COTTON 
33 
is as unsatisfactory in quality as it is deficient in 
quantity. None of the countries mentioned, he 
says, have a congenial climate such as ours. The 
Indian fiber is "short, rough and unsuited to any 
but the coarsest fabrics;" the Chinese fiber he found 
"only about a quarter of an inch long;" the cotton 
from West Africa "wholly unfit for use as a sub- 
stitute for America;" and he did not think Peru or 
Brazil could compete with the South. Summing 
up, Mr. Atkinson declared that while he should 
like to believe otherwise, he was forced to the con- 
clusion that the South would have a virtual monopo- 
ly for fifty years. "There is but one section of the 
earth's surface, where, in my judgment, there can 
be competition with our Cotton States in growing 
cotton of equal quality, and that is on the high 
pampas of the Paraguay and Parana Rivers, suf- 
ficiently elevated to be free from tropical condi- 
tions, endowed with a soil of wonderful fertility and 
capable of unlimited crops of cotton and wheat 
Therefore our Cotton States have an 
unwholesome but practical monopoly of the cotton 
of commerce. They are not, therefore, under the 
wholesome stimulus of prospective want, and there- 
fore their method as a rule, subject to conspicuous 
exceptions, in dealing with their land, their cotton 
and their cotton bale, is as bad as it can be, as I have 
often said when face to face with my friends in the 
South." 
ENGLISH AUTHORITIES FINALLY ADMIT THE SOUTH's 
SUPREMACY 
Lastly I come to the most striking testimony of 
all — direct evidence given by "our friends, the ene- 
my." It is the report of the Commissioners sent 
