Why is a like a cat? Because he belongs to the race. The Question of Southern Cotton in England. Mr. George McHenry has addressed the following letter to the editor of the London Times:
"Sir,
a few months ago I drew your attention to the fact that the Board of Trade tables did not credit the Confederate States with any of the cotton received in England from them through the ports of the West Indies and Mexico.
I find now that the Commissioners of Customs have made the same error, and in their report for 1863, just published, they base an argument upon the mistake, and assert that the blockade was more effective in 1863 than in 1862.
It is due to the South that this matter should be corrected.
Though the Government returns record but 57,093 in 1860, against 120,763 in 1862, the actual importations of American cotton in the United Kingdom were against 300,000, or nearly double.
Nor is this all.--Quite an extensive commerce was carried on last year between the Federal States and the above-named countries of intermediate export, the Yankees receiving Southern cotton for provisions shipped thither, which, with that stolen from the Confederates, made their receipts equal to those of Great Britain, whereas a comparative small quantity was obtained by them in 1862.
In fact, the South ranked as the second cotton- exporting country last year.
Since the 1st of January her shipments have even been greater than they were during the whole of 1863.
From the period of the establishment of the blocks do to the present time, she has contributed to the outer world 5,000,000 of cotton, about one-half or which escaped from within her limits subsequent to last September.
This, with the enormous stocks of cotton, and cotton yarns, and goods made chiefly out of her staple at the consuming points when hostilities commenced, has been the principal means of furnishing that description of clothing to the inhabitants of the globe for the past three years. The entire increase in the production of cotton, interior in quality as it is, in other countries under the influence of high prices, has not been equal to more than 500,000 American bales; while it cultivation had gone on uninterruptedly in the Confederacy, the natural augmentation in the yield at former quotations would this season have reached 1,500,000 bales. India and China are cotton-manufacturing as well as cotton-growing countries, and hence they, like England, had on hand, in addition to their heavy stocks of goods, a large surplus of the raw material, which they have been induced to part with in consequence of its extreme value.
Prices have already touched the highest rates ever known.
To be sure, some New Orleans middling cotton sold at Liverpool during the last war with the American States, in 1814, at 39d. but that quotation was in paper money, when gold was at a premium of thirty per cent. In ordinary times there is always two years stock of cotton goods in the hands of all classes.
When Fort Sumter fell there were, owing to the excessive productions of the Southern States of 1858, 1859 and 1860, which met a fictitious consumption by the erection of too much mill power, three years requirements.
It is, therefore, easy to perceive how the raiment famine has been postponed.
A point, however, will yet be arrived at when it will be necessary to call upon the South for her accustomed supplies.
The second season after peace the South will be able to export between 6,000,000 and 7,000,00 bales of cotton, and perhaps more.
She can readily turn a greater portion of her labor on to the cultivation of that staple than formerly, and purchase a part of her food supplies from her neighbors of the 'Northwestern Confederacy.' No other cotton-growing country has such a granary at hand." 