29 AUGUST 1863, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

HOPE FOR LANCASHIRE. THERE is land in sight at last. - The Imperial danger which was to have been created by the cotton famine, and which was to have included decay of trade and a fall in the revenue, wide-spread distress and general agitation, has passed away, or rather has been proved never to have existed. English commerce was never, as Continental theorists imagined, riding at single anchor, and the loss of the cotton supply has proved to the whole empire but a partial and endurable evil. The revenue has not fallen at all, and the effect on trade, though more perceptible, has still not exceeded that of the smallest war, has been infinitely less than that of a war with any important power. The one calamity of which statesmen and economists spoke under their breath has arrived and is passing, and England, externally as strong as ever, has internally never been so satisfied with her institutions or with the general condition of her affairs. Calmly, and to all appearance without an effort, the class which pays income- tax, while maintaining all its wonted expenses, and more than its wonted luxury, has subscribed two and a half millions, twopence more on the income-tax, for the relief of the pressing distress, and order, strengthened by this clear proof of sympathy between the rich and the poor, has never been seriously dis- turbed. Englishmen may well be excused some pride when they remember that not only has the cotton famine not affected England's power or position, not changed the relation between governors and governed, not compelled them to alter one law or modify one national arrangement ; but that it has only once forced the civic authorities to call on the soldiery for aid, and that then a troop of hussars was found ample protection for menaced social order. The prospect is, moreover, as cheering as the existing fact. Not only is there no evidence of any approaching decline of trade, any coming fall in the revenue, any probable access of new distress, but the bounty of Providence has filled up the English cup—we wish we could add the Irish one—with a harvest almost without a precedent, such a one as makes farmers half doubtful whether the welfare of the country is always identical with their own.

And now there seems hope of the termination of the local difficulty also, of the distress which, sparing the empire, has BO bitterly crushed the province. It has long been foreseen that cotton being a product of half the globe, high prices must sooner or later bring in a full supply, that with the supply the prices of raw material must droop at least to the fully remunerating point, that as stocks were cleared off, and the world perceived that cheap cotton had become impossible, the price of the manufactured articles would rise, and that whenever those two forces had re-adjusted the trade the distress would be nearly at an end. We say "nearly," because though it is the same thing for England to sell a million yards of calico at a shilling instead of two million yards at sixpence, it is not by any means just the same thing for the men. The increased price of the calico does not increase the labour employed on each yard, and as the yards diminish so must the number of hands employed. The great point, however, was the time at which adjustment might be expected, and we have at last some indication, if not of the actual date, at least of the date which the best informed consider the probable one. Mr. Ashworth, on Monday last, made a statement to the Central Committee which embodies the views of the Cotton Supply Association, and which, if correct, contains facts as satisfactory as those now weekly reported to Mark Lane. That gentleman, who is not given to sanguine ideas, and who has beyond most men in England full means of information, believes that for this year there is cotton, and cotton will be consumed, enough for three days' work a week. In other words, Lancashire over its sur- face, though, of course, with wide disparities and scenes of local prostration, will be placed on "half-time." After that the supply will be equal to four and a half days' work a week, that is, to nearly five-sixths of the total amount required. For it must be remembered that the mills never worked at the best of times more than five days and a half a week, and, taking the periodic intervals of half-time into consideration, probably not more than five. This result, so unexpected by the public, is based upon a calculation of the crops now known to be growing, and them only, and its details reveal some very remarkable though often anticipated facts. The cultiva- tion has developed itself only in lands where labour is cheap. The Anglo-Saxon colonies send up practically none, although, of course, this or that colony promises truthfully a few hundreds or thousands of bales. But the import from India, where the normal rate of wages is still only 10s. a month, will next year include an additional 250,000 bales ; Brazil and Peru, which have slaves, will increase their supply by 100,000; Egypt, where the fellahs earn only subsistence, by 50,000, and Turkey, where the rayahs still too often look on two meals a day as luxury, by 350,000 bales. all, be it remembered, in addition to this year's ascertained supply. Granting the price, there is scarcely a limit to the quantity these countries are in a position to yield ; and supposing the revival not interrupted by a great European war or a great maritime struggle, there is every reason to believe that by January, 1865, the deficit will be filled and the price of raw material fairly adjusted to the price of material worked.. In other words, there will be for this year an immense remanet of distress, for the next year a smaller remanet, and after that every chance of renewed and lasting prosperity-. Or, to make the matter still clearer, let us put it in the. figures still so sadly familiar to the public. Up to the end of the year England has to maintain 250,000 souls, or half the population dependent on cotton; for the next twelve months 80,000, or one-fifth of those so dependent ;• and, after that, only the daily diminishing number thrown out of work by the difference in the wages paid for the same value of cotton goods from a worse cotton. The- effort for the present must still be immense, and for eighteen months very considerable ; but it can in no case ex- ceed that which we have already made with so little percep- tible injury to the national spending power. The million and a half taken up by the boroughs, an endurable though heavy poor-rate, and the bslanee in hand from national and benevolence, will be sufficient to meet the need. Of course, it is not impossible that contingencies not reckoned on may interrupt this process ; war certainly would, and so might any sudden false alarm of the release of American cotton—a true alarm would do no harm, because the Southern cotton would come—but, apart from those sudden and impro- bable occurrences the maximum probable burden would seem sufficiently clear.

One point, however, remains still to be cleared up. Granted: sufficient cotton at a price, will there be sufficient demand at that price to keep the mills in play ? It seems, upon the- whole, probable that there will. The world, it is true, will not buy quite so much calico at the inevitably heavy new price as it did at the usually light old price, but still it will buy as great deal. In the first place, to double the price of the raw material is not quite to doable the cost of the manufactured: article, for the former is only one element in the cost, and the- others, rent, wages, coals, machinery, interest, and what not, have in no way increased. In the second place, the people who wore fine stuffs can make up much of the difference of price, not by wearing less but by buying a coarser kind, and thirdly, cotton, even when dear, is still cheaper than anything else. Those who thought it would not be so fancied that the- price of competing articles would remain stationary; but they are affected by the general rise, and the positive difference is only partially removed. The choice was, say between cotton at 6d. and linen at is:, and is not now between both at a shilling, but between cotton at 9d. and linen at 15d. The real reduc- tion in demand, therefore, will be only to the extent of the extra care which dearness produces, and the extra abstinence from clothing which in warm countries the people may choose to practice. On the other hand, as Mr. Ashworth pointed out, new demands are certain to arise, for the privilege of the cotton supply exceedingly enriches the countries which obtain it, and most of the price will be paid by exports- of the manufactured article. There is, therefore every probability of a sufficient demand to keep the mills al work, which demand must increase as the old processes, viz., enlarged supply, and improvements in machinery which have been going on for half a century, once more run prices down. Once steadily at work, the future will depend solely upon the fate of slavery, and if as seems possible, the Civil War ends in emancipation, more or less complete, the cotton trade of Great Britain will have been finally rescued from its dependence upon a single source of supply. India and Turkey can enter the competition for ever, when all alike are compelled to cultivate with labour receiving pay.