Cotton.
--We may begin very soon to witness the first symptoms of the coming cotton panic in
England.
The sudden blotting out from among nations of such important members of the family of communities as the eleven States of the Southern Confederacy, cannot produce a stock more or less severe upon fabric of the world's commerce and treasury.
The Southern States of this Confederacy the only region of the world that furnished more cotton to
Europe than it received back in fabric.
Every other cotton-producing region of the earth sent less cotton to the of
Great Britain and the continent, than it procured in the machinery-manufactured fabrics of that article.
Their purchases of cotton from
Manchester, in fabric, were greater than their sales of it to
Manchester, in staple.
The surplus to supply this excess of demand from all other nations, was obtained by
Manchester from our cotton States.
Rice was the of
India, just as the potato was the curse of
Ireland.
It made living cheap, and multiplied population until it swarmed as the locusts in
Egypt during the scriptural plague.
The teeming population of
India taxed its agriculture to its utmost capacity, and left it capable of supplying nothing beyond the food necessary for so many months, and the indifferent cotton requisite for covering the nakedness of so many backs.
Of course a country whose agriculture was thus burdened, could not furnish staple for the surplus clothing of more thinly populated regions.
It sent, indeed, cotton to
Great Britain, but it sent it there only for the purpose of exchange for cotton goods manufactured by the cheap agency of machinery.
It sent to
Europe less cotton than it received back, in pounds, of the manufactured fabric; it required more cotton for clothing than it could raise.
The case was the same, for somewhat similar means, with
China, a country as heavily overburdened as
India with a population which taxed all the resources of its agriculture for its support.
So also was the case the same in the cotton-producing regions of
Africa where, though the population was less redundant, the agriculture was primitive, rude, and far less productive.
In order to get cotton from
Africa in quantity, a flourishing agriculture must first be established; and in order to this, its jungles and low, alluvial soils must be settled by a white race, that shall be proof against the most malignant types of yellow fever found in all the world.
There is much talk in
Europe of adopting measures for securing an adequate supply of cotton from other sources than the
Confederate States; but the talk all ends in words; they can't get the supply, for the reason we have explained.
The agriculture of
India and
China cannot afford it; the agriculture of less heavily populated regions of the earth is too primitive and rude to produce it.
There is still another reason.
The cotton of all other countries than the
Confederate States is defective in quality.
The seasons in those regions are divided into, the
wet and the
dry; and the cotton raised in the
dry season of those countries is so inferior as to amount to almost a different species of plant.
The seasons in the
Confederate States are not thus divided.--On the contrary, the quantity of rain falling in the summer season when the cotton is growing is greater than during any other season, being
twenty-one inches, whereas the average for the other seasons is only about
fifteen. The delicious sweet potato raised in
Eastern Virginia, becomes another, and a wretched, half rotten, insipid root when reared in the limestone soils of the
West.
The cotton of the
South is a long, silky, white staple: that of
India and
China a short, woolly, stiff, yellow, different sort of thing.
England cannot supply her customers with the quality of cotton cloths they require, except by manufacturing it wholly or in the proportion of half and half of Southern cotton.
She not only cannot get the supply of cotton required from any other source than the
South, but she cannot get the quality of staple absolutely indispensable to her.
Europe must have our Southern cotton, and she cannot get it until she recognizes us, for two reasons.
She cannot pay gold for our cotton, as she would have to do directly or indirectly, if she obtained it clandestinely in violation of the blockade.
No country could stand a trade which required her to pay gold on her side for staple on the other.
To protcure our cotton in quantity,
England must not only open our ports for the egress of the cotton, but also open them for the ingress of the merchandize she would have to pay for them in exchange.
All international commerce is barter.
There may be balances on one side or the other to be settle in specie; but, as to the great bulk of trade, it is a system of barter, and barter only.
Great Britain could not get our cotton in the quantities requisite to her purposes if our ports were wide open for its egress, except on the condition that they were also wide open for the ingress of the return cargoes of merchandize.
The South, therefore, is master of the situation; cotton is
King.
Europe cannot afford to lose the
Southern market for her manufactures.
We bought ourselves, and enabled the
Yankees to buy, an aggregate for both, of two hundred millions of
European merchandize with our cotton crop.
Europe cannot afford to lose this market, for two reasons.--To strike off two hundred millions from her sales of manufactures would throw out of employment many millions of her operatives; and would also deprive her of the means of buying an equivalent quantity of cotton for her factories.
The South is mistress of the situation.
She can stand the blockade longer than
Europe or the
North.
