THE SUPPLY OF COTTON.
IT is high time that this cotton question should be thoroughly
discussed, if we intend to avoid a panic as dangerous and as ex- pensive as the wildest apprehension of maritime defeat. Already, the mere rumour of possible deficiency has raised the price of the article 8 per cent, and cost England half as much again as the Chinese indemnity. Every succeeding mail from the United States tends to deepen an alarm which no sage politician will pronounce unfounded. One-sixth of our population relies for its bread, one-third of our trade depends for its existence, on the sufficiency of the import of cotton. It is not too much to say, that a successful invasion would produce less direct physical suf- fering among our population than a total cessation of supply. Even a serious deficiency would produce misery, .to which that of Coventry is bearable ; and a serious deficiency is at least not be- yond the category of imminent probabilities. It is true the suc- cessful insurrection of the slaves talked of, if not hoped for, by Abolitionists is, fortunately for humanity, practically impossible. Physical power is all on the other side. The great planters, scat- tered and isolated on vast estates, may reasonably tremble for their lives ; but a white population of six millions, armed, united, and accustomed to command, is not likely to succumb to four millions of unarmed and disorganized blacks. In the face of such odds, despair, the one advantage of the slave, can be of little avail. Despair cannot stop an Enfield bullet. Indeed, it may be doubted whether despair, like all other resources, will not be on the side of the Whites. Any struggle must be internecine ; but with this difference : the slave knows he has only to submit to be safe ; the White man knows he has only to submit to be murdered. Rejecting, however, all extravagant alarms, the pros- pect is still sufficiently gloomy. Either the Northern men are gasconading, or they mean to enforce the Federal law by an in- vasion of the South. That invasion is almost certain to be fol- lowed by partial insurrections, not, perhaps, dangerous to the State, but fatal to the chances of the cotton crop. A suspension of deliveries for one year, to the extent of two- thirds of the average export, seems a prospect within range of calculation. In other words, the total supply from all parts of the world would be reduced three-fourths, or allowing for the increased export from every quarter except America, at least one- half. That deficiency means, besides a loss of capital which swallows up the nation's profits for the year, half rations for four millions of human beings. It is no wonder that in presence of such a danger suggestions should be multiplying thick and fast, or that some of them should be a little, or not a little, wild. Some pamphleteers, in their eagerness for originality, shirk all the primary conditions of the question ; and almost all are contented to ignore at least one. We venture, in spite of some plausible declamation, to believe that three conditions are essential to the development of any new field of cotton cultivation—the soil must be adapted to the plant, there must be labour in profusion on the spot, and the introduc- tion of the new crop must not involve too much time. Placed in that crucible, half the suggestions made melt at once into the air.. Australia, for example, possesses .soil admirably adapted to sea- island cotton. But Australia does not possess the requisite supply of labour. European labour, not to mention difficulties of climate, is far too costly for the work. Even the cotton trade cannot afford three shillings a day for cultivating a fibre, wanted by the market at twopence-halfpenny a pound. The Australians might, under coercion, destroy their colonies by permitting the importation of Chinese labour; but the labour is needed on too large a scale. How long would it take to transfer 'a quarter of a million Chinese to Australia, train them, and prevent them, when trained, from turning to more congenial occupation? The same objection applies, though with diminished force, to the colony of Natal. Natal has a coloured population of some extent, but it is averse to steady labour, limited in number, and totally unskilled. Ceylon has soil and labour, but the field is far too limited to supply a vacuum so large. Eastern Africa has soil, people, and cotton, but a great demand must be preceded by settlements it would take years to organize. Africa offers hope for the future, but the cotton dealers want to be supplied at once. Empty bellies cannot wait for a process of civilization, how- ever reasonable. The plant may be produced along the entire seaboard of the Mediterranean, but it will not pay European labourers, and the dark races require time for importation. There are, in fact, but three countries in the world which offer a chance of adequate, immediate, and cheap supply—they are India, China, and, perhaps, Brazil.
In India all the conditions of cultivation are present as fully as in the Southern States. The cotton soil is of limitless extent. There is labour on the spot, cheap, plentiful, and accustomed to
the work. There is a crop already produced, the extent of which seems but faintly comprehended even by men whose fortunes de-
pend upon their comprehension. India has no statistics, but the broad facts are patent without the aid of science. Two hundred millions of human beings are there clothed in indigenous cotton. However small the requirements of each man—and a population which bathes in cotton clothes twice a day needs more cotton than Europeans are apt to admit—the regular supply must be inconceiv- ably large. So great is it, indeed, that fluctuations of hundreds of millions of pounds between the export of one year and another scarcely affect the local price. The normal export to Europe may be taken at 300,000 bales. Yet in 1857, this amount, without preparation, without any disturbance in the internal, trade, without any stimulus, other than increased price, rose at a bound to 680,000. Let Manchester ponder the extent of a cultivation which, without warning, throws off that quan- tity as unnecessary surplusage. But we shall be told, if India really produces such supplies, why do they not always reach this country ? Simply because the cotton cannot be carried to the coast at the average price of the American staple. The ex- pense of carriage swallows up the profit. The instant a rise in price overcomes that one difficulty, the cotton is offered in pro- fusion. The staple has three expenditures to meet. There is the cultivator's price, say, speaking roughly, lid. a pound ; there is the exporter's profit, little enough always, and there is a cost of carriage equal to nearly double the cost price of the fibre. Reduce that one item, and the supply, without new factories without waiting for that " regeneration of India" for which Mr. Bazley hopes, and of which Anglo-Indians despair, will be ample to snp- ply any vacuum created by disturbances among the slaves. We do not write without knowledge, when we say that India, the cotton railway once complete, can emancipate England, at once, from dependance on the South.
The position of China is widely different, but as a new field it offers advantages far beyond those of Australia or the Cape. Its colossal deltas contain cotton land almost without limit. Those deltas swarm with a population accustomed to toil, working for bare food, and ingenious beyond any Asiatic or African race. The enterprise which in Algeria must be wasted on the im- portation of labour, and in India on securing a title to land, may in China be turned at once to the cultivation. The Chinaman has no prejudices. Prove to him that cotton will pay, and he will grow cotton just as readily as sugar, or tea, or any of the pro- ducts with which he now deluges the world. No demand has ever yet surpassed the Chinese capacity of production. If the re- duction of a duty on tea increases the demand 30 per cent, China sends a few more millions of pounds without consciousness even of the difference of demand. It is in the great cloacse of the human race, in lands where labour is a drug and wages imply only the right to breathe, that demands like those of Lancashire for cotton can alone be adequately supplied. Let the Manchester men compel Sir Charles Wood to finish the railway now 'con- structing to Omraotee out of hand, and at any cost. Let them at the same time give up vague theories about Indian regeneration, and send agents to collect detailed information as to the extent of the Indian cotton crop, and in six months they may rest in peace, confident that even if the Union be in flames, the conflagration can never extend to the cotton-mills of Great Britain.
Previous page
