134 
MAlsrUFACTHRE OF COTTON. 
It affords us pleasure to present to the reader tte fol- 
lowing remarks, made Mr. Claiborne to Jacob Thomp- 
son, Secretary of the Interior, in the year 1858 : 
" In conclusion, it may be said that it would be difficult 
to over-estimate the importance of cotton in the movement 
of the industry and commerce of the civilized world. Since 
the inventions of Arkwright and Watt, in England, and 
Whitney, in our own country, its manipulation and fabri- 
cation have become so comparatively easy and cheap, and 
its adaptation to supply the wants or the luxuries of man 
have proved to be so multifarious, that the question of an 
adequate supply of it to the growing demand has become 
one of the very highest importance, being exceeded in in- 
terest by that of the cereals alone. Its influence in the 
well-being of the masses by furnishing employment, suste- 
nance, and cheap clothing, has long since been fully ad- 
mitted ; and such has been the impetus afforded by it to 
the invention and improvement of manufacturing ma 
chinery, that, in his work, before quoted, M. Audiganne 
remarks that ' it was certainly a curious sight, that of the 
different aliments afforded by cotton to labor, and the ser- 
vices rendered to man at this day by this substance, of 
which the consumption has increased tenfold four or five 
times in less than sixty years. Cotton is manufactured 
among the greater part of the nations that figured at our 
side in the Palace of Industry. Nearly all had sent there 
samples of their fabrication — samples more or less numer- 
ous, more or less remarkable, but always worthy of atten- 
tive examination. The degree of advancement of each 
people in the career of industry might be measured by its 
skill in the treatment of cotton.'' 
" Illustrating its commercial and political influence as 
between the United States and Great Britain, Dr. EngeJ 
