COTTON 29 



Africa. Missionaries from various sections also 

 believed that West Africa and the Niger countries 

 would relieve the situation; and Lord Palmerston 

 shared the enthusiastic faith that Great Britain 

 would "find on the West Coast of Africa a most 



valuable supply of cotton cotton 



districts more extensive than 



those of India." 



If Alexander Pope were alive to-day he could 

 ask no stronger confirmation of his famous dictum 

 that "hope springs eternal in the human breast" 

 than the persistence with which English manu- 

 facturers still hug the delusion that Africa and 

 India will enable them as their fathers and grand- 

 fathers fifty years ago hoped it would enable them 

 to get a large part of their raw cotton from 

 Old World districts. 



WHAT HAPPENED WHEN THE CRUCIAL TEST CAME 



We all remember how on one occasion Uncle 

 Remus was telling the Little Boy of one of Brer 

 Rabbit's hair-breadth escapes. The pursuer was 

 almost upon Mr. Cottontail and in another moment 

 might have had him in his furious grasp. "And 

 right then Brer Rabbit he clumb a tree," said 

 Uncle Remus. 



"But rabbits can't climb trees," protested the 

 Little Boy. 



"Never mind," replied the old darkey, "Brer 

 Rabbit this time was obleeged jest obleeged to 

 climb the tree en' he clumb it." 



Well, in 1862 the English spinner reached the 

 same inexorable crisis that confronted Brer Rabbit 

 the time when he knew he was "jest obleeged 

 to climb the tree." 



