other precious things to this duty; and these have never ceased appealing to the rest to prepare while it was yet time to avert the very calamity which is now upon us.
It was in vain. The constant answer was that it was not their business, in the first place; and that, in the next, the world would use none but American cotton.
This last allegation seems to be already withdrawn. Indeed it could not stand a moment after the disclosure was made that not only Switzerland and France, but the New England States themselves, prefer Indian to American cotton, because it takes the dye better, and wears better. There is evidence enough in the Exhibition of the suitableness of Indian cotton for our purposes, to silence that insolence which till now has rebuked our petition for it. I need say no more of this, nor point out the wide range of soil and climate in which cotton equal to the American can be grown.
As to its not being their business,—whose business was it, if not theirs? Where would the linen manufacture of Ireland have been now, if the manufacturers had not looked to the flax supply? They invested some of their capital in enabling the flax-growers to learn their business, to improve their methods, to use costly machinery; and their manufacture stands, though the prospect of a due supply of flax was as desperate, a dozen years ago, as that of cotton is now. The Irish peasant and farmer might more reasonably have been referred to the rules of political economy, than the Indian ryot on the one hand and the American slave on the other. If it would have been absurd to stand preaching about demand and supply in the case of the Irish peasant, it has been madness when the parties concerned were the remote Hindoo as against the enslaved negro. The event has rebuked the pedantry of the Lancashire talk of demand and supply; and now, after having applied their wealth to every enterprise under Heaven but the one which was urgent, they find themselves without the raw material of their own manufacture.
So much for the past. What are they doing now? They are acting very variously, according to the intelligence and temper of each. The remark is universal, however, that there is as yet no approach towards any manifestation of power and will at all befitting the occasion. Some few have contributed 1000l. a-piece. Perhaps they may mean to do more as the months pass on; and there is no saying what calls they may be responding to in the form of rates and private charity: but the common, and I think the upright feeling is that, on this special occasion, it would be no great marvel if the mill-owner who has made 50,000l. in a few years were ready to give 20,000l. or more for those whose industry built up his fortunes. There are employers who are worth one hundred,—two hundred,—three, four hundred thousand pounds, and up to a million: it is to be hoped that they are not going to set themselves down for 1000l. If this sort of comment has an invidious look, let us remember, on behalf of the wide world which is discussing it, that the people we have, as a nation, to carry through this calamity are above four millions, and that it is their industry which has enriched a whole class of manufacturers in the shortest space of time ever known. The world has expectations from the capitalists; and they ought to know what those expectations are.
At this very time, however, when parliament and the people generally have willingly indulged the moneyed men of Lancashire and Cheshire in their wishes as to the fitting of the Poor-law to their case, there is no little indignation afloat when these men are met on their travels, or enjoying themselves in sight-seeing and other amusements, while all is so dark at home. I own my inability to conceive how clergymen’s families can go pleasure-seeking, when they leave a whole population of starving weavers behind at home. I cannot imagine how millowners can shut up their mills, and turn their backs on the misery, to travel till affairs come round again. This kind of thing is the puzzle in London and elsewhere: and so is the fact that a large number of wealthy employers have as yet made no sign of intending to give with any liberality: and so is, again, the shocking certainty that there have been sales of cotton in Liverpool for exportation, when there were thousands hungering for want of it within fifty miles. There have been employers who have refused such profits, and have worked up their cotton at a loss, for their people’s sake; but these good men are ill-neighboured; and if they save their own peace of mind and fair repute, they will still have something to bear through the deadness and lowness of neighbours to whom wealth has come before they were fitted to receive or to use it well.
All the while, the months are rolling on, and nothing effectual is done by the Lancashire capitalists towards getting hold of the existing stock of cotton in India, or ensuring a larger produce next year. Mr. Villiers talked in the House of 400,000 bales coming from India after October; and in the House of Lords there was mention of 6,000,000 bales actually existing in India, while the whole consumption of Europe and America is only 5,000,000. These statements are loose and unsupported, and we need not rely on them: but how is it that, at the end of many months of alarm and suffering, we have no special agencies at work in the cotton countries to ascertain how much may be had this year, and how much more next? Why have not the Lancashire capitalists combined to send out agents, and to supply whatever is needed, in the way of advances, seed, and “plant” for dressing and carrying the produce? This is not “growing cotton,” of which they have such a horror: it is buying it;—buying it in the way which the Indian market requires. There are Indian officers and settlers by the score who would serve admirably for agents, being familiar with the country and the people, and the experiments already made,—both successful and unsuccessful. Under Sir C. Wood’s peculiar management, there are now adrift many Indian officers who are the very men to do what is wanted, to set Lancashire to work again. Long before this time they might have shipped off cargo upon cargo of cotton; and there might have been enough sown to justify us in calculating on the distress as a difficulty of six months’ duration. As it is, the sowing season is
