WHY DOES NOT ENGLAND GROW ALL HER OWN COTTON?

 (From the Leisure Hour.)

A MOMENTOUS question this, and well worth the most earnest consideration, and closest inquiry. If there is any one branch of British skilled labour which, par excellence, finds a market for its products over nearly every portion of the habitable globe, it is the cotton fabrics of Manchester. From Iceland to the Austral-land, from South America to Madagascar, they are in constant and steadily increasing demand. All civilized peoples are our customers for them, and all savage tribes barter their barbarian wealth for the coveted prints from the looms of Lancashire. The South Sea Islander would taboo anything rather than them; the Canadian Indian proudly presents them to his greasy squaw ; the dusky Hindoo loves their gaudy colours ; the sable African wraps them around him, and struts about with the pride and complacency of a peacock. It is calculated that at least three millions of British people earn their bread from day to day solely by cotton as an element of industry, and yet we are at this moment almost entirely dependent on the slave states of America for our supply of the raw material, and its consumption is increasing yearly at a prodigious rate. Is England sincere in her loudly reiterated denunciations of slavery ? Does she really wish to see it extinguished in America? Yet more, does she wish to raise her own cotton—every pound of it—of equal or superior quality to the American, in her own colonies ? That she can do this if she will we shall endeavour to show ; but first we will very briefly glance at the present history of cotton manufactures.

During the first five years of the eighteenth century the "average consumption of cotton wool," says Mr. Bazley, the president of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, "was little more than one million pounds weight per annum ; and during this period the work-people employed would not exceed, of all ages and classes, more than 25,000 ; but at the close of that century the consumption had increased to 52,000,000 of pounds, and the workers, in every department of the trade to upwards of 125,000; a most important and varied industry having thus arisen. Some specimens of cotton are now before us, and among them will be found a sample of as good and fine cotton as probably has ever been grown in any country ; but which owes its origin to no tropical climate, having been produced within the walls of a Manchester spinning-factory ? The first small importation of cotton from the United States occurred so late as 1787, within the memory of many individuals. In the same year we received from the West Indies six millions pounds weight, and fourteen millions pounds from French, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese colonies, and from Turkey and the Levant, making twenty millions pounds in all. It will give some idea of the marvellous increase of the trade since then, to state that in 1851 the consumption in the United Kingdom was above 760 millions of pounds weight ; and this consumption is yearly increasing at such a rate as causes anxious inquiries to be made as to where the future supplies are to come from. As an example and proof of the prosperity of the cotton manufactories, and their natural extension, we quote the following from a recent report of Mr. Leonard Horner, factory inspector :—" That the profits of factories continue, on the average of years, to be attractively remunerative, the following facts of the investment of fresh capital in them abundantly prove. In the year ending the 31st October, 1852, no less than eighty-one new factories have been built or set to work, having begun to be built in the preceding year, in my district, with an aggregate power of 2240 horses. Of these seventy three, with 2064 horse-power, are cotton-mills. In addition to these, in thirty-one long-established cotton-mills, the proprietors of which are men of thorough knowledge and long experience in the trade, additional engine power has been set up to the extent of 1477 horses. The 3717 horse-power will give employment to probably no less than 14,000 additional hands. To give an idea of the magnitude of some of these new concerns, I may mention that one of the cotton mills is 410 feet long, 70 wide, has six stories, a power of 150 horses, and will run 126,000 spindles."

We mentioned that in 1851 our consumption of cotton wool was 760 millions of pounds ; and it may be interesting here to subjoin from an eminent authority what the supplies were in the same year. Of foreign supplies we received from the United States 1,303,700 bags ; from Brazil 108,700 ditto ; from Egypt 67,400 ditto ; making a total of 1,569,800 bags. Of colonial, from the East Indies, 328,800 bags ; from the West Indies, 4000 ditto ; the grand total thus being 1,903,500 bags. Mr. Bazley remarks on this subject, "Of these supplies, not less than sixteen millions sterling were paid for foreign cottons. The quantity consumed of colonial was only one-fifth, or 20 per cent. of the foreign : but only two millions were paid for the latter ; those two millions having no relative proportion to the value of the former, as the colonial, for one-fifth in quantity, yielded only one-eighth, or 12½ per cent. of the sum paid for foreign ; the value of the whole having been eighteen millions sterling. Shall not such a supply of raw cotton be deemed limited and confined ? Would not such a trade as cotton affords to this country be on a safer basis if this material could be obtained from a hundred sources rather than from only one important field of cultivation ?" Verily !

The cotton-tree will flourish in every tropical clime, and in many climes not exactly tropical. The West Indian Islands could produce it quite as abundantly, and of as good quality, as the southern states of America ; but owing to culpable indifference on the part of both planters and the home government the cultivation of cotton there has retrograded from year to year. In Africa, at Port Natal, cotton has been produced of first-rate quality, and it is said that its culture might be promoted to a very great extent. In Australia, many competent authorities affirm that cotton can be grown sufficient to supply all the demands of the British manufacturers ; but we apprehend that for many years to come it would be impossible to compete with other cotton-growing countries, on account of the immense cost of labour in that colony. Still, the day may come, and probably will come, when what is at present a theory will be a magnificent fact. But, above all other places, let us learn to look to our mighty East Indian colonies for the main supply. Here is no theory nor guess-work in the case. For at least three thousand years the cotton-plant has flourished in its native Indian soil, and although its quality is somewhat inferior to that of the American cotton, yet it probably only requires cultivation to render it equal. Recent imports are of a quality quite good enough for general purposes, and to this effect we have the distinguished testimony of Dr. Royle, the botanist to the East India Company, who says that there are "sufficient proofs that India is capable, in many parts, of producing good and serviceable cotton, and at a rate sufficiently cheap to contend even against the large returns of American farming." The cost of production must always be taken into consideration, and the cost of Hindoo labour would probably not amount to one-fourth of that of American slave-labour. Mehemet Ali commenced the cultivation of cotton in Egypt in 1821, and from that time forward Egypt has steadily increased her annual production. We read awhile ago in the papers, that a young Englishman had been sent out to Egypt to superintend the packing and cleaning of the Pasha's cotton, and the secretary of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce has already received twenty small bags as a sample of the improved method, and the cotton they contain is pronounced of very fine quality—not finer, however, than our own West Indian colonies could produce in unlimited abundance. Again, to say nothing of Natal, we have many settlements and possessions on the coast of Africa, where we are assured that the soil and climate are so peculiarly adapted for the growth of cotton that it could be obtained as good in quality and as plentiful as from the American plantations. Why not employ the negroes on their own native ground ? Show them that it is more profitable than kidnapping their fellow blacks, and they will not long hesitate which calling to prefer. When we consider that Great Britain possesses far more soil particularly adapted for the growth of cotton than all the rest of the world together, well may we quote with feelings of amazement the startling assertion and comments of Mr. Bazley, who tells us that it is a fact that "a piece of ground, of only the extent of our English county of York, would if of suitable soil, and in a genial climate, yield more cotton than the existing extensive consumption of Great Britain requires ! Yorkshire contains about four millions of statute acres ; and as the best soils of the United States yield more than one bag of cotton per acre, the production of that extent of land would be four millions of bags per annum ; hence an ample margin has been left in this estimate of productive capability, as the present yearly consumption of the United Kingdom is below two millions of bags. Do not the British colonies contain a multitude of patches of most excellent but uncultivated ground of the size of Yorkshire, all adapted to the growth of good cotton ? and why cannot the parent race of the Anglo-Saxon achieve in colonial industry those triumphs of energy and labour which honour them at home in their manufactories, or in the cultivation of their native land, and which their descendants display in the United States ?"

The Great Exhibition of 1851 abundantly demonstrated that not only the continental countries of Europe, but also the northern states of America, are becoming most formidable rivals in the art of cotton manufactures. England no longer can boast exclusive skill in this great branch of human industry. The improvements in our machinery, and the matured skill of our factory operatives, are closely emulated by jealous and energetic rivals. At present, however, we compel them, by our enormous capital and sleepless enterprise, to keep in our rear ; but it is evident that, the distance, so to speak, between them and us is yearly lessening. Stationary we cannot remain. The hour when improvements in our machinery and the quality and cost of production ceases to tend towards perfection and economy combined will ring the first knell of the downfall of British manufacturing supremacy. Unremitting invention and progress alone can maintain us in our existing rank of world-manufacturers ; and certainly it seems the height of folly to permit ourselves (when it is in our power to obviate the necessity) to be dependent on our most active and powerful rivals for the raw material itself. The Americans are keenly alive to this anomalous and suicidal position of ours, and their planters believe and know that we "Britishers" cannot manage any way without their crops of cotton, and they from time to time make us pay smartly for our own wilful foolishness in keeping ourselves in such a "fix." We never have much more than a couple of months' supply of cotton on hand, and frequently much less. Occasionally a failure of the crop necessarily puts us in jeopardy, and about as frequently it happens that the shrewd speculators make a bold and partially successful attempt to injure or ruin our manufacturers by a monopoly of the produce of the plantations. In one instance, according to Mr. Frederick Warren, of Manchester, a monopoly of this sort compelled us to pay an extra price, which amounted to between £4,000,000 and £5,000,000 in a single year ! The American government maintains such high protective duties on British manufactures that it is clearly the aim of their policy to beat us entirely out of their home markets by encouraging their own manufacturers, well knowing that we cannot obtain raw material but from their country, and that consequently we must buy it of them at any price. Moreover, independent of the good-will of the southern planters to keep us in supply, events may occur which will place it out of their power—such as a general failure of their crops, or a war between England and the United States.

Give us fields whence to draw our supplies of cotton-fields of our own in different quarters of the globe, so that it would be hardly possible in the natural course of events for a failure of the crop to happen simultaneously in all—at a much less cost than prevails under the present system, and then Old England may go on extending her manufactures in an ever-increasing ratio, and by the blessing of God on her ripe skill, and energy, and hoarded wealth, challenge all the world to beat her, or even to rival her, in the glorious contest. But if we recklessly neglect to avail ourselves of the capabilities for producing our own raw material that Providence has placed at our command, and if we continue blindly to rely on a rival country for our supplies, it may come to pass, at no distant period, and we shall have a bitter awakening from our sluggish dream, and that our title of manufacturer to the world may sound in the ears of posterity only as a reminiscence of glories never to return.

Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Monday 9 October 1854, page 3