514 Mr. TJiomas Bazley. [May 30, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, May 30, 1862. 

 George Dodd, Esq. F.S.A. in the Chair. 



Thomas Bazley, Esq. M.P. 



A Plea for Cotton and for Industry. 



The fact of the cotton trade in this country being dependent upon 

 chiefly one source of supply for its raw material, has been at all times 

 the cause of anxious solicitude to the thoughtful observer of the nation's 

 progress ; but the dilemma in which that great industry is now placed 

 by that sole dependence deserves the consideration alike of the states- 

 man, of the economist, of the merchant, of the employers of labour, and 

 of the humane and patriotic public. Between cotton and labour there 

 was formed in Lancashire, three-quarters of a century ago, an alliance 

 which, combining mechanical with manufacturing skill, has created an 

 industry unparalleled and unsurpassed in any other country. 



Little more than a century since the clothing comforts of the masses 

 of the people were few in this country, and the abundant luxuries which 

 now prevail were to them almost unknown. The prepared skins of 

 animals were, up to that recent date, largely used in the clothing of the 

 peasant, and in every house and hamlet the distaff and spindle, and the 

 weaving loom, ministered to the supply of linens, woollens, and their 

 mixtures, in aid of domestic wants. In the reign of Elizabeth her sub- 

 jects were only equal in number to the inhabitants of Lancashire and 

 Yorkshire at the present time, and greatly below the people of those 

 two counties with Cheshire added. The British people under Eliza- 

 beth were powerful, and in splendour and position ranked with the 

 highest nations of the earth ; yet her army, navy, aristocracy, court, 

 and people did not exceed that portion of Queen Victoria's subjects who 

 directly and indirectly subsist upon the toils, industry, and capital of 

 the cotton trade. The kingdoms of Belgium, Portugal, Holland, and 

 Hanover, do not separately contain populations as extensive as the cot- 

 ton trade supports in Great Britain ; hence this industry of five millions 

 of dependents, sustained by no separate regal power, and hitherto happy 

 and prosperous as a portion of the subjects of our gracious Sovereign, 

 may claim to be at least of some national importance. About three 

 centuries ago tlie whole people of this country might be equal to the 

 five millions who now subsist by the manipulations, products, and com- 

 merce of cotton ; but at this moment the population of the United King- 

 dom may be regarded as thirty millions, yet the same circumscribed 



