quantity held in London and Glasgow,
we have a total stock 'of 515,870 bales, against
548,658, with which we began the year. The total
consumption of the 41 weeks has been only 876,129
bales. Let us see, then, what would have been our
position if our factories had been in full work
during the year to sup Ay our active foreign de-
mand. Forty-one weeks' working, at the full rate
of 35,500 bales per week, would consume 1,455,500
bales of the raw material. Our actual consumption,
however, of 876,129 bales, added to the present
stock on hand of 515,870 bales, only makes
1,391,999 bales as the quantity of raw material
which we have had available. We should therefore
not only have been at this moment without a single
bale of cotton in the country, but must have been
compelled to stop working, months ago!
Let us now examine what prospect there is of
our being furnished with such a supply as will
enable us to work our now increased machinery and
employ fully our operative manufacturing popula-
tion. The total cotton crop of America, last year.
is returned at about 1,800,000 -bales, for the supply
of her own manufacturers and those of Europe.
In addition, we had a supply from Brazil, Egypt,
and the East and West Indies; but, as the produc-
tion of these countries is not capable of any great
immediate increase, we must look mainly to the
United States for the supply which we require.
OUt of the crop of America and from other coun-
tries we received, in 1846, in all 1,243,706 bales;
and exported 194,246 .bales, making thus a nett
supply of 1,049,559 bales. Presuming our mills to
be set now in full working, at the rate of 35,500
bales per week, we should require a supply, up to
this time next year, of 1,846,000 hales. To meet
this we have, as stock on hand, about 515,870
bales ; and to make up the quantity required, we
must have a nett import of 1,330,130 bales during
the present year. This is on the supposition that
we work up every bale, leaving nothing for stock.
As, however, it is obviously quite impracticable to
do so, we must calculate for such a stock, which
ought not to be less than 300,000 bales. We must
therefore add this to the above amount ; and the
quantity to be imported will thus be 1,630,130
bales, or 580,671 bales more than we imported
last year. Now where is this amount to come
from ? Presuming that the quantity which may
reach Great Britain this year bears the same
proportion which our imports last year bore to
the American crop of 1846, viz., as 1,049,459
bales to 1,800,000 the total crop, we shall require
the crop of this year in the United. States to pro-
duce 2,380,671 bales. We ought,- however, to take
into consideration the increase which is taking
place in the consumption both in America and
Europe, which will have received a large impulse
from the effect of the capital which we have fur-
nished to these countries in exchange for their
bread stuffs, and the greater ability of their popu-
lation to consume the goods of the native manu-
facture; and, taking this at 100,000 bales for the year,
we shall require a crop of 2,480,671 bales to enable
us to resume full working. That there is no pros-
pect, however, of any such crop is an undeniable
fact. The highest estimate hitherto made is
2;300,000 bales ; and later reports materially re-
duce that amount. Assuming 2,100,000 to be the
quantity actually produced, and still making ar-
rangements for a stock at the end of the year of
300,,000 bales, we shall only have to work upon a
supply of 1,646,000 bales, which will admit of a
weekly consumption of 31,653 bales, or something
under that of 1846, when many of the factories
were either not working at all, or working short
time.

It is clear, then, that actual scarcity of the raw
material, independently of other considerations,
such as the prostration of public credit and the
absence of foreign demand, must compel us to
limit our manufacturing operations for some time
to come. Our working population must be con-
tented with short rations; and the vast amount of
capital embarked in new mills and machinery
within the past few years must remain only par-
tially productive. The dream of the leaguers of
immensely stimulated production—of Great Britain
clothing the world with her cotton manufactures—
is already dissipated. We cannot advance our
production one step until we first secure, in India
or elsewhere, new soils for the cotton cultivation.
In the mean time the question will press upon
us—in what commodity are we to pay the balance
against us arising from our increasing imports of
breadstuffs and other foreign products In 1846,
we exported cotton manufactures to the amount of
£25,600,693 sterling, which was about half a mil-
lion less than the exports of the preceding year.
We must have, in any event, less to spare next
year ; and it is possible that we may have very
much less. Another failing crop in the United
I States would throw us into hopeless financial em-
barrassment, and our manufacturing population
into the jaws of pauperism. We have no wish to
exaggerate the difficulties of our position; but, in
considering the question how far the present de-
pression of our manufacturing classes can be re-
moved by legislative remedies, it is important to
have before us correct facts and figures ; and
these, in the present instance, tell materially
against the efficacy of such remedies.

Mr. George Green Hornby, who comes forward
as a candidate for Everton Ward, appears to have
excited the wrath of that important section of the
Conservative public who delight in the eccentrici-
ties of Tractarianism. Mr. Hornby is the chair-
man of the Church Expenditure Committee; and
in this capacity it is that he has made himself ob-
noxious. The precise nature of the offence com-
mitted will be best seen from the following para-
graph, which we quote from the Mail of Saturday
—the organ of the party in question :

"A party little known, and who, by some strange freak
of fortune, finds himself a town-councillor and a member
of the Church Expenditure Committee, assumed all the
airs and authority of a sort of lay archbishop. He had
heard some awful stories about pure Protestantism being
in danger in one of the corporation churches of being
overlaid and supplanted by certain encaustic tiles. Per-
haps his leading idea was that tiles were likely to super-
sede slates; for, walking through the church, diligently
peering upwards towards the roof, and scrutinising each
compartment of the ceiling, this wise councillor authori-
tatively demanded—Where are these Popish abomina-
tions, these encaustic tiles ? He was rather dumfoundered
at being informed that he was then treading on what he
was looking for overhead ! Rumour adds that when the
incumbent waited on him to offer explanations, this quasi
Conservative councillor would allow no explanations, and
actually ordered the clergyman out of his august pre-
sence."

Of course it would be very unpolite to entertain
the idea, that when the writer of this paragraph
talked of encaustic tiles, as being the object of Mr.
Hornby's aversion and interference, he was per-
fectly aware that a much more serious matter
brought him to inquire, in the proper execution of
his duty, into the doings at the church in question,
which we need scarcely say is St. Martin's.
As a member of the Church txpenditure Commit-
tee, bound to see that the property devoted by tho
town to religious purposes was properly taken care
of, Mr. Hornby had, along with other members