Ct )TTON A.\ 1 ) Q UEENSLANI). 
♦ 
X PAPER ON ‘COTTON AND QUEENSLAND,” READ BY MR. W. BROOKES, BEFORE THE QUEENSLAND 
PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, OX TUESDAY EVENING, 3lU> JULY, 18 'JO, AT THE COMMITTEE ROOMS 
OF THE BRISBANE HOSPITAL. 
It seems almost impossible to over-estimate the 
value of cotton as contributing to the comfort and 
health of the human race. From ancient times 
the teeming populations of India and China have 
used it as their principal clothing material. They 
appreciated its utility when our ancestors deemed 
themselves fashionably attired when invested with 
a new coat of blue paint. Even at the present 
•time the consumption of cotton, vast as it is, has 
bv no means reached its limits. To cite but one 
of many illustrations, let us look at Russia, the 
largest European empire, representing a popula 
tion of 70 millions. The author of “ A Journey 
due North,” though of a cool temperament, writes 
I with obvious surprise, “ I can. state, from my own 
personal experience, that I have played many 
games of billiards with even Russian officers (you 
can’t help seeing up to your opponent’s elbow at 
some stages of the game), and that, if they pos- 
sessed shirts, they either kept them laid up in 
lavender at home, or wore them without sleeves.” 
I confess that my faith in the perfectability, or 
at. least, in the ultimate respectability of human 
nature would be strengthened, could it be truth- 
fully affirmed, either as a fact or a probability, that 
every man living on the face of the earth had a 
good cotton shirt on his back, and also a decent 
reserve stock to ensure a clean one when neces- 
sary. This is a consummation to be wished for 
devoutly, as a basis for, or as a sign of, universal 
elevation in other respects. 
The import of cotton into the United Kingdom 
in 1859, was 2,828,000 bales, of which 2,085,000 
were American, or from the Slates ; 510,000 
East Indian, and from Brazil, the West Indies, 
and Egypt together, only 233,000 bales. This 
is an almost inconceivable quantity, and would 
seem sufficient to satiate the most ravenous 
manufacturing appetite, It is not ; our cotton 
manufacturers are not content with only 3,000,000 
bales. They are not usually considered a class of 
persons inordinately imaginative ; they are said 
to keep a steady and somewhat prosaic eye to 
business. Eur they are afraid of being obliged to 
j accept a smaller quantity, and are in keen search 
t of fresh or additional sources of sup ply. Theysen- 
[ sitively feel that they are far too dependent upon 
| a nation, in many important respects a foreign 
i nation, though speaking the English language, 
and holding a kindred relation. It is not with 
cotton as it is with wool, which after cotton is the 
most important material for textile fabrics. Wo 
regard with a not altogether unreasonable com- 
placency the quantity of wool exported from Au- 
stralia, and it is not intended to say a word 
against this feeling of satisfaction, but rather to 
strengthen the grounds on which it rests, by in- 
creasing the export of wool as much as possible. 
Australia might cease to supply wool ; the results, 
though undeniably seriously inconvenient, are not 
to be compared with the wide-spread, direct, and 
immediate ruin ensuing upon the stoppage oftl^e 
supply of cotton from the United States. On 
this point Mr. Ashworth, in a paper read before 
the Society of Arts, has the following remarks : - 
“The entire failure of a cotton crop, should it 
ever occur, would utterly destroy, and perhaps 
for ever, all the manufacturing prosperity we pos- 
sess ; or should the growth in any one year be only 
one million instead of three millions of bales, the 
manufacturing and trading classes would find 
themselves involved in losses which, in many 
cases, would amount to irretrievable ruin — mil- 
lions of our countrymen would be deprived of 
employment and food — and, as a consequence, 
the misfortune would involve this country in a 
series of calamities, politically, socially, and com- 
mercially^ such a3 cannot be contemplated with - 
out anxiety and dismay.” 
The United Kingdom, within her own island 
limits, cannot grow cotton at all ; but she can 
and does grow more wool than she receives from 
Australia. This circumstance gives to the cotton 
supply question a heightened and peculiar inter- 
est, and no wonder if there should be strenuous 
and anxious efforts to ascertain whether the sup- 
ply cannot be induced from less objectionable 
sources. It is a magnificent problem ; could Au- 
