1862.] A Plea for Cotton and for Industry, 519 



sumption of East Indian cotton was 15 per cent, against the previous 

 7 per cent. ; but of the present diminished consumption probably 

 75 per cent, may be East Indian. A very rapid increase has been 

 effected in the consumption of East India cotton, which, in 1860, was 

 3500 bags per week, in 1861, 7000 bags, and in this year is proceeding 

 at the rate of 15,000 bags or more per week, showing the increase to 

 be 100 per cent, per annum upon each successive year. The actual 

 power of consuming cotton in the United Kingdom is 55,000 bags 

 per week ; but lacking the requisite supply, the present total consump- 

 tion cannot exceed 25,000 bags per week. 



Such then having been the rise, progress, productive and consuming 

 power of the cotton trade, are we blameless for allowing this immense 

 industry to exist and extend upon the frail basis of slavery upon which 

 it has largely depended ? Not only do prudential and political princi- 

 ples condemn us, for the almost sole dependence for an essential raw 

 material upon a country which has often withheld from us the rights 

 which a free people should in the spirit of justice extend to its neigh- 

 bour, but a moral inconsistency has beclouded both the nation and the 

 cotton trade. To the honour and advantage of our own country cotton 

 has been received here free from all import duty, but upon the very 

 manufactured goods containing only the untaxed cotton grown in the 

 States of America the Government of those States has exacted a duty of 

 twenty-five per cent. Now whilst as a people we abhor slavery, and 

 our Government has been expending a million per annum in its pre- 

 tended suppression, we have been receiving yearly large supplies of 

 slave-grown cotton, tobacco, and sugar, requiring the thrahlom of a 

 greater number of our fellow-creatures than by our costly hypocrisy we 

 have liberated. A lesson of justice, humanity, and of economical pru- 

 dence is now being taught the people depending upon cotton for labour 

 and profit ; and the Government of this country must not shield itself 

 from the charge of culpability in having neglected to encourage the 

 cultivation of cotton in the vast possessions of Great Britain. A warn- 

 ing voice has often been heard ; and ten years ago when the lamented 

 late Prince Consort presided on the occasion of my speaking upon this 

 subject at the Society of Arts, I inquired, " Whence comes the supply 

 of the raw material for this wonderful trade? Is it not the duty of the 

 statesman to ask this question from the interest which not only so large 

 a portion of the community has in obtaining subsistence from it, but also 

 from the general weal and a large amount of public revenue being 

 involved in it? Is it not the duty of the merchant and manufacturer 

 who is directly interested in this great trade to make the same inquiry ? 

 And is it not the duty of the philanthropist and the patriot to also ask 

 whether the supply of this raw material be providently secured and, 

 whence do come, and shall come, supplies of cotton wool to sustain 

 this immense national industry?" I added, — "May not an epidemic 

 of disease or of revolt momentarily destroy the cotton- fields of 

 America?" These first questions I now reiterate, and I grieve that 

 they are practically necessary ; for when first uttered they were only 



