524 Mr. Thomas Bazley. [May 30, 



By the g-eneral neglect of cotton agriculture an aggregation of evils 

 now exists which can only be contemplated with profound grief and ap- 

 prehension. Probably 100,000 labourers, who have usually shared the 

 employment afforded in the cotton trade, are now totally idle and pen- 

 niless. 300,000 more are working short time, and in the sympathetic 

 branches much deprivation prevails. The losses of the labouring classes 

 are one million pounds sterling per month, or twelve millions per an- 

 num ; whilst the employing classes are, by loss of rents, interest of money 

 on stagnant capital, and in suspended operations, without computing 

 anything for loss of profit, sustaining a loss equal to eight millions per 

 annum, thus making the certain loss, in labour and capital, into twenty 

 millions sterling per annum ; but the great infliction of double price for 

 cotton, which adds eighteen millions per annum to its normal market 

 cost, subjects the trade to a drain of nearly forty millions per annum, 

 and to an exhaustion tending almost to extermination. Cotton-spinning 

 and manufacturing in Great Britain are equal in extent to those pur- 

 suits carried on in America and upon the continent of Europe. Conse- 

 quently in the British and foreign cotton trades the losses and dis- 

 advantages will be double the extent stated for this country alone. 

 A plea, then, for cotton and for industry becomes a duty and a 

 necessity. 



Seeing, therefore, the extent of distress existing in the districts of 

 the cotton manufacture, and that increased deprivations may inflict 

 deeper misery upon the labouring classes, whilst many capitalists may 

 be on the verge of total ruin, and seeing also that the people of the 

 United Kingdom generally sympathize with the sufferings in the cotton 

 trade, what assistance can be rendered to this apparently decaying 

 industry is a question that many benevolent individuals will ask. This 

 great industry has been sanctioned by the legislature, and has been a 

 large contributor to the public revenue ; the great body of the people 

 have viewed this industry almost with envy, but certainly with approval, 

 though none of sufficient power have stood forth to obtain a supply for 

 it of its requisite raw material from free labour and from sources so 

 numerous that would have averted the existing calamity. Subscrip- 

 tions for relief have begun, but the wealth and predominant kindly 

 spirit which yet prevail in the manufacturing districts will be unspar- 

 ingly expended and exercised to diminish the evils which threaten 

 starvation to meritorious men, women, and children, who are able and 

 willing to work if the accustomed material were forthcoming from which 

 they have hitherto earned their daily bread, and whose labours have 

 enriched their country. Shall pauperism be even contemplated for an 

 energetic and labour-loving people, or rather shall not profitable em- 

 ployment be afforded as in days past, and without having recourse to 

 that impoverishing alternative of banishing by emigration those sons of 

 toil who have also contributed to the elevation of their order among the 

 nations of the earth ? Will not the British Government and people 

 best remove present and future evils by assisting to develope the 

 resources of their colonies, which, by the introduction of cotton 



