Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1861-02-19
Importance of Cotton to England.


OF 1861 900 bales delivered for European con
sumption IN 1859, the Southern States supplied
ESQ 900 bales. The total English consumption was
1924 0G0, of which 1907 900 was from the United
States. Notwithstanding these large deliveries the
stock on hand at the close of the year did not In
crease.
The London Cotton Supply Reporter states that up
wards of half million workers now employed
in the English cotton factories and it is estimated
that at least four million persons in the couHtrv
dependent on the cotton trade for subsistence. Ian
cashire which century ago contained population
of only 900. numbers 1900 900, increase
which exceeds that of any other equal surface of
the globe in the time, and is entirely owing to
the development of the cotton trade. Says the Re
porter: If a should at any time break out
between England and America, general servile
nsurrecton take place. or the cotton crop fall short
in quantity, mills would be stopped for want of
cotton. employers would be ruined, and famine
would stalk abroad among the hundreds and thou
sands of working people who are at present fortu-
nately well employed Railways would cease to
pay and our ships would lie rottng in their ports,
should scarcity of the raw material for manutac-
ture Overtake US"
The London Times commenting on a speech of
Lord Brougham in the House of Lords, says; THE
importation of cotton into this country has, since
the import duty was abolished, increased sixteen
fold. Having been 53000000 pounds, it is now
1,00O.OOO.0OO pounds. This Is one of those giant
facts which stand head and shoulders higher than
the crowd-so high and so broad that we can nei-
Their overlook it affect cot to see it. 1t proves
the existence OF thousand smaller facts that must
stand under its shadow. 1t tells of sixteen times as
many mills, sixteen times as many English families
living by working thyse mills, sixteen times as much
profit derived from sixteen times much capital
engaged in this manufacture. 1t carries after it
quences of increased quantity of freights and insu
RANGES and necessities for sixteen times the amount
of customers to consume, to profit, the immense
amount of produce we are turning out. There are
No man oh hose in nuIp of
routine of industrial history. 1t is large and so
steady that steer our national policy BY it"
IF France should take to manufacturing on large
SCALE" adds the Times the present supply will not
be enough. France will be competing with us in
the foreign cotton markets. stimua ting still further
the produce of Georgia and South Carolina. The
jump which the consumption of cotton in England
has just made is but single leap, which may be re
peated indefinitely. Thsre are a thousand millions
of mankind upon the globe, all of whom can be most
comfortably clad in cotton. Every year new tribes
and nations are added to the category of cotton
wearers There is every reason to believe that the
supply of this universal necessity will for many
years yet to come fail to keep pace with the de-
mand, and in the interest of that large class of
countrJmen to whom cotton is bread. must con-
tnue to hope that the United States will be able to
supply us in years to come with twice as much as
we bought of them in years past Let US raise
up another market, say the antislayery people. So
say we all We know very well that the possibility
OF growing cotton Is not c0nnneQ 10 the NEW OPld
The plaid s of Bengal grew cotton before ColumbUg
was born, and we with our mechanical advantages,
actually afford TO take the Bengal cotton from
the growers and send it back to them in yarns and
pieces cheaper than they nmake it up. So, also,
thousands of square miles in China are covered by
the cotton plant and some day we may perhaps re-
peat the same process there Africa, too, promises
US cotton Dr. Livingstone found country in
which the growth was indigenous, and where the
chiefs were very anxious to be taguht how to cult.
vate it for European market. There is no lack of
lands and climate where cotton could be produced,
1t is said of gold that no substance In nature Is
more widely dihused and more omnipresent but,
unfortunately it is diffused under conditions which
make it seldom possible to win it with profit. So
it is with cotton. The conditions under which it
become available for our markets are not often
present in the wild cotton which our travellers dis
cover; nor they to be Immediately supplied.
Remember the efforts which the French have made
to produce cotton in Algiers, the enormous prizes
they offered the prices at which they bought up all
the produce the care with which fabrics were
prepared from these cottons at Rouen and exhibited
the Paris Exhibition, and then note the miserable
result after many years of artificial protection"
Let the reader observe these statements-all from
English authqrities-and ask if the man is not a
sheer l9natc vino supRoses Great Britain will sit
still and see the Southern ports hlockaded, and her
supply Of cotton cut of single month. The Black
Republicans of both countries may talk of a cotton
supply possible at future time, in some undis
covered country, from free labor, but we ask, in
the language OF the London Times will they pretend
that such supply can be procured, "within any
reasonable time, to drive out of culture the slave
grown cotton of America That is precisely the
question which they have now to face. At this mo-
Inent the gtorehopses of England have only a two
months supply. Is England gong to permit the
Northern States to prevent that supply from reach
ing her shoresg No! Not for month-not fortone
day, nor one hour.