WEST INDIA QUESTION OF SUPPLY. 



333 



abundance ; and, in addition to this, a gentleman, 

 who is well acquainted with the resources of Jamaica, 

 Mr. Bourne, told Mr. Bazley, MP., and other Manchester 

 gentlemen in the Chamber of Commerce, that there is a 

 million of acres of land in Jamaica suitable to the growth of 

 cotton, and the same will produce rheea, plantain, &c. ; and 

 20,000 labourers could be had without inconvenience to other 

 productions— who should feel for the wants or losses of the 

 cotton-spinners or Bradford manufacturers, of £10,000,000 

 annually, as Mr. Bazley tells us, when they could have, by 

 giving employment to a portion of 100,000 people that are 

 out of employment in the island, a good supply of rheea, 

 a first-class substitute for wool, silk, alpaca, and mohair, 

 and also cotton, all of which can be sent in less than a 

 month's voyage to Manchester, Leeds, or Bradford. How- 

 ever, as the Manchester spinners now appear "fully convinced 

 of the impotency of depen dance on one source for a supply of 

 cotton," it is to be hoped that they will not continue (like 

 Paddy and the potatoes) to depend alone on one article, 

 cotton, and doubt the spinning qualities of all other fibres, 

 especially rheea. 



The patentee had the honour of being advised by the Earl 

 of Derby, in April 1858, to address the President of the 

 Chamber of Commerce, in Manchester, on the subject of his 

 patents, and to draw his attention to the several specimens of 

 rheea and other fibres, and was surprised on receiving the 

 following cool and indifferent reply : — 



"Manchester Chamber of Commerce. — Extract from the 

 Minutes — ' Resolved, that the vegetable fibres received from 

 Mr. Dickson, and this day examined by the Board, would, if 

 rendered capable* of being spun and manufactured, be a great 



* This is the material, the spinning quality of which the Manchester gentle- 

 men thought doubtful ; however, the patentee got over all the difficulty on the 

 cotton mills of Messrs. Berley, Brothers, in Preston, in October, 1862. 



