30 
COTTON 
And he didn't climb it. 
SOME STATERS EVIDENCE 
Let the British edition of the Encyclopaedia 
Britannica tell the story. Let us hear this piece of 
State's evidence as to the crisis which came when 
war so nearly stopped cotton production in the 
South: 
"This great source of supply, when apparently 
most abundant and secure, was shortly afterwards 
suddenly cut off, and thousands were for a time de- 
prived of employment and the means of subsistence. 
In this period of destitution the cotton-growing 
resources of every part of the globe were tested to 
the utmost; and in the Exhibition of 1862 the rep- 
resentatives of every country from which supplies 
might be expected met to concert measures for ob- 
taining all that was wanted without the aid of 
America. The colonies and dependencies of Great 
Britain, including India, seemed well able to grow 
all the cotton that could be required, whilst num- 
erous other countries were ready to afford their co- 
operation. A powerful stimulus was thus given to 
the growth of cotton in all directions; a degree of 
activity and enterprise never witnessed before 
was seen in India, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Italy, 
Africa, the West Indies, Queensland, New South 
Wales, Peru, Brazil, and in short wherever cotton 
could be produced; and there seemed no room to 
doubt that in a short time there would be abundant 
supplies independently of America. But ten years 
afterwards, in the Exhibition of 1872, which was 
specially devoted to cotton, a few only of the thirty- 
five countries which had sent their samples in 1862 
again appeared, and these for the most part only to 
